Wrap-Up and Spelling Demons

Overall, I got what I wanted out of this course. Furthermore, what I learned went beyond what I expected. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I would have liked to have learned but wasn't covered, but if I do think of something later, I can most likely find it in that handy-dandy Bedford Handbook (that I own now, because it was cheaper to buy it used from Amazon than to pay to rent it from the school bookstore. Go figure.).

And now, some spelling demons of mine.

• license
• mischievous 
• onomatopoeia
• conscientious

And, as a former spelling bee participant, I list all of my disqualifying words.

• immersed (5th grade)
• (can't remember sixth grade)
• upholstery (7th grade)
• forfeit (8th grade. Not for the 'e' and 'i,' but for being so nervous about the 'e' and 'i' that I forgot the 'f' in the middle.)

Some Effective Advertisements

 

English-ish

Some Words and Phrases in the English Language that Came from Somewhere Else

Déjà vu

Elite

Matinee

Poncho

Fenestrate

Macho

Fahrvegnuegen  <-- (a campaign word used by BMW)

Swatch (not the small piece of fabric, but the Swedish wristwatch)

Yankee Doodle (the English sang the song to make fun of us, but we liked it, so here we are)

Faux pas

C'est la vie

Que sera sera

Another Take on Modern Slang and Phrases

Trigger warnings: Casual mention of violence, and swearing. Mainly swearing, but if you can get past the crude language, it's really very funny.

Newly Coined Words

Neologism-- "the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words." (Dictionary.com)

The idea of creating a new word is exciting.  If it wasn't, Andrew Clements would have had no motivation behind writing Frindle, and we probably wouldn't add to the Oxford English Dictionary as often as we do now.  Take this quote from Akeelah and the Bee:

Look, I wasn't dissing you. l was Christmas shopping. 

''Dissing''? I thought we didn't use words like that. 

I thought we only used words from the dictionary in here. 

''Dis, dissed, dissing: to treat with disrespect or contempt; 

to find fault with. '' New words get added to the dictionary every year. 

 However, not all the new words we come up with can be used so eloquently. For example, "selfie" and "twerk."  I agree with what Conan O'Brien has to say here.

 

Effective Punctuation in Sentences

"All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life."

"A panda bear eats shoots and leaves."
(and its companion)
"A panda bear eats, shoots, and leaves."

I like the first one's lack of punctuation because it makes people uncomfortable. Yes, I'm probably a horrible person for saying that, but being able to read that sentence correctly is what I consider to be a small triumph. It's one of those things you have to read aloud.

I like the second pairing, of course, because the punctuation is the only differing factor and the two sentences have completely different messages. Most people use the "Let's eat Grandma," example to illustrate this point, but I like my example better. Pandas are cute.


But be careful of this panda.  This panda has guns.

Effective Figures of Speech

Honestly, I think that the effectiveness of any figure of speech depends on the audience it's presented to.  For example, when Simon and Garfunkel sing the lyrics, "I am a rock, I am an island," most of us know he is speaking metaphorically, but the little kids in the audience who haven't learned about metaphors yet are most likely picturing something like this:
(just to be clear, a rock and an island.)
And then of course, there are the realists.



Nevertheless, figures of speech CAN be effective if they are relevant to the point you are making.



-"Just like a tree that's planted by the water, I shall not be moved."
Here, we know that the speaker is clearly not a tree, but because they have presented this simile with a situation where the point can clearly be seen, the writer would be hard-pressed to confuse the reader by using this phrase.



I really wish I could come up with more, but I think I've made my point.  I leave you with a cliched figure of speech in image form that should give you an idea of what this kind of writer's block feels like.

The "Who Cut the Cheese?" song

Good Figures of Speech

In my post on chiches, I mentioned my liking of the phrase "bed of roses" because it came from the work "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" by Christopher Marlowe.  Here are some other figures of speech that I like for various reasons.

"Cut the cheese"
Yes, it's juvenile and I'm willing to admit it.  The reasons I've grown to accept this one come from "The Invalid's Tale" by Mark Twain and from the episode of Two and a Half Men entitled "Putting Swim Fins on a Cat." The first tells a story about a man traveling on a train with a casket that he thought had a dead body in it (even though it didn't.  Spoiler.) because of a bag of foul-smelling cheese sitting on top of it, and the second, well, there was this song called "Who Cut the Cheese?"
(I will post the video on its own after I'm off my soapbox.  Speaking of which...)

Someone being "on their soapbox."
Reminiscent of the phrase before, I like this one for two reasons.  First of all, when I picture someone actually standing on a soapbox to talk about something, I think of a small child standing on top of a crate and screaming at her older siblings to bring her a cookie.  I have no idea why I do this, I just do.  Second, because the term "soap opera" originated from the afternoon radio melodramas that were always sponsored by different soap companies. Comparing what we know of soap operas to someone "being on their soapbox" acknowledges that people know they have a tendency to get preachy and dramatic when they are going on about something they care about, which I feel is a very important thing to be able to admit to oneself.

Some other idioms/figures of speech that I like:
-"pushing up daisies"
-"Don't have a cow"
-"snake in the grass"
-"call it a day"
-"flying by the seat of my pants"
And my personal favorite (even though I rarely have the chance to use it), "tripping the light fantastic."

Studio C - Captain Literally, part 1

Some Comedic Standpoints on the Word Literally

(http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally)










For more on that subject, search "Studio C Captain Literally" on YouTube.  It will literally be the best thing you'll see all day.
No it won't.
It's good, but I'm not going to pretend I know how your day has been and tell you that watching videos of this character will surpass any other good events.

Cliches that are Over the Hill

A list of clichés, hm? Well, I can tell you right off that the teachers in my writing-based classes (including history) have taught me properly to cringe at these phrases. Still, here are a few that persist.

• Spreading like the plague
• Someone being "over the hill" in age
• Something having been around since the parting of the Red Sea
• Being the best thing since sliced bread
• Blood is thicker than water 
• The Lord works in mysterious ways

*the second to last one is ironically a misinterpretation of a shortened phrase (blood is thicker than the water of the womb). While the first one is used to mean that family is the most important consideration, the real phrase means that true bonds (i.e friendship) can surpass familial ties that a person did not choose.

Even a few song references have become clichéd over the years.

• Only the good die young
• Give peace a chance
• Every rose has its thorn

A cliché I happen to like: "a bed of roses."

I like it because it came from Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," which is a beautiful work. Sometimes things can be liked better when you know its origins.

These are just a few. As a rule I try not to use them, so most of my database has been wiped. Anyway,  funny phrases to use once in a while, but not all the time. Please.

Some sentences that I like...

As someone with eclectic taste, not all of the things I like or say would be classified in all senses of  the term, "proper." For instance, this quote from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"--
"O single soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!"
I just like that sentence because of how ridiculous it is. On the other end of the spectrum, I like statements that are right to the point.
"Death to normalcy."--Misha Collins
And right in the middle, some flowery language that sounds nice in the ears, but is also quite understandable to the wider public.
"Whoso would be a man would be a nonconformist." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Here are some other quotes that I like for sentence quality as well as content.

"The most wasted day is one in which we have not laughed."--Sebastian Roche Chamfort

"Somewhere Martha Stewart cry."-- Larry the Crocodile from "Pearls Before Swine" (Stephen Pastis)

"I write for the same reason I breathe -- because if I didn't, I would die."--Isaac Asimov

Troublesome Things in the Grammar of Others

As a lover of language, I try to speak as well as I can in my native tongue.  While I acknowledge that I am not always perfect in my speech, there are aspects that I am careful not to mess up, while others seem to frequently bungle them.  For example:
1) Using the proper homonym in the proper situation.
Too many times have I received messages on my phone or in my inbox relaying messages such as: "Their on there way."  I have never understood why homonyms are such a problem for people (although, I did have a teacher once who thought homonyms and homophones were different things). These days though, I'd wager that part of the confusion comes from not being exposed as often to the correct usages, or being taught to recognize the distinctions when one IS exposed.
2) Using the CORRECT terms.
Here's a question: in the problem 1+1, what are you doing with the two ones?  If you said "plussing," you are wrong.  You are ADDING them, thus, 1+1 is an ADDITION problem.  The same goes for subtraction and multiplication problems.  We do not "minus" numbers, nor do we "times" them.  We SUBTRACT, and we MULTIPLY. The verbs are in the words, people.  Come on.
(I have a whole other rant on the use of slang to talk about body parts, but I'm not secure enough in my internet repudiation to post it for a grade.
3)Spotty punctuation.
I'll keep it simple.  If you're asking me a question, put a question mark at the end.  Otherwise you come off, depending on the question, as either snotty, demanding or just plain clueless.  I'm sorry, but I'm someone who was taught to read with feeling. That being said, in summary, punctuate to show the way it would sound if you said the words rather than wrote them.

That is all, unless someone in the near future comes up with a new way to drive me verbally over the edge which, given MY crazy friends, might not take as much as you'd think.

How I Learned

How did I learn grammar in school? The normal way, I suppose, but most of it I picked up by way of instinct. Because I was able to read as a five year-old entering kindergarten, I had been exposed to more speech and writing than my classmates, who had only been read to and not expected to read on their own. In grade school I learned the parts of speech with my peers, and supplemented those lessons at home with Grammar Rock, loaned to my mother by a neighbor with grandchildren. Since I was young, I loved words in any form--whether they were spoken aloud to me, pronounced within my head, or wrapped around melodies in my favorite songs. I listened to words spoken and written well, and I was able to pick up the proper way to speak and write for myself, at least for the most part. I, along with the rest of the regular people, am still learning.