Quote of the Day
September 6, 2015
“Repeat after me: pharma being shit does not mean magic beans cure cancer.” ― Ben Goldacre
Month: September 2015
Sweat Your Way to Radiant Health
September 6, 2015
I used to take saunas as a part of my regular workout routine. Once I was sitting in the sauna with my workout partner, and he wondered whether saunas are actually good for us. We live in the era of the Internet when no one has to wonder about anything for very long. When I … More Sweat Your Way to Radiant Health
Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers
September 5, 2015
The following sentences all illustrate the dreaded dangling or misplaced modifier. A dangling modifier sounds like something you could be arrested for, but it’s just a minor stylistic mistake. A modifier is a word or group of words that modifies (describes or limits) another word or group of words. In the sentence, “I have a blue … More Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers
An Exercise in Reducing Wordiness
September 5, 2015
Try rewriting this passage using fewer words while retaining the original meaning: “This limit is surpassed in productive imagination: self-intuition, the immediate relation to oneself such as it was formed in reproductive imagination, then becomes a being; it is exteriorized, produced in the world as a thing. This singular thing is the sign; it is … More An Exercise in Reducing Wordiness
Quote of the Day
September 5, 2015
“It never ceases to amaze me how prosaic, pedestrian, unimaginative people can persistently pontificate about classical grammatical structure as though it’s fucking rocket science. These must be the same people who hate Picasso, because he couldn’t keep the paint inside the lines and the colors never matched the numbers.” ― Abbe Diaz
Lie, Lay, and Snobbery
September 5, 2015
The verbs lie and lay are often confused, and if you can learn to use them correctly once and for all, you’ll be part of a small, elite minority. It may well be that these verbs are so often confused, even by educated speakers, that maintaining the difference doesn’t make sense. But if you want … More Lie, Lay, and Snobbery
An Imagined Chat Between Donald Trump and Pope Francis
September 4, 2015
Donald Trump chats with Pope Francis (Based on actual quotes) DT: The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. PF: A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. DT: It’s freezing and snowing … More An Imagined Chat Between Donald Trump and Pope Francis
Quote of the Day
September 4, 2015
“Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘More people died’ don’t say “Mortality rose.’” ― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Children
Pronoun Case
September 4, 2015
The personal pronouns change their forms depending on how they function in a sentence. When a personal pronoun functions as the subject of a verb (the doer of the action), it takes the form of the subjective case: I, he, she, we, they: I know Mort. He knows Jadwiga. She knows Abigail. We know Abigail … More Pronoun Case
Quote of the Day
September 3, 2015
“What really alarms me about President Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’ is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is ‘Terrorism’ going to surrender? It’s well known, in philological circles, that it’s very hard for abstract nouns to surrender.” ― Terry Jones
No Harm Spilt 