Problems
Here is a list of things I'd like to solve:
- finding an alternative for the phrase "that sucks". My mom used to get after me when I said it. There just doesn't seem to be a good alternative. [edit 3/19/06- Jon reccomends "bummer"]
- finding an alternative to "said something like". When I mention some type of dialog on my livejournal it is usually a recollection. As such, it is technically a paraphrase and not quotes of what someone said. Having to clarify this each time it happens would be exceedingly tedious.
- establishing the correct use for quotations. This is related to the above problem. However, there are also times when I want to italicize a word or phrase. Other times I am just using some type of popular jargon that I don't agree with but that I'll use because no alternative exists. A teacher once told us that we shouldn't use quotes in that manner. I've used both interchangeably. Example: Tom loved to eat "chilli hot dogs" vs. Tom loved to eat 'chilli hot dogs'
In addition to all of this, I also use quotations for titles. MBLA standards want you to underline, but underline doesn't copy from text editors to html very easily (well at least not universally). Plus, adding brackets for HTML formatting is a pain. Another solution would be to use ALL CAPITALS FOR TITLES, but it looks messy and is considered yelling in web ettiquitte.
- how to organize this list. I could use lj tags; 'problems' sounds too generic. Perhaps it should be with my 'vocab' tag too.. I also used to keep this up on http://hmatt.com/problems.html . Then again I could also experiment with the new lists option on 43things.com [edit: 4/29/07, I've changed the tag 'problems' to 'problems to solve'. It makes the purpose clearer and I can go through each entry and 'edit' an update for a possible solution.]