If you want to be clear, if you want to be quoted, using effective language must be your top priority.In today's business and politics this is hardly ever the case. In many instances, imprecise language is used intentionally to avoid taking a stance. This is hardly a recent problem, and as George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, the condition is curable. By following Orwell's five rules for writing, you'll distinguish yourself from competitors and clearly communicate your ideas:

This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I thinkthe following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I hope you find these rules a good start. If you enjoyed this brief journal entry, be sure to read Orwell's original essay. It has many helpful examples and is a joy to read.

 Oh man, just found this blog after trolling through some of the other posts. It's totally my thing! The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks-making fun of bad punctuation since 2005. Check it out here.

From an associated press article on the blog:

The blog wasn't noticed much at first. But about six months ago, things started picking up. "You know how it happens _ one person links to you, then others do. Also, everyone has camera phones now," Keeley said in a phone interview. Earlier this week, she was linked on Yahoo!, which quadrupled her traffic for a couple days to about 2,000 hits _ though her record is still about 3,000 in a day.

What draws people? The humor, but also partly, Keeley admits, a sense of superiority, at least grammatically speaking _ something she tries to avoid herself. "I don't consider myself a prescriptivist or a pedant," she says (really). "So I'm open to critiques of my own language. I make plenty of mistakes myself."

Rampant quote abuse is a pet peeve of many writing teachers, of course. One of them, Pat Hoy, feels the larger problem is not the punctuation missteps _ that's bad enough _ but the reliance on quotes themselves, by writers who should know better.

I suggest you visit it by clicking here.

Found 10 persuasive writing techniques that can make your job easier and your case more compelling (especially when marketing your small press or new title). While this list is in no way comprehensive, these 10 strategies are used quite a bit because they have been proven to work.

My favourite line from the article: FTA: "Psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to comply with a request if you simply give them a reason why... even if that reason makes no sense."

Ha ha! This should be known as the 'Chewbacca Defense'!

Persuasion is generally an exercise in creating a win-win situation. You present a case that others find beneficial to agree with. You make them an offer they can't refuse, but not in the manipulative Godfather sense.

It's simply a good deal or a position that makes sense to that particular person. But there are techniques that can make your job easier and your case morecompelling. While this list is in no way comprehensive, these 10 strategies are used quite a bit because they work.

Here's a link to the article.

New York performance poet Taylor Mali, measures his life in a variety of ways: He has five years of experience as a professional spoken word artist; he has one book, one DVD, and three cds; for 10 months, he was the official voice of Burger King; he was a national poetry slam champion four times; three times he appeared on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry".

For nine years he taught college, high school, and middle school; and once, in a single SCRABBLE game, he earned a score of 581; but MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, after hearing his work, 118 people have told him they will now become teachers.

Check him on youtube reading the 'Impotence of Proofreading'.

Has this ever happened to you?
You work very, very horde on a paper for English clash
And still get a very glow raid (like a D or even a D=)
and all because you are the liverwurst spoiler in the whale wide word
Yes, Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence.

This is a problem that affects manly, manly students all over the word.
I myself was such a bed spiller once upon a term
that my English torturer in my sophomoric year,
Mrs. Myth, she said I would never get into a good colleague.
And that¹s all I wanted, that's all any kid wants at that age
just to get into a good colleague.
Not just anal community colleague,
because I wouldn¹t be happy at just anal community colleague.

I really need to be challenged, challenged menstrually
I needed a place that would offer me intellectual simulation,
I know this makes me sound like a stereo,
but I really wanted to go to an ivory legal colleague.
So if I did not improvement
or gone would be my dream of going to Harvard, Jail, or Prison
(in Prison, New Jersey).

So I got myself a spell checker
and figured I was on Sleazy Street.

But there are several missed aches
that a spell chukker can¹t can¹t catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave out word
your spell exchequer won¹t put it in you.
And God for billing purposes only
you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling
your spell Chekhov might replace a word
with one you had absolutely no detention of using.

Because what do you want it to douch?
It only does what you tell it to douche.
You¹re the one with your hand on the mouth going clit, clit, clit.
It just goes to show you how embargo
one careless little clit of the mouth can be.

Which reminds me of this one time during my Junior Mint.
The teacher took the paper that I had written on A Sale of Two Titties
No I'm cereal, I am cereal
she read it out loud in front of all of my assmates.
It was the most humidifying experience of my life,
being laughed at pubically.

So do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice:
One: There is no prostitute for careful editing.
And three: When it comes to proofreading,
the red penis your friend.

Spank you

New York performance poet Taylor Mali, measures his life in a variety of ways: He has five years of experience as a professional spoken word artist; he has one book, one DVD, and three cds; for 10 months, he was the official voice of Burger King; he was a national poetry slam champion four times; three times he appeared on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry"; for nine years he taught college, high school, and middle school; and once, in a single SCRABBLE game, he earned a score of 581; but MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, after hearing his work, 118 people have told him they will now become teachers. Please help me welcome the man who wants to create one thousand new teachers, Taylor Mali."

When people confuse the following, it makes me nauseated.  If you're nauseated, it means you're feeling sick. If you're nauseous, it means you're making others sick (causing nausea in others).

I hear people say "I'm feeling nauseous," and I think to myself "please stay away from me, I don't want to become nauseated."

Check out the list of my pet peeves:

• adverse / averse
• affect / effect
• aggravate
• alleged
• all right
• altogether
• among / between
• assure / ensure / insure
• auger / augur
• average / median
• blatant / flagrant
• capital / capitol
• complement / compliment
• comprise
• consul / council / counsel
• convince / persuade
• discreet / discrete
• disinterested / uninterested
• enervate
• enormity / enormousness
• factoid
• fewer/ less
• flammable / inflammable
• flaunt / flout
• forte
• gender / sex
• hopefully
• impact
• impeach
• imply / infer
• incredible / incredulous
• irony
• irregardless
• its / it's
• kudos
• lay / lie
• leave / let
• literally
• mass / weight
• mean
• mischievous
• nuclear
• parameter
• penultimate
• peruse
• phenomenon
• plus
• precipitate / precipitous
• prescribe / proscribe
• presently
• principal / principle
• renown
• reticent
• sacrilegious
• seasonable / seasonal
• sensual / sensuous
• set / sit
• that / which
• unexceptionable / unexceptional
• unique
• utilize / use
• wherefore
• wreak / wreck
•  zoology

Reminds me of the Al Yankovic song:

Except she was always using the word "infer"
When she obviously meant "imply"
And I know that somw guys can put up with that kinda thing
But frankly, I can't imagine why

And I told her, I said "Hey"
Are we playin' horseshoes, honey?
No I don't think we are
You're close (close) but no cigar

Anyway, anybody here have any pet peeves regarding commonly confused words?

Here's a fantastic selection of tools for writers of any style. This is a list of tips aimed at improving your writing skills that I cribbed from another site here. Before you start firing off submissions to publishers or you embark on that eBook writing project, do yourself a favor and review.

• Writing Tool #1: Branch to the Right
  
• Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs
  
• Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs
  
• Writing Tool #4: Period As a Stop Sign
  
• Writing Tool #5: Observe Word Territory
  
• Writing Tool #6: Play with Words
  
• Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
  
• Writing Tool #8: Seek Original Images
  
• Writing Tool #9: Prefer Simple to Technical
  
• Writing Tool #10: Recognize Your Story's Roots
  
• Writing Tool #11 Back Off or Show Off
  
• Writing Tool #12: Control the Pace
  
• Writing Tool #13: Show and Tell
  
• Writing Tool #14: Interesting Names
  
• Writing Tool #15: Reveal Character Traits
  
• Writing Tool #16: Odd and Interesting Things
  
• Writing Tool #17: The Number of Elements
  
• Writing Tool #18: Internal Cliffhangers
  
• Writing Tool #19: Tune Your Voice
  
• Writing Tool #20: Narrative Opportunities
  
• Writing Tool #21: Quotes and Dialogue
  
• Writing Tool #22: Get Ready
  
• Writing Tool #23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path
  
• Writing Tool #24: Name the Big Parts
  
• Writing Tool #25: Repeat
  
• Writing Tool #26: Fear Not the Long Sentence
  
• Writing Tool #27: Riffing for Originality
  
• Writing Tool #28: Writing Cinematically
  
• Writing Tool #29: Report for Scenes
  
• Writing Tool #30: Write Endings to Lock the Box
  
• Writing Tool #31: Parallel Lines
  
• Writing Tool #32: Let It Flow
  
• Writing Tool #33: Rehearsal
  
• Writing Tool #34: Cut Big, Then Small
  
• Writing Tool #35: Use Punctuation
  
• Writing Tool #36: Write A Mission Statement for Your Story
  
• Writing Tool #37: Long Projects
  
• Writing Tool #38: Polish Your Jewels
  
• Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs
  
• Writing Tool #40: The Broken Line
  
• Writing Tool #41: X-Ray Reading
  
• Writing Tool #42: Paragraphs
  
• Writing Tool #43: Self-criticism
  
• Writing Tool #44: Save String
  
• Writing Tool #45: Foreshadow
  
• Writing Tool #46: Storytellers, Start Your Engines
  
• Writing Tool #47: Collaboration
  
• Writing Tool #48: Create An Editing Support Group
  
• Writing Tool #49: Learn from Criticism
  
• Writing Tool #50: The Writing Process

1. AGLET-The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.
2. ARMSAYE-The armhole in clothing.
3. CHANKING-Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.
4. COLUMELLA NASI-The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.
5. DRAGÉES-Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.
6. FEAT-A dangling curl of hair.
7. FERRULE-The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.
8. HARP-The small metal hoop that supports a lampshade.
9. HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER-A 64th note. (A nd is a demisemiquaver, and a 6th note is a semiquaver.)
10. JARNS,
11. NITTLES,
12. GRAWLIX,
13. and QUIMP-Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.
14. KEEPER-The loop on a belt that keeps the end in place after it has passed through the buckle.
15. KICK or PUNT-The indentation at the bottom of some wine bottles. It gives added strength to the bottle but lessens its holding capacity.
16. LIRIPIPE-The long tail on a graduate's academic hood.
17. MINIMUS-The little finger or toe.
18. NEF-An ornamental stand in the shape of a ship.
19. OBDORMITION-The numbness caused by pressure on a nerve; when a limb is 'asleep'.
20. OCTOTHORPE-The symbol '#' on a telephone handset. Bell Labs' engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 9 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.
21. OPHRYON-The space between the eyebrows on a line with the top of the eye sockets.
22. PEEN-The end of a hammer head opposite the striking face.
23. PHOSPHENES-The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.
24. PURLICUE-The space between the thumb and extended forefinger.
25. RASCETA-Creases on the inside of the wrist.
26. ROWEL-The revolving star on the back of a cowboy's spurs.
27. SADDLE-The rounded part on the top of a matchbook.
28. SCROOP-The rustle of silk.
29. SNORKEL BOX-A mailbox with a protruding receiver to allow people to deposit mail without leaving their cars.
30. SPRAINTS-Otter dung.
31. TANG-The projecting prong on a tool or instrument.
32. WAMBLE-Stomach rumbling.
33. ZARF-A holder for a handleless coffee cup.

Now write a story using all of these terms :)

A note on my biggest grammatical pet-peeve:

When you're talking about the 1990s, or the 1830s, or the 1250s, you're not talking about something that belongs to the year 1990, or 1830, or 1250. So unless your sentence reads, "Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time' was 1250's #1 single," don't add an apostrophe between "0" and "s." It isn't required at all!

I know a better way to teach kids grammar: teach them foreign languages. We need to start enforcing that in our schools. They'll come away with a better understanding of English and grammar than an "old-school" grammar class could ever provide. Sprechen Sie Deutsch! Parlez Français! Hable Español! Parli Italiano! Gavarite Russkiy!

This just cracked me up. Apparently the company photo didn't turn out exactly as planned!

I'm still luaging haha...