Meanwhile Over At McSweeneys…
Posted on | November 18, 2009 | No Comments
Martin McCellan has started a series of essays on typography over at McSweeneys, delving into its history, mythology and influence. Lovely stuff.
Misplaced Apostrophes
Posted on | July 25, 2009 | No Comments
Seth Godin, the marketing guru, asked today if he’s the only one who takes issue with misplaced apostrophes and so forth.
The answer is no. I’m bothered by it too. My pet peeve is vented in Than NOT Then, and I’ve spent a lot of time wondering where I should stand on the issue of poor grammar. I don’t want to be insensitive to dislexia or other communication difficulties, but for the average person, I think there’s no reason why mistakes should be made over than and then, lose and loose, your and you’re, there, their and they’re, to, too and two. And if you don’t grasp the individual meaning of words that sound similar, the science of apostrophes must seem like arcane esoteric knowledge. Let’s not even adventure to who and whom.
I do try to look beyond spelling and grammar. After all, you don’t have to wear a suit to be a businessman, and I’m all for content over format. But if you are trying to convey your message via the written word, your grammar will be under scrutiny. It might be a cliché to say that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when you are browsing in a book store, you are doing just that. When you meet people, you are making instant judgements.
I’ve believe that grammar is to writing as lighting is to cinematography. The best films are the ones in which you forget you are watching a film. It’s a craft, as is writing, and grammar is one of the tools of the trade. Not everybody cares about grammar, I accept that, and I take the message that is being conveyed at face-value, but good grammar brings precision to the written word, whereas bad grammar adds a layer that the reader has to push past to get to the message.
It seems too, that standards are falling. People dash out blog posts and ‘articles’ without proof-reading, and maybe that’s okay if you’re just publishing to let grandma know what’s going on in your life (she’ll love you anyway), but if your ambitions are any higher than that, it’s essential you get grammar under control. Sloppy grammar might not indicate a carelessness in your work, but a lot of readers will take it that way and make assumptions about sloppiness in your product or service.
On the plus side, the advent of easy publishing has enabled many people to get their messages out into the world. Formerly barriers to publishing meant that an editor stood between an author’s grammatical mistakes and the reading public, but I think we are richer for the breakdown of barriers. I’ll just have to bite my tongue a bit more.
UPDATE: LOL, I just had to add this link from failblog.org:
see more Fail Blog
Margaret Gelling
Posted on | May 25, 2009 | No Comments
The Economist has an obituary of Margaret Gelling, an expert on English place names.
She was a neat, keen, merry woman, “prissy” as she described herself, and sensibly shod and clad. The gear was appropriate for slopping through slæp, fenn, myrr and slohtre (the disappointing origin of Upper and Lower Slaughter), or stomping through leah, hurst, holt and græfe, where trees were felled and coppiced and axes rang in the woods.
I first came across her work when I lived in London, trying to decypher some amusing Tube Station names.
The New Yorker Funnies
Posted on | May 25, 2009 | No Comments
In May 25th 2009 issue of The New Yorker there are two cartoons that could have been commissioned for theWORDjunkie.
Decimate and talk dirty.
The Wire Does Grammar
Posted on | May 15, 2009 | No Comments
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 7—One Arrest
The beginning of this episode opens with the team analysing a conversation they’ve intercepted on the phone. In itself it’s interesting the way the dealers are using a language code, which the cops have to crack, but six minutes forty seconds into the episode, the fun begins. McNulty has submited a report which the judge is reviewing. The judge is having some trouble with McNulty’s grammar:
Judge: Look here Jimmy, you mis-spelled culpable, and you’re confusing then and than. T-H-E-N is an adverb used to divide and measure time… “Detective McNulty makes a mess and then he has to clean it up.”
McNulty: Thanks teacher. It’s great that you’re going through every word but…
Judge: Not to be confused with T-H-A-N, which is most commonly used after a comparative adjective or adverb as in, “Rhonda is smarter than Jimmy”. Yeah?
I love it.
Stolid
Posted on | May 14, 2009 | No Comments
What a strange word.
Root: Obsolete French, stolide, or Latin stolidus, perhaps meaning foolish.
Definition: Calm, dependable. One who shows little emotion, doesn’t get animated.
Examples:
- Contrary to the typical rock star performance, Roy Orbison’s on-stage persona was extraordinarily stolid.
- The Indian bureaucracy remains terribly inefficient and stolid, taking over 200 days to issue a company license.
twj says:
“Stolid, stolid as a rock… oooohhh”, isn’t what Ashford & Simpson sang, but it might be more fitting, seeing as I’d describe your average rock as calm, dependable, and showing little in the way of emotion or animation.
It’s a bizzare word though, like solid gone wrong. Reminds me of stoic and stalwart. And the Soviet Union. Hmmm. “Everybody knew Ilya was a stolid, stoic stalwart for the Party.”
Klingon’s Linguistic Heritage
Posted on | May 14, 2009 | No Comments
Speaking of a stoic people, Slate writes about the lingustic origins of Klingon, the invented Star Trek mother-tongue of the Klingon people. The article is penned by Arika Okrent, who is the author of “In the Land of Invented Languages”.
Stoic
Posted on | May 13, 2009 | 1 Comment
Stoic has it’s origins in the philosophy of Stoicism, and to understand the word, we’re going to have to investigate the philosophy a little.
Root: Greek, stōïkos, from the Athenian Stoa Poikilē, or Painted Porch, where Zeno taught the philosophy we know as stoicism.
Definition: One who endures the ups and downs of life without expressing emotion or complaint; an indifference to emotion.
Examples:
- The Irish were ever a stoic nation, expressing their anger lament mostly through song and poem.
- Rachael knew her grandfather to be stoic of character. No one could have lived through so much pain and suffering and still diligently carry on with life.
twj says:
Stoic is stored in my mind beside the words stolid and stalwart. I think they form a harmonious triptych, not only in sound, but in meaning.
Anyway, let me introduce you to the Stoics. “Hello”. They were a bunch of Greeks who believed that it’s not what you say but what you do that matters. They favoured the development of self-control to combat destructive emotions such as anger and jealousy, through the practice of logic, contemplation and concentration. They tried to live a life in harmony with the universe. They saw all men as equal, even slaves, (no word yet on how they viewed women) and advocated a brotherhood of man.
Of course, this is only the most brief of introductions to a complex and quite noble philosophy. More info at The Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism.
The modern day meaning of stoic focuses on an indifference to emotion, which is a pity, as it strips away most of the beauty and grace of the philosophy.
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