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POPSHow to Use First Names In the world of influence, names are money. Schoolteachers know it. Bartenders know it. Salesmen know it. Very polite children know it. These people have figured it out. A name well used makes any person feel seen. When someone uses my name, I know that he has at least considered me in some fashion, that my presence has registered. It conveys a substratum of intimacy, a level of connection, a sense that life does not have to be lived in a torpid fog of anonymous comings and goings.
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POPSThe Sarcasm Mark Mulleflupp's Punctuation clip] This is an interesting idea, and this new punctuation mark could definitely have some usefulness, but the great fun of written sarcasm, for me, is in the detection. The element of uncertainty stimulates the brain, and a fine-tuning of one's perception.
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POPSIs Phaistos Disc a forgery? If Dr. Jerome Eisenberg's claims are true, then it means the Phaistos Disc discovery of 1908 deserves to be recorded as "the biggest archaeological hoax of the century". Could it be possible? Could all the archaeologists and experts of the past 100 years who curiously examined the disc, fail to spot a professionally done forgery? I doubt it but we'll learn the truth soon.
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POPSCopy Editing America I applaud this man. I think he hits the nail on the head when he said that mistakes breed mistakes. I realize that a language is an evolving entity, but it still irks me when a word gets added to the dictionary (thus legitimizing it) because it becomes overused incorrectly.
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POPSEnglish Lanugage quizzes in my experience, even some native speakers would do well to take some of these quizzes to raise their awareness for the English language! great collection - generally a useful site for English language teaching and learning. loads more at source.
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POPSPalin's Alternate Universe “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? Aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning? If Governor Palin didn’t like a question, or didn’t know the answer, she responded as though some other question had been asked. She made no bones about this, saying early in the debate: “I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear.”
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POPSThe Elements of Style - William Strunk, Jr. The entire 1918 edition — online, searchable, and beautifully laid out. This impeccably-written English usage book is as much fun to read for its lively tone and witty examples as it is for its timeless advice. Strunk approached grammar not as a rigid rule set to be followed, but as a craft to be mastered and enjoyed. It's no accident that "Strunk & White" (as the reference is now known) is still read, essentially unchanged, in classrooms and newsrooms to this day. Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. ( The Elements of Style . III. 13.)
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POPSSleepMailing... i think it signs that this 'new' technology, has become an internal part of one's life, and as such does not represent anymore a complex mechanism. Interesting to observe how availability becomes so fast a natural part of 'life'.
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POPSIs It Wrong to Correct Someone's Grammar? My kids and grands get so angry at me when I correct them ... but like the article says, "As standards decline, civilization declines." Maybe this makes me a stickler, or a prude ... but this is the way I operate. I can speak slang and I keep up with the meanings of all the new youth and tech lingo. That doesn't mean I have to say (this on top of my list of phrases that make me cringe), "I'm done!"
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POPSThe art of speaking >>The Art of Speaking: “There is a special circle in hell for those who use laser pointers,” this and other advice from a master speaker. MIT Professor Harry Winston every year gives a famed lecture on "The Art of Speaking". Cal Newport attended the lecture this year and posted the notes.<<
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POPSHow to properly use apostrophes. Yep, it gets my goat everytime I see something like, "I've got 56 CD's." However, doesn’t correct grammar make you feel nice and warm inside? Hell yes. Especially when I would correct my English teacher back in school. Just because you're English, doesn't mean you know English. At least the technical aspect of it all.
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