Quick tip No. 13

Just avoid using the third person on your facebook status.

*disclaimer: this is going to be a long post about grammar
*nuther disclaimer: this only mildly irritates me enough to write a blog post about it. If you're guilty of changing voice in your status updates (and I may very well be as well), we can still be friends. This is just a quick tip. And I'm not your grammar police, even if I DID get a badge for it in 7th grade English.

The problem with changing voice in facebook statuses stems from the olden days of facebook, when your status automatically defaulted to "So-and-so is..." and you put your text after that, and the text appeared right after your name. Folks, the automatic and forced "is" is gone now. There's no reason to use the passive verb, and no reason to think you need to default to third person.

The biggest problem here is that people don't understand that they have started in a passive, third person voice, so as their sentence progresses, they switch to the more common and comfortable first person.

Here's an example. THIS IS WRONG:

Sally Schnawz
is really excited about my nose job surgery! I love it!

First, take a look at your facebook news feed and notice that facebook has now put the text under your name. That way, we all get that the next bit of text is from you, and Facebook is not forcing you to start a sentence with your name anymore! Secondly, when you update similarly to the example above, it sounds like you are saying that a third party person with your name (Sally) is excited for you, and you love that she is excited for you. What you really tried to say is that you, Sally, are excited about and love your nose job. So you should just say that. THIS IS RIGHT:

Sally Schnawz
I am really excited about my nose job surgery! I love it!

Don't get it yet? here are a couple actual examples from people with whom I am friends on facebook, complete with an explanation of what English tells us they said, my understanding of what they tried to say, an example of what they should have said had they really wanted to continue in the third person, and and example in first person. I make learning fun!

Helen Hungrypants
really wants Cafe Rio for lunch... wish it wasn't far away! I have a free meal!

• What it really means: Person A knows someone named Helen. Helen wants Cafe Rio. Person A wants to use his or her free meal card to satiate Helen's desires for a salad, loaded with more than the daily allotment of calories for the average person. And a soda. Because free meals come with a soda.
• What Helen tried to say: Helen, herself, is craving Cafe Rio and wants to use her free meal card to get something for lunch, but Cafe Rio is far away. Shucks.
• Third person example: Helen Hungrypants really wants Cafe Rio for lunch and wishes it wasn't far away! She has a free meal!
• First person example: I really want Cafe Rio for lunch. I wish it wasn't far away; I have a free meal!

Theresa Therapist

Thinks I am going to like this semester. Love my play therapy class & hope I can learn a lot in my marriage & family therapy class!

• What it really means: Person A knows someone named Theresa. Theresa thinks Person A is going to like school this semester. Person A loves Play Therapy and is looking forward to Marriage and Family Therapy. The rest of us aren't sure why Theresa has anything to say about Person A's class schedule.
• What Theresa tried to say: Theresa, herself, thinks she is going to like the semester and wants to give some key examples to demonstrate why.
• Third person example: Theresa Therapist thinks she is going to like this semester. She loves her play therapy class and hopes she can learn a lot in her marriage and family therapy class!
• First person example: I am going to like this semester. I love my Play Therapy class and I hope I can learn a lot in my Marriage and Family Therapy class! Also, I need to take a basic grammar class as soon as possible!

There are countless additional examples. As you can see from the given third person examples, third person doesn't quite flow because no one talks that way (except maybe The Jimmy). Just stick to talking in the first person, because you're naturally going to flow that way anyway. It'll save us all the trouble of struggling to figure out what you're really talking about.

We'll get 'em next year!

Remember when I said I would try to write a novel in a month? Remember how it didn't go so well? Well, the honest truth is I quit. It was hard! I couldn't figure out what to make my characters do before they got to the big stuff I had planned for them. I would get behind and then freak out at how many extra words I'd have to write the next day to catch up. Then, I decided to bag what I had started, and do something else entirely. That didn't pan out as well as I hoped would.

image from toothpastefordinner.com

On top of the book writing stress, there were a few other things requiring my attention and they were also stressing me out. When I decided I wasn't going to write my book anymore, It was a big relief. But I do want to write that book. So as part of my resolutions for the new year, I am going to attempt NaNoWriMo again in 2012.

So there. That's my update on the writing.

In unrelated news, I figured out that I'm still logged into Hayley's YouTube account on my phone, so I posted a BUNCH of videos of Mikey there. Click the button over there on the right to see 'em.

I think I'm doing it...

Writing that book, I mean...

My friend is also doing NaNoWriMo, and she did a post about how day one went. In order to get 50,000 words by the end of the month, you need to write 1,667 words per day. My end-of-day word count was 721. I need about a thousand more words, which means I need to make that up today. Considering everyone in my house had the stomach flu yesterday, I think I get a pass on that, but that doesn't mean I get to be the only one that writes 49,000 words in this little competition/activity. I'm having trouble getting through the first day and figuring out who these characters are and how they interact. Once I get that down, I think writing about them will be a little easier.

To tell you about my book, I don't think it's going to be a happy book. It might be a little depressing. And I'm not sure if I'm going to share it with anyone. I get very self-conscious about fiction writing. I am just fine showing what I've done for work or school, but anything I write for fun, I suddenly don't want you to not like it, because that will mean you don't like me.Or I'll take it personally, and it will create some wedge between us. Or you will like it, and will somehow know secrets about me I didn't intend to tell. But I think by the end of the month, I'll get over that. I'll let you know how things go, and if anyone really wants to read it, I'll let you. I think.

So my story. There are two main characters. Kathy and Jonathan/Jon. I keep wanting to change Jon's name, but because there has been so much advice to NOT edit and just write, he's going to be Jon at least through the end of November. So far, I have almost written John, Steve, Mark, and one other name that inspired this blog post, but now I can't remember it. They're a couple living together in Chicago who have been together for a while and it's comfortable. They might get married. But it's still a depressing story, trust me.

Is anyone else out there writing for NaNoWriMo, or doing any other writing at all? Care to share?

Grammar Nazi

Ok, there's a site called ParentsShouldntText.com that features the technological blunders some parents face when dealing with smart phones and stupid autocorrect. Some of them are silly. Some of them just highlight the typical attitudes of parents. This one showed up today, and I needed to share. I love it.

What does an English degree do for you anyway?

Hayley is reading a book called House Rules. It's a Jodi Picoult book about a kid with aspergers. She laughed at a couple paragraphs and read them to me, and I thought it was pretty spot on.

I graduated with honors from the University of Vermont with a degree in English. Here’s a little nugget of wisdom for you just in case you’re interested: you can’t practice English in the real world. What skills did I have, honestly? I could outread anyone in a quick draw? I could write a totally smoking analytical essay about the homoerotic overtones of Shakespeare’s sonnets?

Yeah, that and a dollar fifty will get you a cup of coffee.

Luckily, I added the "with emphasis in professional and technical writing" to my English degree. That has made quite a difference in my life. But don't get me started on how incompetent I think my professors were... that's a rant for a different day.

Have you read more than 6 of these books?

I totally stole this from someone on facbook. I don't know if the BBC actually put this list together, but I was very intrigued. I also know that many of my friends are book readers, so I wanted to know if my theory that most of you have read more than 6 of these books is true. So please do this yourself, because I mostly posted it because I'm curious about you, dear reader. Let's call it a competition. Whoever has the most books read gets a prize! Maybe this is my first prize give-away... hmmm...

Anyway, if you do repost on a blog or facebook or something, leave a comment and let me know. If you don't, just take count of how many books you've read and leave a comment. Seriously. I'm interested.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this list. Bold those books you've read in their entirety; italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or just read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 The Divine Comedy
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Posession -- AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

My final count: 22 read, 9 started but not finished. How did you do?

Whachawdano

This is pretty great.



Apparently there are more videos from these guys. Some about texting and driving, free WiFi spots, and even Linux. But go check those yourself. I only have so many labels for my posts.

You know you're an English major when...

This web commic cracks you up:

I guess it also helps that I really liked crashing cars in Grand Theft Auto 3 in college. My roommate had an Xbox.
(poll for comment posters: should I add a new "you know you're an English major when..." category to my blog? Sorta like I've got my quick tips? These would be much less frequent than the quick tips, but could be fun. I'll leave it up to you, my reader-folk, to decide.)

It's the happiest day of the year!!!

Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but it's still exciting! For me, at least... it's National Punctuation Day. Who knew there was such a day, right? My mom actually sent the link, and it's pretty cool. If only I had known earlier! I might have been able to participate in the First National Punctuation Day Baking Contest! (Seriously. It's a real thing.) Now, if there was a National Punctuation Day Painting Contest, I think Hayley and I would have totally won... except that our painting had absolutely nothing to do with punctuation... but we used correct grammar while painting, with complete sentences like, "I freakin' love this color!" (While it is slang, the proper punctuation when ending an -ING word with the letter N is to replace the G with an apostrophe. Don't believe me? Check this out.)

If you'd like to learn more about my favorite punctuation mark, click here. You can also visit the home page and learn all about ellipses (not an instance when the moon moves in front of the sun, by the way), commas, brackets, question marks, semicolons, and more!

Ok, I'm a big dork. But I think it's pretty awesome there's a national day for punctuation.

Want more proof that I'm a dork?

Well, here it is.

You may have noticed on my sidebar over there that I've recently been posting books I've been reading lately. A feat re-undertaken because of Hayley's good influence on me, and I'm very grateful. I like to read. A lot. I even tried to start a book club once, and when that one died, I joined another. From then, I decided I really don't love book clubs, but still like to read. I'm getting to why I'm a dork...

So I've read a lot lately, and I'm in the middle of a really good book. We just picked up a book Hayley and I have both been anticipating, and I'm excited to read it, too! But before that happens, I'm trying to figure out which of the two books below I want read first:
















I know, I'm a dork. I want to brush up on my English skills. Part of it is because I like English. Part of it is because I want to make sure I'm still an alert writer and editor for work. but either way, I'm excited to read my grammar/English book next.

Are you on goodreads?

If you're not, you should be.

I just added a couple widgets from goodreads to my bloggy blog. Now you can see a montage of books I've read and books I want to read. I will probably still keep the list of books I've read this year, though. That'll be separate from the good reads stuff.

But back to goodreads. It's a website where you can rank the books you've read and list the books you want to read. You can compare books with friends and keep adding books to your virtual book shelves. It's pretty awesome if you like to read. You can also write your own reviews, see profiles of authors and other stuff.

Just thought I'd share. Mostly I just wanted to show off the new widgets. My blog is lookin' awesome these days.

Converting to Alchemy?

So I just finished reading The Alchemist again. Maybe not "just finished," but it was within the last couple weeks. This book may be my favorite book. (It's hard for me to pick a favorite of most things, but especially music, movies, and books...)

I like the idea he presents that everything in the world is connected, and the world will help you along the path to your personal legend--but you have to keep on that path, or the signs and omens that lead you along the way will become quieter until you can't hear them. I like the allusion to all kinds of religions. I like the references to the bible. I think Mr. Coelho has a great head on his shoulders. I especially like his reference to how important love is in each person's life journey. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much a year or so ago, but I certainly do now. (Jared, if this next part is too much for you, feel free to stop reading.)

I want to share a couple paragraphs from the book that illustrate this idea. This is the moment when the main character of the book meets the girl he loves.

At that moment, it seemed to him that time stood still and the Soul of the World surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke--the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen--the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.

It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. but maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

Maktub, thought the boy.

Maktub, according to the book, is an Arabic word that means "it is writen." A kind of word to mean something is fated or destined.

It's really a good book. If you haven't, you should read it. Really, it's only about 170 pages, so it shouldn't take longer than a week to get through. If you do read it, let me know what you think!

Yeah, yea, ya...

I'm not judging or telling anyone what to do, just explaining what works for me and how I do it.

There seems to be a whole slew of different ways people use yeah, yea, ya, and yay. I use them all consistently so there's no confusion. You can do whatever you want, but here's what I do, so you don't wonder if I'm excited, agreeing, addressing you personally, or quoting scripture.

First, "yeah." "Yeah" is basically agreeing for me. Here's an example.
Friend 1: "Do you want to go see that movie?"
Friend 2: "Yeah, sure."

Second, "ya." This is a more casual form of "you." As in, "Hey, how are ya?"

Third, "yay." This is used as an exclamation. "I'm going to Disney Land!!! Yay!!!"

Forth, "yea." This is used in scripture. "Yea, verily, I say unto you..." and so forth.

Again, you can do what you want, but this is the way that all those words make the most sense to me, and then I don't have to guess which one to use. And yes, I feel very nerdy having typed it all out, but at the same time I feel good that it's all out in the open. Did I miss any?

Grammarian or linguist: my internal struggle

Now, right off the bat I know will probably make some people mad, and some of you will even try to find spelling errors and grammar mistakes in this and previous posts; but I'm going to do this anyway. Here is my obligatory post about the improper use of the English language, seeing as I am an English major/degree holder.

First, let me talk about pronunciation and correct word usage. There are some things that really drive me crazy when they are pronounced incorrectly. a few key examples include the following:ex-pecially, Feb-you-ary, ec cetera, supos-eb-ly, and many more. (The correct pronunciation, by the way, is es-pecially, Feb-ru-ary, et cetera, and supos-ed-ly.) I don't usually say anything, but I do cringe a little inside when I hear those words pronounced so heinously. But then, as you may well know, I am imperfect and flawed... I'll get to that a little later...

Next is the improper use of words, or making words up for your own use when you can't think of the right word. Some of these I will point out to people when they say them; others aren't worth the fight. First, irregardless is NOT a word. This one, I'm willing to fight. Sure, your spell check may be ok with it, and it can be found in dictionaries these days, but it is NOT a word. Most of the time, you just mean regardless. If you actually know how to use the prefix "ir", then you probably mean irrespective. That's right. Moving on.

Next, lets talk about "random." Those of you that knew me at Utah State will know about this one, and I'm sorry you have to hear about it again. Random does not mean what people who use it more than twice a day think it means. My favorite example (that actually happened) was spoken by a woman on her wedding day. She said to my roommate, "Isn't it so random that I got married today?!!?" (And yes, she said it with a question mark, two exclamation points, and another question mark.) Nothing could be LESS random. She was asked by her boyfriend for her hand in marriage, they talked about it, planned the whole day, and when it came, they got married on that exact day. Things you plan 4 months in advance that happen exactly as scheduled are NOT random. Example two: "It's so random that I saw you today!" No, it isn't. It may be unexpected, but you traveling to your destination, and me traveling to mine, and then our paths happen to cross. This is not a random event. Example three: "I say random stuff all the time!" No, you don't. You say stupid stuff all the time and in the wrong context, but it isn't random. You've thought about it before you say it (or at least your brain has had the necessary chemical reactions to select words from your lexicon, blending them into dialog, and forcing your mouth, tongue, vocal chords, etc. to produce speech), and the words have come out. You may think it's random, but it's actually pretty calculated.

There are a few instances that may seem like "random" works just fine, but it usually doesn't. My good friend Haley came up with the cure to these situations: seemingly random. Take this example: "This random guy just walked into the room, took a book, then left." He really isn't some random guy. The book probably belongs to him and he came back to the room for it when he realized he left it there. But he is unknown to you and you are not familiar with him. He wasn't selected from the sum total of all males by a process which gives him an equal probability of showing up in the room as any other male, but it seems that way to you. His arrival is, therefore, seemingly random. And there you have it. The cure to the misuse of "random" by most of the general public. Bless you, Haley. In spite of how much I have to say about the misuse of the word, I'm usually pretty willing to just let it go. As you can see, it takes a while to explain it's proper use...

I think I've made my general point, but I'd like to point out a few other misuses of the English language. I have a friend (sorry Katey, I have to do it... but I didn't want to use your name, so I've kept it in parentheses so you can keep some degree of anonymity) who says, "It's so nervousing when that happens!" I have another friend who uses "and such" constantly and incorrectly. I ask, "How are you?" He responds, "I'm good and such." He says it just to sound cool intelligent. Can you say, "backfire"?

But I cannot be the judge and jury, or even the grammar police. There are words I say incorrectly and some of them by choice! I will say buh-tato instead of potato, or sa-winch, instead of sand-wich. I'm sure I have others. There are even words I try not to pronounce incorrectly, but often do anyway. Like mou-en instead of mountain. But I do my best to say mountain. And I'm notorious for excessive use of ellipses (the three dots after a sentence... like that). Additionally, I often end phrases with a dangling participle. For shame!

And here is my inner conflict: linguistics says this is all ok. Language evolves like any species, and the strongest (or most used) survive. Even incorrect pronunciations and invented words are ok. According to the linguist, if I say that squidlefin means a goldfish with one black spot on his pectoral fin, and someone else understands me when I say that, it is now a word. Only two people need to understand a word for it to enter the lexicon. It may leave the lexicon in a day or two, but such is the evolution of language.

If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking it out... So which is right? Are there rules we should follow, or does language get to do what it wants, willy nilly? Do you have any pet peeves as far as words, pronunciation, or grammar go? And if you see me in real life, ask me if I got that squiddlfin for a pet, and I'll give you five bucks for reading to the end this excessively long post about words.