McSweeney's Ultimate Guide for Writing Better than you Normally Do.

 
Read the article HERE

Things We Owe to Shakespeare

Over Labor Day weekend Husband and I took another trip down to Ashland, Oregon.  This time around we stayed overnight so that we would have time to attend a show in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  We saw Love's Labor Lost, one of the plays that I we were not familiar with.  It is a comedy and we really enjoyed it!  In honor of our trip I thought I'd share this little find:

I don't know who the original credit for this lovely little tidbit goes to, but I love it.  Shakespeare is certainly not my specialty, but I'm not surprised how many phrases we owe to him.

I've been working on planning my syllabus for the freshman writing course that I am teaching this fall.  I'll have lots of thoughts about that coming soon!

Mark it in Pencil Wordle

Just something a little bit fun today.  Have you heard of Wordle?  At www.wordle.net you can analyze text to see what words you use most and make a fun image while you're at it.  Here's the wordle I made for Mark it in Pencil:

Prepositions and Em Dashes

Today I want to share two things that were recently shared with me.  I've have always been of the opinion that writing rules are often a bit overrated and should be broken as a writer deems appropriate.  In some cases, however, I believe that rule-breaking can be a bit overdone.  I agree with an article from Slate Magazine that my sister sent along this week on the overuse of the "Em dash."  You know that good old dash - the one used to separate a clause or emphasize a point in lieu of other forms of punctuation?  Emily Dickinson may have used it well, but common usage has brought it to a whole new level - less artistic - and more - annoying.

Check out this article for Slate contributor Noreen Malone's argument against the Em dash:  http://www.slate.com/id/2295413

On a more positive note, for the rule breaking type at least, is a video from Merriam-Webster's "ask the editor" shared with me by my husband.  I have been long known to end a sentence with a preposition when the moment is right; check out Merriam-Webster's argument:

Happy rule breaking!

The Elements of Clunk

A professor who participates in the biweekly rhetoric and composition discussion group I attend shared this article.  It's an interesting perspective on the new problems of student writing and a good reminder for all writers.

Click here:  The Elements of Clunk

On Punctuation

From today's Writer's Almanac, shared with me by a friend:

On Punctuation by Elizabeth Austen not for me the dogma of the period preaching order and a sure conclusion and no not for me the prissy formality or tight-lipped fence of the colon and as for the semi- colon call it what it is a period slumming with the commas a poser at the bar feigning liberation with one hand tightening the leash with the other oh give me the headlong run-on fragment dangling its feet over the edge give me the sly comma with its come-hither wave teasing all the characters on either side give me ellipses not just a gang of periods a trail of possibilities or give me the sweet interrupting dash the running leaping joining dash all the voices gleeing out over one another oh if I must punctuate give me the YIPPEE of the exclamation point give me give me the curling cupping curve mounting the period with voluptuous uncertainty "On Punctuation" by Elizabeth Austen, from The Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating Bridge Press, 2010.

Visit:   http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org


Listen:

Unhappyhipsters:

The only activity that could combat the horror of the child’s clunky Ugg boots—organizing the upper shelves by color and size.

(Photo: Shawn Records; Dwell)

 I understand.

William Safire's "Great Rules of Writing"

Some excellent advice from William Safire, author of New York Times Magazine column "On Language" from 1979 until his death in 2009:

Do not put statements in the negative form.

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Funny... but it's true.  Good writing is simple writing.  My rule of thumb: If there are words that can be removed from a sentence without changing the meaning, remove them.  

Example:  I originally wrote "My general rule of thumb:  If there are words that can be removed from a sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence, then you should remove them." 

You get the point.  I'll be adding these to my wish list:

I Write Like David Foster Wallace

If you've ever tried to compare your writing style to your favorite authors (or if you're just curious), this one's for you.  On I Write Like, users can insert a sample of text into the analyzer and find out what famous writer their word choice and writing style compares with.  Who knows how this really works, but it has gotten some pretty solid recognition (check out the I Write Like blog) and it is great fun.  There are also a few other handy tools for writers on the site, including a blog of writing-related quotes, resources and recommendations.  I subscribed to the site's newsletter and was immediately emailed a link for a complimentary download of Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story by Charles Raymond Barrett, Ph B.  So I'd say overall, I Write Like is worth a look.

I entered my last substantial blog post, Taking the Time to Write, into the analyzer, and here is my result:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

The Importance of Editing

I've been feeling a bit observant lately and have been noticing a lot of typos in web articles, blog posts, and even one of the books that I've been reading (I won't name names).  I usually try not to be too critical and I'm sure anyone could sift through this blog and find a good handful of typos, so I have been resisting the lecturing "get an editor people!" post that has been mounting inside of me.  When I came across this tidbit today, I thought that sharing it would suffice.  Enjoy!

The 7 Most Disastrous Typos of All Time

*Note: this article is not intended for young or easily offended audiences.

If You've Ever Try to Spell it "Fluxuate"...

First, you would have been wrong.  It is spelled "fluctuate."

With that out of the way, here is what might have happened if you've ever been thrown off by this seemingly common misspelling:

You might first have tried to type "fluxuate" into your word processing program, only to discover that it is spelled wrong.

With no help from the spell check suggestions, you might then have typed "fluxuate" into your google search bar with the hopes of being saved by the ever-helpful "did you mean..." correction function.

Instead, you might have discovered, high on your list of search results, a blog by the name of Spooks By Me.  Specifically, a post from February 27, 2007 titled "Today, I tried to spell fluctuate as "fluxuate." 

The post itself has nothing to do with the word or the spelling of the word fluctuate, but it seems to have become a bit of a phenomenon.  The post has a whopping 178 comments, including comments from within the past few weeks (for those of you who aren't paying attention, that's over three years later)!

The surge of comments has sparked a debate over whether all these people should have gone the dictionary route rather than typing their questions into google (I vote google... c'mon, how are you supposed to use a dictionary to efficiently find the correct spelling of a word spelled f-l-u-c... if you think that it begins f-l-u-x...? Seriously.), but it has also become a useful resource with many of the comments including the correct spelling!

I don't really know what all of this means, other than that an apparently common misspelling obviously isn't getting a lot of attention if this is first thing that comes up in google.  But if you are as amused by it as I am, you can check it out for yourself here.

Punctuation Station

 A happy amendment to the Grammar With a Sense of Humor post!

Please enjoy The Oatmeal's new addition:

How to Use a Semicolon

Grammar With a Sense of Humor

I use "grammar" here in the general sense, as the particular articles that I list here from The Oatmeal actually comment specifically on spelling and punctuation. However, I'll use this opportunity to include some other online resources for all forms of grammar.

Please enjoy these two entries from The Oatmeal. While hilarious, I think that they actually deliver some really great ways of remembering these rules. It's harder to forget absurdity, isn't it?

Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
How to Use an Apostrophe


Here are a few more resources on grammar:
Grammar Girl
Grammar Bytes
Blue Pencil Editing Blog
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation