8.27.2009
English 2010
I am a nerd. This morning I sat through a one-hour lecture on punctuation and I LOVED it. It's helps that my teacher is hilarious and knows lots of random history about english sayings. (graveyard shift, raining cats and dogs, holding a wake - anyone?) I think there is a difference between learning material to pass a test, and learning material to gain knowledge. I have an invested interest in grammer and punctuation because I truly enjoy writing and hope to someday be considered a "good writer." I learned a lot about commas, semicolons, dashes, and-- dun, dun, dun-- colons. Oh how I have overlooked the colon. (That probably sounds really weird.) This overwhelming desire to edit has hit me today, and I plan to attack my previous blog entries one at a time. There are so many rules I never knew, and am embarrassed to have violated. But one aspect of punctuation I can be confident about: creating emphasis. I love using commas and dashes (etc.) to pace my writing the way I like, and the way I want things to be read. Did you know punctuation originated in Shakepeare's day as a way to help actors better understand their scripts? Isn't learning sweet. I'm so excited to do better and learn more in this class!
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4 Comments:
I'm a grammar nerd. Love it. Hey, thanks for your call. It was a great surprise to get a voicemail from my dear Amber.
Graveyard shift - During one of the plagues in the history of the world, people were dying left and right. As a result, they would try to bury people as soon as they could, to prevent more people from getting sick from the dead. There also weren't enough graves to bury people, so they had to dig up some of the old graves. Unfortunately, they found scratch marks on the inside of coffins, meaning that some people had been buried alive. To remedy the situation, they put strings attached to little bells on the surface of the ground that led down into the coffins. In their hast to bury people, and supposing that someone was buried that wasn't quite dead, the person underground could ring the bell. "Hey, I'm still alive! Let me out!" Subsequently, the bells would be useless if no one heard it, right? (If a bell rings the woods, but no one hears it, does it really ring at all???) Hence the need for someone to work the "graveyard shift," as well as the term, "dead ringer."
Raining cats and dogs: When it rained back in the day, all the stray cats and dogs would take cover in the rafters of the houses and barns. When it rained A LOT, water would leak into the ceilings, making the rafters wet and slippery. The dogs and cats would slip and fall down, creating the image that it was "raining cats and dogs."
I don't know the other one.
Amber, I like that you are learning about colons . . . I am too!
Sorry about the lengthy post - I couldn't resist answering you questions.
Hope you, Ben, and the kids are doing well!
Scott
I should've known that Scott would know that random trivia. Good job, Scotty.
A wake is also connected to those England deaths. After a person died, they waited a few days before they buried them, just in case they'd wake up. Nowadays, we have a viewing before a funeral or a "wake," so that we can all make sure the person is dead before we close up the casket.
Morbid, but interesting. Oh, and the rooves were made of thatch, which was warm for cats and dogs to sleep in at night. In the rain, the thatch got soggy and weak - animals feel into the homes and ---
Super fun!
I have the best editor in the world. Anybody what to contend that? Huh, do ya? do ya?
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