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Links: 2008-03-19
March 19th, 2008 |Early links. Spring break. Loads of offline resources for design inspiration. TypeFlash: Enter text, pick a typeface, modify it, and have fun. My youngest kept wanting to return to this site to see his name in different designs and colors. I told him we have lots more to explore! […]
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Ten Most Hated Words on the Internet
June 22nd, 2007 |OK, if this poll by British pollsters of YouGov is accurate — then prepare to cringe. The ten most hated words on the Internet — based on a poll of 2,091 adults — reports the following words making the list: folksonomy blogosphere blog netiquette blook webinar vlog social networking cookie wiki Folksonomy earns its rightful place on the top. Can’t tell you how much work it […]
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Using Apostrophes
May 8th, 2007 |We’ve discussed apostrophes many times here, and we’re not going to stop anytime soon as long as the abuse continues. WikiHow’s How to Use Apostrophes mentions the frequent use of “photo’s” and it’s true. I know a few PTA parents who add an apostrophe in photos. I don’t understand why. It’s not as if it […]
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Bad English in Beijing Gets Official Attention
April 20th, 2007 |A sign in Beijing’s airport says, “Careful Landslip Attention Security.” With the Olympics coming to Beijing in 2008 and over 500,000 foreigners, officials promise to take care of the bad grammar according to this CNN article. They’ve gone so far to ask for help from the public to watch for poor grammar. Other poorly translated […]
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Five Rules for Effective Writing from Orwell
March 23rd, 2007 |Pick the Brain nicely abstracts George Orwell’s 5 Rules for Effective Writing and provides the link to the original essay. I just came across this tool that helps you eliminate cliches from your writing. This helps with Orwell’s first rule of avoiding the use of metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech that you’ve seen […]
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Cut the Modifiers and Using “Only”
March 6th, 2007 |Two simple writing tips Stop with the Overdone Modifiers On Writing Well taught me to cut the use of modifiers such as “really,” “very,” “so,” and “quite.” I save those for when I really mean something It’s amazing how many articles I’ve edited that abused these words that they lose meaning. Using Only in Sentences An Ode to […]
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Pluto Gets Plutoed
January 19th, 2007 |Thanks to poor Pluto’s recent declassification as a planet, the American Dialect Society — an organization founded in 1889 that “is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by” — picked “plutoed” as its 2006 Word of the […]
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Innocent English Isn’t So Innocent
November 21st, 2006 |When I created the Grammar Gotchas page a few years ago, I had hoped to creat a resource similar to the one at Innocent English. It didn’t work out, but sites like these fill the gap for us grammar geeks. Occasionally, I find a This Is Broken post that involves a language boo boo. I’m all […]
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Bad Writing and Common Errors in English
July 18th, 2006 |Can you write a bad story on purpose? USA Today offers you an opportunity to see if you can write a worse story than the guy who pleased judges with his bad writing. Here’s a resource to help you get started with lousy English: Common Errors in English. Feel free to commit the errors covered in […]
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Linguistic Scholars and Blogging
June 21st, 2006 |Analyzing Eggcorns and Snowclones, and Challenging Strunk and White looks at Language Log, a blog covering linguistic boo boos. My kind of place. The article talks of eggcorns, “a type of slip of the ear in which people mishear a word and mispronounce it, then insist that the malapropism is correct.” Maybe I’m obtuse, but I […]
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