The Oatmeal tackles all sorts of grammar issues for your edification and improvement. This time round it’s the semicolon. Check out the whole thing here.
Category: Communication
How to write a poetic media release
I put out my last media release an hour before I finished work last Friday. It was about a new regional economic development planning framework. It was a pretty big deal for us so I was thrilled that our Economic Development boss let me put out a media release containing the following:
“This will be a map, a guideline for the future, comprehensively,” she said (as a Haiku).
And this.
“We will be working with representatives from the regions to consider the next 20 years of development in North Queensland.”
“The goal is to ensure that our services and infrastructure are developed strategically in order to meet future demand,” she said (as a vaguely rhyming pair of sentences).”
And then this passage inspired by the governator’s veto.
Lots of ands
Can you put the word and in a sentence five times in a row?
I can. The signwriter said there had to be more space between pig and and, and and and whistle. If you like your ands as ampersands – pig & & & & & whistle – then you should check out this tumblog of 300&65 ampersands. Each one in a different typeface. They say you can judge a typeface by its ampersand.
Dead celebs society – RIP Johnny Depp – and other hoaxes
Twitter is abuzz with the news that Johnny Depp is dead (he’s not). I can’t believe how many gullible people get suckered in by a good Twitter hoax. It is, however, a sign of the shifting nature of news. News now breaks on Twitter. Which is a shame. Because Twitter is full of twits.
The blame for this shift rests firmly with the established media. The problem is that the media has completely lost touch with what news is, and often serve up marginally interesting tabloid gossip instead of actual news. Sadly, marginally interesting tabloid gossip is not their forte. The Internet is much better at it. When conventional news covers celebrity gossip they’re about as good as the joke in the next sentence is funny. Tonight’s story it was the Brangelina split – apparently Angelina is enforcing a prenup condition whereby she keeps the “A” from their name – so Brad will now be “Brd”.
Because celebrity news – and deaths – are much more important than normal deaths (by a scale of about 100,000 to 1) journalists are forced to turn a rather minor event into something major (and the Twits follow suit). This is how they do it (from here)…
And here’s Surviving the World’s insight on why this is unacceptable.
If the media reported things as they happened, and with the attention they deserved (which is a big ask – I know) then we wouldn’t be left with the Twits setting the news agenda, and there’d be no chance of a hoax like this resulting in such an outpouring of unnecessary emotion.
Tangible Twitter
I’m using Twitter again (feel free to follow me). I stopped for a while because I didn’t have the time or patience to bother with it. But now I’ve set up little automated things that import anything I bookmark and everything I post here. And I can post what I’m listening to on iTunes as well. Exciting stuff. I like that I’m contributing to the noise to signal ratio on Twitter (on the noise side of the equation).
But that’s not the reason I’m posting this. The reason I’m posting this is to draw your attention to this infographic that considers the voluminous amount of information currently residing on Twitter’s servers. And imagining what would happen if you turned it into paper. This was put together by GOOD.is. They make good infographics.
Character checklist
If you’re like me you know all about narrative, have grand plans, but fall at the most basic hurdle. Naming and developing characters. I am terrible at coming up with names that I like. But even worse at developing a character past that point. It’s why I steer clear of writing fiction.
And a video. Which is boring. Don’t watch it.
Status Memes: Compare, contrast, and do neither
Two different statuses quoting the same statistics…
asked Jesus,”How much do you love me?” Jesus replied “This much”, and stretched his arms on the cross and died. If you believe in God put this in your status. 97% of you won’t put this in your status. When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you. 3% of you will stand up for him and put this in your status!!!
97% of teens would cry if they saw Robert Pattison (Edward Cullen from Twilight) standing on top of a sky scraper, about to jump. If you’re one of the 3% who would sit there eating pop corn screaming “DO A FLIP YOU SPARKLY F$#%^T!” then copy and paste this as your status haha this is funny!
There’s something fishy going on here.
So I wrote this one. I kind of hope it starts a Facebook revolution:
97% of status updates are from the 3% of people who copy and paste or follow the crowd. Come up with original and interesting stuff about yourself or stop thinking your status is making a difference. Facebook is for self promotion and posting of embarrassing pictures. Not for sharing your knowledge of the radio alphabet and stupid statistics. If you’re sick of the degeneration of Facebook statuses don’t copy this.
Sharing is caring
Because I like experimenting with just about every feature you can add to a website (this may well come in handy one day when someone asks “how can I get people to be able to share my stuff on Facebook without copying and pasting a link”) I’ve added a little “share on Facebook” button to the top right of each post. This is pretty cool. It lets you post stuff you like straight to your profile so that all your friends can also read it. And it keeps track of how many times something has been shared. If there is no little speech bubble above the button with a number in it it’s because nobody has shared the link.
Here are four reasons you should click the “share on Facebook” button.
- It will make me feel better about myself.
- It will make the number change.
- It will get more people coming to this page who will then click the button to make me feel good.
- Those people will think you’re brilliant and capable of finding all sorts of funny things on the Internet. You can vicariously benefit from my dedicated procrastination.
I don’t know how long I’ll keep it. But I haven’t culled any of the other plugins or things I’ve installed to get more people here – even if I’m the only person who clicks and shares my stuff. It’ll be depressing if things only ever get shared once (especially if that once is by me) so at that point I might remove it. But seriously, without trying to clamour desperately for your attention, how hard is it to click on a star (you don’t even have to like the post to do this), and click on a button once in a while?
If you are reading this, and you have a Facebook profile (which you need to be able to share the post on Facebook), and you’re not a fan of St. Eutychus yet – then do yourself me yourself a favour and get on board the juggernaut.
The definitive and authoritative guide to the six basic plot lines
I made a comment in my Avatar post that accusations of plot plagiarism are hollow when there are only a limited number of plots to choose from. I set that limit at six. I was called out on that limit and asked to define them. So. Here goes.
- Star crossed lovers – an unlikely pair meet from different tribes, nations, species etc but their love is not meant to be and ultimately leads to some sort of sacrifice. Think Romeo and Juliette, Avatar, Samson and Delilah, or any Rom-Com where a loser somehow scores his dream girl from the other side of the social tracks.
- Buddy movie – two friends go on a merry adventure – think Milo and Otis, any Jackie Chan comedy, Lethal Weapon 1, 2, 3…
- The unlikely hero thrust into an equally unlikely situation or sporting event – think The Lord of the Rings, any sporting movie, any movie about superhero (genetic mutations, spider bites etc). Basically the hero has to come to grips with their powers and then choose to say the day. This has been popular since Jesus.
- The “betrayal twist” – take the unlikely hero, or the buddy adventure and have the hero be betrayed, or the buddy be betrayed by a buddy – think the Matrix, Mighty Ducks, any story about Julius Caesar, Jesus and Judas etc.
- The tragedy – simple recipe – develop characters, get people to like the characters and then unjustly kill the character people like the most with a disease or act of unwarranted evil. Think just about any chick flick that is not a Rom Com. Think The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, just about any war movie (unless it’s a buddy movie), or anything written by Shakespeare that wasn’t a comedy. There’s a slight variation where you think there’s going to be a tragedy but the protagonist escapes through a lucky turn of events – like Apollo 13.
- The “alien” invasion – where the alien can be any kind of foreign species or a freak act of nature but is often an alien. Chances are an unlikely hero will need to emerge to fight off the aliens. But add something big and ground shaking to the mix and watch everybody deal with the consequences. Think Men in Black, Transformers, Alien, Predator, Alien v Predator, Independence Day, The Perfect Storm, etc…
Just about all of these can be applied to the story of Jesus. Jesus is an alien who comes to earth to be tragically killed following a betrayal by one of his buddies. His ministry involves him using his awesome powers while walking around with his band of merry disciples. He does this all because he loves the world and wants to save it – which is ultimately his downfall. Only it’s actually an untragedy because he comes back to life.
Can you think of any stories not covered by these options? I can’t. Not any that I’d want to watch anyway.
For a different set of “plot types” check out this article that features a few different ways of breaking plots down.
How to choose a contrasting colour
Apparently the key to a successful poster design (the type of poster that gets plastered all over city noticeboards) is a design that “pops”.
The key, according to this wikihow article, is to use contrasting colours.
They give this star shaped guide to picking two colours that contrast. You pick colours from opposite points. Done.
Virtual billboards
Streetview is cool right? For the luddites (who are unlikely to be reading a blog) it’s Google map’s feature where you can actually experience moving along certain streets because they sent a car that looks like this out into the wild to take photographs.
These photographs have been built into maps. Making it much easier to stalk people or check out the neighbourhood you are thinking about living in.
Google is great at turning things like this into money. So Make is reporting that Google has patented technology that will allow them to turn billboards in their street view photographs into spaces for adwords. If these adwords are location based this will be a fantastic tool for geographically specific advertising.
The Facebook booby trap
Am I the only person (not just male surely) who is sick of the Facebook phenomena of females posting the colour of their underwear as their Facebook status.
Yes, for the slow people, that is why you have been seeing colours as statuses.
I hate breast cancer. Everybody does. Nobody is unaware of it. And seriously. Posting a colour to raise awareness does nothing for the cause.
Has anybody been compelled to make a donation to breast cancer research as a result of the colour “blue” or “chartreuse” (whatever that is).
I know many of you reading this have taken part in the exercise. And I understand your motivation. But either you’re responding to a friend telling you what is going on – or the originally circulated spam that read:
Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!
Fun? Posting colours and keeping secrets is fun? No. It’s childish.
Here’s a more scathing analysis from Jezebel…
But what good has it really done for breast cancer awareness? Does anyone on Facebook really not know about breast cancer to the point where someone posting “purple lace!” and eight dudes responding, “Ooh, hot, lol” is really doing to anything to really help the cause in any possible way? If anything, the constant sexualization of and cutesy-poo approach to breast cancer pushes people to take it less seriously. As Tracy Clark-Flory of Broadsheet notes: “This bra color movement seems a similarly desperate attempt to get guys to simply give a crap about breast cancer by making it sexy and flirtatious, which I find not only embarrassing to women but insulting to men.”
And, you know, spreading awareness of an issue that statistically is much more predominant in women by keeping the men out of it… that’s a good idea.
Bollocks.
You don’t see guys running boxers or briefs social networking campaigns to raise awareness for prostate cancer. No. We grow moustaches and collect money.
It seems equally stupid. But there’s a difference. Movember raised awareness and almost $20 million (in Australia – and about the same world wide) for the cause.
A public awareness campaign with no call to action is just stupid. Having a strong call to action is the key to any marketing or public relations campaign. A call to action says: “if you care about this, do this”. Marketing that says “care about this” serves no purpose but to get people to care about an issue they probably already care about. A public awareness campaign where the call to action is “keep this a secret from the guys” is even dumber.
This “Bra Colour” Facebook campaign is stupid, juvenile, and almost completely pointless. Unless all the outcry about how pointless it is leads to some people actually donating.
And I’m proud to be a part of that.
If you really want to make a difference regarding Breast Cancer then do this:
Help the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fund research into the prevention, treatment and cure of breast cancer. (If you would like to set up an ongoing donation, please call 02 9299 4090.)
Click here to donate online
Typesetting Acronyms
Should you set acronyms in small caps like some style guides suggest?
This nonsense, promulgated by snobs like that bore Bringhurst who have not read anything written after Jane Austen croaked, ostensibly improves typographic colour. What it actually does is inhibit reading: Acronyms are not regular words. All-small-caps setting fools the reader into thinking an acronym is a real world. That discomfort you feel is a reverse fixation you underwent trying to reread the word.
This was always a bad idea, but it’s much worse with abbreviations that mix case (ATypI) and, indeed, with alphanumeric abbreviations (H1N1). Then what happens when you pluralize one of those? Plural s is almost exactly the height of the small caps.
But wait. You say. Acronyms are initialisations designed to be read as words.
Or there’s the equally nonsensical habit of using small caps solely for word-pronounceable acronyms, some of which are mated to acronyms you read letter by letter.
Like this example:
The conclusion…
Use of small caps for acronyms and abbreviations is a surefire indication your compositor is a snob. Stop acting like acronyms are dirt you need to sweep under the rug.
How online content works
I’d love to be at the top of this pyramid. But generally sit somewhere between the second and 4th.
It’s ironic that in creating this diagram the author no doubt fell victim to those at the bottom of the pile. Read the original post for a description of the types of people operating online.
This is the author’s description of the “Aggregator” which aptly describes both himself and myself…
The third tier are people with an interest in a subject but with no real insight of their own. The kind of people who retweet the aggregators or make a list of “10 Great Resources” from stuff they’ve read in the papers that week. You’re looking at the kind of content that is read just by a small circle of people.
I class my own blog in that kind of sphere – I could probably give you the names of 50% of my daily visitors and I don’t really write anything of consequence there. But! The people who come there have a laugh and remember it. There are a lot of these blogs out there, and they touch each other in unexpected ways. You might not get relevant links from a site like this, but the ripples can spread quite widely. These people are probably also susceptible to a little flattery or cash
This is a similar idea, in many ways, to the “five types of blogger” I came up with last year.