I don’t think it was until Seventh Grade when I finally understood the difference between too and to. In fact, I can actually remember when I did make this epiphany: it was in English class (or maybe Reading), and I was writing down a sentence about going to the store. I pondered for a moment about whether it should be “too the store” or “to the store” when I finally understood the difference. Before then, I’m fairly sure I intuitively knew, but I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it.

Why couldn’t I articulate it? Because I was never taught it. Instead, we got taught useless stuff like gerunds and past-participles, both of which I have no idea what they mean to this day. When I say useless, I just mean that I’m not going to go into a job interview and be asked “Can you tell me what a gerund is?” However, I will be asked for a writing sample, and getting too/to wrong would be something they’d frown upon.

So what’s the difference?

Too

• Use “too” for when you are talking about a quantity. Too long. Too much. Too far.
• You can also use “too” as you would use “also.” I can too do that! Yeah, I’ll go there too.

To

• Use “to” when you’re using it with a verb. To be or not to be. To go. To look. To find out.
• Also use “to” when you’re using it as a preposition. I will look to the dictionary. I will give it to Sam.

Discussion on the web can be separated into two broad categories: casual and serious.  Casual writing occurs in IMs, e-mails to friends, posts in certain areas of a web forum, and even sometimes in blogs.  Serious writing occurs in professional e-mails, serious discussions, creative writing, and usually in blogs.

In the former - casual writing - grammar mistakes are forgivable and even expected.  No one cares if use “it’s” wrong or if you don’t capitalize.  In many ways, it’s like having a conversation, and we make mistakes in the way we talk all the time.

In the latter - serious writing - grammar mistakes are still expected but less forgivable.  If you make one or two, people will look pass it.  But make mistakes repeatedly, and even worse, make the same mistake over and over, and you’ll end up looking like an idiot.

So to help all of us with this, ZDnet has an article published in 2006 about the top 10 worse grammar mistakes:

1. Loose for lose
2. It’s for its
3. They’re for their for there
4. i.e. for e.g.
5. Effect for affect
6. You’re for your
7. Different than for different from
8. Lay for lie
9. Then for than
10. Could of,  would of for could have, would have

I don’t agree with all of the above (I’m pretty sure most people don’t know the difference between i.e. and e.g. so it’s impossible to look stupid in front of one who doesn’t know any better), but it’s a handy list.

Do you have any to add?

The Writers Society (TWS) is a new writing community for writers ages 18+ that I’m starting. The site is quite similar to the Young Writers Society in that it’s forum based, and oriented around a strong sense of community. It’s just getting off the ground, but if you got the time, check it out at:

http://www.TheWritersSociety.com

Expect one more site to be added in the coming year to the Writers Society family: the Kids Writers Society (name may change). The Kids Writers Society (KWS) will be for kids younger than 13, and will be quite different from the other two due to privacy concerns. However, kids will be able to share their writing and comment on what other people wrote as well.

The answer is in white font. To view it, simply highlight it using your mouse. All answers are on the same line as the question.

Who married his 13 year old handicapped cousin? Edgar Allan Poe

Who killed herself with cooking gas after living for two years in a flat, which is also the place where she wrote her best poetry? Sylvia Plath

Who was the first published American poet? Anne Bradstreet in 1650.

Who was the first published African-American poet? Phillis Wheatley in 1773.

Who coined the words accommodation, amazement, assassination, dwindle, frugal, exposure, courtship, eventful, critic, and auspicious among more than 1,600 others? William Shakespeare.

Who is the first known American author to have submitted a typed manuscript? Mark Twain.

What is the best selling fiction book of all time? A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens with 200 million.

Who is the best selling author, fiction or otherwise, of all time? Chairman Mao Zedong with approximately 1.5 billion sold.

What is the best selling book of all time? The Bible with between 5 and 6 billion sold.

What is the best selling children’s book of all time? The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery with 80 million sold.

There are lots of commonly misused words, and no doubt they number in the hundreds or even thousands. However, the most commonly misused words I always see are “effect” and “affect.”

Many times, the easiest way to discern the difference between two words is to take a look at their Latin roots. In this case:

Get it?

You’d be surprised how hard it is to come up with a good fake word.  The first one I came up with was a medical term.  The second one I came up with was an ethnic group from an obscure Greek island.  The third one I came up with was a family of insects.

So finally, I discovered adiciment.  The word comes from the latin word adicio meaning to direct, address, or apply to.  But don’t feel confined by the latin definition!  Points will be given if you do, but if you come up with a good definition, then points are meaningless.

Last weeks word was parathonal and the winning definition was submitted by Khaver:

parathonal: (v.) to be parallel with the universe

• Jimmy fall so hard against the ground that he felt parathonal.
• Tristan felt as if he was in an absurd parathonal state when the feng shui of his room gave him a feeling of enlightenment.

So get out there, and use parathonal in a sentence!  And now come up with a meaning for adiciment.

Can you spot the capitalization errors in the image above?

Believe it or not, but there’s a debate as to what constitutes proper capitalization in titles.  Fortunately enough, most people could care less as long the first word is capitalized and your spelling checks out alright.  Unfortunately, English teachers and professors are not counted among such apathetic individuals.

Five General Rules:

1. Always capitalize the first and last word no matter what.
2. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  Remember, “it” is a pronoun.
3. Do not capitalize articles, such as “a,” “an,” or “the” unless rule number 1 applies.
4. Do not capitalize conjunctions (and, but, for, or).
5. Do not capitalize the word “to” when it precedes a verb.

The above five rules are commonly known, but the trouble comes in with prepositions.  Some will tell you that if the preposition is part of a verb phrase, then you need to capitalize it.  Others will say that if it’s five words or longer, you always need to capitalize it (ex. before, after).   However, you can’t go wrong with the Chicago Manual of Style, which states:

“In regular title capitalization, also known as headline style, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title…”

So leave those prepositions alone!

By the way, the above only applies to the United States.  Believe it or not, but it does matter what country you live in when it comes to capitalization.  In Germany, for example, you only capitalize the nouns.

So if you’ve made a comment lately, you’ve noticed that it needs to go through approval first.  I started doing this a few days ago because this blog has been getting a large number of hits due to a few posts made popular via stumbleupon.  While that’s great, it also means that the blog is now more open to the unclean masses, which means some have made some very inappropriate comments.

To keep these comments from showing, all comments must be approved now.  However, if you register with the blog, you only need to be approved once.  After that, all your comments should appear immediately.

Not sure how long it will stay like this; having to approve comments is a bit burdensome.

When do you write seven, and not 7? Should I write 738,163,291 or seven-hundred-thirty-eight-million-one-hundred-sixty-three-thousand-two-hundred-ninety and one? Do I have 10 fingers, or eight fingers and two thumbs?

Figuring out when to write out a number can be a tricky problem. Sometimes it’s obvious (as in 738,163,291), and sometimes it’s not (10 fingers or ten fingers?). So living up to the rule of seven, here’s seven tips for writing out a number. After that, I’ve also included a proof for you.

1. Dates: If it’s a date, do not spell it out. May 8, 2008 should read: May 8, 2008. As a side-note here, you should not include “th” or “nd” with the date in formal writing. That means, May 8th, 2008 would be stylistically bad even if it’s grammatically correct.
2. Ages: Never spell out an age. If someone is 6 years old, they are 6, not six.
3. Math & Money: If it’s something math related, like a percentage, never spell it out. Same with money.
4. Page Numbers: Never spell out page numbers. While that’s obvious when numbering pages, I’ll frequently see someone write “Turn to page eight.” That’s wrong. You should say, “Turn to page 8.”
5. Large numbers: Anything 10 and above should be left as is. This isn’t a hard set rule, though. Some will tell you that if you can write it out in two words, then write it out. Otherwise, leave it. So between 10 and 100, you can be correct no matter how you write it. But for anything 101+, you definitely need to leave it as is.
6. Small Numbers: If it’s from 0 to 9, write it out! So really, I should say: If it’s from zero to nine, write it out!
7. Beginning A Sentence: If it’s the start of a sentence or a title (such as the title of this blog post), you should always write out the number, unless it’s a year or a large number (must be 101+). Of course, if it’s a year or a large number, see if you can’t rearrange the sentence so that you’re not starting off with a number. It’s not grammatically wrong if you do, but it can be stylistically poor.

[Read more →]

Dear Grammar Nazi Who Sits Behind Me,

I don’t know your name, although I think it begins with a B. You’ve been in my class for a few months now, and I feel quite foolish for not knowing how to address you. I’m often distracted by my own daydreaming, so please do not take offense that I cannot address this letter properly to you.

However, I want to thank you. I’m sure you don’t remember since I imagine you perform a countless number of these good deeds every day, but it happened the other day before our final exam in criminal law. I was sitting in front of you (I had a blue-green shirt on with an OBX logo on it) and was talking to a fellow classmate, who was sitting to my left. We were discussing our weekend plans when I began a sentence with “You and me.”

Without any prompting, you snapped your head up from your Apple brand, white laptop to quickly say “You and I.” I must have looked astonished at the time because you returned to what you were doing within seconds. But I am writing to you today to tell you that my astonishment was actually deep, heart-felt gratitude. I simply could not express the thanks and deep appreciation for your correcting me. And to imagine, I wasn’t even talking to you, and yet you went out of your way to correct me.

I am so sorry for interrupting you, and I can’t apologize enough for that. Of course, I can only assume you receive such thanks dozens of times a day, but please cherish this one. It comes from the heart of the middle finger on my right hand.

Sincerely,

Your Secret Admirer

It’s important to know how to write well.

That really should go without saying, but yet I continually see poor writing in forums, in blogs, and even in law school. Sometimes, fixing the problem is as simple as running spell-check, but sometimes the problem is as complex as knowing when and how to use semi-colons. Regardless, learning how to write well should be a paramount concern of anyone as if you write well, people are going to take you seriously even if what you’re saying is complete idiocy. Just look at Noam Chomsky.

For a more common example of why you need to write well, check out these real sick notes from actual parents:

• My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.
• Please exkuce lisa for being absent she was sick and i had her shot.
• Please excuse jimmy for being.It was his father’s fault.
• Please excuse jennifer fo! R missing school yesterday. We
  forgot to get the sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it monday. We thought it was sunday.
• Ple ase excuse jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.

For more, check out “Sick Notes.” Warning! Some grammar errors are so bad so as to make them unsuitable for reading by younger readers.

Note: The above picture has been edited so as to demonstrate the true nature of Penguins rather than what the hippie authors of the tale would have you believe. 

I know what you’re thinking.  In what way isn’t a penguin objectionable?  Indeed, out of all the species on the planet, penguins raise the most ire.  Fortunately, they keep mostly to their own down there in Antarctica, but what kind of species is it that forces women to hunt and makes the man tend to the egg over a harrowing winter?  They’re just so smug in their sinful ways.  To make matters worse, they defy God’s will by swimming instead of flying like normal birds.

So it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us that the story “And Tango Makes Three” is the most objectionable tale of the year.  Not only is it about penguins, but it’s about three penguins!  I’ll never quite understand why it is that we have to put up with their condescending attitude, but I guess Greenpeace has a thing for them.  Oh, and apparently it’s like about a little penguin with two fathers.  But that’s besides the point.  It’s about penguins, and penguins are inherently evil.

NEW YORK (AP) — A children’s story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the public objects to the most.

“And Tango Makes Three,” released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.

“The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don’t agree with that,” Judith Krug, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The ALA defines a “challenge” as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”

I’m glad that people are doing something about this tale, but their pretext of homophobia seems unnecessary.  They need to come out and just say that this tale is about penguins, and that’s really all they need to say.

Link

· Don’t tell the readers what they already know about life.

· Don’t assume you’re the only one in the world who suffers.

· Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don’t overwrite.

· The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close your eyes, and let your imagination tell you what to do.

· Say the words you are writing aloud and let your ear decide what word comes next.

Link

In the words of Dubya, what is our children reading?

According to a survey of youthful reading in the United States, you all are reading quite a bit.  In the seventh grade, kids read 7.1 books a year.  In the twelfth grade, they are reading 4.7 books a year.  That’s a big drop, but my bet is that it is due more to after-school activities than other things like video games; as you get older, you tend to engage yourself more in activities like student government, the school newspaper, and sports.   I doubt it’s due to video games - the modern scapegoat - since seventh grade boys play a ton of video games. [Read more →]

Thought I’d try something new: I’ll make up a word, then everyone else has to come up with a definition for it.  The best definition will be chosen after an undetermined length of time, and the winner will have the honor of having invented a new word!

This week’s word is:

parathonal

When Gutenberg made his printing press, the first book he printed with it was the Bible, which is now popularly known as the Gutenberg Bible. So you might be forgiven if you think the Bible would be the world’s oldest printed book, but that’d be an erroneous assumption.

Gutenberg wasn’t the first to realize that a moving-type press could more quickly produce books. Rather, that honor goes to the Chinese who developed the first printing press sometime in the first millennium.

So what is the world’s oldest surviving printed book? It’s the Diamond Sutra, a Bhuddist Scripture published in 868 AD. A copy of it was found sealed up in a cave in China in 1907 by Sir Aurel Stein, a Hungarian born archaeologist. [Read more →]

The Young Writers Blog is starting to get more attention, so I thought it’d be best to spruce things up.  I think, or at least hope, you’ll agree that the change is for the better.  For now, neither the Archive or About links work, but those will be fixed in time.  In the time being, sit back, relax, and bask in the warm glow of the Young Writers Blog.

Make sure you are firmly sitting down for if you have not seen it before, then you are about to read the shortest story you will ever encounter in your bleak, meaningless life:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

According to legend, that is Hemingway’s six-word story and he referred to it as the greatest story he ever wrote. Ever the minimalist, it’s not beyond doubt that he did write it. After all, Faulkner once said, “Hemingway has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” However, you’d expect Hemingway would have a bit more to say about his “greatest story” than just “according to legend.”

[Read more →]

This is just funny:

Their goal was an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

However, the wording in a draft by students at the University of Texas at San Antonio appears to match another school’s code — without proper attribution.

The student currently in charge of the honor code project said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don’t know how to cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines.

 Link

Working on a story?  Having trouble with the first line?  The opening line is often the beginning of the hook, and thus very important.  You don’t want a common line, of course…that’s boring right away.  But do you want something short?  Something long?  Something awkward or elusive? 

Check out these 100 Best First Novel Lines.  Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)

38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. —Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)

42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. —Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)

49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)

Kurt Vonnegut put together 8 basics to his works while writing amazing works like Slaughterhouse Five.  I read over these and some are very agreeable for short stories.  However, you don’t have to follow all of them to make an amazing story (just ask Flannery O’Connor).  And we all know, as writers, that our goal is to break all the rules in new and exciting ways!  But, here they are!

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

Start as close to the end as possible.

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Get the creative juices flowing! 

 This site gives you one word, and you have 60 seconds to write whatever you can about it.  Speed writing?  Yes.  Then…it becomes an entry into a contest!  Although….I have yet to figure out what contest and who runs it and what you win…that part seems rather unmentioned.  But, it’s still fun!

Try it here.

Although this generator is not as fun and random as the YWS generator…it has some pretty good ideas!

 The story starts when your protagonist hires a lawyer.

Another character is a meterologist who is sensitive to others’ auras.

Try it out here: Plot Scenario Generator

The scheduled maintenance is just about over with even as I write up this post.  The blog has been available now for quite some time, and the only thing holding the main site back is just restoring the immensity of the database.

Expect everything to be back up and running soon again though.

J.K. Rowling is currently involved in a legal battle with regards to an unauthorized encyclopedia of her Harry Potter novels.  While the case won’t be decided for weeks, this comment from the Judge is certainly interesting:

District Judge Robert Patterson Jr said that he had read the first half of the first Harry Potter novel to his grandchildren, but found the “magical world hard to follow, filled with strange names and words that would be gibberish in any other context.

“I found it extremely complex,” he said, suggesting that a reference guide might be useful.

Personally, I don’t think Rowling has a case (unauthorized reference guides of anything are in abundance), and the Judge is right that Harry Potter is gibberish in any other context.

However, when this story was picked up, it got misreported.  The judge says nowhere that Harry Potter is gibberish; just that words like boggart and floo powder mean nothing outside of the books so a reference guide would be helpful.

But going along with the misreporting, what do you think of the literary quality of Harry Potter?