I Stand Corrected

We Have Moved

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:42:12 GMT

I Stand Corrected has a new home at Blogger. We have migrated over, and I would like to invite you to save our new URL and drop by to visit us. The migration went very smoothly, and I'm so relieved!

Our new address is: http://i-stand-corrected.blogspot.com/

Tags: Grammar, English, Language, Words, Phrases

Moving

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:31:56 GMT

Within the next few weeks this journal will be moving to Blogger and will continue to be a shared "blog". I'll post the new URL as soon as we have one.

A nice turn of phrase

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:17:55 GMT

A while back I read something that struck me as very nicely written. I wish I could recall the author, but I can't. They wrote that someone had "a Sequoia-sized chip on their shoulder." I like the imagery, the hyperbole, and the humor.

Hey, You Guuuyyyysssss!

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:01:21 GMT

Today, September 24, is the fifth annual National Punctuation Day®!! Check out the web site; it's great! From a newspaper article quoted on the site: National Punctuation Day®, the holiday that reminds America that a “semicolon is not a surgical procedure,” celebrates its fifth anniversary September 24. What started as a clever idea to remind corporations and professional people of the importance of proper punctuation has turned into an everyday mission to help school children learn the punctuation skills they need to be successful in life.

I have to admit that the first thing I thought of when I found out that today is National Punctuation Day® was The Electric Company, an educational TV show back in the early 70s. I loved it then, and I still love seeing some of the re-runs. I can remember watching it at school every morning in at least one grade, probably third. I remember Morgan Freeman was a regular, as was Rita Moreno. Bill Cosby was on during the first season, and segments he had taped for the show were repeated in subsequent episodes. I still see actors and actresses occasionally and think, "Hey! I remember him/her from Electric Company!"

But what comes to my mind (quite often, I'm sorry to say) whenever I hear the word "Punctuation" was the punctuation song from The Electric Company. Remember it? Care to sing along? Well, here's a video from the show that I found on YouTube, and I've posted the lyrics afterward. Enjoy!

Title: Punctuation

Composer: Joe Raposo / Elaine Laron

Lead vocals: Lee Chamberlin, Rita Moreno

Backing vocals: Short Circus #1

(Scene: Lee and Rita, swaying in tropical outfits, with the kids chroma-keyed into the background.)

Chorus:

[SC] Punctuation. Punc, punc, punc, punctuation.

They are the little marks that use their influence

To help a sentence make more sense.

[LC] Now a period is just a little dot,

But it occupies a very special spot.

If you should see a period, my friend,

Ah, then you know a sentence just came to an end.

Chorus:

[SC] Punctuation. Punc, punc, punc, punctuation.

They are the little marks that use their influence

To help a sentence make more sense.

[RM] Now an exclamation point is saying, “Pow!

Yes, sirree! I don’t mean maybe! Boy, and how!”

When you see it there, it means you ought to say

That sentence in a MOST emphatic way!

Chorus:

[SC] Punctuation. Punc, punc, punc, punctuation.

They are the little marks that use their influence

To help a sentence make more sense.

[LC] Now a question mark is always there to show

That there’s something that somebody wants to know.

It’s as if a sentence tries to say to you,

“I don’t know the answer, but perhaps you do?”

Chorus:

[SC] Punctuation. Punc, punc, punc, punctuation.

They are the little marks that use their influence

To help a sentence make more sense.

[RM] Now a comma is that funny little sign

That says, “Hey, wait. Just a second. Hold the line.”

When you see a comma, mostly it will mean

There are words you ought to take a breath between.

Chorus:

[SC] Punctuation. Punc, punc, punc, punctuation.

They are the little marks that use their influence

To help a sentence make more sense.

[LC, RM] So if you want to be a reading sensation,

You’ve got to know your punctuation.

Did you enjoy that stroll down memory lane? I did!

Happy Punctuation Day!!!

Tags: National Punctuation Day, The Electric Company

mondegreens

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:39:49 GMT

What is a mondegreen? It's not a literary problem, it's a speech problem. It's a spoken phrase that can mean two different things depending on the way you hear it. It comes from "She's Lady Mondegreen." or. "She's laid him on the green."

There are simple mondegreens: "last train," or, "last rain," "that's no time," or,
"that's snow time," "he's in the Jewry room," or "he's in the jury room." There's the infamous Shakespearean line that actors have to be careful of: "I hear his trumpet," instead of "I hear his strumpet."

They can be complicated as in "She had a graded dress," or, "She had a great address." And they can be very far afield, "This Malcom Eddy," or, "dismal comedy."

I wonder how many others there are. DB

Tags: mondegreens

To lay or to lie?

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:39:39 GMT

Two verbs that I struggle with are lay and lie.

Lay means to place or put. The past tense is laid. We speak of laying something on something, such as laying a book on a table, or if you did it yesterday, you laid a book on the table.

Lie means to recline. Many times it is used with the adverb down, as in "I would like to lie down on the bed." Here is where it gets really fun: the past tense is lay, just like the present tense of the other verb! The past participle is lain. If I decided to lie down, I would lay on the bed for a while, then realize that I had lain there too long.

I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted just thinking about it. I need to go lie down!

Syntax horror

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:28:18 GMT

The BBC ran an article on its website on the misuse of grammar. Item 10 is not incorrect: when you start firing your weapon, you open fire.

Spell check

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:50:51 GMT

When talking with some of my fellow "wordies," we often express dismay that spell check has removed the incentive to learn how to spell.

I'm certainly grateful for spell check, because it saves a trip to the bookcase to pull out the dictionary. But all those lists of vocabulary words in grade school, participating in spelling bees (I won in third grade! I spelled rheumatism.), reading and learning about various words...was it all for naught?

Well...I don't think so. While spell check is a powerful tool, it doesn't take homonyms into account, and it is no substitute for proofreading. (One of my common typos is typing "and" instead of "an." The former happens to be a fairly common word. <grin>) Spell check will let such things as the improper use of as "to" and "too" slide, not to mention "their" and "there." There are many more. Spell check does not erase all errors, and is not a panacea for not knowing the fundamentals of grammar or spelling.

Of course, if you're going to rely on spell check, I suggest you actually use it. I recently came across the word "surroget" in my readings. You can't blame spell check for that one!

Tags: Spell check, vocabulary, grammar, homonyms

The Apostrophe

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:34:45 GMT

From my 11-24-07 entry:

Question: When do you use an apostrophe?

apostrophe: The apostrophe has three uses:

1) to form possessives of nouns

2) to show the omission of letters

3) to indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters.

Apostrophes are NOT used for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals, including acronyms.

How to make a noun possessive: To see if you need to make a possessive, turn the phrase around and make it an "of the..." phrase. For example:

the boy's hat = the hat of the boy; three days' journey = journey of three days

Once you've determined whether you need to make a possessive, follow these rules to create one.

--add 's to the singular form of the word (even if it ends in -s): the owner's car, James's hat

--add 's to the plural forms that do not end in -s: the children's game, the geese's honking

--add ' to the end of plural nouns that end in -s: houses' roofs, three friends' letters

--add 's to the end of compound words: my brother-in-law's money

--add 's to the last noun to show joint possession of an object: Todd and Anne's apartment

Don't use apostrophes for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals. Apostrophes should not be used with possessive pronouns because possessive pronouns already show possession -- they don't need an apostrophe. His, her, its, my, yours, ours are all possessive pronouns.

__________________________

This is one of my buddy Greg's (note the apostrophe there, denoting possession) pet peeves, and it has also become one of mine. Specifically, "it's" means "it is." It is (or I could write "it's") not interchangeable with the possessive "its," as in "a leopard cannot change its spots." If you substitute "it's" in that sentence, the expanded contraction would read, "a leopard cannot change it is spots." It makes no sense.

Tags: Apostrophe

Sic

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:02:46 GMT

This is a Latin word originally meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "just as that".

Nowadays, it is used primarily in square brackets [sic] to indicate something of interest, and also when a word or expression is quoted verbatim - this is usually done when there is a spelling or grammatical error, or unusual usage of language.

The US constitution for instance states: The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker.

This store sums up its appeal as "styley [sic], confident, sexy"....