kathryn street or Kathryne street?

comma splices gain credibility

I've just noticed some comma splices in such a prestigious text that I'm now doubting my own ability to spot them. It's in a book called Learning to Dance: Elizabeth Jolley: Her life and Work.

As the blurb says, 'Elizabeth Jolley is one of Australia's most significant and best-loved writers'. So, if she's using comma splices they must have a role to play. I noticed them most in a short story called Paper Children. Here are a couple of examples:

Even their letters were strange, they wrote in English because Lisa had never learned to speak anything else.

Lisa tried to look forward to the visit, she knew so little about her mother, an old lady now after a life of hard work as a doctor.

The use of these constructions seems to me to give a sense of intimacy, closeness to the point of view of the two characters in the story.

And, from another story, Pear Street Dance:

No one needed to read anything, the Newspper of Claremont Street told them all the news.

I guess, now that I'm looking out for comma splices, I'm going to find them all over the place...

comma splices and a frightening and thrilling Pastworld

I've just read a novel I thoroughly enjoyed. It's called Pastworld. After a while, mainly because of the age of the main characters - 17 - I realised the book was written for young people. It's published by Bloomsbury Children's Books.

The idea underlying the plot is gripping - London, in the middle of the twenty-first century, has been bought by a mega-Corporation and turned into a huge theme park where residents and visitors live according to Victorian-era laws, morality and culture. The darker side of Victorian life (and of mega-corporations!) creates a sense of evil that provides the tension.

The book's a great read and I wonder if it might one day be made into a film.

One odd thing that struck me about the writing was that the author, Ian Beck, sometimes uses comma splices.

At first I thought it was occurring only in dialogue, which seems fine to me, as it gives a sense of the individuality of a character. Here's an example from page 84. 'At least we shall travel on a steam train, you might enjoy that.'

But there are comma splices in other places too, for instance on page 88: Lucius turned to Caleb and stopped him, he held on to his arm and said almost in a whisper...

There are many more examples of this construction.

I've heard it said that the comma splice will eventually be acceptable in English. I know that I see it often in the writing of teenagers, which makes me wonder if their writing is a sign of the times to come. I like changes in English, in language generally, because to me that's a sign of life, of change and growth. But I must say that comma splices 'twang' for me when I'm reading and take me momentarily out of the world of the writer's imagination.

Anyway, here's a great gift idea for all those writers who've already moved into the brave new world of comma splicing.

When I checked out the home page of the writer, Ian Beck, I was pleasantly surprised to realise he's the author of some of the lovely picture books I've shard with young children in the past.

a good nother idea

I'm still on the trail of the new word nother. Recently my sister said, 'That'll weigh a good nother kilo, I reckon'.

Okay... now I've heard a different word than whole inserted between an and other.

So now I think maybe our brains are processing the expression as one word rather than as a phrase. Maybe it's the word another with an infix in it.

When I looked up infix in the Merriam Webster online, I was surprised to discover it can be a transitive verb or an adjective as well as a noun. However, it seems as if we don't use infixes much in English compared to other languages.

when a gerund does the job better than another noun form

I noticed a sign on the back of a van today. It said, 'Pipe and cable locating'.



My first reaction was that it should have said, 'Pipe and cable location', as I think location is the noun that best describes what I presume this company does - scan for pipes before the client excavates.

But they used a gerund, a verb form that operates as a noun.

On reflection, I think the sign is clever, in that the gerund form creates a subtle advertisement for them as an active business that will do things for you.

a creative use of minimalist graffiti

A great use of two letters of the alphabet to transform a boring road sign into something with a message!

Oxford dictionary's word of the year in the 20th century

I wondered whether the British part of the Oxford University Press has a different Word of the Year from the American English one, unfriend, but I haven't found the answer yet.

However, I did find a list of the words that were chosen as most prominent, from 1906 to 2006.

I estimate thirty-four of those words are part of my regular vocabulary.