Defined
English: the Good, the Bad and the Quirky
Welcome to Defined
This blog comes in three parts.
1. The good, which will highlight some beautiful examples of the English language – poetry, prose or perfectly crafted sentence. I also learn a new word from time to time, and I will share each discovery with you, particularly if it is a tasty one!
2. The bad, which is the ranty bit. Now, I’m not a total linguistic purist – I enjoy a bit of colloquialism and even the odd made-up word, as long as it’s morphologically and semantically logical – however, there are some awful errors out there, and I intend to pick on them! My pet peeve is tautology – needless repetition, as in ‘a great big huge giant’ where simply ‘giant’ would do: Say it once and say it succinctly!
3. The quirky, which deals with the downright weird. I’m going to discuss some of the delicious idiosyncrasies of the language and how it’s used, including inconsistent spelling rules, eccentric grammar and the origins of obscure expressions.
I’m going for bitesized, but I might digress into something a bit longer occasionally. Posts will mostly be blogged as and when I encounter the above in my work as a grammaticaster (look it up) and my play as a bibliophile; I ask you to bear with me if it’s sporadic at times!
Please feel free to pick at my (hopefully rare) linguistic slips and argue the toss about split infinitives and the like in the comments section.
The Definer
1. The good, which will highlight some beautiful examples of the English language – poetry, prose or perfectly crafted sentence. I also learn a new word from time to time, and I will share each discovery with you, particularly if it is a tasty one!
2. The bad, which is the ranty bit. Now, I’m not a total linguistic purist – I enjoy a bit of colloquialism and even the odd made-up word, as long as it’s morphologically and semantically logical – however, there are some awful errors out there, and I intend to pick on them! My pet peeve is tautology – needless repetition, as in ‘a great big huge giant’ where simply ‘giant’ would do: Say it once and say it succinctly!
3. The quirky, which deals with the downright weird. I’m going to discuss some of the delicious idiosyncrasies of the language and how it’s used, including inconsistent spelling rules, eccentric grammar and the origins of obscure expressions.
I’m going for bitesized, but I might digress into something a bit longer occasionally. Posts will mostly be blogged as and when I encounter the above in my work as a grammaticaster (look it up) and my play as a bibliophile; I ask you to bear with me if it’s sporadic at times!
Please feel free to pick at my (hopefully rare) linguistic slips and argue the toss about split infinitives and the like in the comments section.
The Definer