Pastime

I was googling about for ideas for a post tonight. (Today I ran errands, wrote personal and business thank you notes, and prepared for tomorrow's Library board meeting. No stitching, no crafting, nothing to show, sadly.) And I ran across a list of 101 or 365 or 20 ideas for blog posts. Did you know there are whole idea generators for blog posts? Just click! (A silly-ish one and a more business-oriented one.)

You'd think, as a former writing instructor, someone who taught people how to generate ideas, I'd be a lot better at coming up with posts. Some of the techniques I taught were freewriting, clustering, um, some kind of thesis generator...wow, I stopped teaching a long time ago. I think the problem is that I'm just not spending enough time thinking and planning. I will tell you that this was the main problem my students had. In fact, almost all bad writing stems from not enough thinking and planning.

Anyway, somewhere out there someone said you should return to a favorite old pass-time and write about it. PASS-TIME? I like the hyphen. And sure it does sound like pass time when you say it, and it is something you do to pass time, but it's actually called a pastime. I always want to add a second "t" but that's just because I can't spell to save my life. I think of it as a past + time, so two "t"s. But if we consider that it is from Middle French passe + temps, we'll all remember that there's a t but only one of them.

Grammar Hammer

The answer is four years and four months. What is, the time to stitch the afghan? But that's like stitch three blocks, put it down for 18 months, then work my fingers to the bone to finish it four months after my mother's 60th birthday. If you go back through some of my earlier posts, I bored myself senseless writing about stitching the afghan. 

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Word. I had taken down the blurry number and screwy letter word verification but 1) it made no difference in the number of people who commented and 2) it increased the gibberish spam-bot messages in my email. I'm just not willing to take this for the team. Verification is going back up. You should have taken advantage while it was down.

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You know how every once in a while I go off the deep-end and give you a grammar lesson? Well, today is one of those days.


It's not borrow, it's lend.

I've seen these two confused twice in two days on two different blogs of native English speakers. (I try not to judge nonnative speakers who are writing in a foreign tongue. God knows you'd be laughing your head off if I tried to write this in French!) I remember a while back Coral from South Africa said that it drove her nuts, and I thought, "I have never heard that; it must be a South African thing." (Because there are "things" that are national idiosyncrasies in English. Like in the UK, they say "orientate" while in America we like "orient." Some Americans (idiots, usually) do use the former, but the latter is preferred. (It's the kind of backformation that makes my head explode! Although I will let it slide if you are using it in reference to orienteering. That's just the kind of generous I am.)

"She borrowed me the pattern."
No she didn't. You borrowed it from her. She lent it to you.

If you have the thing, you lend it: "to grant use of (a thing) on condition it will be returned." I'll lend you my magnifier!
If you don't have the thing, you borrow it: "to take or obtain with the promise to return the same or an equivalent." (You can't return the same cup of sugar if you use it, therefore equivalent.) Could I borrow that pattern?


I guess what is confusing is that in each case there's a thing that someone wants and will get on a temporary basis. But they're such different words. I don't get how that gets screwed up.


So let's iterate the grammar lessons we've accumulated thus far on the blog:

• Should have = should've; never (NEVER!) should of. (Same for would, could, and must.)
• Lose is to not win. Loose is not tight. This is true even though lose rhymes with choose. Got it?
• Definitely is spelled D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y . There's no "A" in definitely; just like there's no I in team.
• it's = it is. If a thing possesses something, use "its."
• Two words: after all; each other; in fact; every day (but only when you mean each day); thank you (unless it's an adjective, as in thankyou note. But that's British; Americans write thank-you note.)

And just to remind you it's not all schoolmarm finger-wagging around here, you should (re)read this.

Two Words

I've been seeing these words written together lately and they are not supposed to be. My head is going to explode. Please check yourself. I thought about linking to actual examples, but then I thought I like having friends. (But if you don't cease and desist, I may change my mind about that.)

• after all not afterall
• each other not eachother (Seriously, why?)
• in fact not infact (Don't confuse it with intact.)
• everyday--Sometimes everyday is incorrect. It depends on what is being modified. If you mean each day write every day (two words). If you mean "the usual" then it's one word. (Every Day with Rachael Ray vs everyday clothes, everyday life, everyday event)
• Thank you NOT thankyou. I see this a lot on British blogs, but I checked. It's still wrong unless you are talking about thank-you notes. Then it's thank-you in the U.S. and thankyou in Britain. But if you are just straightforwardly thanking someone it's "thank you."

Watch and learn:
Thank you for visiting my blog. It is, in fact, a wonderful way to for us to keep in touch with each other every day (or thereabouts) after all.

A Matter of Style

We have a grammar question! Mary in Tennessee asks, "which is correct: Forward and backward or forwards and backwards? Do I go toward something or towards something?"

And the answer is "yes."

All are correct. (Do note that there are a few phrases that require certain versions. We "step forward." We experience "forward motion." And in some places you might still label a "backward child" though, wow, people really still say that? Maybe we should not worry about that one.)

When you have more than one correct answer, the question usually becomes a matter of style. Take for example, the serial comma. It is correct to write:

Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.

It is also correct to write:

Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

I'm personally a fan of the serial comma (the former example), so you should always see it here. Journalists hate me; it's just not their style. (This was actually one of the first questions I got two jobs ago when I was hired as the associate director of communications. The interlocutor was pissed when I told her both were correct. {I think she was hoping the director was wrong; frankly, he was the kind of schmuck that elicited that response.} People don't want the answer to be "it's a matter of style"; that's too frustrating.)

So the real question is does your company have a style guide? If they use a particular style guide (whether in house or AP or Chicago Manual of Style), you'll have to go along with that. If they don't have one, don't complain because you'll end up writing it yourself.

Otherwise, as long as you are consistent, you can't go wrong. (Some people do say that the "S" versions are more widely used in Britain, but that's neither here nor there.)

Speaking of style, those Victorian ribbon embroidery kits aren't going to give themselves away. The winner is...

Kat! Please send me your snail mail address.

And Then My Head Exploded

Offray ribbon purchased at Jo-Ann. Unretouched photo.

Bag It

I have been reading rather than stitching, so I don't have anything to show. I will share my new carrying case. When I went to camp, they gave me this Vera Bradley lunch tote:



The pattern is "purple punch," though it seems kind of brown to me. Anyway, I haven't been packing lunches and I'm not really a huge fan of VB, so I was thinking WTF am I going to do with this? So there it was, sitting on the table amongst my stuff.



And, though I am spatially retarded, I thought, does that Ott light fit in there?



Turns out it does! Perfect for camp; I am not sure the Ott light leaves home any other time. But if it needed to, it could. And dressed to the nines at that.

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Apparently when President Obama wanted to change the conversation about race in America, people in Philadelphia thought he meant they should talk to me. The other day, my across-the-street neighbor was outside and started chatting to me about my next door neighbors who have recently moved out. (Open house this Sunday! I love nosing around other people's houses.) "You know," she says, "they were black but they were nice." Now I lived next door to them for 3.5 years. Did she have to tell me they were African American? No. It's the correlation. Then she says, "he (the father) didn't let them (the two boys) run wild in the street." It might surprise you to learn that both boys were born while we were living here. We moved in December 17, 2005. Wow what a good father! And hey, two African American boys not in gangs! Where do people get this? Honestly, I'm flummoxed. And torn. She said I made her day talking to her, and I stood there for about five minutes. She's obviously very lonely. She doesn't drive and her sons visit maybe once a month. Her next door neighbors are good to her, but I suppose there is some moral obligation for the dude and I to visit or reach out in some way. See? See why I hate living in a society?

Oh, and just by-the-by when society no longer does something it "loses" the custom not "looses" it. L-O-S-E spells the word that means to come to be without, to suffer the deprivation of, to fail to have, to fail to win. L-O-O-S-E, which does not rhyme with C-H-O-O-S-E, means unfettered, lax, sexually promiscuous or immoral. Are we good on that? Because this one is really starting to drive me nuts.

Grammar Bitch

For at least a year, maybe two, I've been wanting to start a new blog, Grammar Bitch. The idea was to go about my daily life with a camera to document bad grammar and give little lessons about the world gone wrong. All those misplaced apostrophes are just waiting for me to come along with a metaphorical red pen. (Graffito, "Jesus Save's," gave me the idea.) I never thought of doing something like this. But I would. Can you see it? A band of editors set loose (loose!) on America... You can follow the journey here.

SBQ: Compelling Blogs

How do you decide which stitching blogs are worth regular viewings? Are there certain things you look for in particular? Are there things you wish there were more of? Less of? Is your blog a good example of what you like to read? Right now, the blogs come to me. I am using the google reader. I try to visit the blogs that link to me, which I think is polite. I most enjoy reading blogs that have regular, and mostly, crafting content. I'll stop reading a blog that regularly says things that annoy me or that uses "would of" when they mean would've...okay, any blog that says "would of" is straight out because that is never a grammatically correct usage. I cringe every time I see writers spell definitely, "definately." That sort of stuff will drive me right away. I get inspired by people who are out there doing their own kind of thing, and I wish I did more of that. But I work. Oh, I know, being out of the house for ten hours a day is a really lousy excuse...

Is my blog a good example of the genre? Not lately. I feel so disconnected. I'm not stitching as much as I'd like, and crazy things keep happening, like the beer tasting dinner I went to last night, and having to go buy a new refrigerator. I do think I'm coming back around though. Today at work--shouldn't they have let us go early?--I retaliated by surfing Hancock's of Paducah and I found things I want to make. That's always a good sign.

Murders and Executions

Shay Pendray's Needle Arts Studio has been acquired by Interweave Press the company that brings you PieceWork and Interweave Knits. Ms. Pendray will continue as host through 2007, and will be involved with the show until 2011 on and off the air.

So, um, wake me in 2012?

I think I've seen the show once, and it was on needlepoint. I seem to remember it was like watching paint dry which is unfortunate for both PBS and needlework.

In other news, last Saturday at the hairdresser, I sat stitching as usual while I waited for the dye to take. The salon owner, Nicholas Sebastian, who is not as gay as that sounds--in fact, he's not gay trust me--comes over to me and says, "Needlepoint is getting hugely popular. You're not the only one I see doing it in here anymore." Since I've only been going there for just a shade less than a year, this "anymore" takes on a new dimension. At least he's used it with the negative--using anymore with a positive spin is one of the most perplexing regionalisms in the English language. Lots of people do it. And it still confuses me.

The Three Wisemen

A/Irreligious as I may be, I own a copy of the Bible (KJV). I checked that Bible, and not in Daniel, Matthew, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Proverbs, 1st Corinthians, The Book of Job, Deuteronomy, Esther, Exodus, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Genesis, Obadiah, Psalms or the Apocrypha does anyone refer to the "wisemen." But Wise Men, as in came tramping through the desert to meet the baby Jesus, is two words in each reference. This was the first thing I noticed paging through the 2003 JCS Ornament Issue. The Shepherd's Bush ornament has a figure carrying a charm jug walking away from a star (followed by a boat for some reason) with the stitched caption "Wisemen came." It's unmistakably two words where, of course, there should be three. How could no one have noticed this--not the designers, not the magazine editor, or photographers, no one? What's more, everywhere you look in the magazine, it's "wisemen came." If this is what fundamentalist religiosity is doing to the country, well, it's no wonder everything's going to hell in a hand-basket.

My complaints about Dragon Dreams and the Stitcher's Habit (Merry Moosedroppings!) seem to have been heeded; neither designer is in this issue.

Overall, I was underwhelmed. There are about 14 designs I'd like to do out of 75; I think that's a record low. Both Bent Creek and Heart in Hand designed house ornaments. There's a neat circle of trees from The Workbasket. There's a page full of snowmen (I like the Twisted Threads one best, but SO asked, "didn't you do that one before?"). There's a set of "traditional" red and green ornaments with a particularly staid one from Mosey 'N Me that I like. There's a section of animal/bird ornaments, including a really funky flamingo with an Esatz wreath--my favorite on that page. There's a selection of Santas, but none are out of this world. There's a group with "dark palettes" including a Prairie Schooler that matches their new book "Starry Night." (That ought to give you a sense of those ornaments.) There's a collection of ornaments that have "Joy, Peace, or Love" in them. JBW's "Love" is pretty and Lizzie*Kate's "Peace" has a neat row of Christmas symbols underneath. This is where the wisemen appear. There's the page of "unusual color" ornaments. They're nothing to write home about, although I think there's something about Graphs by Barbara and Cheryl's plaid Christmas tree. The next page has several of the issue's ugliest ornaments, including a gingerbread man who could give children nightmares. And you know how I feel about Cherished Teddies. The last page of photos has the "white" ornaments. Lots of hardanger and cut-work, but my favorite is a bitty stocking by Brightneedle.

Am I jaded or have the designers lost something here?

I got K's scarf done and I'm very far along on Rose Gallica, even though I had to pick up the new magazine and flip through it again and again this weekend. I'm still not sure I can make the Friday deadline because there is a lot of backstitching left to do on this one. We'll see how far I get while watching Monday Night Football.