Review of Mathemagics: Better Than a Textbook

May 18, 2012 By Kelley

Graph paper. It can evoke so many emotions. I personally feel nostalgia for my school days, but also a touch of panic. Never having been a mathematician, it brings me back to timed math tests and an overwhelming sense of dread.

And, as soon as you open Mathemagics, that’s what you see. A smart design choice in itself, this background automatically puts you in a studious frame of mind. And it’s one you’re going to need. At only $1.99, Mathemagics – Easy Algebra Fast is a breeze to navigate and much more inspiring than a high school algebra textbook.

For this app, content is king. Broken up into Lessons, Practice, and Play, you move through the ranks as you master these concepts:

Continue reading →

Seems Simple, But . . .

May 17, 2012 By Susan

Bad writing proliferates on the web and in casual digital communications, as you know. A bad side effect of this is that the visual reinforcement of the most common errors threatens to replace the more positive one we used to get from reading edited texts: books, newspapers, magazines, and letters written by a better-educated generation. WordWit was designed as a resource and as a practice tool (learning, quizzing) to re-reinforce the correct versions of the mistakes that litter tweets, posts, comments, chats, texts, and emails. We can all use refreshers. Lots of refreshers.

It’s insidious how it begins. How many times have you seen someone who writes “alot” instead of “a lot”? Seems simple, but the former is never correct. If it becomes correct over time because of ubiquity, then you can use it. Until then, don’t. Continue reading →

Writing Your Voice

May 15, 2012 By Susan

We write more than we talk these days. Whose phone rings anymore? It’s more important than ever to find ways to insert personality, levity, friendliness, and humor into our conversational writing.

In formal business and academic writing, we strive for a neutral tone and voice. We want to be matter of fact, simple, direct, and clear. In emails, texts, chats, and even blogs, though, our speaking voice should be allowed to come through. Your readers should be able to “hear” you talking as they read you. “That sounds *just* like Lois!” Ha! I love that.

In casual writing, to people we know — or to audiences who “know” us through a persona crafted through our writing — we’re allowed to use idiosyncratic syntax, creative usage, and unconventional punctuation all in the name of self-expression. While who and what your persona should be is another discussion, it’s one you should consider seriously. Continue reading →

How Now, Comma Cow?

May 14, 2012 By Susan

Commas confuse lots of people. Structurally, they’re intended to make meanings clear in sentences, setting apart dependent clauses, separating independent clauses, making lists clear, and distinguishing introductory words — to name just a few uses.

It is currently fashionable to drop any comma that has a structural rule attached to it but which isn’t expressly needed to readily understand a sentence. In the previous sentence, for example, I could have put a comma after the first clause and before the coordinating conjunction “but.” (I chose not to since both parts of the sentence comprise a unified thought, not separate thoughts conjoined.) But, the commas before and after “for example” and the one in this sentence after “But” help with both the rhythm and meaning of their respective sentences. (I’ve highlighted the respective commas in red.) Continue reading →

Two Blonds (Blondes?) Walk Into a Post

May 3, 2012 By Susan

While we may awkwardly titter when dumb blond jokes come up in social situations, bad spelling just isn’t funny. It’s … awkward.

We can’t help but smile when we see these deprecating brunettes and redheads who tell dumb blond jokes use the incorrect form of the word. Geez, what a bunch of blonds! We know what you’re thinking: “Can’t ‘blond’ and ‘blonde’ be used interchangeably?”

Alas, no, airheads. Lest you look the fool while making foolish jokes, read on.

“Blond” as an adjective is more commonly spelled without the “e” and can be used for describing either males or females. However, when “blonde” is a noun standing in for a girl or woman who sports that hair color, blonde, the feminine version of the French adjective (from whom we Yanks appropriated the word), is correct. Dumb blond jokes about men are gaining traction (we are for equal mockery here at Ballpoint), in which case you’d use the masculine form, blond.

The utter stupidity of making blond jokes in general? Now that’s another post.

Deprecating: Expressing disapproval of.

Letters from the Grammarverse: Hyphen Hyenas

May 2, 2012 By Susan

Susan,

When to hyphenate words is one of those pesky grammar things I always seem to have trouble with — for example, your use of “time-consuming” in your presentation.

Ellen

Dear Ellen,

Busted! Your letter has given me the opportunity, like all of our Letters from the Grammarverse, to explore this topic further and find myself enlightened, and (gasp!) corrected. With my thanks, allow me to share my findings.

Hyphenating two or more adjectives when they are ahead of the modified noun and when they function as a single idea — it was a time-consuming course — makes for an unambiguous interpretation. However, in my presentation, the phrase was “courses that are time consuming,” and hyphenation wasn’t unnecessary. I’ll de-hyphenate. Continue reading →

Diaereses: Diabolical Diacriticals

May 1, 2012 By Susan

There’s Correct and then there’s correct. Our favorite periodical, The New Yorker, prides itself on Correct. As such, they are sticklers for commas wherever they’re called for, and for the nearly defunct use of diaereses. A diaeresis [pr. DIRE-sis] looks like a German umlaut, but it has a different function and — who knew? — this different name.

The umlaut in German is the double-dot diacritical over vowels that want to be pronounced like you’re being squeezed around the throat and grabbed by the — well, you get what I mean. The sound is über hard for Americans to make. You will see umlauts over a single vowel or over the first in a pair of vowels, or diphthong. The diaeresis is the same figure, but in English it occurs over the second in a pair of vowels, indicating the speaker is to pronounce the two vowels separately, in two syllables: coöperate, reëlect, naïve. Continue reading →

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