Category: Blog

Limericks are poetry, right?

I discovered this in my files back from 2014! It’s a cheap lesson in poetic meter. I’ll let you figure it out.

A forgetful old gasman named Dieter
Went poking around his gas heater.
Touched a leak with his light
And blew out of sight!
And, as everyone who knows anything about poetry can tell you, he also ruined the meter.

And here are two of my favorites:

A limerick writer named Drew
Always ended his poems on line two…

A limerick writer, a Hun,

Feel free to send me your worst in the comments.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

I feel lazy today. I think Dad’s right, though.

I mean, how else should you spell it?

Oxymorons are names (usually two words) for things that are self contradictory. Easy post for me today; John Atkinson put together a clever collection of oxymorons.

A fair number of my posts discuss a choice of two things, such as the last post about use and utilize. Today you have a threefold choice.

The third choice is “Different than.”

So what’s the difference?

• Different to is how they say it in England.
• Different from is how we say it in the US when we compare two nouns. “His bike is different from mine.”
• Different than is how we say it when we compare clauses, which have verbs. “I cook different meats than you do.”

I see “utilize” a lot in technical writing. A lot of folks seem to think that the fancier word, the better. Not so!

Good expository writing is concise, and that often means using the simpler word if you have a choice. Besides, the words aren’t quite the same. “Utilize” implies that something was used “creatively,” made use of, as it were.

The rule: if use works, use it.

Besides, since that’s a poster, “use” takes up less space and is easier for the audience to read. If they can read.

You all know LOL and IMO and a bunch of others, no doubt. Here’s a TLA (three-letter acronym) that’s new to me.

I don’t have to say a lot today; the parents say it for me.

The lesson: Think about what you write!

Here’s a headline:

Ignore the Phanatic—this guy loves I-95 more than you.

It’s from a Wired article that shows a picture of a fat guy with more than two tattoos on his front. I’m not going to post the photo, but I think this is the link.

(The Phanatic is the Philadelphia Flyers’ team mascot. I-95 is a major interstate along the east coast of the US.)

So here’s my question: Whom or what does he love more?

• Does he love I-95 more than you do?
• Does he love I-95 more than he loves you?

Comparisons can be tricky. When you proofread your work (you always proofread, right?), check your work for ambiguity.

Not a lot of content here, but it’s on topic…

I counted five spelling errors, not counting the comma.