Grammar/Vocabulary

14 Punctuation Marks that You Never Knew Existed is a delightfully snarky introduction (introduce a snark punctuation mark here) to punctuation marks. Some of them I did not know existed and some of which I did not know the names.

My favorite is the snark, which is used to mark multiple meanings in a text and would be WONDERFUL for text messaging. Unfortunately I can not google how to make a snark with a Mac and find anything that actually shows the punctuation mark.

The one thing that I did think was funny totally, was the comment about the symbol the computer uses to mark paragraphs:

Most people will be familiar with it, though not with the fact that it’s called a Pilcrow. It’s also referred to as “The Blind P,” which sounds like a good name for some hopelessly twee indie band. “Pilcrow” is the Middle English word for “Paragraph.” You will never be able to use that fun fact in real life.

Ha! They don’t know us crazy English teachers, do they? I am going to use this one (and the snark) this next week in class.

I couldn’t get MSWord to show a pilcrow, but there is one on the toolbar or ribbon:

I was looking for the word “amanuensis” today and I couldn’t actually remember how to spell it. I knew it had anuensis in it and there was an m, but I couldn’t put those together in a way that Google would tell me how to spell it. So I looked it up on TCE, because I was sure I had written it down here. I hadn’t.

So now I am going to write it here, so that next time I need it, I can find it. (And hopefully I will never need it again because I will have actually committed it to memory this time.)

Meaning: one who is employed to copy a manuscript or take dictation
Kind of like a scribe, but doesn’t necessarily know how to read and write. (This was relevant for the paper I was trying to write notes on, for which I needed the word.)

A video on the half-life of verbs.

I have wondered about this myself.

An article that talks about this, eventually. Read all of it. Fascinating stuff.

A related article, for us reading-centric folks.

Jody Hedlund has a great article on the topic.

[C]lichéd writing has more to do with laziness than ignorance.

She then talks about clichéd descriptions, characters, and plots.

You Can Teach Writing has a post “Grammar Check Software Can Make Student Writing Worse.”

I think we all know that.

The post, though, offers a way that students can use grammar checker to help their writing. It involves three picky writing conventions: quotation punctuation, period spacing, and serial commas.

At the college level, a student might take simultaneously two or three courses with different specifications for these three elements. It makes sense to give the computer instructions and let it make sure those instructions are followed. Just remembering to reset the conventions correctly for each course is challenge enough for most students.

Note: The blog does not let you copy and quote. I had to type that in by myself. Annoying.

The Education of Oronte Churm, from Inside Higher Ed, has the definition of cynicism:

When a university’s program for research in the humanities bars adjuncts from applying for fellowship money and release time then uses their book titles and cover photos to swell the “books published by our humanities faculty” section of its glossy brochure.

The weasel is also from Churm’s post.

This is a topic with which I struggle. I don’t want my students to indiscriminately use the first-person pronoun. (Obviously the letter i is appropriate regardless of the level of formality in composition.) “I believe this is so” is significantly weaker than “This is so.” There are myriad constructions with I which are not appropriate as well: I mean, I think, you know what I think…

But I don’t want to indiscriminately ban the use of the word I either. How can students present something from their lives if they are not allowed the option of utilizing the first-person pronoun?

In her post arguing against the anti-I rationales Culture Cat says:

[F]irst person is rhetorically useful and appropriate for a wide variety of reasons, reasons more plentiful and far more sound than any I can think of to prohibit it.

Yes, exactly.

I do not agree with much of Wonderella’s comics.

But Quote of Arms is a grammar joke. Fun. Clean. Silly.

See how many of your students don’t get it.

No, never mind. Then it will be depressing.

Spelling errors can be particularly egregious in student papers. However, I think I now have a way to have fun with at least one misspelling. Hyperbole and a Half has an adorable post entitled “The Alot is Better than You at Everything.”

Here is alot:

Found because I read Classroom as Microcosm.