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Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
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The
Write Way
18 January 2008 Travelling Band ...
Greetings, We've just returned from another trip down to Melbourne to see our daughter ... Oh, three or four times a year, since you ask. But we don't always drive; sometimes we fly. It's a distance of around 1700 km each way, and we usually take a couple of days to get there when driving. Most of the highways inland have 110 kmh speed limits, so we can zip along quite easily, but every little tiny town has 50 kmh limits, and it's just so slow, we feel as if we could get out and walk faster. Mind you, it's still a lot quicker than kayaking! Yes, I know there's no water inland to kayak on, but that was just a subtle way to get us within coo-ee of this week's heroes -- two lads we met about this time last year when they were planning to paddle across the Ditch. The boys travelled a distance of 3300 km (slightly more than the anticipated 2091 they'd planned!) from the time they left Australia on 13 November 2007 until they finally landed in New Zealand (albeit a tad off their intended course) 62 days later. Read about their adventure here. Their planning was meticulous, as you can see if you click on the Expedition link ... They had to consider everything from the kayak's design, food supplies, safe cooking methods and water desalination, to navigation and communication equipment that could function in such inhospitable conditions, risks to their own health from prolonged exposure to the sun, salt water, wind and a lack of fresh food and the effects on their muscles from being seated for that length of time. They lost their transponder through the journey and had to rely on the kayak's tiny navigation lights to protect them from larger vessels at night. Can you imagine trying to sleep knowing that those enormous tankers, liners and cargo ships could run you over and not even feel a bump? Then there were the sharks that came to investigate this novel take on "meals-on-wheels," and the waves that can reach up to 10 metres at this time of year and the winds that blew them off course ... and the tides ... It's t'riffic to know that there are still some wildernesses left to test young people, and people willing to sensibly test themselves. And I know some of you are shifting uncomfortably in your seats, anxious to point out that I've misspelt a word and that it should be "traveled." Well, actually, no, it shouldn't, and it's all to do with giving readers visual clues about how to pronounce words. Here's when and why you double the consonant: We double the final consonant of a word before we add -ed, -er, -est, -ing, -able and -y to show that the vowel has a short sound. But how do you know when to double the consonant and when not to? There are a number of things to consider. 1. Firstly, we double a consonant if it comes at the end of a word [and follows a short vowel].
2. Secondly, we double a consonant if a word ends in one vowel followed by one consonant [if it's a short vowel].
BUT
3. Thirdly, we need to consider words that end in one vowel followed by one consonant, but contain two syllables. We only double the consonant in these words if the last syllable is stressed: Last syllable stressed
Last syllable unstressed
Note: in two syllable words ending in one vowel followed by one "l", the "l" is doubled even if the last syllable is unstressed:
Fourthly, only some letters are doubled.
See? There's a reason for everything!
This week's quiz: Here are some interesting ones ...Match up the words and their meanings: plangent, megrim, hamartia, eschatology, gnathonic, marcid, lickerish, aceldama, gemutlich, laputan 1. a place with dreadful associations 2. warm and congenial; pleasant or friendly 3. the branch of theology that is concerned with such final things as death and judgement; heaven and hell; the end of the world 4. the character flaw or error of a tragic hero that leads to his downfall 5. flattering; deceitful 6. withered or damaged 7. expressing or suggesting sadness; plaintive; loud and resounding 8. absurdly impractical or visionary, especially to the neglect of more useful activity 9. lascivious; lecherous; greedy 10. a caprice or fancy; depression or unhappiness His father was a dentist and his mother was a manicurist. For most of their married life they fought tooth and nail. Sorry ... What about this one? Once a year, the collectors of antique tents in Germany get together for a rally. Last year, the organizers decided to hold it in Meinz. Unfortunately, the local burghers took a dim view of so great an influx of tourists ruining their turf with tent pegs. The citizens organised themselves so thoroughly that they even had an anthem: "Let Old and Quaint Tents Be Forgot and Never Brought to Meinz!" Did you know that every newsletter is archived? So if you've missed anything since 1998 or want to revisit some favourites, you can do so any time! Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!) If you've received this little missive from a friend, you can get your very own issue, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every Friday morning by clicking here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogrups.com And I'm even prepared to offer a shameless bribe. An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot! Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark. Last week's quiz: resistentialism, trichology, denouement, cereologist, revenant, lamia, antagonist, gothic, Chekhov's gun, Deus ex machina 1. person who returns as a spirit after death; ghost - REVENANT 2. a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates or works again the main character in some way; doesn’t necessarily have to be a person - ANTAGONIST 3. theory in which inanimate objects display hostile desires towards human beings - RESISTENTIALISM (dictionary.com explains that this was coined by humorist Paul Jennings and lists examples of "objects that cause problems (like lost keys or a fleeing bouncy ball)... In other words, a war is being fought between humans and inanimate objects, and all the little annoyances objects give people throughout the day are battles between the two." 4. any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot; miraculous (often offstage) solution to an otherwise insoluble problem - DEUS EX MACHINA (Look, the Martians all caught cold and died!) 5. one who specialises in investigating crop circles - CEREOLOGIST (dictionary.com has lots of information about crop circles here. 6. a fictional element (threat, character, mystery, prize, challenge) introduced early and with fanfare and in which the author expects the reader to invest - CHEKHOV'S GUN ( If you put a gun onstage in Act I, Chekhov once wrote, you must use it by Act III.) 7. action of untying; final outcome of the main complication in a play or story - DENOUEMENT 8. literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th; usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other "dark" subjects - GOTHIC 9. the science dealing with the study of the hair and its diseases - TRICHOLOGY 10. one of a class of fabulous monsters, commonly represented with the head and breast of a woman and the body of a serpent, said to allure youths and children in order to suck their blood - LAMIA And here's a good word we've all been looking for at some time ... "Googleganger A Little Something Extra If you're going to be a writer, you have to have a subject to write about and it has to be a subject that others will want to read about. Right? So what do people like to read about? First and foremost, they like to read about themselves! Think of something that most people do or would like to do and you're on a winner. We all like to:
Click here for some tips on how to use these topics to come up with articles (or full books). Word of the week: Foudroyant (adj) Dazzling, flashing; thunderous, noisy, stunning ... The Latin word for "lightning" is fulgur, which gave us the French foudre, as well as foudroyant - literally, "striking with (or like) lightning." (Foudroyant is also used in medicine to describe a disease that strikes with sudden severity.) Oxymoron of the week: great karaoke! This week's Latin phrase would be right at home in any posh restaurant you care to visit ... Vinum bellum iucundumque est. [WEE-noom BAY-loom ee-oo-koon-DOOM-kway EST] (It's a pleasant little wine) Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Click here for these and more. Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Just $17 a year seems a small price to pay for all this wit and wisdom, don't you think? C'mon, that's just a tad over than 30 cents a week! Here's how to toss a few pennies in my Running Away Fund: 1. Pay by PayPal:
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a blank email to: mailto:WritingTips- Copyright Jennifer Stewart 2008 Individual articles copyrighted by their authors. |
