My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
Avoid alliteration. Always.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
Employ the vernacular.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Contractions aren’t necessary.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
One should never generalize.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
Profanity sucks.
Be more or less specific.
Understatement is always best.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
funny emails
Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.
In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.
The pace of change is quickening, too, Amazon said. In the last four weeks sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover copies. Amazon has 630,000 Kindle books, a small fraction of the millions of books sold on the site.
Book lovers mourning the demise of hardcover books with their heft and their musty smell need a reality check, said Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, which advises book publishers on digital change. “This was a day that was going to come, a day that had to come,” he said. He predicts that within a decade, fewer than 25 percent of all books sold will be print versions.
Amazon.com announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.
In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.
The pace of change is quickening, too, Amazon said. In the last four weeks sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover copies. Amazon has 630,000 Kindle books, a small fraction of the millions of books sold on the site.
Book lovers mourning the demise of hardcover books with their heft and their musty smell need a reality check, said Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, which advises book publishers on digital change. “This was a day that was going to come, a day that had to come,” he said. He predicts that within a decade, fewer than 25 percent of all books sold will be print versions.
Books Then and Now
“The road to knowledge begins with the turn of the page.” Anonymous
Today:
“The road to knowledge begins with the press of a button.” JC
Past:
“A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideasâ€â€a place where history comes to life.” Norman Cousins
“A good library is a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations and generations meet.”Samuel Niger
Today:
“A good library will fit in the palm of your hand.” JC
Quotes about Books and e-books
“A book is a human-powered film projector (complete with feature film) that advances at a speed fully customized to the viewer’s mood or fancy. This rare harmony between object and user arises from the minimal skills required to manipulate a bound sequence of pages. Each piece of paper embodies a corresponding instant of time which remains frozen until liberated by the act of turning a page.” The Reactive Square - John Maeda
“We read about 1,000 times more than we write.” Xerox PARC – Rich Gold
“We think of an eBook as an intelligent pet.” BeeHive Hypertext - Talan Memmot
“It took people 10 years to figure out that while stuck in a morning commute, they could be listening to a book.” Publishers Weekly- Paul Hilts
“Change can be scary. When papyrus replaced clay tablets, and the Gutenberg press calligraphy, did a bit of panic set in? Are we in the midst of a revolution of similar proportion? Very probably.” Susan McLester
“We should not see print and electronic literature as in competition, but rather in conversation. The more voices that join in, the richer the dialogue is likely to be.”
N. Katherine Hayles
“I cannot live without books.” Thomas Jefferson
Continue reading about Amazon announces sales of e-books have outnumbered sales of hardcovers!
Oh, The Places You’ll Go
My wife and I give this book to our friends’ children for their graduation and many speakers quote from this book during Graduations ceremonies.
Basically, it tells us that success is imminent, if you try. Page after colorful, carefully illustrated page is filled with rhymed wisdom to inspire readers to venture out into the world in search of dreams without fear or inhibition. Mindful of roadblocks and stumbles, the book reminds readers to dust themselves off and keep trying whenever setbacks occur.
This was Dr. Seuss’ last book before he died.
Theodor Seuss Geisel (pronounced /ˈɡaɪzÉ™l/; March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American writer and cartoonist most widely known for his children’s books written under the pen nameDr. Seuss.[1] He published over 60 children’s books, which were often characterized by imaginative characters, rhyme, and frequent use of trisyllabic meter. His most celebrated books include the bestselling Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Numerous adaptations of his work have been created, including eleven television specials, threefeature films, and a Broadway musical.
Geisel also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, most notably for Flit and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for PM, a New York City newspaper. During World War II, he worked in an animation department of the U.S Army, where he wrote Design for Death, a film that later won the 1947 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
Read Across America is an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. One part of the project is National Read Across America Day, an observance in the United States held on March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.
Dr. Seuss would have been 105 today. Many of us grew up reading his fanciful tales.
He was born on March 2, 1904 in Massachusetts, although his amazing ‘Cat in the Hat’ wasn’t published until Dr Seuss was 55 years old.
In his lifetime he won two Emmy awards and a Pulitzer Prize for his work.
Do you have a favourite Dr. Zeus Quote?
Mine is:
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.”
Do you recognize some of these famous quotes???
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”
“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
“And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed.”
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
“You know when you’re in love and you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you.”
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”
Continue reading about Dr. Seuss Birthday — Would have been 105 today!
In a tale as old as time, here is a short list of classic books and other literary works that were originally attacked by critics and subsequently given bad reviews.“..evidence of a diseased mind and a lacerated heart.”
- John Dunlop, ‘The History of Fiction’, 1814.
* A Midsummer Night’s Dream - William Shakeaspeare – performed in London in 1662.
“The most stupid ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.”
- Samuel Pepys, Diary.* Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift – 1726.
“..evidence of a diseased mind and a lacerated heart.”
- John Dunlop, ‘The History of Fiction’, 1814.
* Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert – 1857.
“Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer.”
- Le Figaro.
* Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy – 1877.
“Sentimental Rubbish”
- The Odessa Courier.
* The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald – 1925.
“What has never been alive cannot very well go on living. So this is a book of the season only.”
- New York Herald Tribune.
* Catch-22 – Joseph Heller – 1961.
“Heller wallows in his own laughter… and the sort of antic behaviour the children fall into when they know they are losing our attention.”
- Whitey Balliett, New Yorker.
