stormvoel
thewhyfive

As usual, I've twisted this list around.  My first three words are incorrect either in form or pronunciation, and all of them grate on my ear.  The last two make me want to kill any person who uses them (and women are just as guilty as men).

1.  THUSLY is a monumental gag-inducer, and I hate it so much that I've already slapped it around a couple of times in my journal.  Short rant follows;  skip it if you'd rather get to the rest of the list.

Though I otherwise hate The Elements of Style with a passion, I must agree with E.B. White when he says that adding the -ly ending to thus is like "putting a hat on a horse."  Another English professor's response is, simply, "ICK!!"  Thus is already an adverb and NEVER takes an -ly ending.

Thusly is a non-word — a complete abomination — that I find writers using with deplorable frequency.  When it's a case of simple ignorance, I will make the effort to forgive it, but I'm horrified when a writer uses it as a marker of quaint, old-fashioned, or period speech.  I'm doubly shocked when others use that writer as a model of excellence for their own work and begin using thusly themselves.

Thusly should not be used by anyone, for any reason, anywhere, ever!

2.  SUPPOSABLY.  What is the state of education these days that so many people all over the U.S. are unable to comprehend that supposedly is pronounced exactly the way it's spelled?  I don't see any B in supposedly.

3.  Miss-CHEE-vee-us.  Eeekk!  Ackkk!  Ughhh!  Mischievous is pronounced MISS-chih-vus.  There are no EE sounds anywhere in there.

Moving on to the ugly words...

4.  The routine use of the word BITCH to refer to a woman or girl.   It's rude, stupid, and cruel, and it makes the speaker sound like a low-class idiot.

5.  Even worse:  the indiscriminate use of HOE (or however it's being spelled these days) as a general term for a female.  I mean, cripes, is there anything in the pronunciation that makes a single one of you think you're not calling a woman a whore?  Men, the words girlfriend and hoe are not interchangeable, and you will deserve it when the lady in question wises up, slaps your face, and walks out.  Women who use it, especially when referring to their friends:  shame on you!!  Whore is a perfectly respectable word when ladies who follow that particular profession use it amongst themselves, but it becomes repulsive (no matter how it's pronounced) when used in a jocular or smug fashion by anyone else.  In fact, it's at its most disgusting when used by pimps.  These men, of all people, should be referring to the women — who work hard to keep them in material comfort — as ladies.

leaky_cauldron

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/9/exclusive-hbp-dvd-extras-on-abc-family-harry-potter-weekend

caligula03

http://www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2009/comments_11/perseverance.html

Perseverance: True Voices of Cancer Survivors by Carolyn Rubenstein is a collection of twenty interviews with survivors of childhood cancers.

Cancer is one of those perverse diseases that is harder on you the younger you are. It thrives in the presence of the growth hormones that young bodies are so full of. Blood Matters by Masha Gessen has a long discussion of this phenomena.

Perseverance though isn't about the various diseases that all go under the "cancer" heading nor is it so much about the treatments for them. Instead it's about how having the disease chanced daily routines and created new senses of normal for these twenty patients, their family and friends.

The collection of interviews are presented in a style similar to the Chicken Soup... books. Although cancer is often deadly and probably always scary the tone of the book remains upbeat. I recommend reading only an essay or two at a time and letting each one sink in before moving on.

Perseverance happens to be a charity book. All proceeds from the book go to CCC and Chordoma Foundation.

I received a copy unsolicited and have since released it through BookCrossing.

Other posts and reviews:

• 4 the Love of Books
• Biblios Book Reviews
• Book Forge
• Enhance Life
• Mimi's Pixie Corner
• Momma's Gone Over the Wall
• Mountain Breeze Writer
• Sage and Savvy
• Stephanie's Written Word
• Writing Canvas
  
  

books | nonfiction | Carolyn Rubenstein | 2009

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leaky_cauldron

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/9/firm-opening-date-for-wizarding-world-due-soon