Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[samhy]

I wanted some cuteness so I started Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I'm 10% in and so far so good. It made me smile, and even giggle a little, in the public transportation yesterday.

[Rev. Bob]

I just found out that DC's got a lot of their "Year One" arcs on sale for $0.99/issue (digitally), so I've spent the last few hours with Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Teen Titans, and Nightwing. I also picked up a couple of cheap Spidey GNs in the package, and I'm wavering on the JLA-Y1 12-issue arc.

I've been mired in writing my own novel for close to two months, and this spurt will at least pick my reading numbers up a little, but I'm still a good dozen books behind for the year.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now for something completely different: A Liaden Universe® Constellation: Volume Two by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Excellent as usual, filling in minor characters' stories around the main events. A very good collection.


Next up: Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie. Her 51st mystery book, first published in March 1952. Including this one, I only have 33 more Agatha Christies left. And that's including some posthumous publications and adaptations.

[WT Sharpe]

I just finished reading Yes, I COULD Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk by Bill Walsh, and found this book to be very helpful, and even enjoyable. While I don't agree with everything the author says (I don't get upset when I encounter the phrase "without further ado", which he calls a "ridiculous" cliché), I find this book very informative. It's helped me quite a bit. For example, I used to be very confused about the phrase, "used to", but not anymore. Mr. Walsh has clarified it. Think you know how "Black Friday" got its name? Hint: It had nothing to do with the merchants finally making a profit after being "in the red" all year.

For someone who starts his book by telling his readers, "Language does evolve, it does sometimes defy logic, and it does depend on context. Different words can mean the same thing, and the same word can mean different things. You can almost always tell what I could care less means, and you’re not likely to call in the fire brigade if you hear about someone’s head literally exploding," you might think Bill Walsh takes a very lackadaisical attitude toward language. You'd be wrong. He's a bona fide language snob; but seems to be very nice about it.

Here are some observations from Bill Walsh. I quoted many of them, making this post quite long, so I enclosed them in spoilers:

Spoiler:

[M]aybe consistency isn’t my forte. (That’s fort, not for-TAY.)

As a musician, I like that one. Forte (pronounced "for-TAY") means "loud."

The laughs continued in the finals, when the U.S. player Abby Wambach said of her Japanese counterpart (and former teammate) Homare Sawa, “I couldn’t be prouder of Sawa than for literally putting her team on her back and carrying them to the final.”

Thru and employe and cigaret and other simplified spellings that seemed like the wave of the future didn’t last.

(Huh! I still use "thru" occasionally.)

If you loathe (hate) change, you might be loath (reluctant) to embrace new usages. Loath is a relatively uncommon word, so a lot of people understandably (but not excusably) use loathe for both meanings. Don’t be one of those people.

Why we need capitalization: Because my old navy jacket is neither an old Navy jacket nor an Old Navy jacket.

The verb contact was once a target of stickler scorn, but it passed the evolutionary test and lives peacefully today with relatively few natural enemies (unless you count the objection preserved, as if in amber, in The Elements of Style). Contrast that with the fate of impact as a verb, at least in the non-dental sense, which despite its ubiquity, despite its being used by notables from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Wink Martindale, has yet to win over the proverbial careful writers and editors.

I’m not one of those “Don’t verb nouns!” fetishists, but … imposing a toll on a road is “tolling” that road? Eww.

(For the most part, I AM one of those “Don’t verb nouns!” fetishists, but to each their own.)

The Internet, of course has ruined everything, except in those cases where it’s improved things or left things exactly the same.

The Wichita Eagle’s excellent Grammar Monkeys blog illustrates the principle with a recurring feature called Why We Need Hyphens. Some samples: Because a heavy-equipment operator is not the same as a heavy equipment operator. Because hazardous-materials training is not the same as hazardous materials training. Because 300-odd editors are not the same as 300 odd editors.

The occasional one- or two-letter exception is fine, as in iPad, but sentences and headings must begin with capital letters, and proper nouns should have a cap at the beginning, or pretty darn close. I don’t care what the Adidas logo says; the brand is not adidas. I don’t care what the Nike logo says; the brand is not NIKE. Yahoo and Guess do not get to interrupt sentences with decorative punctuation marks.

ARMED GUNMEN They’re the worst kind.

I nearly fell in love with the man when he said this:

Grown-ups would be well advised to use words such as “veggies” sparingly if at all.

His humor is apparant throughout the book:

Someone is a professor or the professor. “She is professor of English at Harvard University”? You are Tonto of Lone Ranger.

From his discussion of the whether:

Issue No. 1: Whether “whether or not” is redundant. Or not. And the answer is … it is when it is. I’ve seen self-styled sticklers ban the “or not” in all cases, ignoring the obvious folly, but it’s pretty clear that while you don’t need the “or not” in “Let’s see whether or not it rains today,” you most certainly do need it in “I’m going to ride my bike, whether or not it rains.” (Does anyone really think “I’m going to ride my bike, whether it rains” makes sense?) So delete it if you can. Don’t if you can’t.

I should mention also that Bill Walsh has a Twitter account (Bill Walsh @TheSlot):

@TheSlot I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw “whom” forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

Finally, some advice for all of us who tend to be language snobs:

I’m not a religious person, but the 12-steppers’ serenity prayer can be edited into a pretty handy pocket guide for language snobs: Correct what you can. Accept what you can’t. Be smart enough to know the difference.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished The Language of Power, and it very much left me wanting her to get well enough to write more! I really like this series. I like the premise (technology as magic), I like the strong female protagonists, I like the pace and language, and I like the characters in it.

Also finished Imager's Challenge. Like all the Modesitt books I've read, the story is good when he isn't pontificating. I just skip over pages at a time. Overall, I'd give this a 3.5 to 4. Enough that I'll finish this story arc with Imager's Intrigue, but not enough to be actually excited about it.

On deck is also Grand Central Arena. I've heard enough good things about this that I just have to give it a try.

Finished Imager's Intrigue. After The Language of Power, it was mildly disappointing. Yes, I enjoyed it. But no more than 3.5 stars, and that only because I'm feeling generous today. Going to try reading Grand Central Arena next. I know y'all like it, so I'm hopeful, but reading the blurb certainly doesn't have me excited.

[MickeyC]

Just finished A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first in the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters and it was very good. If you put Shakespeare and Agatha Christie into a blender and hit puree, you'd pour out Brother Cadfael.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie.

Intriguing Hercule Poirot mystery. Poirot is on good form, brought into a case at the last minute (after the trial and before the execution) because of the doubts of the officer in charge of the case. Who did kill Mrs McGinty?


Next: Cobra Guardian by Timothy Zahn. Another recent purchase of a Baen book from Kobo using a coupon, to fill in a gap in a series (I had 1 and 3 of Cobra War, but not 2, which is this book).

[mewmartigan]

Just finished up The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and now back to the Honorverse with Torch of Freedom by David Weber and Eric Flint.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished reading Yes, I COULD Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk by Bill Walsh, and found this book to be very helpful, and even enjoyable.

Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like something I will love to read.

(and like a fitting birthday present for Harry )

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished reading Yes, I COULD Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk by Bill Walsh, and found this book to be very helpful, and even enjoyable.

If you have not already done so, be sure and read The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. In it you will learn why English is as hosed up as it is. And, among other things, you will learn what the single most understood word in the world is; spoken in every language in every country.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by MickeyC

If you have not already done so, be sure and read The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. In it you will learn why English is as hosed up as it is.

I'll have to check that one out.

Originally Posted by MickeyC

And, among other things, you will learn what the single most understood word in the world is; spoken in every language in every country.

I'm guessing it's either "no" or "ma"; probably "ma".

EDIT: I see I'm wrong, but I never thought of that as a word.

[MickeyC]

The most understood word in the world was invented by a bunch of upper middle class school boys in Boston at the turn of the century (19th to 20th). There was a huge immigrant population there at that time and these boys liked to write like an immigrant might get it wrong.

When the teacher gave the class a quiz then tell the students in one row to swap their papers with the row next to them to be graded and mark the paper AC for all correct if there were no errors, these boys would write OK misspelling AC the way an immigrant might.

Anyway, the work OK (AKA: Okay) caught on and is spoken in every country. I've heard it in Thailand, Denmark, France, Korea, China and every other country I've been in.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished Imager's Intrigue. After The Language of Power, it was mildly disappointing. Yes, I enjoyed it. But no more than 3.5 stars, and that only because I'm feeling generous today. Going to try reading Grand Central Arena next. I know y'all like it, so I'm hopeful, but reading the blurb certainly doesn't have me excited.

Also finished The Mummy Case, by Elizabeth Peters, read by Barbara Rosenblatt. This is the third book in the Amelia Peabody series, and introduces their son, Ramses, and his cat, Bastet. An excellent book, and I look forward to the next in the series, Lion in the Valley. Not sure yet whether I will read it, or listen to it. In either case, an excellent series and highly recommended.

[MickeyC]

Am currently reading A Touch of Deceit by Gary Ponzo. This is the first book in the Thrilling Thirteen Kobo deal (99 cents) and, so far it's a good, fast read.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished Imager's Intrigue. After The Language of Power, it was mildly disappointing. Yes, I enjoyed it. But no more than 3.5 stars, and that only because I'm feeling generous today. Going to try reading Grand Central Arena next. I know y'all like it, so I'm hopeful, but reading the blurb certainly doesn't have me excited.

Ooops. Forgot that I'd started Gallows View, the first of Peter Robinson's DCI Banks books. I wanted to finish that before any thing else. I liked it. Only 4 stars, but with promise if the characters develop over time.

Now, back to Grand Central Arena.