Throughout our writing educations and careers we’ve been told that clichés are to be avoided. We’ve been given many reasons, but most reduce to: They dilute your message. Ok, fine, but how exactly? A hacker’s explanation What follows is a computer-centered explanation that I think will resonate with many: Good stories evidently activate the listener’s brain so that…
Most People Don’t Know What Irony Is
“A couple weeks ago he posted this thing saying he really loved the Dexter series finale, but it was weird—he kept calling the episode ‘great’ while detailing all of its flaws,” said reader Ryan Zalch, explaining his initial puzzlement with Edo’s sarcasm. “Then suddenly it hit me: This guy didn’t actually like the show at all. Somehow, he…
Misuse of the Word ‘Irony’
Irony is one word that has been getting massacred more and more lately–mostly because it’s become in-fashion to use it to appear intelligent. The way most people are using it now is to reference any sort of coincidence with negative outcomes or potential: First Person: “I was running late for work today when I had a really important…
A List of Different Case Types
Capitalization Writing the first letter of a word in uppercase, and the rest of the letters in lowercase. Title Case All words are capitalized, except non-initial articles like “a, the, and”, etc. Used for…um, titles. lowercase All letters in all words are lowercase. Sentence case Capitalization just like a standard English sentence, e.g. “The damn has broken.” Many…
Wikipedia Has Entries for Individual Letters
The letter “D”. And each letter has [ The Letter “D” | wikipedia.org ]
Facism: “I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means.”
Many, especially in the blogsphere, are fond of saying, “This country is becoming fascist.” Or, “We’re on a path to fascism.” That sounds cool, and it certainly will get some attention, but I wonder if most using the word “fascism” actually know what it means. A Little About Facism First a test. What’s the difference between Facism and…
Grammar Rage
If you don’t know how and when to use an apostrophe – or the difference between their, there, and they’re – don’t talk to me. Ever — Chris Pirillo I understand his frustration (he was being flip, by the way, not totally serious); this has always bothered me greatly as well. But I wouldn’t go quite that far.…
Am I a Prescriptivist?
And if I am, should I be? A prescriptivist is essentially someone who adheres to and attempts to enforce language rules as they are today. This is in contrast to a descriptivist, who evidently cares more about how language is used rather than how it should be used. Those are very course definitions, but I think it captures…
Succinct Success
I used to pronounce succinct as suh-sinked, i.e. without the hard first c. My friend Jason corrected me, saying it’s suck-sinked (seems vulgar, but it’s not). This makes sense. If you’re ever in any doubt, try pronouncing success as suh-sess. Yeah, not so much.:
What Does OS X Say When You Ask it to Pronounce Itself?
In the tech world it’s easy to find debates about how to pronounce things. One of those things is OS X. Most people either say “Oh Es Ex” or “Oh Es Ten“. So which is it? As it turns out, it’s not a matter of preference like most claim — that is unless you simply prefer to pronounce…