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Kate Stradling » Writerly Confessions
http://katestradling.com/2015/07/01/writerly-confessions
A Girl and her Scribbles. This post has languished in my draft file, in one form or another, for well over a month. It’s not meant as a pity-party post, but more as a State of the State of Mind. Honestly, I hesitate to admit to any of it, but here goes. Confession #1: I don’t have a reliable computer of my own right now. Sometime back in mid-February, the left hinge on my laptop cracked, which made the screen tear apart every time I went to open it. Just leave it open then, right? Because, really,. The p...
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Kate Stradling » Deadlines Are My Mortal Enemy
http://katestradling.com/2015/06/23/deadlines-are-my-mortal-enemy
A Girl and her Scribbles. Deadlines Are My Mortal Enemy. Happy June, everybody! Here’s a new book for you to read! Click here for the Kindle version! A few words on the cover:. 1 Imma be honest. It offends my minimalist sensibilities. I like clean and simple, and I waffled over this cover forever because of that. However,. 2 It’s inspired by the Franks Casket. In that respect, it really does reflect some minimalist principles (have you seen how crammed those panels are with people? So that makes me happy.
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Kate Stradling » Tag » language
http://katestradling.com/tag/language
A Girl and her Scribbles. A Minor Hiccup in a Hedge. Nestled among the marked (or “dispreferred”) behaviors of discourse we find a lovely little linguistic feature known as “hedging.”. Hedging is the default refuge of anyone who doesn’t want to be held 100% accountable for what they say. The speaker tempers their words to lessen the impact of their speech, thereby creating a verbal trap door through which they can escape should the need arise. There’s a hedge for that. 8220;I told you I. Help, not that I.
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Kate Stradling » Tag » pragmatics
http://katestradling.com/tag/pragmatics
A Girl and her Scribbles. A Minor Hiccup in a Hedge. Nestled among the marked (or “dispreferred”) behaviors of discourse we find a lovely little linguistic feature known as “hedging.”. Hedging is the default refuge of anyone who doesn’t want to be held 100% accountable for what they say. The speaker tempers their words to lessen the impact of their speech, thereby creating a verbal trap door through which they can escape should the need arise. There’s a hedge for that. 8220;I told you I. Help, not that I.
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Kate Stradling » Tag » deadlines
http://katestradling.com/tag/deadlines
A Girl and her Scribbles. Honing In on What Matters Most. Last week, in the midst of procrastinating a fair number of tasks, I read a book. It was a decent story, sound in writing mechanics, pretty good dialogue, interesting plot points, and so forth, but there was one major problem: its pacing was. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I kid you not, it took eight pages. For the protagonist to wake up, get dressed, and go down to the kitchen for breakfast. Doesn’t need to know 90% of it an...
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Kate Stradling » Tag » publishing
http://katestradling.com/tag/publishing
A Girl and her Scribbles. Honing In on What Matters Most. Last week, in the midst of procrastinating a fair number of tasks, I read a book. It was a decent story, sound in writing mechanics, pretty good dialogue, interesting plot points, and so forth, but there was one major problem: its pacing was. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I kid you not, it took eight pages. For the protagonist to wake up, get dressed, and go down to the kitchen for breakfast. Doesn’t need to know 90% of it an...
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Kate Stradling » Tag » semantics
http://katestradling.com/tag/semantics
A Girl and her Scribbles. The Case of the Autonomous Body Parts. Prescriptive Rule: Never use a body part as the subject of your sentence. Her shoulders rose in a hapless shrug. This structure is deemed bad, according to this rule.). And I found three main points:. It leads to dangling participles. It detracts from the character (agent) who is actually performing the action. It creates a sense of autonomous or disembodied body parts. 1: It leads to dangling participles. While talking, she curled her fing...
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Kate Stradling » Tag » goals
http://katestradling.com/tag/goals
A Girl and her Scribbles. This post has languished in my draft file, in one form or another, for well over a month. It’s not meant as a pity-party post, but more as a State of the State of Mind. Honestly, I hesitate to admit to any of it, but here goes. Confession #1: I don’t have a reliable computer of my own right now. Sometime back in mid-February, the left hinge on my laptop cracked, which made the screen tear apart every time I went to open it. Just leave it open then, right? Because, really,. The p...
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Kate Stradling » Tag » nouns
http://katestradling.com/tag/nouns
A Girl and her Scribbles. Verbs, Part 4: Theta-Roles, or How to Eliminate Passive Voice. My favorite syntax resource, Radford’s English Syntax: An Introduction. The discussion in this post requires a different view of language structure. For a deeper understanding, I refer you to Andrew Radford’s. English Syntax: An Introduction. ISBN 0521542758), particularly pp. 190-193 . Much of this post draws from that source. Identify the theta-roles assigned to nouns by verbs. Continue Reading →. August 1, 2014.
