It's not always hot

It's time to gang up on an overused word: hot. Cars are hot. Women, too. Men as well. Clothes. Shoes. On and on. The first billion times advertisers used the word, it might be been fun, amusing, sexy, trendy--or perhaps even hot. But now hot has become tepid, lukewarm, and irritating. If you're over 21, it's a word you might want to think about retiring--or at least mothballing until it comes around again in another 25 years.

Cool lasts forever. Hot doesn't.

Adding more

I've decided to claim this blog with Technorati and see what happens. Technorati Profile

Looking forward to more fun, more words, more conversation.

No matter how you try....

In the last post, I talked about "ethic" slurs. Hmmm. I wonder what those might be? Of course, it's "ethnic." I correct other people's mistakes for a living. It's just delightful to have to correct my own--in public.

However, there are Web site and blog issues more serious than typos. I read one site yesterday that went on for a bit and then began its last sentence, "Anyways." Deliver me from the final s in that one. Nonetheless, I soldiered on to the next page where the content read,"We're just chalk full of ideas." Chalk full? The only time I've even been "chalk full" was when I had to swallow barium for an x-ray. I don't recommend it.

"Chock" perhaps? As in full to the brim with ideas? That's better.

I gave a workshop today, the gist of which was that if you're not certain of the spelling or meaning of a word, for heaven's sake, look it up. Take a minute to do it right so you don't waste 10 minutes cleaning up the lousy first impression you made.

Civil Speech? Where?

In the past few days, I've been roaming various comment boards on an array of different Web sites. This is not something I usually have time to do, and now I have another good reason not to waste my time with it. These boards, with the exception of those who cater to a specific set of highly articulate readers interested in issues of substance, have become places for people to spill vast amounts of bile. When people disagree here, they don't resort to reason. They resort to character assassination, name-calling of the most vile type, ethic and racial slurs that make my head spin, bullying, and all-round nastiness.

Barack Obama wins in Iowa? Let's get on the Web and call him everything from a Communist to the N-word to a Muslim extremist bent on destroying the United States. And, of course, let's be sure not to let our invective be tempered by even rudimentary fact checking. Let's just spread our lies as fast as we can.

Britney Spears has a breakdown? Let's kick her while she's strapped to a gurney in an ambulance. Let's blame her for all the world's ills. And while we're at it, let's all state the "absolute facts" about what's happened to a young woman we've never met. Beside having excessively bad judgment, what has she done to unleash such a torrent of hateful diatribes? Has she hurt any of the people who now call on her to "do us all a favor and die"?

Behind the cloak of anonymity, people feel safe to say anything they wish. What's sad, though, is that this kind of speech is now no longer cloaked. Emboldened by what they get away with online, people say whatever they want, wherever they want, to whomever they want. It's road rage with words, assault with speech, and it goes all the way down to elementary school. If you haven't been on a 5th-grade playground lately, it's an education.

I don't have the answer, but I can urge all of us to think before we use speech to harm another, judge another, or make another's life miserable.

Jargon rears its ugly head ...

... but it's funny. One of my henchmen recently ran across a site that touts its new software as very useful for "backupping." Oh, come on. There's a perfectly good phrase--backing up--that has served several generations of technology users. What's the point of a word like "backupping"? It's ugly, doesn't work, and makes the perpetrator of the phrase look silly.

Another of my spies has found a perfectly lovely misplaced modifier that made me laugh:

"His last billed part was in 1956, though he appeared in an uncredited bit part after his death." I'll bet his performance was a little stiff, though.

I found another in a publication I'd been asked to work on:

"This set of instructional materials is very useful for teachers with children." But what about childless teachers? Might they find the materials helpful in their classrooms, too?

These are cute little object lessons that illuminate a bigger point. In careful speaking and writing, the details matter. Really. Read. And then read again.

Web site up

My new Web site, www.midwestbookdocs. is finally up. I haven't optimized it yet, and there's lots of work to do, but it's out there, and if you want to find out what we do at Midwest Book Doctors or get in touch with us, this is the place to go for all the information.

I built the Web site with products from Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com.) The process was very easy and relatively quick. Most of my time was spent troubleshooting my own mistakes, not bugs of any kind. If you can't or won't pay a Web designer and you don't need many bells and whistles, this is a great alternative.

Recently, I've seen an uptick in mistakes in the word pair respectfully/respectively. Let's straighten it out. Respectfully means "with respect," while respectively means "in the order mentioned."

For example, "I took English 101, 102, and 103, with Professors Jones, Smith, and Brown respectively. " And, "All members of the staff should treat one another respectfully."

I'm in the process of proposing another book. I'll let you know where it leads.

A friend's success

About three years ago, I met a very nice woman at a writers' conference and we fell into conversation about the novel she was working on. I read the first chapter and liked what I saw.

Now that novel has been published, and I was able to pick up a copy lately. It's called Wish Club. The author is Kim Strickland. I recommend it to you. What a treat when someone you know succeeds at such a tough thing! And Kim really has. Go buy it and find out what happens to Jill and Mara and Claudia and the other members of their book club. You'll have a fine time. I guarantee it.