Blog Entries for stevenl

Five rules for effective writing

stevenl

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 competitor [...]

Quote Abuse

stevenl

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 no [...]

Persuasive writing

stevenl

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.& [...]

The Impotence of Proofreading

stevenl

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 SCRA [...]

100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses

stevenl

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 altoge [...]

50 great tools/tutorials to improve your writing

stevenl

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 [...]

Thirthy-three Names of Things You Never Knew had Names

stevenl

Thirthy-three Names of Things You Never Knew had Names: AGLET-The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.ARMSAYE-The armhole in clothing.CHANKING-Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.COLUMELLA NASI-The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.DRAGÉES-Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.FEAT-A dangling curl of hair.FERRULE-The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.HARP-The small me [...]

My biggest grammatical pet peeve

stevenl

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 [...]

Funny company photo

stevenl

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

I'm still luaging haha...

ABC interviews chimps

stevenl

As a follow-up to my post on songbirds learning grammar, comes this: ABC interviews chimps.

Interestingly, I once read a National Geographic article (I think it was in the early 1990's) in which a researcher described a single conversation (in American-Sign-Language) between 3 species: a human, a gorilla, and a chimpanzee. Here's an excerpt from the ABC article:

The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and t [...]

Extentions! (sic)

stevenl

Good news! If you're running behind on your taxes, you can always file an extension.

Many of those with editors, however, say you can file an extention. And they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

You'll find dozens of botched references to extention on Google News. For the record, it's extension. Extention isn't a variant.

Lethally dead

stevenl

My only stand is on behalf of better writing. I take no sides in the debate over capital punishment, which gives rise to today's point.

Too often, articles on Google News say someone is to be executed by lethal injection or is sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. In each case, lethal is redundant. An injection that kills is lethal to begin with.

This type of redundancy also shows up in references to past accidents and disasters: deadly tsunami that killed ...; de [...]

Passively considering , actively seeking

stevenl

I am passively considering a career change. I'm passively pursuing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'm passively engaging others in debate about better writing.

What is it that possesses bureaucrats to say they are actively considering, actively pursuing, actively engaging? For example, the paper told me this week my governor is actively considering a tax on 401k plans.

Is this like a submarine movie in which the captain searches with active and pass [...]

The wayward apostrophe

stevenl

It's called the wayward apostrophe, the superfluous apostrophe or the errant apostrophe. I call it the #@%*&$@ apostrophe. It's the erroneous use of an apostrophe in common plural words and in other contexts.

You've seen it: a carved sign declaring The Smith's live in the home; a scrawled banana's for sale; a menu listing fresh prawn's. Some usage guides call this a greengrocer's apostrophe, as it shows up so often in the produce section (orange's, gr [...]

Assessing the damages

stevenl

After a storm, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc., bureaucrats assess damages. Speakers of English assess damage.

After a flood, one bureaucrat was quoted in the newspaper offering "a statement of damages from the storm events we had." He added that more money "would help us to recover some of the costs for the damages that occurred."

This kind of bureaucrat-speak is why God created paraphrasing, GrammarHell.com suggests. We'll simply wince at storm events and [...]

Bloc vs Block

stevenl

Trying to bloc out time for a vacation? It'll never happen.

An alliance or alignment of people, groups, nations, investors, voters, etc., is a bloc. Block applies in any other case in which block or bloc is used.

Odds are when you read voting block, Soviet block, communist block, Eastern block, economic block or political block, someone has made a boo-boo.

Block as a noun covers "a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit," such a [...]

Disburse money to me

stevenl

An article says a certain state normally has so many millions of dollars each year to disperse to law enforcement. Unless officials plan to toss bills into the wind, letting cops run for them, the writer meant disburse.

This is a common error and warrants an especially involved entry in Garner's Modern American Usage. Disburse means to pay out, as from a fund. Disperse means to scatter or spread widely or in all directions.

Those with editors are as confused as anyone. You' [...]

A (boldly) going concern

stevenl

One grammar guide tells me Star Trek Capt. James T. Kirk should be reprimanded for splitting an infinitive when he says, "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Heresy, I say. Would it mean half as much if Kirk had said, "to go boldly where no man has gone before?" Yech.

A split infinitive occurs when a word, usually an adverb, separates the infinitive marker to from the verb (for more on infinitives, click here).

In general, you want to avoid splitt [...]

Songbirds may be able to learn grammar

stevenl

Check out this article I found online.

The simplest grammar, it says, can be taught to a common songbird. That's if you believe research some supposed expert has put forward.

The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.

Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, accordi [...]

Foetry closes up shop

stevenl

Thanks Alan Cordle and Foetry.com!

If you weren't aware foetry.com (whose dedicated members doggedly pursue cronyism and cheats in the pobiz) has closed up shop. In there three years, foetry.com exposed some major universities, publishers, and well-known poets who were involved in contests and complicit in rigged contests-causing students, friends, and lovers to win.

This caught me off guard. Indeed, while posting seemed to be down on the site, no one thought they [...]