I’m reading Ulysses by James Joyce. Some of you might have read the recent guest post on the novel. So far I’ve found it enjoyable, a barrel of laughs even, though of course there are one or two sections that are as pleasurable as running up and down stairs (which could be VERY pleasurable, [...]
Entries Tagged as 'language usage'
On Soaps
August 12th, 2009 No Comments
My preference when it comes to prose is always precision and elegance: I find nothing less forgivable than sloppily written descriptions, cliché dialogue, hastily fleshed-out characters, and so forth. Indeed, as far as I’m concerned, any story, no matter how interesting, is made pretty much irredeemable by poor quality writing. (”His corded, muscular arms.” Yeesh. [...]
Tags: Andrew · big screen/small screen week · language usage · literary taste · Neighbours
Vocab Curmudgeon Strikes Again
April 27th, 2009 3 Comments
I’d like to talk for a moment about a pesky (and, of course, UNFORGIVABLE) mistake that I have observed multiple times in all of my classes in this semester — both the freshman writing class I teach, and the venerable grad student writing workshops I’m enrolled in.
Or perhaps I should say, I’d like to talk [...]
Tags: Andrew · getting published · language usage · writing
On Pranks
April 2nd, 2009 1 Comment
Something that makes the British print media far superior to any other print media in the world, in my opinion, is their fondness for April Fools’ Day pranks. Yesterday the Guardian announced that it was switching to an entirely Twitter-based publication (”Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters”). As hoaxes go, this [...]
Tags: Andrew · April Fool's Day · language usage · The Guardian
Snark This.
March 17th, 2009 3 Comments
David Denby thinks snark is for the amateurs. Furthermore, he has written an entire book on his hypothesis that true wit sparkles above snark, that snark sucks the humor from the world with its undertones of cruelty, that snark is the weapon of the unhappy and the frightened.
Well, is it true?
Of course we here at [...]
Tags: David Denby · language usage · Llalan · Snark
When Grammar Attacks
March 2nd, 2009 2 Comments
I’ve always secretly enjoyed grammar. Diagramming sentences in high school English class? Yes, please. Proofreading my friends’ screenplays/med school applications/final papers? Sign me up. It’s gotten to the point where I have an instinctive, irrepressible need to correct apostrophes and add commas to whatever flyers, advertisements, and even menus I come into contact with during [...]
Tags: Bridget · grammar · language usage · punctuation · Tanya
Alliteration + Alphabet + Rap Music = Neato
December 18th, 2008 No Comments
I love alliteration. I am certain every sentence sounds better with some sprinkling of the same starting consonant sound. Even better if you can end your book with a little alliteration: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Anyway, enough of that nonsense. I thought I’d share one [...]
Tags: alliteration · language usage · music · patrick
On Language Evolution
December 16th, 2008 2 Comments
The most recent post from our local vocabularily curmudgeoned blogger reminded me that language, sadly, does itself evolve. Evolutionarily, language has always been adapting–adding and dropping words and switching up phrases.
An article by Mark Peters in Good Magazine a few months ago (find article here) discussed frequently mangled phrases that are integrating themselves into our [...]
Tags: language usage · Llalan · new words · writing disasters
Happy Thanksgiving, Bitches!
November 25th, 2008 4 Comments
I would just like to take this moment to give thanks for the fact that this Thanksgiving I will be free to (and perhaps expected to) swear at the table. I am eating with my friends this year, and none of the usual holiday restrictions on language apply:
“Could you pass me the goddamn crescent rolls, [...]
Tags: language usage · Llalan
Dirty Words!
November 20th, 2008 2 Comments
This might be old news, but it’s a good follow-up to Llalan’s post about heroin and poop and whatnot. Jan Freeman’s Nov. 9 Boston Globe column was about foul language. According to the column, “the Supreme Court took an hour to debate whether the F-word and the S-word are always and irredeemably dirty,” which I’m [...]
Tags: Boston Globe Magazine · language usage · patrick