Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Boring.

It rained. It rained quite a bit this past week. Lord knows, we needed some rain. We've had ten weeks of scorching sunshine here in the south-west of Britain. The grass is as dry as a bone. England's "green and pleasant land" was turning into England's brown and ugly landscape.

Little Barbara comes to the site tomorrow to learn to be a plumber's mate so I'll have a ramble for you.

Tonight, though?? Not really.

I could do a political rant - but I really don't have the energy.

I could do a grammar rant. (There is more than one past tense - they are not interchangeable!! What do fanfic writers have against the past perfect tense - why are they so reluctant to use it?? ). Nah. Said it before, don't want to keep saying it - it gets boring.

I could grumble about US English, why does it hate irregular verbs so much?? Irregular verbs are lovely. **hugs knelt, spelt, dreamt, learnt, leant** there, there, babies, don't cry, we still love you. Nah, that gets boring, too.

I could grumble about the UK custom of ignoring the Oxford comma. I've read so much US writing that I've grown accustomed to US usage, and UK usage looks weird to me now - not to mention the unintended humour the lack of that final comma can sometimes produce. (We don't tend to use the "m" dash either - but I still follow British custom there so I only notice its presence not its absence.)

And what does US English have against the hyphen?? Hyphens are important. They assist clarity. No one is not the same as no-one. "No one apple is like another" as opposed to "there was no-one in the room". US English seems to have abandoned them altogether - even in numbers. But I've done that one before, too. Boring.

I can't think of a thing to say tonight that isn't boring. Anyone out there got a ramble?? We'd love to hear from you.

Ze

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