November 13, 2006
Back in service
Sorry, faithful readers, for the week of inaccessability. Everything should now be back to normal.
May 06, 2006
SLICE AND DICE
Why is this blog-worthy?
CNET had it as an RSS feed. Why? Are we so desperate for content, not only will news whores post trivialities like this, but we'll participate? Plus, it just seems dated. I'm sure blogging about the not-very-inventive ninja text will help it pop up higher on DayPop than it should.
However, I do believe mackerels will be the next ninjas of the interweb-a-matron. But what, or who, will be the next pirates*? Cavemen, perhaps...
* While I don't condone its graphical taste or general visual appeal, I do appreciate the intent of the Word Pirates site.
April 07, 2005
BITING THE BIG APPLE
Even the planet's best loved brand occasionally make mistakes. Or at least their copywriters do. Found in the latest Apple e-newsletter...
A true story, it's only one of the many cicus tales that so enthralled documentary filmmaker Jim Distasio that he and partner Mark McCutcheon decided to turn them into "Sawdust."Did you find it? Hint: the whole story is about the circus. The mistake is much more evident out of context. Now, I'm the last person to criticize someone for spelling mistakes - Word's Auto-Spellchecking has made redundant the ability to spell correctly as long as you're close (and even then it can be iffy), and I've made my fair share. But I do wonder about the editing process and the part the predictive/pattern-recognition function of the brain plays in it. Because the word circus had appeared before the error, did the writer and subsequent readers just coast over the flaw, taking only enough time to note the almost identical structure, assuming it's the same as the previously experienced word? Or is it a symptom of something more insidious? An avalanche of text assaults us daily. Even this sparsely populated blog is part of what I would call Text Pollution, unless someone else has already called it that then I'm really not all that original. Whichever the case, the fact remains that this inundation is making us less sensitive to the presence of words, their individual worth devalued.
Still, would it have killed the editors at Apple to run it through a spellchecker?
February 16, 2005
SHOUT OUT
A nod and a wink to Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, who threw ululate into his opening monologue/fake news report on his show last night (Feb 15th, 2005). "I told myself I wouldn't ululate" and then proceeded to do just that, in response to the official returns announced in the Iraqi election. It's a good word. Coincidentally, or not, the word of the day from Merriam Webster was the same ululate - perhaps the writing team subscribes...
February 11, 2005
REDISCOVERING THE NEED
I've missed blogging. I started back in 2000 with a little site that proved a playground for me as my copywriting leanings burgeoned and eventually took over my life. But I have missed writing things other than supposedly catchy headlines and radio bits. As such, I'm declaring a coup d'etat on this site (since it has sat unattended for several months). However, do not dispair fellow logophiles. Most of the entries will be about language - words, sentences, books full of sentences, oh and whatever else I want to. Ha HA!
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