Expand your vocabulary! Eight Secrets Which Writers Won’t Tell You Image from Flickr by Lazurite This is not particularly relevant to the post, but I’m getting an awful lot of comments telling me, often a little snarkily, “it’s ‘THAT’ not ‘WHICH’”. The “don’t use which for restrictive clauses” rule comes (as far as I can tell) from Strunk and White. Plenty of authors, including Austen, have used “which” exactly as I use it in the title. There was never a period in the history of English when “which” at the beginning of a restrictive relative clause was an error. I thought about putting “that” in the title – but I like the sound of “which” between “secrets” and “writers”. And with that out of the way, enjoy the post! A few years ago, I’d look at published writers and think that they were somehow different from me. They were real writers. But as I’ve taken more and more steps into the writing world, I’ve realised that my perception just doesn’t match up to the reality. I’m going to go through eight secrets. Secret #1: Writing is Hard It doesn’t end there.
NeuroNation : The Free Brain Training Community - Play online br 20 Obsolete English Words that Should Make a Comeback Photo: Katherine Hodgson If we all start using them, these words can be resurrected. DURING MY UNDERGRADUATE studies as a Linguistics major, one of the things that struck me most is the amazing fluidity of language. New words are created; older words go out of style. Words can change meaning over time, vowel sounds shift, consonants are lost or added and one word becomes another. Living languages refuse to be static. The following words have sadly disappeared from modern English, but it’s easy to see how they could be incorporated into everyday conversation. Words are from Erin McKean’s two-volume series: Weird and Wonderful Words and Totally Weird and Wonderful Words. 1. Verb trans. – “To confuse, jumble” – First of all this word is just fun to say in its various forms. 2. 3. Verb trans. – “To scrape together; to gather together from various sources” – I’m sure this wasn’t the original meaning of the word, but when I read the definition I immediately thought of copy-pasting. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Test Your Brain With Brain Teasers and Games Here you can enjoy the Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games & Illusions that SharpBrains readers (primarily adults, but some younger minds too) have enjoyed the most. It is always good to learn more about our brains and to exercise them!. Fun experiments on how our brains and minds work 1. 2. 3. 4. Challenge your attention and memory 5. 6. 7. Optical illusions 8. 9. 10. 11. Language and logic puzzles 12. 13. 14. 15. A few visual workouts 16. 17. 18. Teasing your pattern recognition and thinking 19. 20. 21. 22. Brain teasers for job interviews 23. 24. 25.
The 7 Greatest (True) Johnny Depp Stories Ever Told Somehow Johnny Depp always seems to commits the weirdest crimes. Even when the guy is doing something "wrong", he does it with style. He's never been arrested for doing anything outside of the realm of what you'd expect from him, even with all his money. In 1994, Depp was staying at a fancy New York hotel and completely wrecked his room. Like, furniture everywhere, broken glass, the works. When police arrived at the scene, there was a smashed glass coffee-table and other destroyed, mangled furniture in the $1200-a-night suite. The alleged creature was never found. Johnny Depp's cavalier attitude about his brushes with the law and incarceration make him even more awesome. The other crime Depp was caught committing is just as unexpected, and pretty damn awesome (not including that paparazzi brawl he had, because really, who could stand those people). The billboard featured Depp holding a gun with the slogan, "Other Kids Pack Lunch," underneath it. Source
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