help me out here, folks
Jan. 9th, 2010 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skoosiepantsLet's make a list for the new year!
1. technically, it's 'another think'
2. passed/past are not interchangeable
3. 'no one' is two words - I blame E.E. Cummings for this, noone looks weird, so people were all, 'let's put a hyphen in!;' no, no, this is wrong.
4. the timeless classic: there/their/they're; know them, love them.
5. says/said are the best choices! I think it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chopchica who opened my eyes to this wonder - they disappear! You can use them all you want, and they never trip anyone up. Use them, and you shall understand.
6. actual names are awesome. There is no such thing as using a name too much. (I mean, unless you go crazy, there's some sort of line there.)
7. leave your crazy formatting at home, I want to read capital letters - it's not clever to use 'i' instead of 'I' or 'lorenzo' instead of 'Lorenzo.'
um, more?
In other breaking news: it is freezing outside.
Also, great things are happening over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sodamnskippy.
1. technically, it's 'another think'
2. passed/past are not interchangeable
3. 'no one' is two words - I blame E.E. Cummings for this, noone looks weird, so people were all, 'let's put a hyphen in!;' no, no, this is wrong.
4. the timeless classic: there/their/they're; know them, love them.
5. says/said are the best choices! I think it was
chopchica who opened my eyes to this wonder - they disappear! You can use them all you want, and they never trip anyone up. Use them, and you shall understand.6. actual names are awesome. There is no such thing as using a name too much. (I mean, unless you go crazy, there's some sort of line there.)
7. leave your crazy formatting at home, I want to read capital letters - it's not clever to use 'i' instead of 'I' or 'lorenzo' instead of 'Lorenzo.'
um, more?
In other breaking news: it is freezing outside.
Also, great things are happening over at
sodamnskippy.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:03 pm (UTC)Everyone/someone/no one is singular. Please use singular pronouns to match: Everyone took her coat off the rack, NOT Everyone took their coat off the rack.
STOP USING APOSTROPHES TO MAKE THINGS PLURAL. NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (that I know of, so probably it has...sigh) HAS AN APOSTROPHE EVER EFFECTIVELY MADE SOMETHING PLURAL. I reeeeeeeeaaaaallly hate apostrophe abuse, and yes, I know and appreciate that blog.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:16 pm (UTC)I have to say that I deeply appreciate fandom for not doing one thing that appears to be popular in pretentious literary circles: leaving out quotation marks around dialogue. Apparently Cormac McCarthy did this and now everyone who wants to be a literary author thinks it's okay. (I am bitter about a first chapter from my writing group that was great right up until the dialogue when I stopped paying attention to the story and was just frothingly angry about the lack of quotation marks.)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:21 pm (UTC)Also gray writing on black background. I'm glad your fic is very dark but if I can't read it I'm never going to know how dark it is because it's, well, too dark.
And I want to agree on says/said. Like names, those two words can NEVER be used enough. Or almost never, at least.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:22 pm (UTC)Also, there's a difference between 'til and till. Till is a noun. And a verb. A till is where money is kept. To till is to prepare soil for sowing. (It's also a geological term involving glaciers, but not many people use that in fics.)
Until is a preposition. And a conjunction.
Until is up to a specific time or up to the time of something.
And then first person... Mostly, my beef is with people using “myself” or “I” instead of the proper “me.” They're not interchangeable.
“I” is a subject pronoun. “Me” is an object pronoun. “Myself” is a reflexive pronoun.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:23 pm (UTC)Everytime I see "drug" used in place of "dragged" I cry a little.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 03:52 pm (UTC)lay vs lie: A chicken lays an egg. People lie down on beds. Unless we are speaking in past tense, because then lie DOES become lay.
Proper grammar is not for the weak of heart.
Sadly Bob Dylan was wrong when he asked that lady to lay across his big brass bed. ARGH
towards/toward - If you use the word towards you are wrong on the internet, as well as anywhere else you are sharing something written in the American version of English. It should always be toward.
I'm sure I'll think of more once I hit post...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:25 pm (UTC)Or It's/Its! It's: it is; its: possessive.
It's easy: your, their, its - possessive all, and not one apostrophe.
My little grammarian heart is jumping for joy at this post!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 04:34 pm (UTC)xoxo
Maggie Massacre ™
PS - When aren't great things happening at
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:42 pm (UTC)I'm excited for v-day at sodamnskippy, too, starflowers and I have magic up our sleeves!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:35 pm (UTC)I'll be reading the comments to see which ones I've been violating!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 05:56 pm (UTC)Break /brake please only use brake when you are talking about a car.
Also I know it is usually just a typo but spellcheck will not catch it when you spell soldier wrong, solider is a real word.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 06:20 pm (UTC)Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling) is also awesome
(and
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 06:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:16 pm (UTC)Also, which very few people seem to know (and is, admittedly, not relevant all that often) people are hanged, things are hung. People are not hung except in slang, in which case it means something entirely different. The death penalty (in some places, at least) involved being hanged by the neck until dead, not hung.
Sarcasm and irony are different things, although I can tolerate their misuse.
And finally (for now, since I'm painfully obsessive about grammar) things are 'similar to' or 'different from' each other, not 'different to' or 'different than'.
Will stop whining now ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:20 pm (UTC)to/too- it just bothers me to no end.
And when people put Ross's
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 10:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 09:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-09 11:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 04:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 01:15 am (UTC)Etc. is the abbreviation of "Et cetera." You can tell it's ETC because those are the first three letters of the phrase!
If you axe someone a question, I'm calling the cops, and when they ask why, I'll tell them it's because you're murdering the English language.
If you use the phrase "his turgid member" you'd better be writing for Harlequin.
If someone does something discretely, I want to see another character attempt to sew them back together.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 01:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 03:13 am (UTC)Waist is that thing on your middle, above your hips and below your ribs. Waste is something you do with time or food.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 04:42 am (UTC)