tingilinde

when grammatical rules don't apply

All of those rules you learned in school ...   it turns out many of them are folklore and don't really apply.  (viat the Smithsonian Magazine)

snip

...

You’ve probably heard the old story about the pedant who dared to tinker with Winston Churchill’s writing because the great man had ended a sentence with a preposition. Churchill’s scribbled response: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

It’s a great story, but it’s a myth. And so is that so-called grammar rule about ending sentences with prepositions. If that previous sentence bugs you, by the way, you’ve bought into another myth. No, there’s nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction, either. But perhaps the biggest grammar myth of all is the infamous taboo against splitting an infinitive, as in “to boldly go.” The truth is that you can’t split an infinitive: Since “to” isn’t part of the infinitive, there’s nothing to split. Great writers—including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne and Wordsworth—have been inserting adverbs between “to” and infinitives since the 1200s.

Where did these phony rules originate, and why do they persist?

For some of them, we can blame misguided Latinists who tried to impose the rules of their favorite language on English. Anglican bishop Robert Lowth popularized the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition in his 1762 book, A Short Introduction to English Grammar; while Henry Alford, a dean of Canterbury Cathedral, was principally responsible for the infinitive taboo, with his publication of A Plea for the Queen’s English in 1864.

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(hat tip to Sukie)

 

micropublishing as a hobby

Bringing old books back without worrying about failure (via the NY Times)

 

useful and fun

An online ethmology dctionary

(hat tip to Amy)

 

isaiah sheffer

sigh - and only 76

Selected Shorts is one of my favorite podcasts - just wonderful if you like the art of the short story.

 

sigh...

 

 

red tape holds up bridge repairs

I came across this recently and remembered what they are called - crash blossoms - a danger with titles and doubly so with twitter and its 140 character limit.

A piece on them in the NY Times from a few years back...

a few will get this one:-)

hat tip to Bjarne!

free scifi classics on the web

In various formats including readings.

(thanks for the link Sara)

neal stephenson's hieroglyph project

Sukie pointed out a piece in Smithsonian Magazine about Neal Stephenson's call for a more inspirational science fiction

He published a manifesto of sorts here...

I agree that scifi can paint a scenario planning of sorts to allow people to imagine and flesh out potential futures - perhaps making some more likely.  This sort of writing is more difficult than the "magic" variety which is much more common.  Both can be a lot of fun though...  It will be interesting to see if he can inspire some progress.

a riff on the christmas carol

Sometimes it is fun to spend an hour or so in the imagination away from reality.  Places with gods, ghosts and other figments of the imagination of man.  I sometimes listen to PodCastle (also EscapePod) for some good story telling when I'm exercising and this week's show was delightful

The Ghost of Christmas Possible by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw as read by Ian Stuart

Wait for a quiet time, grab some eggnog and let there be storytime

english around the world

Hear what a children's story sounds like in English as it is read around the world - and add your own version.  

A neat project by the British Library.