Grammar Nazi goes on a Rampage

Friend: Stop being such a grammar Nazi!
Me: Well, stop raping the English language!

Those of you who know me will be aware that I am extremely pedantic when it comes to correct spelling/grammar/word usage and so on. I'm not saying I'm perfect myself - I'm sure I make mistakes here and there - but I get so frustrated by people who don't even try to speak/write with proper grammar.

I must admit that, if someone can barely string together a coherent sentence, I quickly lose the desire to converse with them. Is this judgemental? Most likely. Unfair? Perhaps. I can't help it, it's just how I am. However, I know that I'm not alone in this attitude. Many employers look for good written and verbal communication skills, so not being able to express yourself eloquently can put you at a serious disadvantage in the workforce (depending on what industry you are in, of course).

Disclaimer: I understand that things like Facebook are not formal means of communication, so I'm not expecting everyone on there to have the vocabulary of a university lecturer. People who correct every little typo on status updates or in online conversations etc. are almost as annoying as the people molesting the English language in the first place. But the problem is, most people who use poor grammar/spelling on Facebook do exactly the same thing in other places - including formal communication channels - and this is where it becomes a problem. (I've had this discussion with friends recently so I thought I'd include this point)

People who TyP lYk DiS need to be hunted down and killed. Slowly. But I digress.

Anyway, in the hopes of reducing the amount of horrendously written prose I am faced with (and, in turn, the amount of head-desking I do out of sheer despair at said prose), I decided to throw together a post on commonly misused/mis-spelled words and punctuation. It is by no means a complete guide to grammar, but it does contain the issues I find to be most common (and annoying). As I stumble across more instances of our language being abused, I will add to this post, so if you have any other suggestions that you'd like to see included, feel free to comment :)

Affect/Effect
'Affect' means 'to influence.' Eg. "The hot weather will affect the garden."
'Effect' means 'the result of' or 'to bring about.' Eg. "Adding vinegar to the bi-carb soda had an explosive effect."

A lot/Allot
'A lot' (note that it is two words) refers to a great quantity. Eg. "There are a lot of weeds in my garden."
'Allot' is a verb meaning 'to distribute between or among.' Eg. "The General will allot a ration of supplies to each soldier."
'Alot' is not a word.

Angel/angle
'Angel' refers to spiritual beings. Eg. "The angel fell from heaven."
'Angle' refers to a cognitive standpoint or a geometric space within two lines diverging from a common point. Eg. "The hill slopes at a sharp angle."

Bare/Bear
'Bare' means naked or exposed. Eg. "The wind was cold on his bare skin."
'Bear' is a large furry mammal that typically lives in forests and mountainous regions. Eg. "The bear chased the hiker because it wanted to eat him."

Been/Being
'Been' is the past tense of 'be.' Eg. "I have been ill."
'Being' is the present tense of 'be.' Eg. "I am being silly."

Bought/Brought
'Bought' is the past tense of 'buy.' Eg. "I bought a sonic screwdriver from eBay."
'Brought' is the past tense of 'bring.' Eg. "I brought a book to uni so I could read it on the train."

Brake/Break
'Brake' refers to stopping or at least slowing down. Eg. "When approaching traffic lights, you should brake your car."
'Break' refers to ruining or destroying something. Eg. "If you drop a glass vase on the ground, it will probably break."

Coarse/course
'Coarse' refers to a rough texture. Eg. "The sandpaper had a coarse surface."
'Course' refers to a systematised or prescribed series, or the path along which something moves. Eg. "I took a course on creative writing before going into IT."

Current/currant
'Current' means 'now' or 'at this time', or refers to the flow of water. Eg. "The current temperature is 24 degrees."
'Currant' is a raisin-y sort of dried fruit, made from grapes. Eg. "I ate a currant."

Defiantly/Definately/Definatley
'Defiantly' means 'with defiance.' Eg. "He defiantly stared down his enemy."
'Definately/Definatley' are not words. The word you are looking for is 'Definitely,' which refers to certainty. Eg. "It is definitely going to rain today."
There is no 'a' in 'definitely.' The Oatmeal said it best: "If you put an A in 'definitely,' then you're definitely an A-hole."

Discussed/Disgust
'Discussed' is the past tense of 'discuss', meaning 'spoke about.' Eg. "The students discussed their assignment during their lunch break."
'Disgust' refers to the feeling of horror or abhorrence towards something unpleasant. Eg. "She stared at the squashed spider in disgust."

DVDs/DVD's
'DVDs' is the plural of 'DVD.' Eg. "There are three DVDs on the shelf."
'DVD's' is the possessive form of 'DVD.' Eg. "The DVD's label is tattered."

Have/of
'Have' means 'to possess or own.' Eg. "I have a dog."
'Of' is a preposition indicating 'distance, direction or separation from,' 'concerning' or 'the origin or source.' Eg. "He is of the northern tribe."
Saying "should of done something" is incorrect. It is "should have done something."

Hear/Here
'Hear' refers to the sense we perform with our ears. Eg. "I can hear a jet flying over the house."
'Here' refers to the present location or time. Eg. "The treasure should be buried here."

He's/His
'He's' is a contraction of 'he is.' Eg. "He's going to write a novel."
'His' is a possessive form of 'he/him.' Eg. "The man dropped his wallet."

Its/It's
'Its' is the possessive form of 'it.' Eg. "The dog licked its paw."
'It's' is a contraction of 'it is.' Eg. "It's going to be a sunny day."

Less/Fewer
'Less' refers to something that must be measured. Eg. "There is less water in the pond."
'Fewer' refers to something that can be counted. Eg. "There are fewer people in the building."

Loose/Lose
'Loose' is an adjective, describing a lack of tightness. Eg. "My shoelaces are loose."
'Lose' is a verb, which can mean either to misplace something or to not win. Eg. "If I don't train hard every day I will lose this race."

Paw/Poor/Pore/Pour
'Paw' refers to the thing on the end of a dog's leg. Eg. "The dog's paw had a thorn in it."
'Poor' refers to something that is not in good condition, or a person with no money. Eg. "The man was poor because he wasted all his money on gambling."
'Pore' refers to either the small openings in the skin or to the act of studying something intently. Eg. "She decided to pore over her textbooks until her maths exam."
'Pour' is a verb meaning to send fluid/fine particles etc flowing. Eg. "I will pour the water into the jar."

Plain/Plane
'Plain' means 'uninteresting' or 'unadorned.' Eg. "The walls of the house were plain white."
'Plane' is short for aeroplane. Eg. "My plane to England was delayed."

Taut/Taught
'Taut' means 'tight.' Eg. "The rope went taut when the acrobat put all her weight on it."
'Taught' is the past tense of 'teach.' Eg. "The teacher taught the students how to solve algebra problems."

Than/Then
'Than' is used in comparative statements. Eg. "Cadbury chocolate tastes better than Nestles chocolate."
'Then' is used to mark time or show a sequence of events. Eg. "I will finish my assignment, and then I will work on my novel."

That/Which
'That' should be used when referring to one of multiple instances. Eg. "Bring me the pen that is on the desk." (there are many pens, we want the one that is on the desk)
'Which' should be used to add more information about an object being referred to. Eg. "Bring me the pen, which is on the desk." (there is only one pen, and it is on the desk)

There/Their/They're
'There' is an adverb meaning 'in that place' or 'in that respect.' Eg. "She will go there as soon as she can."
'Their' is the possessive form of 'they.' Eg. "Their house was burned down."
'They're' is a contraction of 'they are.' Eg. "They're going to be late for school."

Tire/tyre
'Tire' means 'to reduce the strength of' or 'to make weary.' Eg. "Running around the block three times will tire me out."
'Tyre' refers to the rubber band fitted around the metal rim on the wheel of a car. Eg. "I ran over a nail and got a flat tyre."

To/too/two
'To' is a preposition, generally expressing motion or direction towards something. Eg. "I am going to the supermarket."
'Too' can mean 'in addition' or 'to an excessive extent or degree.' Eg. "This lemonade is too sour."
'Two' is the written form of the number 2. Eg. "There are two cans of V left in my fridge."

Visualize/color
These are the American spellings. In Australia (and the UK), we use 'visualise' and 'colour.'

Weather/Whether/Wether
'Weather' refers to the climate. Eg. "The weather has been warm and humid lately."
'Whether' refers to conditions being met. Eg. "I will buy a new car whether I win the lottery or not."
'Wether' refers to a castrated lamb. "The wether has been shorn."

Whose/Who's
'Whose' is a possessive form of 'who.' Eg. "The person whose lottery ticket matches the numbers drawn will be very happy."
'Who's' is a contraction of 'who is.' Eg. "Who's going to go to the beach tomorrow?"

Your/You're
'Your' is a possessive form of 'you.' Eg. "Your fly is undone."
'You're' is a contraction of 'you are.' Eg. "You're not invited to my party."

Yous/you's/youse
None of these are proper words. Stop using them. Just stop. They make you sound like a bogan. The word/phrase you are looking for is 'you', 'you guys', 'you lot', 'you three' etc.

Remember: Every time you use bad grammar, a fairy dies.

ROW80 Round 1 - 8th Update

While I haven't got as much done in the way of adding word count done as I would have liked, I have nevertheless made some important headway on my novella. This has mainly taken the form of revisions to my outline and to what I had of chapter 1. I had already made some minor adjustments in response to feedback received from my writing workshop, but there was still a lot to be done (and there still is). I have started doing a more serious rewrite of this first chapter - including reducing the amount of characters introduced in this section and making them more believable - as well as adding in other bits that had previously been left out. It is now a complete chapter, though it still needs to be reworked. Chapter 2 didn't get much attention this week because I was labouring over chapter 1, so in a way I've failed one of my minor goals (I was hoping to have chapter 2 finished by this weekend).

Yesterday afternoon I discovered a major plot hole in my outline. I don't mean just a little inconsistency, I mean a gaping abyss of logic and reason so big I could probably drop all of Australia in there and no one would ever find it. Well, I guess it wasn't exactly a plot hole, but it was a clear case of a character only being somewhere at a certain time Because The Author Needs Them To Be. After throwing a bit of a tanty and indulging in some chocolate and energy drinks, I sat down and pulled my outline to bits, trying to work out how I could get around it. What I've come up with isn't perfect, but it's better than what was there before, and while trying to fix this plot hole, I managed to stumble across ideas/solutions for other, smaller plot holes (as well as discovering/introducing new ones :| *sigh*).

In light of the work I have undergone revising my outline and beginning to rewrite my first chapter, I have definitely decided to aim to get three chapters finished, and only to attempt the fourth if I have extra time at the end. I suppose I could possibly get four chapters done, but they would be rushed, and the quality would no doubt suffer; I'd rather get a bit less of it done but have it to a higher standard.

As usual, here is Judgemental Dog guilt-tripping me into writing:


To see how the other ROW80 participants are going, click here.

P.S. My Doctor Who sonic screwdriver keyring torch arrived on Friday. If I said I hadn't been pretending to unlock my car with it, I'd be lying ^_^

A Note on Writing Journals

Something else I found during my late night cupboard-ransacking a short time ago was the corpses of several writing journals from TAFE.

In a few of our classes, we were asked to keep a journal. In it, we were to write down or thoughts and ideas, goals for writing, notes for our stories or poetry and anything else we could think of. If I remember rightly, the class was evenly split; half were in favour of keeping a writing journal, while the other half felt that their energy could be better spent elsewhere.

I belonged to the latter half. As much as I wanted to be organised enough to keep a journal, every attempt I made to do so lasted no more than a few days. I think the closest I ever got to keeping a journal was having a large Cadbury chocolate tin stuffed with wads and wads of random papers - including notepad pages, shopping receipts and restaurant serviettes - upon which I had scrawled various scenes and ideas for my multitude of novels. Usually when I had an idea for something, I would write it down straight away. If I saw a scene in my mind, I had to get it down there and then, not just write a few notes about it and then do the rest later (and yes, this frequently interfered with such activities as eating, sleeping and doing homework). I also tend to get a bit fussy with keeping things in order, so the idea of writing something down, only to realise that I should have written something else before it, grated at me (yes, I have been described - somewhat accurately - as being anally retentive about these things haha). Having loose sheets jammed into a tin allowed me to organise things in whatever order I liked.

I don't know... Maybe I was going about keeping a writing journal the wrong way. Perhaps other writers have other methods that make them more successful with it. I can see the value in them, but I just was never able to make them work.

How about the other writers out there? Writing journals, yay or nay? How do you think they help or hinder you in your own writing?

P.S. I have just begun an exercise book, in which I make a summary of all notes from workshopping feedback on each chapter as I workshop it, as well as ideas for changes. I'm hoping that having all the notes in one place will make it easier to work from. But we'll see how long I keep it going for...

The Judgemental Dog Chronicles - Volume 1

Because I like taking photos of my dog (much to his dismay), and because I like wasting time in Photoshop captioning things, I thought I would give Judgemental Dog (a.k.a. Rex) his own post, in which all of his LolDog-esque appearances from my blog posts could be brought together in harmony (or some sentimental rubbish like that). Many a time he has provided helpful comments/threats to writers around the world. Perhaps he will inspire/intimidate other writers into getting more work done :)

And for those who want some Judgemental Dog love in the social media world, your favourite condescending canine is on Facebook and Twitter! You can Follow him here, or Like him here.
























The adventures of Judgemental Dog continue in Round 2.

ROW80 Round 1 - 7th Update

As predicted in my last update, not much progress was made on the writing front this week. However, I did have some fun catching up with some friends for barbecues and DVD-watching sessions (yes, I occasionally DO leave my lair and brave the sunlight to socialise), so the time wasn't entirely wasted. I've also continued working my way through the Sherlock Holmes books, and though they are an entirely different genre and style to my own works (and to the books I normally read), I am finding them quite engaging, and they seem to be helping to kick my creativity back into gear.

I also ordered myself a Doctor Who sonic screwdriver keyring torch from eBay. Because it was just too awesome not to have.

Plus, I cleaned my desk. And trust me, this needed doing desperately, as I was starting to forget what the top of my desk actually looked like. I managed to empty out two drawers worth of junk, as well as clearing all the crap from the surface, so now it's all nice and ready for me to mess up again.

This morning (before going to a friend's house to gorge myself on grilled chicken and entertain a baby by making idiotic noises/facial expressions while eating said chicken), I sat down and wrote a bit more of chapter 2, as well as jotting down a few brief scenes for chapter 3. I also attempted to rewrite some unsatisfactory sections of my outline, but since I couldn't think of anything that was even slightly less unsatisfactory, I ended up leaving it for another day.

I have the next three days off, and most of the time I should have the house to myself, which will help me get a lot more done (I work best when no one else is home to annoy/interrupt me all the time). I am starting to wonder if it will be possible to get all four chapters for part 1 finished during this ROW80. Especially since I will be back at uni in just over a month, and working on my thesis - along with my normal subjects - will consume a lot of my time and energy.

I'm going to see how I go over the next week, but I may end up revising my goals for this ROW80. In my original goal statement, I said that I wanted to have the first four chapters of part 1 completed. If I do decide to adjust my goals, I will instead aim to just have the first three chapters completed. Not only will it leave me with a decent amount of chronologically ordered prose, it will also give me enough to use as a sample for the technical part of my IT/Multimedia thesis (which - without going into too much detail - is going to focus on eBooks).

On a side note; if anyone has links to interesting sites/articles etc regarding eBooks, feel free to leave them in my comments :) Though I have a rough idea of what I'm going to do, I'm still trying to define a more precise direction for my thesis, so anything that might spark a brilliant idea will be more than welcome.

Here is Judgemental Dog being lazy. The furry little hypocrite.

A link to other ROW80 check-ins is here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 6th Update

Went to the dentist on Saturday for a check-up and to get an abscess looked at. The dentist prescribed penicillin, which I have taken before with no problems. Upon arriving home, I took my first dose and sat down to write.

But the penicillin was all like "ha HA! Screw YOU, immune system, Imma be a cowboy and make as much of a mess as I can!" And then my immune system lay down like a little bitch as the penicillin kicked its arse. Thus I spent most of the weekend scratching and sneezing and looking like the victim of some horrid plague, and generally feeling sorry for myself.

Yes. That is how it happened.

So: This week's progress. As far as adding new words to my tally goes, I failed spectacularly. Yes, I did potter around with chapter 2, hoping to get it to almost-complete status, and I did manage to write a few more important scenes for it. But there are just as many important (and less important) scenes still to be written. I didn't spend as much time writing this week as I would have liked. I ended up going back and playing with my prologue and chapter 1 again (even though I said I wouldn't), so they're in a bit better shape than they were before. Still, I would have preferred to get more new material written (unfortunately after having something workshopped, I can tend to get a bit OCD about the piece, and I find it hard to leave it alone for a little while). I also got distracted by books (I found my old man's collection of Sherlock Holmes novels while raiding his shelf for something else, which I promptly forgot about anyway) so a lot of my spare time was spent reading instead of writing.

As for this week, I can more or less predict with 100% certainty that I'll get next to nothing done before the next check-in. With work, catch-ups with friends (some of whom I haven't seen for a while) and being forced into acting as the family's errand-bitch, I'm not going to have a lot of time to myself until Thursday. I still want to have chapter 2 finished by the weekend, but I will have to see how I go.

Possessed - A Lost Tuples Production

This is a short film made by myself and two uni friends (known collectively as The Lost Tuples) for our film subject last year, Digital Video Post Production. Starring The Lost Tuples, it was directed, filmed, edited and given special effects by the Lost Tuples.

The story has elements of some of those 90s occult/witchcraft shows, eg. The Craft, Charmed. We also wanted to incorporate elements of Eastern style martial arts fight scenes. Overall, we were aiming for a mix of 'dark' and 'cheesy', which I think we achieved fairly well :)



The Lost Tuples are: Rebecca J Fleming
Zak Ford
Jason Lochtenberg

Co-Starring: Ricky Shepherd

Software Used: Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Adobe After Effects