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Downtown Train
It’s been an interesting couple of months living downtown in the city. There are some truly great things like music festivals (two in August alone) and farmers’ markets (every Wednesday and Saturday, and sometimes on Thursday evenings) and outdoor movies and going to the pub for supper with friends and not having to worry about […]
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Mr. Grinch
There is an unwritten, often unmentioned social contract that takes place when you do what you think is something selfless. We like to think that we are altruistic. That is, unselfish; showing concern for others. And by and large, I think we are. We can always do more, of course. There are some things we […]
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To Be or Not To Be
What Shakespeare was talking about in the famous soliloquy from “Hamlet” was not all about whether it’s better to end your life or to continue to endure pain and heartbreak. It was not an extended existential whinge. It was, rather, a contemplation on whether or not to use the plural or the singular third person […]
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Full Stop
The Nipper is learning punctuation. They were studying periods, exclamation points, and question marks in class. He told us they have hand signals for each one (they clap for an exclamation point, raise their eyebrows and touch their chins for a question mark, and they hold their hands out in front of them, palms facing […]
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Part of the Precipitate
It’s not “a savings”. There’s no such thing as “a savings”. “Savings” means more than one. Know why? Because it’s fucking plural. Fucking plural means “more than one”. In fact, just regular plural means “more than one” whether or not there is intercourse involved. This is not a difficult concept. Grab yourself a handful of […]
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And in other news
Anybody want to come to a book launch in October?
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L’été
I was always fond of French nouns that began with a vowel, because then I didn’t have to remember the gender of the word. I suck at remembering the gender of words. I have a difficult enough time remembering the gender of some of the people I know, never mind nouns and articles. I think […]
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Lax Language, the Return of
A while back, I said something which I don’t entirely remember exactly what it was about not wanting to have the discussion about why writing the way people speak is not acceptable if the people doing the speaking are utter morons. Oh right. This is how I said it : save the ‘but that’s how […]
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Why you should never, ever use the word "Myself" the way you think it's okay to use it. Because it's not. Okay to use it that way. Trust me.
“Myself” is a bit like a dildo. WHOA, CENOBYTE!!! THAT’S TOTALLY TMI!!! No, seriously. Stay with me here. I’m’a get back to that. As I pointed out to Viper Pilot in one of the comments down there, formal English (Smarty Pants, we’ll save the ‘but that’s how people talk’ discussion for later, because you know […]
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Because TUO brought it up: Lay/Lie
Because TUO brought it up: Lay or Lie? Lay means “to place something down.” It is something you do to something else. It is a transitive verb. Incorrect: Lie the book on the table. Correct: Lay the book on the table. (It is being done to something else.) Lie means “to recline” or “be placed.” […]