Five Wonderful Phrases That I Resolve to Use More Frequently in Conversation
- soup to nuts
- by hook or by crook
- ass-over-teakettle
- dollars to doughnuts
- tits up
Posts in the ‘writing’ Category
PicoPad Wallet Notes
The PicoPad® is pure genius. It’s a pad of sticky notes — with a tiny pen — in a case the size of a credit card that you can easily slip it into your wallet. The PicoPad and its refills are also incredibly inexpensive. I am always scribbling notes on the backs of business cards and receipts in my wallet, so this is a product near and dear to my heart. My girlfriend gave me one last week and I’ve already used it several times.
I love books, for example, and can’t enter a bookstore without finding more than a few that I am dying to read. Instead of spending megabucks at the brick and mortar, though, here’s what I do: I jot down the ISBN and then, when I get home, find the title at Amazon. If I simply must have it, I’ll grab a used copy there for much, much less. Otherwise I add it to my wishlist for a rainy day.
Grammar Matters (Still)
Recently I saw a commercial for Sylvan Learning Centers. This is a company that is selling products to help your children do well in school. The ad showed a teenage girl gabbing on the telephone. The voice-over said, “Sally sure can talk fast. We can help her read fast,” or something like that. Apparently grammar is not one of the subjects that Sylvan covers. How does a company that claims to help educate children manage to let a commercial with such an egregious grammatical error get all the way to the television screen? There must not be any English majors working in the marketing department over at ol’ Sylvan.
Fast is an adjective. You don’t do things “fast”. You do things quickly.
Grammar Matters (Again)
Last night I writhed in agony while watching the 11 o’clock news. The local NBC affiliate was running a story about the Sacramento disc jockeys that were fired recently. (The radio personalities had sponsored a contest which led to the death of a woman.) Behind the anchorman the screen displayed DJ’s Fired. I’m sure that employees at my office are sick of hearing me say, “An apostrophe is never used to indicate a plural.” How can NBC not have someone to check what’s going to be printed in big block letters on screen? Why, NBC? Why?
“The ‘plural apostrophe’ (e.g. no dog’s allowed, sofa’s for sale) is running rampant these days, and it’s not just my imagination. It’s so wrong that I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could make such a mistake. I hate it when people dismiss it with, ‘Oh, not everyone’s a grammar freak.’
Grammar? You think it’s an issue of grammar? I hate to break it to you, but if you can’t spell ‘dogs’, you’re illiterate.”
originally posted February 27th, 2003
CRAM Magazine
Quite nifty! My mini-tutorial — Five Tips for Smarter Playlists — has been published in the second issue of the online pdf magazine CRAM. A few weeks ago I received an email from one of their editors requesting permission to republish the essay. I had actually forgotten all about it. Then this morning someone at CRAM sent me an email announcing that the latest issue has been published. My article begins on page six. How cool is that?
Levenger Gotham Pen Refill
About a decade ago I bought a Gotham model pen from Levenger. It is by far my favorite pen. This weekend I found it in the cigar box I use to hold all my “best” pens and was quite disappointed to discover that its ink had run dry. Levenger no longer makes this fabulous pen and a search of their site and Google searches of the whole web returned no results for refills. A last-chance attempt was made: I found a model number on the ink cartridge — PR0162 — and that yielded results on the Levenger site. I ordered three sets of two refills. If you happen to have a Gotham, I’d grab some refills now before they stop carrying them.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
This is an essay I wrote a loooong time ago … I must have been 13 or 14 … good old St. Paul’s Catholic Elementary School in Daytona Beach, FL …
The Commonly Confused Words Test
Amazing! According to this test I am an English Genius. It was not a surprise to see that I scored a perfect 100%, actually, on the advanced sections. What was shocking was that I scored in the embarrassingly-low 80s on what were supposed to be the simple sections. That, and the fact that I could perform under 90% on any section and still be considered a “genius” by this test. I wonder if that’s because I did so well or because so many others have done so poorly.
(I don’t know that “English Genius” is how I would describe someone with good skillz in the ol’ vocab department, though. Doesn’t that phrase just make you think that I’m a genius from Merrye Olde England?)
Funny Stuff in My Inbox — High School Essays
These are from a joke email circulating that purports to be “ANALOGIES & METAPHORS FOUND IN HIGH SCHOOL ESSAYS”. I highly doubt that these were actually culled from high school essays. The main reason I don’t believe it is because there is no point of reference. There is no notation or source. The second reason I don’t believe it is because, even if there was a source listed, it’s a freaking chain email, for the love of Pete Sampras. I am skeptical - and you should be, too! - about 73.6% of the news I hear on NPR or NBC; you think I’m going to trust a chain email? And the other strong reason I have to be cynical about the origins of this bit o’ electronically-transmitted comedy is because, with the possible exception of a few cousins and my half-sister, I don’t think I know of anyone sub-20 that can write a complete sentence.
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
Regardless … it’s still quite a funny collection of sentences.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like socks in a dryer without Cling Free.
Grammar Matters
The “plural apostrophe” (e.g. no dog’s allowed, sofa’s for sale, UGH) is running rampant these days, and it’s not just my imagination. It’s so wrong that I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could make such a mistake. I hate it when people dismiss it with, “Oh, not everyone’s a grammar freak.”
Grammar? You think it’s an issue of grammar? I hate to break it to you, but if you can’t spell “dogs,” you’re illiterate.
via strange brew
To Have and Have Not
Placing Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not in the 1930s - an essay by David Gagne
Read the rest of this entry »
Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin
On Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions and Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanacks
Minds, Brains, and Science
“Does John Searle, in his book Minds, Brains, and Science, succeed in explaining how mental phenomena can be nothing over and above neural phenomena and yet be caused by neural activity?” - My Answer.
Sir Gawain
This is from an English lit. class; it was written on February 10, 1993 …
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
What makes a man a hero? Where lies the line which when crossed changes a mortal man into a legend? Is it at the altar at Canterbury? in the Minotaur’s labyrinth? or is it an age or a time? Does a man become a hero when he transforms from a boy to an adult? or when he stops being a man and becomes a martyr? Where are the heroes of 1993? In whom do the children of this age believe? Like whom do they strive to be? Kennedy, Lennon, and even Superman are dead. World leaders are mockeries of real men, more like Pilates than Thomas Mores. Pop culture’s icons change daily. It is interesting that nearly 600 years ago someone was writing about heroism in a way that can be understood today. The poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells a tale in which a man is proven to be a hero through the seemingly un-heroic decisions made in the course of numerous tests. Sir Gawain is a hero for the 21st century. He is tried and trapped, he is inundated with opportunities to fail and yet he does not lose. More importantly though, in the end he learns an essential, inescapable fact about himself and human nature.
The doctor said I wouldn’t have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger outta there.
