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Language of Oppression, Language of Respect, and the Etiquette of Written Prose
Part of an ongoing series of musings about language and oppression, and bias-free* language (or, as I prefer, affirmative language or language of respect).
Cross posted at This Crazy Industry. Feel free to comment here or there. This version has additional linky goodness ( Read more... ) -
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Dear Internets,
For some reason, there seems to be some confusion surrounding the meaning of the word censor (v., tr; also n ( Read more... ) -
Compounding Things
Things I have learned today:
- mine shaft is an open compound.
- keystroke is not.
- jet pack is not in the Oxford Canadian Dictionary; however, jet boat is, and it's an open compound, from which we may extrapolate that jet pack is also an open compound.
- scorecard is a closed compound.
- There's a style sheet for the blackline masters that go with the ( Read more... )
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You're Annoying Both the Feminist and the Grammarian. Quit It.
Dear Men (and Some Women) of the Progressive Blogosphere ( Read more... ) -
Much of a manyness
This week's Thursday usage note may actually be a grammar note. In fact, it's one I think I might have written about before.
Here's the problem: much of my authors can't tell the difference between an amount of things that can be counted and a number of things that can't, many of the time.
Let us consider apples and rice.
Apples are countable ( Read more... ) -
Reflecting on Redundant Reflexives
Thursday Usage* Note
This CBC article provides a lovely example of redundant reflexism:
The police have now agreed they will allow a person to self-identify themselves as a transsexual.
Query to the CBC and to the police: would it be possible for a person to self-identify someone else as a transsexual ( Read more... ) -
Well, true, the Jews did not invent field hockey
Thursday Usage Note
Dear authors and readers,
Gentile means someone who is not Jewish, or is not of one's own religious community (especially, historically, if one's religious community is Mormon). It may be used as both a noun and an adjective. "Go forth and preach to the Gentiles" is correct, as is "The Gentile tribes did not adopt our ways."
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In other news...
Because life really does go on.
Welcome Home
sabotabby is back! Hooray! Go visit her home and enjoy her pictures of Russia.
Welcome Back
I've posted some new stuff at TCI. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's good to get back to it.
A Welcome Distraction
Check out the growing list of dreadful phrases at Making Light. I used to collect these, and am ( Read more... ) -
Lie me down
It's taken me a few months to figure out how to do this. Inspired by sabotabby, I present
Chocolate and Commas
The escapades of a dancing editor
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Let's Conference on That One
I've been rather neglecting TCI since I left the Comma Mines. Freelancing took up a lot of time, as has my personal life, then I came to the Textbook Mills, and I've been leery of posting work-related stuff, because they're way more corporate here than at the Comma Mines. I've also been kind of despondent about the state of the industry, my own ( Read more... )