Prudentia Sit

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A lot of you know that I don't generally like blogs that rely on Youtube heavily for their main content, but this one captures where I'm at so well...

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Back to the Nifty Three-Fifty?

What seems like a hundred years ago but was actually almost five years ago I wrote a bit about an idea called "The Nifty Three-Fifty."

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Today's prompt is from Herb's book of real-life experiences:

"A wannabe writer with a self-imposed deadline, who usually gets up an hour early just to write, discovers that he is missing an important item."

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Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends and Foes,

I am enjoying this whole writing prompt thing.  It's great, but I wonder, when I get tight on time, if I want to keep up the pace I have set for myself.  I don't know if maybe I will want to make it every other day or something.  I thought that and then I thought, "Nah.  Keep doing it, but get prompts from other places as well and write about the easier ones on some days."  There is that and I still will keep on blogging about whatever subject I find coming to hand.  Today's story is about how I feel about writing sometimes even though it's actually about a completely different subject.  It turned out better than I expected.  It's called Homekeys.  (P.S.  I hope that since I got started so late in the day that you didn't miss yesterday's story, "Curly."  That was a long time in writing.)

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I got up late and got off to a late start, but I really think my idea is a good one for what I want to accomplish.  Since it was later in the day, I handed "The Writer's Book of Matches" to Margaret and asked her to pick one.  She found this on page 120:

A cowboy composes a letter at his favorite saloon before going out to face another gunfighter.

This is written with background noise and constant interruption and accepting a big stereotype of the west.  Although almost everyone carried a gun and knew how to use all manner of them, not all of them were gunfighters.  That being said, there were some...

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Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends and Foes,

Today's writing prompt is from The Writer's Book of Matches, pg 42:  "Why do you have ten cans of Easy Cheese in your cart?"  I changed the number.

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Dear and Beloved Fans, Friends, Fiends and Foes,

I am writing this to you to give you notice...

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From 10/20/04  (BTW, has anyone got an answer?  It still drives spellcheckers nuts.)

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Greetings 'blog fans!

Blog.  Now there's a word for you.  I had a hard time finding out the proper spelling of it.  Oh, yes way, really!  I did so try to look up the spelling of it.  Spelling errors just drive me up the wall.  I cannot stand the thought that I have misspelled or misused a word and there are some people who don't even care!  I shudder at the very thought of using affect for effect or except for accept.  Others can do it, but I just cringe to even think about such a possibility.

Now there are some of my friends and correspondents who do not feel this way at all.  They take the position that if a word is used a certain way long enough, even though it is used improperly or inaccurately, then the Whole English language should be changed and a new meaning adopted because obviously that's how people want to use it.  They point out how words from 400 - 500 years ago are either no longer used or their meanings are completely changed.  There are many examples in Shakespearean writings of this.  They also are quick to point out that in the time of the Founding Fathers all spelling was done phonetically.  They say the language is a fluid, evolving, living thing and changes and should change all the time.

I say, "Phooey!"  The only people in Elizabethan times who could read and write were the rich, the landed gentry, and the nobility.  Since these were the "educated" classes, it was their responsibility to maintain the language and its meaning.  As far as the Founding Fathers go, well, I would suppose that if you are a little pipsqueak of a group of colonies fighting to be free from tyranny and no one has passed down any hard and fast rules of spelling or usage to you, you might be allowed the occasional misspelling now and then because you were busy fighting for Life, Liberty and The Pursuit Of Happiness.

Okay, so I don't always take people to task for it as I should, in fact, I generally try not to say anything to most people.  The exceptions (not acksepshuns) are those people that make a point to let you know how educated they are.  I especially cannot stand to be reading along in a book and discover a misspelling.  I don't mean a non-published manuscript, but a published book that was run once through "spell-checker" and sent to press!  Newspapers and magazines do this too and it aggravates me to no end.  There are supposed to be editors and proofreaders who catch this sort of thing!

So, anyway, I wanted to learn, once and for all, the correct way to spell 'blog and I never really did find out.  That it is a shortened form of the word "weblog" I know, but is it a word on its own, yet?  Do we still need to keep the apostrophe to be correct?  That goes against my beliefs about the language, but if we are going to make it a word of its own, let's gets rid of the apostrophe.

Apparently, this is not much of an issue, however.  First of all, it's not in the American Heritage Dictionary, third edition, which I use a lot.  So, I went online, thinking that would be the place to look up such a word.   The first place I went, www.infoplease.com did not have it, and asked, "Did you mean 'bog?'"  So, I tried looking up the word "weblog" there, but they just asked me, "Did you mean 'web log?'"  They then gave me references to definitions of "web" and "Log Cabin."  Yahoo http://education.yahoo.com/reference/ did better.  They showed the word as "blog," no apostrophe, with the definition, "weblog."  So, I looked up "weblog" and was told: 

web·log

NOUN:

A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.

So.  One definition as a noun.  I went to www.OED.com but that is a pay site although www.askoxford.com is not.  No results.  By the way, if anyone plans to spend $1500 or more on me for Christmas and doesn't plan to buy me a new computer, say a new notebook PC, they could buy me the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary on sale for $849.99.  *sighs, wipes drool from chin, off of keyboard*

Since I am going to be blogging (to blog, a verb, meaning to make entries in a weblog), I think I shall have to make up my own rules for now.

I have been reading and re-reading some of the posts from when I first started blogging, which I am migrating here as much as possible.  I am picking through them as I go, deciding whether to re-post them as new or just post them to the dates they happened originally.  One of the upshots is that I am providing you with daily content but another is that I can look back to where I was 3, almost 4 years ago and see how I've changed and how I've not changed, which is of great personal interest to me.

As always, I have several current topics I am thinking about as well, but in the meantime I hope you will be entertained and enlightened.  I try to write, same as the jokes I post on the Humor blog, in such a way that you could be comfortable e-mailing or printing them off and handing them to your pastor, grandmother, son, daughter or anyone else.  While some topics I address may be adult, I try to keep things clean and classy here.  I would never want someone to feel "put-off" about coming here because they were afraid of what they might see when they arrive.

I cannot guarantee the content of any other site.  I cannot state unequivocally that if you leave this site using any link you find here, that the site you land on will contain material that uses the same criteria I do.  The fact that I have linked them does indicate that they are sites I read and visit but I cannot say that I always agree with their choice of language or topic.  If I find something offensive on someone's page, I have a choice; I can either stay or leave.  There have been times I have left many of them.  This seems simplistic, but the fact is that you must decide for yourself.  I cannot say that I always agree with other people's word or topic choice but then again you are reading someone who tries his gul-durndest not to even use "sissy swear words" like darn, golly, heck, gosh-darn, freakin', etc. even in casual conversation.  (Didja catch what I did there?)

It is a sad state of affairs in our country that people feel the need to punctuate every sentence with a curse-word and even on public transportation with women and children present the air is filled with epithets, occasionally from the women and children.  There are also bloggers who do this and take an otherwise intelligent, well-reasoned post and pepper it up so that you can't read it out loud, especially if an elderly person or a child are present.  This is kind of a shame but is not my choice to make.

I guess that if you are curious about the type of people who comment here and that I like, well then you can click on their links and decide for yourself, but I can't say what sort of content you will like, it may not be what you expect, like or want.  I'm sorry.  Don't go back there.  I guess my philosophy is that I would probably talk to these people in person if they were so inclined and would listen to what they had to say even if I didn't always care for their topic choices or language.  As we became better friends I would (especially if the subject arose) address this issue with them, "You know, Herkimer, I really enjoy our little visits, but your overuse of the "F-Word" and that thing you do with your hand really bothers me."  "What the?  The F-Word?  Do I say that?  What hand thing?"  Herkimer had no idea he was doing anything that offended me and didn't even know what he was doing.

It's been fun but I gotta run.  Remember, a good book said, "Patience is a virtue, unless you're a doctor, then it's cash money."

P.S.

This was in response to a remark someone made to me about a link on this site, but not one that any of my most loyal, regular readers would guess.