I was recently discussing pronouns with a close friend. (Don't you just wish you were my friend? Constant conversational parties around here. PRONOUNS. WOOT.) It started with a discussion of gender-neutral third person singular pronouns - ...
Oh, the Blogs You’ll Blog!
Congratulations! You've started a blog. You're ready to web-schmooze and work like a dog! You have brains in your head, and a bum on your chair. You can steer your blog any direction you care. You're at your computer, and you know the ...
Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, Who is the fairest one of all? Who is the wisest? Who is most kind? Who listens to others? Who speaks their mind? Who thinks that all their life's learning is done? Who knows their learning has just ...
Emojis as words – Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year
Last week, Oxford Dictionaries announced the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji as its 2015 Word of the Year (for the US and the UK). OUTRAGEOUS, huh? Except not really. For what it's worth, I don't emoji. I'm not cool enough. (Remember when ...
Whelm
I don't want to be over; Then I've too much on my plate. I don't want to be under; Then I've too much time to wait. I've got to find the balance, Got to walk the tightrope straight. That balance isn't easy; What suits ...
Practical grammactical: gender-neutral third person singular pronouns (the great ‘they’ debate)
Okay. Crack knuckles. Stretch back. I'm diving in with a big, huge, MAMMOTH-SIZED grammatical topic at the request of Maxabella. We all know the third person singular pronouns. He, she and it. (Side note: we'll use the subject form of pronouns for ...
Practical grammactical: when wrong is more right than right
I'm guessing I've lost a lot of readers just from the title of this post. For those of you still reading, welcome to this third instalment of Practical Grammactical. We've blitzed through punctuation and discussed some one-word/two-word ...
I knew a love (a writing exercise)
You may remember that in December, I joined a writing group and received some writing prompts. Then again, you may not, because I haven't posted anything resulting from those prompts since Hoof camp in January. Well, I got some writing going ...
Practical grammactical: when is a word not a word?
When is a word not a word? When it should be two words. Thank you all for your enthusiasm with the launch of Practical Grammactical last month. (And particularly big thanks to Bron at Maxabella loves for kicking it all off by asking for this ...
Practical grammactical: punctuation part II
Hello there! Welcome to the beginning of what might become a new series at emhawkerblog. I call it the beginning, but really, this is the second post (hence the 'part II' in the title). The first post went live about half an hour ago over at ...