Satima's Blogspot

Sunday, 10 April 2011

Common misuses: common expressions

Sunday, April 10, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

When editing or critiquing, and even in everyday conversation, I am often jolted by the misuse of common expressions, so I thought I might don my pedant’s hat today and talk about some of them in this post.

As Such
One of these misused expressions is “as such”. This phrase is seldom used correctly these days, and its incorrect use often renders the sentence laughable. Some people misuse the phrase completely because they have mistaken its meaning, thinking it means “therefore”, which is just plain silly.

In order to make sense, “as such”, a pronominal phrase, must refer back to a noun in the previous sentence or clause. It cannot be used to refer to a verb.

Consider this: “I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for some years now. As such, I’ve learnt a lot about cleaning equipment.” The speaker obviously intends “as such” to refer to “worked” which is the verb in the previous sentence, but grammatically, “as such” can only refer to a noun. You could say, however, “I’ve been a hotel room attendant for some years now. As such...etc”.

Partake of/partake in/take part
Another word whose misuse is becoming widespread is “partake”. It really means “to take a share” and has traditionally been used to refer to the sharing of food, as in “We partook of a delicious seafood banquet last night”. However, it has long been used in a figurative sense, as in “partaking in each other’s joys”, which carries the implication of sharing. The difference between the two usages lies in the accompanying pronoun, in or of. If we partake of, we each take a share of something – I eat my share of the food, you eat yours. If we partake in, we share mutually – your joys are also mine, my joys are also yours. Can you see the subtle difference between the two?

But the main problem is that some people are now using “partake” where they should use “take part”, as in “We partook in a football match yesterday”, which to my mind ruins a nice, rather subtle little expression. However, language is constantly changing and I don’t think I can do anything to stop this particular change!

Two more misuses can only be seen in writing, as both ways of using them sound the same in speech. I’m talking about “all together” vs “altogether” and “on to” vs “onto”. Let’s look at the second phrase first.

Onto/on to
The word “onto” is quite new. It used to be considered altogether incorrect when I was a child. However, it is now considered quite OK to say “I put the plate onto the shelf”, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Where the word gets misused is in sentences such as “He went onto say how pleased he was with the new house” or even “The plane flew onto London”! In cases such as these, where something is definitely not being superimposed on something else, we should leave the two words separate.

Altogether/all together
I hope I haven’t got you altogether confused because I’ll now go on to “all together”. When we do something as a group we do it all together, as in “We left the party all together”.

The word “altogether” is another matter altogether.

If you were to write the sample sentence as “We left the party altogether” it would mean that you left the party absolutely, utterly and completely, never to return. You might apply that to a political party, but not the social gathering sort of party, which you might have left early because you were tired, not because you were in high dudgeon over something, although I suppose that’s also possible!

I plan to do a few more of these posts, so if you have any words or phrases that you're not sure how to use, let me know and I'll try to incorporate them.

Labels: grammar, word use |

7 comments

Friday, 18 February 2011

On being bewilderingly busy

Friday, February 18, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

This fun, zany pic is Circus Amok Jugglers by David Shankbone, New York City. This is how I've been feeling lately. I am really four people, each one juggling several objects...

I don't know what has happened to my life over the last three months. Actually, I do know, in a piecemeal kind of way - I've moved back to Perth from Mount Gambier, where I've officially been living for the last four years, even though I've actually managed to spend a good deal of my time back in Perth, house-sitting. I'm still doing that, and because I had an almost full year of engagements--if you count the Swancon SF convention and a meditation retreat!--I am assured of accommodation. Thanks to a kind friend, I have a place to stay between engagements, so I decided to take the plunge by giving up my flat in Mount Gambier and taking myself back to Perth on the strength of little more than a wing and a prayer. I am now busily applying for various kinds of accommodation for next year, since public housing and retirement village rentals both have long waiting lists. Wish me luck!

Anyhow, moving house tends to take at least three weeks out of my life. I know this because I've done it so often - my current address is about my fortieth! There was, of course, the usual Christmas kerfuffle (I become a stauncher supporter of the Bah Humbug brigade every year) and also I was desperately trying to get the magnum opus revised in time to send it to an agent who was kind enough to express interest in it last year. This agency only opens its books a couple of times a year and I was most disgruntled at having to pass up that window of opportunity. But with everything else that has been going on, the magnum opus has had to sit on the backburner much of the time, and I've been feeling very depressed as a result. A writer who has no time to write is a sorry creature indeed.

Yet as soon as I got back to Perth, the editing diary suddenly started to fill, which gives me confidence that I have done the right thing. Isn't it funny how when a thing is "right", we know it, because things start to flow along freely.

Another bit of busy-ness is, of course, The Specusphere. This year we are reverting to a rolling system of publication. Instead of putting an issue to bed on the first Sunday of each even-numbered month, we are going to put up reviews and articles as they come in. You can see the last formally dated edition here - just click on the cover for a list of contents. There are ten new reviews, thanks to our doughty team of reviewers, and we shall add more over the coming months as they come to hand. Here are the newly harvested ones:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey
Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis, reviewed by Satima Flavell
Chains of Ice by Christina Dodd, reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey
Taken By Midnight by Lara Adrian, reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Moery
The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel, reviewed by Astrid Cooper
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, reviewed by Ian Banks
The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell, reviewed by Katherine Petersen
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, reviewed by Ian Banks
Tymon’s Flight by Mary Victoria, reviewed by Carol Ryles
Wolfborn by Sue Burstynski, reviewed by Katherine Petersen

And if you're a writer who loves myths and legends, be sure to click through to our submission guidelines, too. We are planning an anthology of speculative fiction stories and poems based on old tales. We have a few very good submissions so far but we're also receiving a lot of material that isn't suitable, one way or the other. Rather than change the ethos of the anthology, we're going to hold off publication until we get our ten or fifteen really great stories that owe their inspiration directly to a myth, a legend or a folktale. Please write one for us!

4 comments

Friday, 31 December 2010

Following yonder star

Friday, December 31, 2010 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Happy New Year, everyone!

On my old Worldpress blog, I had a post about Astrology for Writers, with a link from this blog. I noticed from my stats that someone recently came to this site looking for it. The link I had up was incorrect, which meant the person may not have been able to find the post. I decided to put the material on this blog so I don't "put people crook" as the old Aussie vernacular has it. Then, of course, I found one of the links within the post itself didn't work, either, so this post actually differs considerably from the original!

Why is nothing ever simple?

I guess at least some of you, dear followers, must be interested in astrology, and I know most of you are interested in writing. So let's knock off two asteroids with one comet and have a look at how astrology can help writers.

Authors have often used astrology in their stories; it’s an important component, for instance, of Kim Falconer’s Quantum Enchantment science fantasy series. Kim, an astrologer herself, has devised an astrological system for her characters to use, and it certainly adds an interesting twist to both plot and characterisation. On her website, she even offers horoscopes according to the system she created for the books!

If you’re going to use astrology in your stories, you need to have more than a superficial knowledge of it. I was amused to read in one of my favourite historical novels set in medieval times that one of the characters had Venus and Neptune conjunct in her horoscope. Now this may well be true, but the character and her astrologer would not have been aware of the fact. Neptune was not discovered until 1846!

If you’re a writer, your own chart will undoubtedly show a bent towards verbal expression and some kind of artistic talent. Those among you who have horoscopes will know this already, and those of you who have not might enjoy a new voyage of self-discovery if you take the time to learn more about the subject. It might also show you the appropriate times to submit manuscripts to give yourself the best chance of success! Perhaps I'll write a whole post on these topics sometime, but for today, let's have a look at how astrology can help you develop and understand your characters.

I know some of you are cynics about astrology, and so you should be – there’s a lot of crap flying around out there on the subject. But even cynics can use this tool with useful results. There are lots of websites to help you and rather than reinvent the wheel I’ll provide links to a couple of good ones.

The Metaphysical Zone investigates various psychological and metaphysical tools for character development, including astrology, the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In regard to astrology, it suggests going into considerable depth by ascertaining your character's date, place and time of birth and setting up a complete horoscope. This is certainly the most thorough and legitimate way to use astrology - it's what I do, and every time, I am amazed to find that by reading the chart in depth I can learn more about that character's deep fears and desires, which add dimensions I was not aware of and explain why the character sometimes goes off on tangents that seem contrary to the way I want the story to go!

‘But,’ I hear you ask, ‘how do I find out my character’s place, date and time of birth?’

There are two ways. Both require that you first decide the year of birth, which should be easy because you probably already know how old your character is. You probably also know the place.

Having got at least the year of birth, do one of the following:

*Ask the character! Just sit quietly and imagine the character has come to join you, and simply ask him or her for the data you need. It will probably pop into your head immediately, but if it doesn’t, thank the character anyway and accept that the information will come to you later, perhaps in a dream. It nearly always does. Then you can go to any one of the numerous sites that offers free astrology charts and download the character's horoscope. You can get a perfectly good free chart and a simple reading from Astrolabe.

*The second method, which is the one I use, demands more in-depth knowledge of astrology. I look at what I know about the character already and hazard a guess as to possible dominant signs. (Sometimes something else leaps out at me, too, such as a possible aspect between two planets.) I follow my intuition as to which is the Sun sign. That gives me the Zodiacal month. Then I pick what I think should be the Moon sign – that will narrow it down to about three days. Then I look up those days and again just following my nose, I pick one of them to be the birthdate. Then I pick the possible rising sign to get the time to within a couple of hours. A bit of fine tuning and I can sit down and learn my character’s innermost secrets at my leisure!

But of course, it doesn’t matter how well I think I know my characters – if I can’t write them well the knowledge does me no good. Blending characters and plot is the essence of fiction writing and in that regard, I still have along way to go, despite my Air (intellectual ability, verbal reasoning) grand trine (a generally fortunate combination) of Mercury (verbal skill) Neptune (creativity, imagination) and Saturn conjunct Uranus (hard work + sudden breakthroughs and changes).

Ah well, plod on! And that’s Saturn talking. :-)

Labels: astrology, characters |

9 comments

Sunday, 19 December 2010

My Facebook Year

Sunday, December 19, 2010 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Facebook is full of wonderful time-wasting activities! Two recent ones have enabled me to look back over the past year to see just how I'd been wasting my time.

First, a selection of my status posts for the year. These do, in fact, give a pretty good run-down of my year's high points.

Then there's the one that looks at which words I've used the most in my status posts. These suggest that I've been a bit of a Pollyanna in 2010, although it's apparent I've had a few friends with cancer. Nevertheless, they do give an indication of my priorities, I think.

Top words from my Facebook status messages:
1: Great - used 9 times
2: Friends - used 7 times
3: Birthday - used 7 times
4: Cancer - used 6 times
5: Know - used 6 times
6: Carol - used 6 times
7: Family - used 5 times
8: Lovely - used 5 times
9: Stuff - used 5 times
10: Yay - used 4 times

And finally, just because it's cute and it's Christmas:

I wish you all a very happy holiday season and all the things you love the best for the coming year.

Labels: Facebook, meme |

1 comments

Sunday, 21 November 2010

In transit, with books

Sunday, November 21, 2010 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

I'm currently in Adelaide en route to Mount Gambier, where I'll be for the next ten weeks. I like summer in the The Mount - daytime temperatures tend to hover around 30 degrees Celsius, with only an occasional day hitting the old century and rarely going higher. What's more, it's a clear, dry heat that I revel in. Water in the air, cold or hot, makes me very uncomfortable, and of recent years, Perth's summers have become more humid.

Even so, I'd like to move back to the West, and have almost decided to give up my flat in Mount Gambier, sell my worldly goods and move to a boarding house in or near Perth, if I can find somewhere suitable. After all, I've been commuting between Perth and Mount Gambier for the last four years, and have actually spent more time in Perth than in The Mount. I have, from time to time, missed a particular book or item of clothing, but by and large, I've managed fine on what I can lug around (with a bit of help from my friends!) in two suitcases and a motley assortment of supermarket bags. Many people on this planet live with far fewer personal effects.

So why does the thought of shedding books terrify me?

My name is Satima and I am a bookaholic...

I have bookshelves in every room except the wet areas, and more books in boxes and cupboards. Yet there is no information in them that I cannot get from a library or on line. Why do I find it so hard to think of parting with them?

I'm working on overcoming this attachment but it's painful. Books have been the one continuing theme in my life. There's never been a time when I did not own at least a shelf full. I've lugged them about from country to country and state to state for over fifty years, and the thought of getting rid of them hurts. Besides, on the rare occasions when I've cut down by giving a few dozen to charity or parted with them for a pittance to a dealer, I've regretted it the next week, because the very book I needed to consult was one of those I'd off-loaded. I might have owned the book for several years and never needed to look at it after the initial reading, but if I part with it, some extension to Murphy's Law comes into play and it will be the only book in the world that contains the information or the quote that I need, dammit.

But I cannot live in a boarding house with several hundred books, or even several dozen. If I am to move back to Perth, the books will have to go. I'll let you know how I get on with my fight against the book demons!

4 comments

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Common misuses: common expressions

On being bewilderingly busy

Following yonder star

My Facebook Year

In transit, with books

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