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Tag: language (Page 1 of 2)

A book. A review. A meltdown.

March 29, 2011 /

A British author was fortunate enough to get her book considered by an online reviewer. She disagreed with his opinion. Well, disagreed is wrong. She went ballistic.

I’m not going to mention her name, because I think she’s had enough publicity for one lifetime. She may have been humbled somewhat by the reaction to her reaction. Countless readers – alerted to the public meltdown that was happening – launched their own comments and the blog went viral.

The author bragged about her five star reviews on Amazon. Ooops. Now, an average 1.5 stars. It would be lower except for the early padding by friends and family.

There is a lesson here. Maybe more than one.

At the top is that, Al – who operates the blog – must be a decent sort. He eventually closed the column to comments when the author was being bludgeoned. It’s one thing to kick in a karate match. When the opponent is on the ground and the pummeling continues, it’s not a match any longer: it is a gang and a victim.

Unfortunately, the author deserved the initial roundhouse, when she came out swinging. Let me tell you, bad reviews hurt. But if you can’t live through them as a writer, you need to stick with reading. Not everyone likes the same books. That is a fact.

Even established authors get bad reviews. The good reviewers can critique without being hateful, and that is what Al, the blogger did. His pilers-on were just as hateful as the author’s crude comments.

The other lessons? Awww, the heck with it. This isn’t a writer’s school, it is a bookseller’s blog.

But if I read your book and give it two stars instead of five, it is only my opinion. Don’t go all ballistic – chill out. Read some books. Take mental notes.

Write some more.

Oh, Say Can You Say?

February 18, 2011 /

Love the book True Grit. Fantastic dialogue. Even those who’ve only seen the movie are inclined to comment on the manner of speech.

It’s partly because our language is disappearing.

The OMGs and LOLs are contributing, no doubt, but words were becoming a problem long before cellphones and texting. We can’t say long words anymore. I don’t know if we’re unable to mouth them, or just don’t have the time.

One of the latest of the bothersome abbreviations: APP. There have been any number of comics strips in the newspaper touching on it. Pickles, the grandfatherly strip carried daily in the Tulsa World had its main character remark that he’d seen so many commercials about “an app for that,” that he had to lay down and take “an app.” Naps notwithstanding, there is confusion among the non-techs about the meaning.

Application. Say it. Application. It does take a little longer, and in the commercial it would have been impossible to repeat over and over “there’s an application for that.”

As a language lover, I find it is troublesome to lose words over fads, products, or altered perceptions. Application has become App, at least in this application.

Cellular phones became cells. With further abbreviation they turned into cels. Lose a pesky L. Facsimile machines became faxes. We used to have medications, now just meds. The Miami Hurricanes became the ‘Canes. Florida Seminoles? The ‘Noles. The temperatures got too extreme and became temps. Where amused responses once ruled, there is merely an 😉 .

Kristen Glover touts her Dad’ll-Do-It!’s car dealership at “I-44 Memorial.” The intersection disappeared. It is no longer at I-44 AND Memorial. Anywhere we can lose a word or a syllable or two – apparently, we must.

ROFL.

Therein lies the guilty pleasure of True Grit. It is set in the late 1800’s, when people still enjoyed the eloquence of conversation, sentences filled with words of the literate in quantities sufficient enough to require commas. There was nothing else to do back then but listen to the speaker, and speak they did.

Download the book, if you must. There’s an App for that. Let’s read.

Yawna? (Do you want to?)

You say To-MAY-Toh.

December 30, 2010 /

We say things differently. I’m okay with that. Sometimes, I’d just like to know how to say it – right or wrong. We used to turn to the dictionary. Now, we’ve got Wikipedia… Please – give me back my dictionary. Here is an example of a Wikipedia pronunciation guide:

Reiki (霊気?, English pronunciation: /ˈreɪkiː/)

When I read that, I see that the word “reiki” should be pronounced “reiki.” Ooooh. That makes it all perfectly clear. Sort of. Wait a minute. Is that like REE-Kee? Or Ree-IK-ee? Maybe it’s RY-ky, rhyming with pumpkin pie-pie.

My typing doesn’t include pronunciation symbols for long and short vowels, but I have access to them. If my website was about pronouncing words, I would ūse them daily. I wish Wikipedia would do that. The internet allows access to users of different languages, but – come on! – the English-language version could use standard English grammar symbols.

Pŭ-lēz?

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