Summer Course?

Need to take a class? Here's one to try if the usual Spanish or the warp-drive mechanics class is full.

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Credits: Writer/director Gord McWatters; Daragh Sankey, editor/sound design; Adam Marsden, camera; Razie Brownstone as the teacher

From atom.com and Scifiwire

Writers Block

I have long been envious of poets and authors who can use language to draw pictures in the mind, or can craft a well-turned phrase to summon sensations in a few simple words. I read a great deal, but occasionally I come across a passage or two that makes me stop. I have to go back, re-read the lines, and then sit and ponder them for a bit before moving on to the rest of the story. Beyond the joy of savoring of the language, or processing the emotion conjured up by the phraseology, I'm often filled with envy ... because I'm not a real "writer."

Take these passages from Lynne Hinton's Friendship Cake, for example. This a novel I read a few years ago, but have come across again in my library browsing.

… I sensed the stones of sibling rivalry as they pelted me with their grief-stricken stares. (Page 7).

Or this very important life lesson:

A heart can hold sadness a lot longer than it can anger.

…the sadness always outlasts the anger. You have to make an intentional decision either to give the anger up or to let it eat out the center of your spirit. Sadness can stay with a body for a lifetime. But with anger, you’ve got to choose. (Page 8).

I know we all have our own gifts and talents and share them in different ways, but it's hard not to wish for a magic pen or a visit from a muse when you come across passages like these.

Language Oddities of the Week

With thanks to Gale Q. from the Big C for this week's guest installment:

Let's face it. English is a crazy language.

Think about these:

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

English is a crazy language! Here's more to illustrate:

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; no apple or pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? We say one goose, but two geese, so why not one moose, two meese, and one index, two indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends, but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital; ship by truck and send cargo by ship;have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick?'

P.S. Poor Amber. She's just going to be so confused.