A helpful tool

Ever wonder at the correct usage of punctuation or syntax and grammar is? A good guide to usage, although lengthy, is the Chicago Manual of Style. Not all disciplines use this style, but it does provide some useful information for those willing to go through it.

There is actually an online copy available where you can do a Quick Search or you can look through the Table of Contents/Index. If ever in doubt, check a style guide!

Here is the link: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

Update: Now that I've written about it, I seem to be encountering a few pages where you have to subscribe to see the info. But even if you can't see that rule, you know how to look it up on Google, so not all is lost!

Its and It's

I know that people sometimes get tripped up by its and it's since the possessive apostrophe gets in the way of knowing which is which.

A way to figure it out, at least in this example is that the contraction convention trumps the possessive rule.

It's is the contraction for "it is". The apostrophe represents the missing letter.

That leaves its to be possessive. This isn't the only possessive to not use an apostrophe. There is also his and hers that I can think of off the top of my head.


To recap: it's = it is, its = possessive.
The house, it's beautiful, sadly its lawn needs works.


Hope that clears things up.

Just a little pet peeve

A short post for now since it is about one of my little pet peeves. I won't keep you for long.

I see people writing "irregardless" on the internet. Why? The idea is already conveyed in the word regardless. Please stop writing irregardless as that is not even a word, and if it was, would probably be the opposite of what is trying to be said!

So again, it is regardless, not irregardless!

My profound thanks if this advice is heeded!

The bokeh: A cool trick in photography

There is this really cool effect in photography, a bokeh, which is really just a pretty blurring, but there can be some really awesome, beautiful, wistful photos because of it! You need an SLR camera for it to work though, I think.

Here is how to create your own bokeh, from DIY Photography.

And some examples:

 

from the DIY site.

both from here.

Pretty photos

I realized I hadn't posted in a while, so I did a little web search for pretty photos of ink. Here they are just to keep this space pretty and have ink involved!

This was found here.

And another photo of ink and water colliding.

Found here. There are a few more that are really neat. Slow motion photography and filming is just so cool to see/watch. Here is a website that has a collection of different types of slow mo videos. Enjoy!

Mondegreens and eggcorns

The English language is full of words that sound alike and are spelled the same, which can lead to confusion.

Homonym: [noun] each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins (e.g. beat (v.) and beat (n.))

Homophone: [noun] each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling (e.g. new and knew)

Homograph: [noun] each of two or more words spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and having different meanings and origins (e.g. does (v.) and does (pl. n.))

The definitions were taken directly from the Oxford English Dictionary Online (and, where possible, from the Canadian version).

So why did I bring up these definitions? Because they can lead to a few types of mistakes, two of them being mondegreens and eggcorns.

Ever listen to a song and hear the wrong lyrics? That is called a mondegreen. You can read about how the term was coined and a few other examples in the mondegreen wikipedia article. There are whole websites dedicated to these, and they're great to read through to see what you, and others, mishear.

Here is an example: Instead of hearing There's a bad moon on the rise from "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR, people think they hear There's a bathroom on the right. Check out here, here and here for more mondegreens.

These are also related to eggcorns, where the word you are writing is replaced by a word or words that sound alike. (The term eggcorn came about when someone tried to write acorn and it came out as egg corn. Read the stories of how it came about on Language Log, a linguistics blog with many contributors.) If you want to see more, visit the Eggcorn Database.

Have fun passing the time!

There, their and they're...

This should be a simple thing to remember and follow, but I see these used improperly all over the place...

There: [adv] basically indicating a location. There are a few other uses, please see the full listing here.

Their: [poss. adj/pron.] indicating a possession. Details here.

They're: [contr.] a contraction of they are





There, standing with their umbrellas, are four men wondering where they're going to eat lunch.

Not a great literary piece, but hey, it gets the point across.... I hope. Please keep them straight!