Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 71

Top 50 Oxymora: A List for Writers

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two seemingly contradictory or opposite ideas to create a particular rhetorical or poetic effect and reveal a more profound truth. Generally, the ideas will come as two separate words placed side by side. The most common type of oxymoron is an adjective followed by a noun.

[image error]

Oxymora (that’s the plural of oxymoron) are sometimes useful literary devices for writers. They are okay to use occasionally, but don’t overdo it! If you have read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet you might recall this line which is a classic example of using an oxymoron in literature:

“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

 Here is a list I used to give my journalism students at the University of Illinois. It is by no means exhaustive. There are many more floating around out there. Enjoy!

Orderly confusion
Minor crisis
Confirmed rumor
Deafening silence
Known secret
Act naturally
Found missing
Resident alien
Advanced BASIC
Genuine imitation
Airline Food
Good grief
Same difference
Almost exactly
Government organization
Sanitary landfill
Alone together
Legally drunk
Silent scream
Living dead
Small crowd
Business ethics
Soft rock
Butt-Head
Military Intelligence
Software documentation
New classic
Sweet sorrow
Childproof
“Now, then …”
Synthetic natural gas
Passive aggression
Taped live
Clearly misunderstood
Peace force
Extinct Life
Temporary tax increase
Computer jock
Plastic glasses
Terribly pleased
Computer security
Political science
Tight slacks
Definite maybe
Pretty ugly
Twelve-ounce pound cake
Diet ice cream
Working vacation
Exact estimate
Microsoft Works

[image error]

50 Tips on How to Write Good (Ahem)

Here is another handout I used to give to my students when I was teaching journalism at the University of Illinois. I hope you find it useful.

The contents of this post are an alphabetical arrangement of two lists that have been circulating among writers and editors for many years. In case you have missed out all this time, I’m sharing here the wit and wisdom of the late New York Times language maven William Safire and advertising executive and copywriter Frank LaPosta Visco.

1. A writer must not shift your point of view.

2.Always pick on the correct idiom.

3. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

4. Always be sure to finish what

5. Avoid alliteration. Always.

6. Avoid archaeic spellings.

7. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)

8. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

9. Be more or less specific.

10. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

11. Contractions aren’t necessary.

12. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.

13. Don’t indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.

14. Don’t never use no double negatives.

15. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!

16. Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.

17. Don’t use commas, that, are not, necessary.

18. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.

19. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

20. Employ the vernacular.

21. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

22. Eschew obfuscation.

23. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

[image error]

24. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

25. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

26. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

28. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

29. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

30. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

31. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.

32. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

33. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.

34. No sentence fragments.

35. One should never generalize.

36. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

37. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

38. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.

[image error]

39. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of ten or more words, to their antecedents.

40. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.

41. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.

42. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

43. Profanity sucks.

44. Subject and verb always has to agree.

45. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.

46. The adverb always follows the verb.

47. The passive voice is to be avoided.

48. Understatement is always best.

49. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.

50. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.

51. Who needs rhetorical questions?

52. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

Oh, and let me add one tip: If your article consists of a list and the title refers to the number of items in the list, count the number of items in the list carefully

WELCOME TO TOMORROW!

I’ve always been fascinated by the future. How will it look? How will people live? How will they travel? How will medical advances change their lives? What will be the most significant changes?

Recently, I received an email that attempted to answer some of those questions. Here’s one peek at what is coming soon. No one can predict the future with 100 percent accuracy, but history tells us that a lot of this can and will happen.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

WELCOME TO TOMORROW

Auto Repair Shops will disappear. A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots. Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a Jiffy-auto wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new electric motor!

Gas stations will go away. Parking meters will be replaced by meters that dispense electricity.  Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they’ve already started. You can find them at select Dunkin’ Donuts locations.

Most (the smart) major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that only produce electric cars.

Coal industries will  mostly  go away.

Gasoline/oil companies will begin to disappear. Drilling for oil will be reduced, but Natural Gas will continue to be used for many years for heating, etc. Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day than they use and will sell it back to the grid. It’s stored on the network and sent to industries that are high electricity users.

 

A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.

[image error]

 

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared, and they went bankrupt. Who would have thought of that ever happening?

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years, ‘and most people don’t see it coming.

Did you think in 1998 that three years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today’s smartphones, who even has a camera these days?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels. So as with all new technologies, it was a disappointment for a time before it became superior and became mainstream in only a few short years.

It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture, and jobs.

Welcome to the  “4th Industrial Revolution.”

Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

[image error]

UBER is just a software tool. The company doesn’t own any cars, and is now the biggest taxi company in the world! Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming.

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although it doesn’t own any properties. Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers will become exponentially better at understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, ten years earlier than expected.

In the USA, many young lawyers are having difficulty finding jobs. Because of IBM’s   “Watson,” you can get legal advice within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy from human lawyers. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future (what a thought!), only omniscient specialists will remain.

Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans can. By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018, the first self-driving cars rolled out. In the next few years, the auto industry will change. You won’t want to own a car anymore as you will call a car with your smartphone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you will only pay for the distance driven, and you can be productive while driving. Very young children of today will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car.

This will change our cities, and because we will need 90% fewer cars, traffic gridlock will vanish, and we can transform former parking lots into parks.

 

About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles, with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year.

[image error]

Most traditional car companies will go bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the evolutionary approach and build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will make the revolutionary changes and build a computer on wheels.

Look at what Volvo is doing right now. No more internal combustions engines in their vehicles starting with the 2019 models, using all-electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models. Look at all the companies offering all-electric cars. That

was unheard of, only a few years ago.

Insurance companies will have problems because, without accidents, insurance premiums will drop, and the auto insurance business model will disappear.

The real estate market will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful or affordable neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Cities will have much cleaner air as well. (Can we start in Los Angeles, please?)

Power will become incredibly cheap and clean.

Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact. And it’s just getting ramped up.

Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that cannot continue – technology will take care of that strategy.

Health: The Qualcomm Tricorder X prize was announced this year. Final Frontier Medical Devices, a small team led by engineer-turned ER doctor Basil Harris and his brother George (also an engineer), won the top prize of $2.6 million. Runner-up Dynamical Biomarkers Group will walk away with $1 million.

[image error]

 

The medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) works with your smartphone and accurately diagnoses 13 health conditions and captures five real-time health vital signs. It analyzes 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease and allows consumers to receive direct medical care without seeing a healthcare professional at a clinic or hospital,

Some of these projections will be slower to happen, but significant changes are ahead for the human species.

WELCOME TO TOMORROW – It began arriving a few years ago, but most of us missed it.

Respecting the Language: 80 Do’s and Don’ts

(When I was teaching journalism at the University of Illinois, I used to give this handout on Respecting the Language: 80 Do’s and Don’ts to the Reporting 400 class I taught. Students told me they found it helpful. Here it is for those of you who write or who are contemplating writing. The list, by no means complete, nevertheless contains words often misused by writers. What follows are a few of the worst offenders, with explanations for avoiding these common grammatical and syntactical traps. I hope you find it useful)

Accept, Except. ACCEPT: To receive or approve. EXCEPT: to omit or to object to, as a verb; with exclusion, as a preposition.
Affect, Effect. Generally AFFECT is the verb; EFFECT is the noun. “The letter did not AFFECT the outcome.” But the “letter had a significant EFFECT.” AFFECT means to influence. EFFECT as a verb means to cause or bring about. Thus: “It is almost impossible to EFFECT change.”
After and Following. As a preposition, AFTER is preferred. “He answered questions AFTER his speech.”
Afterward, Afterwards. Use AFTERWARD. The dictionary allows the use of AFTERWARDS only as a second form. The same applies to TOWARD and TOWARDS.
Aggravate and Irritate. The preferred meaning of AGGRAVATE is to make worse or intensify. IRRITATE means to displease.
 Allude, Elude. You ALLUDE to (or mention) a book. You ELUDE (or escape) a pursuer.
All right.  That’s the way to spell it. The dictionary may list ALRIGHT as a legitimate word but it is not acceptable in standard usage.
 Annual. Don’t use first with it. If it’s the first time, it can’t be ANNUAL.
Anxious, Eager. ANXIOUS means worried; EAGER means desirous. Usually a person is EAGER to begin a vacation, not ANXIOUS.
Apt, Liable, Likely. Preferred meaning of APT is appropriate–an APT remark. LIABLE means accountable; LIKELY means probably.
At, In. AT refers to a point, so it’s better to say: He died IN the hospital.
Averse, Adverse. If you don’t like something, you are AVERSE (or opposed) to it. ADVERSE is an adjective: ADVERSE (bad) weather, ADVERSE conditions.
Bad, Badly. Don’t say: The boy had a BAD earache. Or: The man was injured BADLY. (Is there a “good” earache or injury?) Make it a SEVERE earache and injured SEVERELY. [image error]
Because. Use it rather than DUE TO or OWING TO, both of which are stilted. “The game was cancelled BECAUSE of rain,” not DUE TO or OWING TO rain.
Between, Among, Amongst. Something is shared BETWEEN two persons, AMONG three or more. AMONG is always better than AMONGST, which is archaic.
Block, Bloc. A BLOC is a coalition of persons or a group with the same purpose or goal. Don’t call it a BLOCK, which has some 40 dictionary definitions.
Burglary, Robbery, and Holdup. BURGLARY means to enter a building with intent to commit a felony. ROBBERY is to take property from a person with force or threat of force. HOLDUP is a synonym for ROBBERY or ARMED ROBBERY, but NOT for BURGLARY.
Capital, Capitol. CAPITAL is the city; CAPITOL the building.
Claim. Don’t use CLAIM for SAID or INSIST. CLAIM means to assert ownership: He CLAIMED his book.
Collide, Strike. For there to be a COLLISION, both objects must be in motion. So, two moving cars COLLIDE, but a car STRIKES a tree.
Common, Mutual. Jones and Smith have a COMMON dislike for Allen. (Allen may not even be aware of it.) Cooke and Brown have a MUTUAL dislike for each other. The feeling is reciprocal.
Compose, Comprise, Include. You COMPOSE things by putting them together. Once the parts are put together, the object COMPRISES or INCLUDES or embraces the parts. Comprise is used in the active voice: A knife, fork and spoon COMPRISE the set. COMPOSE is used in the passive voice. The set is COMPOSED of knife, fork and spoon. INCLUDE, preferably, not all parts of the whole: The set INCLUDES a knife and fork.
Continual, Continuous. CONTINUAL means recurring at brief intervals but never really stopping. CONTINUOUS means to occur without any interruption at all.
Couple of. You need the OF. It’s never “a couple tomatoes.”
Dates from. Something DATES from, not BACK to.
Demolish, Destroy. They mean to do away with completely. You can’t partially DEMOLISH or DESTROY something, nor is there any need to say totally DESTROYED.
Deny, Refute. DENY has two preferred meanings: (1) to withhold something and (2) simply a negative response to an accusation. REFUTE means to destroy an argument, either by reasoning alone or with evidence; a fairly close synonym for DISPROVE, but not for DENY.
Different from. Things and people are different FROM each other. Don’t write that they are different THAN each other.
Drown, Drowned. Don’t say someone was DROWNED unless an assailant held the victim’s head underwater. Just say the victim DROWNED.
Ecology, Environment. They are NOT synonymous. ECOLOGY is the study of the relationship between organisms and their ENVIRONMENT. RIGHT : “The laboratory is studying the ECOLOGY of man and the desert.” WRONG : “Even so simple an undertaking as maintaining a lawn affects ECOLOGY. RIGHT: “Even so simple an undertaking as maintaining a lawn affects our ENVIRONMENT. [image error]
Either. It means one or the other, not both. WRONG : “There were lions on either side of the door.” RIGHT : “There were lions on EACH side of the door.”
Entrant and Entry. If you’re referring to a participant in a contest, ENTRANT is preferred.
Farther, Further. Both can be applied to distance, but only FURTHER can be used in reference to ideas or degree. Examples: “They walked FARTHER or FURTHER into the forest. They will make a FURTHER study of the problem.
Fewer, Less. Fewer applies to numbers; less to amount or bulk. You eat fewer grapes, but less meat. If you can separate items in the quantities being compared, use FEWER. If not, use LESS. WRONG : The 49ers are inferior to the Chiefs because they have LESS fast receivers. RIGHT :  The 49ers are inferior to the Chiefs because they have FEWER fast receivers. RIGHT : The 49ers are inferior to the Chiefs because they have LESS speed.
Fliers, Flyers. Pilots are FLIERS. Handbills are FLYERS.
Flout, Flaunt. They aren’t the same words; they mean completely different things and they’re very commonly confused. FLOUT means to mock, to scoff or to show disdain for. FLAUNT means to display ostentatiously.
Funeral service. A redundant expression. A FUNERAL is a service.
Get, Obtain, Secure. GET and OBTAIN are synonyms: GET or OBTAIN a book from your friend. SECURE has two preferred meanings: To make FAST, like a door; or to SECURE a loan.
Heart Attack, Heart Failure. A person dies of a HEART ATTACK or HEART DISEASE, not HEART FAILURE.
Head up. People don’t HEAD UP committees. They HEAD them.
Hopefully. Hope. One of the most commonly misused words, in spite of what the dictionary may say. HOPEFULLY should describe the way a subject FEELS. For example: HOPEFULLY, I shall present the plan to the president. (This means I will be HOPEFUL when I do it.) But it is something else again when you attribute hope to a non-person. You may write: HOPEFULLY, the war will end soon. You may mean you HOPE the war will end soon, but it is not what you are writing. What you should write is: I HOPE the war will end soon.
Imply, Infer. The speaker IMPLIES; the listener INFERS.
In Advance, Prior To. Use BEFORE; it sounds more natural.
It’s, Its. ITS is the possessive; IT’S is the contraction of IT IS. WRONG : What is IT’S name? RIGHT : What is ITS name? ITS name is Fido. RIGHT : IT’S the first time he’s talked tonight RIGHT : IT’S my coat.
Last, Latest. LAST: There won’t be any more. LATEST: The most recent of a probable series.
Lay, Lie. LAY, LAID, LAID; Transitive, taking an object. “I will LAY the book on the table.” LIE, LAY, LAIN; intransitive, no object. “The tired boy LAY on the porch yesterday.”
 Leave, Let. LEAVE ALONE means to depart from or cause to be in solitude. LET ALONE means to be undisturbed. WRONG : The man pulled a gun on her but Jones intervened and talked him into LEAVING HER ALONE. RIGHT: The man pulled a gun on her but Jones intervened and talked him into LETTING HER ALONE. RIGHT: “When I entered the room I saw that Jim and Mary were sleeping so I decided to LEAVE THEM ALONE.
Lend, Loan as verbs. Preferred usage: LOAN applies to money; LEND, to other objects.
Like, As. Don’t use LIKE for AS or AS IF. In general, use LIKE to compare with nouns and pronouns; use AS when comparing with phrases and clauses that contain a verb. WRONG : Jim blocks the linebacker LIKE he should. RIGHT: Jim blocks the linebacker AS he should. RIGHT : Jim blocks LIKE a pro. And PLEASE control the juvenile urge to use LIKE as some kind of a crutch in a sentence: “It was, LIKE, really cool” or “Then, we LIKE, went to Urbana.” Arrgghhh.
Locate, Situate. A new house will be LOCATED at a certain address. Once built, it is SITUATED there. Another meaning of LOCATE is to find something for which you have been looking.
Marshall, Marshal. Generally, the first form is correct only when the word is a proper noun: John MARSHALL. The second form is the verb form: Marilyn will MARSHAL her forces. And the second form is the one to use for a title: FIRE MARSHAL Stan Anderson; DEPUTY MARSHAL Wyatt Earp; FIELD MARSHAL Erwin Rommel.
Media. MEDIA is the plural of MEDIUM. The MEDIA are, not is. [image error]
Mean, Average, Median. Use MEAN as synonymous with AVERAGE. Each word refers to the sum of all components divided by the number of components. MEDIAN is the number that has as many components above it as below it–it is the middle value in a distribution of items, the point at which half of the items are above and half below. MEAN is the statisticians’ language for AVERAGE.
Nouns. There is a growing trend toward using them as verbs. Resist it. HOST, HEADQUARTERS and AUTHOR, for example, are nouns; even though the dictionary may acknowledge they can be used as verbs. If you do, you’ll come up with a monstrosity such as: “HEADQUARTERED at his country home, John Doe HOSTED a party to celebrate the book he had just AUTHORED.” Again, Arrgghhh!
Odd, Peculiar. ODD means strange or unusual; PECULIAR means distinctive to one person or one group, etc.
Of, With, From. A woman is ill OF a disease, not WITH. She dies OF the disease, not FROM it.
Oral, Verbal. Use ORAL when use of the mouth is central to the thought; the word emphasizes the idea of human utterance. VERBAL may apply to spoken or written words; it connotes the process of reducing ideas to writing. Usually, it’s a VERBAL contract, not an ORAL one, if it’s in writing.
Over and More Than. They aren’t interchangeable. OVER refers to spatial relationships: The plane flew OVER the city. MORE THAN is used with figures: In the crowd were MORE THAN 1,000 fans. Make it MORE THAN 20 persons, not OVER. MORE THAN means in excess of; OVER means physically above.
Parallel Construction. Thoughts in series in the same sentence require PARALLEL construction. WRONG : The union delivered demands for an increase of 10 percent in wages and to cut the workweek to 30 hours. RIGHT: The union delivered demands for an increase of 10 percent in wages and for a REDUCTION in the workweek to 30 hours.
Part and Portion. When one is referring to a fragment of the whole, PART is preferred. PORTION more specifically means a serving of food.
Peddle, Pedal. When selling something, you PEDDLE it. When riding a bicycle or similar form of locomotion, you PEDAL it. [image error]
Pretense, Pretext. They’re different, but it’s a tough distinction. A PRETEXT is that which is put forward to conceal a truth. He was discharged for tardiness, but this was only a PRETEXT for general incompetence. A PRETENSE is a “false show;” a more overt act intended to conceal personal feelings. My profuse compliments were all PRETENSE.
Principle, Principal. A guiding rule or basic truth is a PRINCIPLE. The first, dominant, or leading thing is PRINCIPAL. PRINCIPLE is a noun; PRINCIPAL may be a noun or an adjective.
Receive, Suffer, Sustain. Make it SUFFER an injury. You can use RECEIVE, but the preferred word is SUFFER. RECEIVING and injury implies that it was a gift, which most injuries are not. The preferred meanings of SUSTAIN are to support, such as an army; or to maintain, as to SUSTAIN a drive from the 50-yard line to the opponent’s goal line.
Redundancies to Avoid:

Easter Sunday, Make it EASTER
Incumbent Congressman. CONGRESSMAN.
Owns his own home. OWNS HIS HOME.
The company will close down. THE COMPANY WILL CLOSE.
Jones, Smith, Johnson and Reid were all convicted. Jones, Smith, Johnson and Reid WERE CONVICTED.
Jewish rabbi. Just RABBI.
8 p.m. tonight. All you need is 8 TONIGHT or 8 p.m. TODAY.
During the winter months. DURING THE WINTER.
Both Reid and Jones were denied pardons. Reid and Jones WERE DENIED PARDONS.
I am currently tired. I AM TIRED.
Autopsy to determine the cause of death. AUTOPSY (that’s what an AUTOPSY does).


 Refuse and Reject. The official REJECTED the request, not REFUSED the request. In this usage, REFUSE needs the infinitive of another verb: The official REFUSED TO GRANT the request.
Refute. (See DENY).
Reluctant, Reticent. If he doesn’t want to act, he is RELUCTANT. If he doesn’t want to speak, he is RETICENT.
Say, Said. The most serviceable words in the journalist’s lexicon are the forms of the verb TO SAY. Let a person SAY something, rather than DECLARE or ADMIT or POINT OUT. And NEVER let him grin, smile, frown or giggle something.
Sewage, Sewerage. SEWAGE means the contents of a sewer, but the community depends upon a SEWERAGE system.
Temperatures. They may get higher or lower, but they don’t get WARMER or COOLER. WRONG: TEMPERATURES are expected to warm up in the area Friday. RIGHT: TEMPERATURES are expected to RISE in the area Friday.
That, Which. THAT tends to restrict the reader’s thought and direct it the way you want it to go; WHICH is nonrestrictive, introducing a bit of subsidiary information. For Example: The lawnmower THAT is in the garage needs sharpening. (Meaning, we have more than one lawnmower. The one in the garage needs sharpening.) The lawnmower, WHICH is in the garage, needs sharpening. (Meaning: Our lawnmower needs sharpening. It is in the garage.) The statue, WHICH graces our entry hall, is on loan. (Meaning: Our statue is on loan. It happens to be in the entry hall.) Note that WHICH clauses take commas, signaling they are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. [image error]
Toward and Towards. Toward is preferred.
Try and, Try To. Only TRY TO is correct. He will TRY TO score 20 points; not TRY AND score 20 points. The term TRY AND preceding another verb is wholly superfluous: the AND makes the second verb one of accomplishment, so why TRY?
Under way, NOT Underway. But don’t say something got under way. Say it STARTED or BEGAN.
Unique. Something that is unique is the only one of its kind. It can’t be VERY UNIQUE or QUITE UNIQUE or SOMEWHAT UNIQUE or RATHER UNIQUE. Don’t use it unless you really mean UNIQUE.
UP. Don’t use it with a verb. WRONG : The manager said he would UP the price next week. RIGHT : The manager said he would RAISE the price next week.
Who, Whom. A tough one, but generally you’re safe to use WHOM to refer to someone who has been the subject of an action. WHO is the word when the somebody has been the actor. EXAMPLE: A 20-year-old woman, to WHOM the room was rented, left the window open. A 20-year-old woman, WHO rented the room, left the window open.
Who’s, Whose. Though it incorporates an apostrophe, WHO’S is NOT a possessive. It’s a contraction for WHO IS. WHOSE is the possessive. WRONG : I don’t know WHO’S coat it is. RIGHT: I don’t know WHOSE coat it is. RIGHT : Find out WHO’S there.
Would. Be careful about using WOULD when constructing a conditional past tense. WRONG : If Soderholm WOULD NOT HAVE HAD an injured foot, Thompson wouldn’t have been in the lineup. RIGHT : If Soderholm HAD NOT HAD an injured foot, Thompson wouldn’t have been in the lineup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sunshine Blogger Award!

I am honored to be nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by fellow author and blogger Gwen Plano over at https://gwenmplano.com/

Thank you, Gwen! If you don’t already know Gwen, be sure to check out her wonderful blog.

The Sunshine Blogger Award is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers they find creative, talented, and entertaining. It’s a great way of opening yourself to the community as well as to your readers and followers because you are required to answer 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you. Then, you write your own 11 creative questions and nominate additional bloggers who need to do the same.

Part of the nomination process requires that I answer 11 questions. Here are the questions Gwen Plano asked me to answer:

What motivates you to write?

I love telling stories. Storytelling is something I did for 25 years as a foreign correspondent (thus the name of my blog). https://ronaldyatesbooks.com/category/foreign-correspondent/

Today, I continue to do that but I do it through fiction rather than via journalism.

When do you like to write?

I like to write in the morning. I am usually at my desk by 8 a.m. I have taken over the upstairs bonus room in our house. It is a 400 square foot space where I have my rather prodigious library, a good sound system for playing classical music or jazz, and a large screen HD TV for watching sports, the Discovery, History, and National Geographic channels when I need a break from writing. My window looks out onto a plant and boulder-strewn foothill that rises in front of my house. Another window looks down onto the Temecula valley some 2,000 feet below. It is quiet and soothing. I couldn’t have a better place to write.

Do you carry a notepad to jot down inspirations?

I used to do that, now I make notes on my iPhone or iPad and send them to my desktop computer.

What character so captured your imagination that s/he still gives you pause?

I am still fascinated by the main character in my Finding Billy Battles Trilogy—William Fitzroy Raglan Battles. As I developed this character I began to “see” him and “hear” him. It was as if he was sitting next to me as I wrote. Strange and kind of uncanny.

Do you eavesdrop on your characters or do you craft them to fit the story?

As with most characters authors create, I think some of my characters are patterned after real people I have either known or overheard somewhere. I am a “people collector.”

 If you have a stack of books on your nightstand, what is the principle genre?

I love reading books about history. I also love historical biographies, so a lot of the books I read are in those genres. I also like reading good science fiction and mysteries too!

What frustrates you about writing and what rewards you?

I have often said that writing is both a gift and a curse. It’s a wonderful gift if you allow the process to come to you and don’t force it. However, don’t let anybody tell you it is not damned hard work. It is. The joy of writing for me is telling a good story. I don’t care about imparting a “message.” Nor do I care about creating any hidden “meanings” that some literature professor will hold forth about in a writing class when I am no longer around to rebut him/her. I just want to tell a good story. That, to me, is the ultimate goal of writing.

The curse is that writing can take over your life, isolate you from family and friends, and turn you into a kind of sophistic recluse if you are not careful. Writers need to take breaks from working. If they don’t I believe they run the risk of becoming stale, self-absorbed, and misanthropic.

Do you ever find yourself between worlds – this one and the fictional one?

Oh yes. When I am deep into the plot of a book I find myself entangled in the story and asking myself what I would do in a similar situation. I also dream about the stories I am writing and often wake up with a new plot twist. My Finding Billy Battles Trilogy is about the past so when I was writing those books I had to “leave” the world I live in and travel back in time to the 19th and early 20th centuries. On some days, that took some emotional and perceptual adjusting.

[image error]

 

How do you structure your time to make room for writing?

I look at writing as my job, so I set hours for myself. As I mentioned earlier, I am usually at my desk pounding the keyboard by 8 a.m. I often write until about noon. I find that four hours of intense writing is enough. If I write longer than that, I discovered that the quality of my writing declines a bit. However, there some days when I get on a writing jag and I may write six or seven hours with no drop off in quality. Those days are few and far between, however.

Do you have books waiting to be written?

Yes. I have about three. One is a novel about foreign correspondents in Asia and is based on some of my own experiences covering war and mayhem around the world. Actually, that book is about three-fourths finished. It’s working title is: “Asia Hands: A Tale of Foreign Correspondents & Other Miscreants in the Orient.  There is also a biography about Iva Toguri, AKA “Tokyo Rose” that I am working on. Finally, at some point I want to write a memoir about some of my experiences as a foreign correspondent. I’m thinking of calling it “Looking for Trouble.”

How do you relax?

I go out on my patio and read. I try to read two or three books each month. I don’t always manage that, but I try to. I also go hiking in the hills around my house an in a large wildlife preserve not far away. There I find it relaxing to experience and listen to nature.

For accepting the Sunshine Blogger Award nomination, there are a few rules.

Thank the blogger(s) who nominated you and link back to their blog.
Answer 11 questions the blogger asked you.
List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award in your blog post.
Nominate 11 new bloggers & their blogs. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know they received the award and ask your nominees 11 new questions.

  My Nominees for the Sunshine Blogger Award

Here are my 11 nominations for the Sunshine Blogger Award. They are listed in no particular order. It’s difficult to choose only 11 blogs to nominate because there are so many excellent sites out there. However, I did my best to nominate ones that I find interesting and well-written, so please be sure to check them out too.

A Court Of Coffee And Books
Natalie Ducey blog
CHERRIESWRITER – VIETNAM WAR WEBSITE
Fiction Favorites
https://onmybookshelf.ca/
GoodeyReads
Reflections by Gwen M Plano
Karen Ingall’s Blog
Welcome to the World of Suzanne Burke
Writing and Music
Mary Adler Writes

My 11 questions for my nominees are listed below. If there are any questions you do not wish to answer, please feel free to give them a pass. Many of these questions are directed at authors, but if you are not an author and are primarily a blogger please feel free to adapt any question to fit your expertise.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer or blogger?
What advice would you give to someone who wants to become a published author or blogger?
What do you think makes a good story?
If your book became a movie, who would be your first choice to play the lead roles?
Do any of your characters have qualities/characteristics that are similar to yourself?
Is anything in your books based on real-life experiences or are they all solely the product of your imagination?
If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
What books have most influenced your life?
If it were mandatory for everyone to read three books, what books would you suggest?
If you could spend a day picking the brain of one author, who would that be? Why?
What do you think makes a book “a great book?”

[image error]

I wish you great success with your writing and/or blogging in 2020!

The Regrettable Decline of Class and Good Taste

Most of us have received one of those emails displaying photos of so-called “Walmart People.” As you scroll down, there is a collection of pictures of Walmart shoppers wearing wild assortments of clothing covering bodies that seem fashioned from silly putty or carved from tree stumps.

There are horribly overweight women wearing skimpy shorts barely covering explosions of tattoo-blemished buttock flesh. There are men wearing pink leotards and combat boots. There are people who seem to have crawled out of a fissure in the earth–troglodytes perhaps? Or conceivably, humanoid-like creatures from another planet that crash-landed into a Goodwill warehouse?

[image error]

[image error]

Can any of this be real? Do people look like that? And do they go to Walmart and other places?

The answer is yes, yes and yes. These are real people. They do look like that, and they all-too-often abandon their dank and murky grottos to venture into well-lit public places such as Walmart.

What happened? How did our nation spawn organisms that apparently have no concept of taste, style or class?

Beyond these “Walmart people” I think national taste and style hit a new low when the Northwestern University women’s 2005 national championship lacrosse team showed up at the White House in wearing flip flops. What does this say about respect for the nation’s highest office, let alone personal pride and class?

It says none of that matters anymore. It says if you want to go to a funeral wearing cargo shorts and a tank top it’s OK because the most important thing is not showing a modicum of respect for the deceased, but how YOU feel.

The whole concept of “class” or what it means to be classy is an unknown quality with too many people today. Nothing is left to the imagination. In movies today it has become de rigueur for the camera to pass through the bedroom door as actors and actresses engage in multiple forms of mattress gymnastics.

Remember movies when a couple would go through a door, and then the next scene would be the next day? Isn’t that enough? Can’t we leave something to the imagination for God’s sake?

Can you imagine Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, etc. baring it all for a scene with a nude Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, James Stewart or Burt Lancaster? Wouldn’t have happened. And it’s not just because the censors in those days would not have allowed it to happen. It’s because once upon a time Americans had an appreciation for elegance and taste.

[image error] Rita Hayworth

Great actresses of today such as Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Maggie Smith, and Emma Thompson know you don’t have to do the horizontal waltz to exude sex appeal.

[image error]They leave something to the imagination.

So why do otherwise intelligent women show up at the White House in flip flops?

Why do “Walmart people” feel they can go shopping looking like two-legged rubbish bins?

Dare I offer my humble opinion? I fear there is very little child-rearing. Too many parents are abrogating that responsibility to schools, daycare centers, etc. The result is a nation in which millions of kids have little or no understanding of shared values, self-discipline, social responsibility, respect for others, or what we used to call “good manners.”

All of that is utterly passé. The idea for too many young girls today is to look trashy, show as much booty as they can and have a big ugly tattoo poking out above their butt crack.

When I was teaching at the University of Illinois, I couldn’t believe how many female students came to my 8 a.m. class in their pajamas. They couldn’t have cared less about how they appeared. But hey, at least they were comfortable.

I think attitudes began to change dramatically in the counterculture, hippie-fueled, “turn on, tune in, drop out” 1960s when the mantra was: “if it feels good, do it.”

Miss Manners was about as relevant back then as powdered wigs and hoop skirts.

Therefore, we can argue that its “generational.” OK, I agree, up to a point. Back in “the day” (and here I am dating myself), we wore tight jeans and white t-shirts with cigarette packs rolled up in the short sleeves. Some of us had “Ducktails,” and we liked to cruise around in customized cars equipped with thunderous glass pack mufflers.

But how many of us looked like those people at Walmart–or for that matter at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, or I-Hop? Because I have seen them at those places also.

Until the 1960s people took a lot more pride in their appearance mainly because (in my case, at least) my mother would never have allowed me to walk out the door looking like a vagrant. I think too many parents today don’t provide that kind of supervision. Few teach their kids any discipline and instead infuse them with the idea that it’s not necessary to respect others, their property, or their opinions.

School teachers today tell me that when they get kids from homes like that (and that means most kids) every time they attempt to punish them the parents circle the wagons around their brats and often it’s the teacher who gets disciplined. I can’t imagine what it must be like to teach high school today.

Who knows where all of this will end. I am not optimistic.

In the meantime, I think I will take my camera to my nearest Walmart and digitally bag a few troglodytes.

Looking to become a better writer? Then, here’s the 1st thing you should do! #RRBC #RaveReviewsBookClub

Happy New Year, followers!

As some of you know, I am a member of the Rave Reviews Book Club, an organization I have been a member of since 2014. It’s a one of a kind community of authors who support one another in a variety of ways. Today, I’d like to invite you to visit the ALL-NEW RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB at our new location RaveReviewsBookClub.wordpress.com.

-If you are an author looking for amazing support, #RRBC is the place for you!

-If you are looking to grow as a writer, #RRBC is the place for you!

-If you are looking for a community where your peers push for your success just as hard as they push for their own, #RRBC is the place for you!

When visiting, we ask that you #follow our site so that you’re kept up-to-date with all the awesome news that we’ll be sharing in 2020.

If you like what you see after looking around the site, then please, JOIN US!

We’d love to have you!

 

Some Facts About Books, Publishing and Technology You Didn’t Know

 I have updated this previously posted story to include the latest numbers and facts about books and the publishing industry. For those who may have missed it the first time around, I hope you enjoy it. For those seeing it for the first time, I hope you will find it eye-opening. 

I  am a compulsive collector of trivial information, some of which is not as trivial as you might think.

For example, as a writer, the following facts fascinated me about books and publishing–an area that I am primarily focused on because it is critical to my work.

[image error]

In 1889, 4,600 book titles were published in America.
By 1989, 45,000 new book titles were published.
In 2009–just 30 years later–1.3 million new titles were released in the U.S.
Today, there are more than 7,000,000 books available for sale–most of them e-books in places like Amazon.
57% of all books are not sold in bookstores – they are sold by mail order, online, through book clubs, or in warehouse stores.
In 2005, 1.2 million book title sales were tracked by Nielsen Bookscan, and only 25,000 titles sold more than 5,000 copies each. Another 950,000 books sold fewer than 99 copies.
First-time authors write 75% of all new nonfiction books published each year.
85% of all new titles published each year are non-fiction, and 15% are fiction.

For those who write for a living (or just for the fun of it) some of that information will be a wake-up call–especially the fact that almost 1 million books published each year via a variety of avenues (e-books, self-publishing, publishing on demand, publishing with small and vanity houses) will sell less than 99 copies.

And that brings me to a topic that I have discussed in previous posts, namely, how even the most successful authors struggled to get their work before the public.

Take Chicken Soup for the Soul, with sales of more than 8 million copies and which subsequently generated a series that includes more than 80 best-selling books. It was rejected by 144 publishers before it was finally published.

Here are a few more of these “no talent” authors.

A Time to Kill by John Grisham was rejected 45 times. Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie, was declined 30 times. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected – 14 times!  And even Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was declined by 38 publishers.

That tells me that publishers and those who read the manuscripts that fly over their transoms make a lot of mistakes when it comes to judging what makes a good book. Publishers are notorious for turning down books that went on to become bestsellers.

Of course, there is no accounting for taste. For example, what kinds of books do you think are selling the most today?

If you guessed romance and erotica novels, you would be right. Those books top any other genre by far, within fiction. Women make up 90.5% of their readership. Last year, romance novels brought in $1.4 billion in revenue.  Mysteries brought in half of that. Classic literary fiction revenue generates barely a third of what romance books earn. I am not a big fan of romance and erotica novels, but I say to those who write them: “good on ya.”

Here’s another fact. The United States has the largest publishing industry in the world. In 2015 the U.S. market was worth just under $35 billion and represented about 26 percent of the total global publishing market. The book publishing industry claimed the largest share of that amount, with revenues totaling almost $34 billion the same year.

And here are some more facts from AuthorEarnings.com, a website for authors, by authors. The Author Earnings report produced by the website takes its data from 7,000 top-selling digital genre titles on Amazon’s category bestseller lists. Here is what it found:

The Big Five traditional publishers now account for only 16% of the e-books on Amazon’s bestseller lists.
Self-published books now represent 39% of e-book sales on Amazon’s Kindle Store.
Indie authors are earning nearly 50% of the e-book dollars going to authors.
Self-published authors are “dominating traditionally published authors” in sci-fi/fantasy, mystery/thriller, and romance genres but — and here is the surprise — they are also taking “significant market share in all genres.”

In other words, this is not your father’s or grandfather’s publishing world. The options for writers today are almost limitless.

And finally, let me end with a collection of a few more facts that were contained in the most recent Author Earnings Report.

$2.99 and $3.99 are currently the pricing sweet spots for most e-book bestsellers. In general, authors who price their books modestly earn more than those whose average price is higher, but 99 cents is “no longer the path to riches.”
Readers prefer longer e-books. Bestselling books tend to be over 100,000 words. This came as a big surprise to us.
Series books outsell standalone books — but series books under 50,000 words are at a sales disadvantage.
Free still works as a marketing tool, especially when an author offers the first book in a series for free. Still, it is much less useful than before — primarily because so many authors are taking advantage of it.
Pre-orders give authors a sales advantage. “I think pre-orders today are where free was five years ago,” says Mark Coker, founder of e-book distributor Smashwords. “The first authors to effectively utilize pre-orders will gain the most advantage, just as the first authors to enter new distribution channels gain the most advantage,” he says.
Non-fiction earns more at higher prices. That was a real shocker for me. “Non-fiction buyers are less price-sensitive,” says Coker. “It appears as if most non-fiction authors are under-pricing their works, and they should experiment with higher prices,” he says.

So what are the lessons you can learn from all of these facts? Well, for one thing, you don’t have to drown in rejection slips from traditional publishers. You can publish your book yourself as an independent author, or you can choose to publish an e-book via Amazon, Createspace, Smashwords, or any number of other organizations that publish e-books.

The world of book publishing is changing at warp speed. There is no need to be left behind. However, if you choose to forgo the traditional publishing route, be prepared to spend countless hours marketing your work via a variety of avenues.

But that is a topic for another day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Fun With Words

A “Lexophile” is a lover of words–one who derives pleasure from the various use of words, who appreciates the nuances surrounding different words, and who is alert to synonyms, antonyms, homophones, anagrams, palindromes, and homonyms, often using them for effect, sometimes in humor. The New York Times even holds an annual competition to see who can create the best original example of a lexophile.

Actually, lexophile is not even a word–at least it is not found in any of my dictionaries, including my Merriam-Webster. That’s why you can use it as a noun to describe a person who is a lover of words as well as the sentences that a lexophile creates.

Here, for your Christmas season enjoyment, is a list of recent entries in the Times lexophile contest.

Enjoy!

No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.

I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.[image error]

When chemists die, they barium.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic.  It’s syncing now.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club, but I’d swear I’ve never met herbivore.

I know a guy who’s addicted to drinking brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A.

I got some batteries that were given out free of charge. [image error]

A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

A will is a dead giveaway.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Police were summoned to a daycare center where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off?  He’s all right now.

A bicycle can’t stand alone; it’s just two tired.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.

[image error]Acupuncture is a jab well done.  That’s the point of it.

Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end.

 

 

 

 

The World in Charts: Eye-Opening!

There is an old saying that says “figures lie and liars figure.” However, I don’t think it applies to the collection of eye-opening charts that I have provided a link to in today’s post.

Among other things, these charts have adroitly added perspective to the statistics, facts, and figures that define and illuminate our world. I urge you to take a look at them (there are 10).

[image error]

The charts are from howmuch.Net, a cost information website:  https://howmuch.net/. The howmuch.net website contains dozens of similar charts that visually explain the economy, real estate, business, personal finance, cryptocurrencies, cost guides, etc.

Just click on the link below to see understandable visualizations about money, population, economies, world debt, language usage, largest companies, and most valuable brands, among other things.

You won’t be disappointed.

The World In Charts 8.20.19