[identity profile] merentha13.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] ci5_boxoftricks
I hope it's ok to post these here?

Roaming around the internet, I found some tips that might be helpful to my fellow writers (*g*):

*Remember Commas kill:
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.

*I before E…
Except when eight feisty neighbors seize a surfeit of weighty heifers…


*Every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

And these are two of my favorite pieces on writing - from our own [livejournal.com profile] hagsrus! (I know I've linked them before - but we do have some new writers this time around who may not have read them) Enjoy!

Link: Punctuated Professionals

Link: It’s All Lays

Date: 2013-07-21 09:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] squeeful.livejournal.com
"I" before "E" except after "C" or sounding as "ay" like "neighbor" or "weigh", unless of course it's weird or has to do with science.

Both 'seize' and 'heifer' were previously pronounced with an 'ay' sound. Best advice I ever got for pronouncing Middle English was to pretend I was drunk.

Date: 2013-07-22 07:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anna060957.livejournal.com
The correct mnemonic is: i before e, except after c, when the sound you want is e.
That works most of the time.

Date: 2013-07-21 09:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] moonlightmead.livejournal.com
I shall explain the context to this in an actual journal entry soon, but this weekend I was involved in a conversation that went (roughly):

mead: chunter chunter chunter
friend: chunter chunter chunter
mead and friend: [pause for thought]
second friend talking to other people next to us: ... [something we both misheard. General gawps.]
friend: Er, sorry. Big arse-fucking bag?
second friend: what?
friend: big. arse-fucking. What is this conversation? It sounds great.
second friend: ohhh! no no no.
mead and friend: [unenlightened]
friend: not 'big. arse-fucking'. No no. 'this huge, big-arse, fucking bag. Like, you know, big-arse. Talking about the fucking bag. The hyphen's between big and arse. Not arse and fucking.
[general disappointment]
third friend: ...and that, guys, is why grammar is important.

I love my friends, I really do.

Date: 2013-07-22 12:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] golden-bastet.livejournal.com
Apparently the places I've gone for bags had even less selection than I thought. LOL!

Date: 2013-07-21 11:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] golden-bastet.livejournal.com
*Remember Commas kill:
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.

Mmmmmmm, Grandma...

Date: 2013-07-21 11:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sc-fossil.livejournal.com
This was useful (and entertaining) information.

Grandma was delicious.

Date: 2013-07-22 09:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] moth2fic.livejournal.com
I loved the pieces by [livejournal.com profile] hagsrus! I've had this icon ages - feel free to take!

English spelling is notorious - and makes me feel despair every time my attention is drawn to the strict phonics system being rammed down my grandson's throat in school.

The lie/lay thing drives me insane and there is frequent confusion in published works where editors should have known better, as well as in fanfic where writers can be forgiven for not being sure of the rules. I've found I can accept the wrong usage in dialogue - because a lot of people ignore rules in speech - but not in narrative.

I'm alright Jack!

Date: 2013-07-22 05:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anna060957.livejournal.com
Which is a British saying, the background to which I'm not sure and have no time to search. However, I'm OK with all this ... being English and going to a Grammar School, I was brought up with it!

... nevertheless, the links are excellent!

Date: 2013-07-22 08:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lillianorchid.livejournal.com
*I before E…
Except when eight feisty neighbors seize a surfeit of weighty heifers…


Lol That reminds me of that QI episode where Stephen Fry was trying to explain how that rule doesn't really work. :D

I bet Grandma tastes wonderful. :D

Date: 2013-07-25 07:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lillianorchid.livejournal.com
Worked well with the Grandma comment didn't it? XD lol

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