English of the orient

October 17, 2008 · Filed Under Funny · Comment 

And here are some catcalls:

“You are in grave danger if you do”

“You there! You can’t die there. Didn’t you read the sign? Go die somewhere else!”

“Violators will be resuscitated.”

“What? No dying here?!? You won’t let me die here? What do you want me to do? Live? Fine then! I’ll live, but I’m holding you responsible! This is all your fault!”

And the wisecracks:

“And if you’re dead, please get to a hospital…”

“If the police are stolen, call you at once.”

“Yes, and I will put a reward out for myself”

“Excuse me, Mr. officer. I seem to be stolen, my I ask how that happened. I have no idea. I was sitting here quietly and someone picked me up and ran off”

“If missing, stay where you are.”

“I was stolen. I need to be found help me!”

“i’m holding myself for ransom.”

Via

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Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes

July 8, 2007 · Filed Under Linguistics, WordPress · Comment 

I was browsing about the Nice Dashes plugin for Wordpress, which replaces double-hyphens (––) with the correct character code for an em-dash (—), and also converts single-hyphens to a character code. There I came to know that Wordpress by default converts Triple-hyphens to em-dashes (—), and double-dashes to en-dashes (–).

I also stumbled upon another site called http://stellify.net/, wherein I learnt about the perils of the “auto-hyphenation” feature of Word-processors, whenever a word is broken into different lines. This kind of adding a hyphen breaks hyper links of URL’s.

How wise had I become after reading all these? Pity. I discovered how ignorant I am on this esoteric domain of dashes!! So, I prayed before the altar of the net-gods, to wit, the ever-dependable friends-in-need, Google and Wikipedia. They never let you down, do they!

So, when I started delving deeper into the realms of dashes and things, I got wised up on the nuances of using hyphens and dashes. Instead of me summing up, why don’t you do a bit of leg-work and comb through them yourself!!

Here are the resources:-

“Get it wright” page on en dashes and em dashes.

Wikipedia page on dashes.

Happy dashing!!

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Has Wordsworth erred?

September 16, 2006 · Filed Under General · Comment 

I was brought up on Wordsworth during the school days. And “Daffodils” was staple and inescapable! Now what is my gripe? It is the first line of the poem which goes like this:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

You will readily agree with me that it is very rare to spot a cloud wandering alone? They (almost) always ramble in a bunch. So I am of the view that a cloud is not an appropriate similie to describe lonely wandering. But what an audacity! A nondescript non-native speaker of English venturing insolently trying to criticise the great William Wordsworth, romantic poet of 18th/19th century.

But will there be at least a single homo-sapien who will dare to agree with me?

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