So when you take your kid to see The Jungle Book at the local children’s theater, and the opening scene (in which Mowgli’s mom fights the tiger to keep him from eating her baby) makes you tear up…
you know you’re going to have a baby in a few weeks.
Speaking of baby, a friend had a baby less than 24 hours ago. She and her hubby are smaller in stature than R & I, and the baby was 6 lbs 3 oz at birth. Friends, that’s probably how big my baby is NOW. Yikes.
Little A also looks like ET and is the sweetest little peanut you ever saw.
—————————-
BB has a name!
—————————-
We had a great meal last night for our anniversary. I had a delicate veal schnitzel with polenta and sage pesto and R had 8-hour pork belly which he loved, but also seemed to loathe himself for loving. It was the richest thing he’d ever eaten. The restaurant also gave us a flourless chocolate cake to split for our anniversary.
And on the way back to the hotel it rained on us! Hallelujah!
This morning we picked up some pastries in the bakery and ate them in Dupont Circle while the Pennsylvania Mennonites sang and street-preached to the tourists and the homeless folk. Gotta love this town.
—————————-
I have a lot of writing to do over the next few weeks. I need to write two articles for Denominational Magazine to get ahead of my due date. And I will be reviewing two books for Mothertalk, which will be fun.
And I am scheduled to update Fidelia’s Sisters next week. This time we will be featuring some visual art by a pastor/artist; lovely stuff.
—————————-
Borrowed Eats, Shoots and Leaves from Mamala. A book on punctuation that makes you laugh until you cry? Excellent.
I totally agree that the misuse of “its” and “it’s” inspires not only despair, but the desire to commit violence.
Of course, being British she did not address the abomination that is ya’ll. Just typing it makes me growl, grrrr!
—————————-
Tomorrow we are thinking about moving the divine miss M into little she-who-is’s room, to make way for BB. R has been overworking this considerably, even getting out the Visio program to draw diagrams of bed configurations. We have bunk beds but C is a little too young for that. So it will be a tight squeeze.
That’s about it. Preaching tomorrow. Gotta get to bed.
22 Responses to “this and that”
Leave a Reply
Search
Asides
» I’m looking for some new online reading materials–blogs, zines, whatever. Creative yet accessible, inspiring but not schmaltzy, smart but not impenetrable. Recommendations welcome.
» The latest on SBJ: at one year, he weighs 30.5 pounds (99%), is 32 inches tall (97%) and is 100% cute.
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
Links
Join | List | Prev | Next Random | Prev5 | Next5
Skip Prev | Skip Next
Join | List | Prev | Next |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves - GREAT BOOK
Ok, I need to clarify yall —- it’s y’all right?
not ya’ll — though most spell it that way around here.
Easy as pie:
put the apostrophe where the letters are missing.
you all
y ‘ all
The title of the book kinda rankles though, because in journalism class I learned to put a comma before the conjunction ‘and’: Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.
But I did learn its formal name from the book (it’s an Oxford comma) and that it’s a matter of personal preference.
I just like it because it prevents confusion, albeit occasionally amusing confusion, my favorite example of which is:
I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
Ooh! Sister rooms! I roomed with a sister until I was 11. I loved the late night giggle fests. I hope you get the beds configured.
Happy anniversary!
It’s also called the serial comma. My favorite example of why the decision should be based on intended meaning, not on grammatical rote, is from Robert Frost:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.
I just wanted to finish that poem….
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Great book! In a previous life I was an editor for a publishing company so finding these errors in print makes me crazy. “its” vs. “it’s” — and “they’re” vs. “their” vs. “there” (from people who should know better, and I don’t care if it’s a typo — that’s what proof-reading is for, grr..) — and “your” and “you’re” — and “lose” and “loose” (as in “we’re going to loose the soccer game tomorrow” — um, no, they may “loose” their power on you, causing you to “lose”, but….) — ah well, you get the idea, lol… — oh wait, one more — I see this in ads all the time — “less calories than Brand X” — shriek! — “fewer” calories. “Less” fat maybe, but “fewer” calories.
Okay, I’ll stop. (pet peeve, lol..) — your weekend sounds fun. And for the two kids sharing a bedroom — we just put a crib mattress on the floor for my daughter. Then it could be easily picked up and leaned against the wall if they needed a bigger place to play. I felt guilty — my baby,sleeping on the floor! — but she loved it, and I didn’t have to worry about her falling out of bed. That was only temporary, a year or so, but it worked well.
I adore that comma example.
Amen, sister, on the y’all abomination. And I learned the serial comma thing the same way as you. I also was taught not to start a sentence with “and,” but apparently that didn’t stick. Please note the intact infinitive above, though. Ack! Someone stop me!
Ugh! Less vs. fewer. Drives me batty.
And its quieter cousin, over vs. more than.
It’s
More than 90 people attended.
NOT
Over 90 people attended. (Unless it was a gathering for nonagenarians.)
I think its/it’s and over/more than are lost causes.
We don’t have declensions anymore, either.
I might be willing to sacrifice the latter, but the former is really inexcusable. And I don’t care how snotty I sound saying that!
I’d'n’tve sacrified the itses either, but I think in forty years, it’ll’ve collapsed into just one it’s or the other its.
I’m with you on the y’all and it’s issues. After I taught for a couple of years I made up a sheet of mistakes YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE — its and it’s were first on the list, followed by your and you’re.
But damn, if they didn’t manage to come up with new mistakes every year. I sure wish they would go back to teaching grammar. (Actually, the Kid is learning more grammar than my older kids did, but still not enough).
Thank you for your commentary on the abomination that is “ya’ll”.
I scrolled down here, all ready to rant about “your” vs. “you’re”, to find that revdrmom beat me to it.
Don’t get me started on “lie” and “lay”.
you know, I never knew about over and more. I bet I’ve been doing it incorrectly. But its and it’s, and lie and lay make be nutso.
Y’all, it’s — What’s so tough about the concept of using an apostrophe for missing letters? I’m not sure my 9th grade English teacher ever told us about the over/more than usage. Diagraming sentences was fun, too. That was really a long, long time ago!
Great book. My grammatical pet peeve: the past form of “drag” is NOT “drug” as in “I drug the heavy box across the floor.” Grrr…. The past form of drag is “dragged.” thank you - end of rant.
I always shared a room with my sister and loved it. We even had the long ribbon on the floor to mark her side and my side - but that didn’t last long!
Happy Annniversary!
speaking of grammar atrocities, my gym has a sign posted that reads: “offered is pizza and drinks for $1.” ugh.
i’m also very happy that you don’t like the misspelling of y’all; at first i thought you were expressing a general dislike of y’all itself. y’all’s the only vestige of southernism my accent will retain. btw, i used to translate the french “vous” as “y’all.” my teacher didn’t appreciate it; i thought it was brilliant.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH Y’ALL?
I do not get this.
Have you seen the Eats, Shoots and Leaves book for kids? My English-Teacher brother already purchased it for our four month old.
It is here
Thanks for the tip Rob!
St. Cass, there is no problem with
Y’ALL!
It is a blessed thing that the Yankees don’t have.
The problem, as I said in my post, is with
YA’LL!
Ms Rev, I did the same thing with “ustedes” in Spanish. I may have also done it in Hebrew and Greek. It just makes good sense.
I had the same first thought as Ms. Reverend or Not (St. Cass, take note
). In fact, before I finished reading the comments and got it, I made up the following rant:
Early modern English distinguished between you (sing.) and you (pl.) with thou (and thee) and ye (and you). Southerners, with their venerable Elizabethan heritage, simply make the same distinction with y’all.
I just had to share, even if I’m preachin’ to the choir.