Read: January 22nd – 28th 2006

Posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 in my reading material Tags: ,

Wolf Captured, Jane Lindskold – finished Thursday 26th. Borrowed from Marion, very slow re-read.

Case Histories, Kate Atkinson – finished Saturday 28th. Own copy.

Ongoing total for 2006: 13 + 2 re-reads

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Not a Real Word! #1

Posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 in words and phrases Tags:

There is no such word as compulse, Paul McKenna. The verb you are looking for is compel and its past participle is compelled. Not compulsed.
Although after hearing you use it about five times in ten minutes, I was starting to doubt myself, and had to resort to the Merriam Webster dictionary.

Here is the correct usage, for your reference, Mr McKenna:
“I felt compelled to throttle a certain well-known hypnotist after hearing him use a non-existent word repeatedly and annoyingly.”

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Read: January 15th – 21st 2006

Posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 in my reading material Tags: ,

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman – finished Sunday 15th. Own (signed!) copy.

Wolf Captured, Jane Lindskold (Book 4 of the Firekeeper series) – finished Monday 16th. Borrowed from Marion, first read.

Stardust, Neil Gaiman – finished Thursday 19th. Own copy.

Ongoing total for 2006: 12 + 1 re-read

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Kill the clichés!

Posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 in words and phrases Tags: ,

I’ve never read anything by Virginia Woolf that I can recall (although I probably should), but today I read in the Guardian about a magazine she and her siblings created as children.
[Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Juvenile magazine by Virginia Woolf and her siblings]

And they receive my undying admiration for, even as children, slamming down the cliché of ‘luminous orbs’.

‘Orbs’ is a term used way way too often in character descriptions written for online roleplaying games such as Harper’s Tale and Dragons’ Dusk MOOs (both based on Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern novels). Some players think that purple prose is appropriate for their descs (descriptions) – ‘orbs’ is only slightly less annoying than ‘optics’ (which makes me think of my barmaid days, serving spirits). And that’s as much of a comment as I intend to make at the moment, else I’d keep going for pages.
Just… you don’t say ‘appendages’ when you mean hands, do you? So why say ‘orbs’ or ‘optics’ for eyes?

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Mistranslations #1

Posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 in words and phrases Tags: ,

Read: January 8th – 14th 2006

Posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2006 in my reading material Tags: , , , ,

The Seduction of Water, Carol Goodman – finished Sunday 8th. Library book, first read.

The Icarus Girl, Helen Oyeymi – finished Sunday 8th. Library book, first read.

See Delphi and Die, Lindsey Davis – finished Tuesday 10th. Library book, re-read.
[I do that a lot - get books out of the library and read them twice before taking them back. It's not even unusual for me to re-read library books or brand new books without having read anything else in the middle.]

The Visitor, Sheri S. Tepper – finished Thursday 12th. Own book.

Dies the Fire, S. M. Stirling – finished Friday 13th. Colin’s book, first read.
The Protector’s War, S. M. Stirling – finished Saturday 14th. Colin’s book, first read.

Ongoing total for 2006: 9 + 1 re-read

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