Word Nerd ~ proofreading

I don't text, except when replying to someone else's text to me, but I do proofread everything.  I may miss a typo on Facebook or here on my blog, but scanning what I've read is automatic.  I wish a few more people would do that, especially on Facebook.  One friend has so many typos that I sometimes have no idea what she's talking about, and her job is one I'd call a "word job," where words matter.  Having been her Facebook friend for years, I would worry about the end results if I ever had need of her services.

Sunday Salon ~ palindromes

You do know what palindromes are, don't you?  It's when something reads the same forward and backward.  My previous telephone number had 313 after the area code and ended with another palindrome:  8998.  I could have had 8987, but I wanted the two-palindrome combination.  (If that's the latest phone number you have, email me for my newest number.)  Two famous examples of palindromes:

Madam, I'm Adam.
Never odd or even.

But setting my alarm clock?  Nah, I'm not that compulsive.  But I do play with words and and notice palindromic words and numbers.

READING

Just finished

The Last Runaway ~ by Tracy Chevalier, 2013, fiction (Ohio), 10/10

Now reading

The Ten-Year Nap ~ by Meg Wolitzer, 2008, fiction (New York)

Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back ~ by Brooks Palmer, 2009

Next up

Welcome to Your Brain : Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life ~ by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, 2008

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Sunday Salon ~ mindfulness, writing, and birds ~ oh, my!

Baby house sparrow photo by tina777 found on Flickr

A few days ago, I noticed two sparrows side by side on my bird feeder.  That had never happened before, since they usually run each other off, so I looked more closely.  The smaller one waited while the slightly larger one stuck her head in the hole and got a seed.  The baby then opened its mouth and the mother bird fed it a seed.  Little bird could fly, but mama bird was apparently teaching it how to find food.  I watched for several minutes as she continued to feed her baby.  When the little one went to another opening and stuck its head inside, mama bird flew away.  Baby looked around with — I swear — a look on its face that clearly said, "Hey, Mom, where ya going?"  With a flip of its wings, the small bird went racing after its mother, leaving me with a beautiful memory.  See a set of photos of a baby sparrow being fed, here.

WRITING

“Clutter is the disease of American writing," says William Zinsser.  "We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.”

On Writing Well ~ by William Zinsser, 1976

This book has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and the warmth of its style.  It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of email and the Internet.  Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts, or yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, it offers you fundamental priciples and the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher.  With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

I highly recommend this book.  Zinsser is now blind, but still at work.  Read what the NYT wrote about Zinsser and writing well.  I like that his former blog "won a National Magazine Award for digital commentary."  Yeah!  I'm a writer of digital commentary.

MINDFULNESS

I've started something new, something I'm calling Monday Mindfulness.  So far I've posted exactly one of 'em, but I plan to come up with something every week.  I don't have a fancy-smancy logo for my meme, but you are welcome to join me in posting something about awareness.  If you do, tell us about it in the comments so we can visit your blog.

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Monday Mindfulness ~ positive thinking

At lunch today, I advised my best friend that I would try — from now on — to be positive and never negative.  My mother's oft-repeated adage was "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."  So how best to tell you that my apartment complex sent out a notice about a Community Yard Sale?

"Sign up for your very own table to sale all your goodies at!!"  (sell)

My inner word nerd will no longer weep in despair, but assume people can learn.  So here's a link to Common Errors in English Usage.  Now ... do I send them the link?  Or not?  (Yes, I noticed the "at" at the end of their sentence, but I'd better not comment.)

Sunday Salon ~ the Bard's day

[cartoon by John Taylor, borrowed from OxfordDictionaries.com]

BIBLE or BARD?

Simon @ Stuck in a Book has put together a quiz called Bible or Bard?  Here's what Simon says:

"23 April, as every schoolchild knows, is probably the birthday, and definitely the deathday, of England’s most famous writer:  William Shakespeare, often known simply as the Bard.  (We don’t know his exact birth date, but he was baptized on 26 April, and it lends his life an appropriately poetic balance to assume he was born and died on the same day.)"

You did, of course, know that Shakespeare is known as the Bard of Avon, right?  Anyway, take the quiz and let me know how well you did in choosing whether the words were from William Shakespeare or the King James Bible.

THE LAST WORD

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place ~ by E. L. Konigsburg, 2004, YA fiction, 8/10

Instead of book beginnings, that I often do on Fridays, this is the ending of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place.  The final words of the book, copied from page 296.

So the history of the towers has not come to an end.
But the telling of it must.
Here.
Now.

Oooh, this resonates with me, and I really really must use it myself.  Now.  Because E. L. Konigsburg has died, here's how I read those lines.

So the telling of stories has not come to an end.
But stories from E. L. Konigsburg have.
Here.
Now.

And the world is poorer for it.  May she rest in peace, even as the stories she published live on.

READATHON

Yesterday, I took part in the 24-Hour Readathon.  It had already started when I caved in and signed up.  It's going still, for eight more hours after I have this scheduled to post automatically.  Here's what I've been reading (I may add to this list before it's over):

Bookends ~ by Liz Curtis Higgs, 2000, fiction

Krik? Krak! ~ by Edwidge Danticat, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995, short stories

WORD NERD

1.  "War is a raquet!"
(racket)
2.  "It was my soul income."
(sole)
3.  "He road the horse."
(rode)
4.  "That rode is full of potholes."
(road)
5.  "My rent is do today."
(due)
6.  "I need a chain length fence."
(chain link fence)
7.  "Does anyone have a wheelbarrel they want to sell?"
(wheelbarrow)

My inner word-nerd weeps in despair.  Yet maybe it isn't as bad as it seems.  Maybe we can blame technology for some (most?) of these word mistakes, based on comments like this one on Facebook, which was followed by its own correction:

8.  "I would have missed the hole thing!"  (whole)

The next sentence said it all:  "Whole ... iPad touch screen and I are on the verge of a breakup!"  I find my touch screen annoying, too.  Others may have a problem with auto-correct.  I wouldn't want a machine to automatically change what I type.

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Sunday Salon ~ a book headboard

DIY Book Headboard was an serendipitous online discovery, and I know I'll never do anything like it (for one thing, it takes up a lot of wall space).  But what a fun and creative idea!  Since I like pictures, as you can tell by looking at my blog, I'd have at least some illustrated pages showing in any headboard I tried to create.  Maybe I'd use a row of art books.  This bland whiteness would weary me — give me some color somewhere, please!  One of the comments following the article was along that same line:

"A kid's headboard perhaps with children’s illustrated books."

So do you think this whimsical headboard is a path to sweet dreams?

JUST PUBLISHED

Mary Wrightly, So Politely~ by Shirin Yim Bridges, 2013, children's, 8/10

Mary Wrightly is the best-behaved little girl around.  She always politely says please and thank you and even “I’m sorry” when something isn’t her fault.  But when a shopper comes between Mary and the blue elephant toy she wants to buy for her beloved baby brother, will Mary just let the woman walk away with it?  Speak up, Mary!  The charming illustrations capture the spirit of this gentle look at how asserting oneself is not rude — and is even occasionally out-and-out necessary.

Published April 16th, this book looks at the question of whether it's possible to be too good.  In the 1980s, I did assertiveness training at Chattanooga State and DeKalb Community College in Atlanta.  This book catches girls even earlier and and shows them it's okay to stand up for yourself.  It was hard for my college students to understand the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness.  This book makes it clear, I think, that Mary and other girls are not being aggressive when they make their needs and wishes known.  In our culture, it's a compliment to say a boy (or man) is aggressive, but not so for girls and women.  Our little girls need books like this so they don't get lost in the shuffle, and boys need it to see a girl speaking up for herself.  I rate this very good book an 8 of 10.

NERD QUIRK

And you thought that was simply obsessive!  It's true, though, that I want my papers perfectly aligned before stapling them — or before using my hole punch.  It's so much easier to turn the pages in a notebook if they are lined up.  Is there another nerd among those of you who read my blog?

For nerds who like games, tell me, "What's wrong with this picture?"

SAD BOOK NOTE

E. L. Konigsburg died yesterday, Saturday, April 20.  Have you read any of her books?  My favorites by her are The View from Saturday (1996) and  From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967).  I met Konigsburg when she was in Chattanooga.  It's sad to realize she won't be writing any more books.

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Sunday Salon ~ nerds, words, and books

Am I the only one who know what an Oxford comma is?  If you know, please tell me in the comments.  Here's where I found Nerd Quirks.

WORDS

Calvin and Hobbes are among my favorite philosophers, along with Linus and his blanket.  It makes perfectly good sense that we toast with toast.  (Click the cartoon to enlarge it, if it's too small to read.)  Do you remember any words from your childhood that you didn't quite understand?

BOOKS

Mom and Me and Mom ~ by Maya Angelou, 2013, memoir

The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies.  But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life:  her relationship with her mother.  For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence — a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life.  When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.  The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told.   In this memoir, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.  Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, this book explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights.

This is my most recent library request.  I read and loved some of Maya Angelou’s books, so I'm really looking forward to this newest one.  Here are some of my favorites:

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ~ by Maya Angelou, 1969
• The Heart of a Woman ~ by Maya Angelou, 1981
• All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes ~ by Maya Angelou, 1986
• Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now ~ by Maya Angelou, 1993

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