Blood, Guts, Breasts, and Insanity

Demographic disclosure: I am an American who likes good adult (note the lack of euphemistic quotation marks) entertainment, and I am disgusted and ashamed at what thirty years of cultural conservatism has done to my country. Perhaps I’d better back up and explain…

7 Comments »Filed under: Censorship, Creativity, Idle Musings, Language, Public PolicyPosted on February 24th, 2010

Doing Violence to the Language

Of the complicated pile of…legacy…that we have to untangle from the cultural madness we Americans indulged in during the Naughties (that’s the ’00 decade, where pretty much every public figure engaged with politics, public policy, economics, social action, environmentalism, culture wars, and foreign policy acted impulsively, childishly, and shamefully), perhaps none is more irritating than [...]

3 Comments »Filed under: Idle Musings, LanguagePosted on November 23rd, 2009

Super Sneaky Victoriana Research Tips

by Gail Carriger [In honor of her new book Soulless, which impressed me with its groundedness in the Victorian world, I asked author Gail Carriger to blog about the art of finding good research sources for Steampunk writing. This is her contribution - thank you very much, Ms. Carriger! -JDS] I’ve said it before and [...]

No Comments »Filed under: Creativity, Idle Musings, LanguagePosted on October 10th, 2009

Getting the Words Right, part 1

When writing a period piece, whether that period is past or present, getting your terminology right is essential to maintaining the illusion. It’s also one of the easiest things to miss on a revision. Lest you think the following rant is thoroughgoing self-righteousness, let me preemptively explain that it’s not. It’s actually hypocrisy. You see, [...]

3 Comments »Filed under: Autodidact, Idle Musings, Language, WritingPosted on December 2nd, 2008

MSNBC endorses LOLCAT English!

—edit— Lisa Paul, in the comments, delivered a round bitch-slap to me for missing the obvious possibility that the following faux-pas could be an attempt to emulate the Brooklynite coloquialism “S/he was robbed” and convey their accent. She could be right. However…I like my take on it better . Can anyone confirm whether the author [...]

2 Comments »Filed under: Language, Unsavory ExcursionsPosted on August 18th, 2008
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