“Derogatory: Disparaging and offensive, a term often used in dictionaries (usually abbreviated to derog) to label expressions that intentionally offend or disparage: skinny when used instead of thin; American English ass-hole for someone considered stupid, mean, or nasty.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Here is a learning support on using a comma to set off a quotation. This is the seventh of fifteen forthcoming learning supports on quotations. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”
Mark Twain
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
“If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes.”
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities, poetry, readings/research, united states history
Here is a learning support on using a comma to indicate direct address. This is the sixth of a total of fifteen of these documents on commas. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Combine for Combination. The word, in this sense, has something of the meaning of conspiracy, but there is no justification for it as a noun, in any sense.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage, humor, literary oddities
“Derivative: 1. A word or other item of language that has been created according to a set of rules from a simpler word or item. 2. A complex word: girlhood from girl, legal from leg- (law), legalize from legal. 3. Of an essay, article, thesis, etc., and usually pejorative: depending on an earlier and better piece of work.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
OK, last but not least today, here is a learning support on using a comma to set off a nonrestrictive or parenthetical word, phrase, or clause. This is the fifth of fifteen forthcoming posts on learning supports for using the comma in prose. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Jacobean Style: The style of architecture, interior decoration, and furniture associated with England and the reign of James I (1603-1625). In it classical elements are combined with strapwork and northern European figural motifs.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Man of Letters: A well-educated, well-read, civilized and perhaps learned person—who may also be a writer (e.g. a belle-lettrist). ‘A man of capital letters,’ on the other hand, is one who thinks he is these things but is, in fact, very limited. Pope’s victims in The Dunciad might be called ‘men of capital letters’. See also BELLES LETTRES; LITERATI.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
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