Writing Gooder

I think this is something we all know even though a lot of us inadvertently slip up from time to time.  You use “it’s” only to denote “it is”.  That’s it.  Unlike almost every single other word in the English language, you do not add an apostrophe to “its” to denote possession.

Yet, where did this odd exception come from?  Why do you not add an apostrophe to “its” to show possession?  It really doesn’t make sense whatsoever, which is why so many people mess it up.  I spent a little bit of time trying to figure out the reason why, but came up with nothing.

My own personal theory is that since the word ‘it’ is gender neutral and almost always an object, something referred to as ‘it’ cannot philosophically possess anything.   Thus, saying something like “It’s leaf,” is a logical fallacy since while the leaf is on the tree, the tree does not own the leaf.

Any other theories out there, or does someone know the reason why ‘its’ has no apostrophe when used to denote possession?

Every now and then, I’ll see someone write something like: “In Washington D.C., I saw…”.  Yet, that sentence is grammatically incorrect.  Whenever you refer to Washington, D.C., you need the comma in between the Washington and the D.C.  It’s just like saying “San Francisco, CA” or “London, UK”.  But, you may say, isn’t the full name of the nation’s capitol “Washington D.C.”?  Not really.

Back in the day, Washington, D.C. originally comprised land given up by the States of Maryland and Virginia.  Within it, the district was split into five distinct entities: Washington County, Alexandria County, the City of Alexandria (Alexandria, D.C.), the City of Georgetown (Georgetown, D.C.), and the City of Washington (Washington, D.C.).  The last one is where you have all the important federal buildings, such as the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court.

Over time, though, things changed.  Virginia took back its land in 1846, leaving just the County of Washington, Georgetown, and Washington City.  At this time, the County of Washington was still very much rural, and some of the richer Congressman even owned country estates there.  But then the Civil War came along, and that expanded the role of the federal government.  New bureaucracies sprung up, and those institutions expanded outside of the City of Washington and into the County of Washington.  You also had more commerce before than in the past due to the large concentration of Union troops defending the city.

As the nature of the district changed, so too did the boundaries and in 1871, the federal government decided to extend the City of Washington to encompass the entire district.  So even though Washington and D.C. are really one in the same today, you still write it as Washington, D.C.

Came across this article in The Times today:

How important is correct spelling?

by Sarah Ebner

It started off quite innocuously at a school open evening. My daughter’s teacher told my husband and me that our daughter was very good at literacy. We were pleased, as you can imagine, and after we left the classroom, we took a quick look at some of her work. It contained a huge number of spelling mistakes.

I wasn’t too thrilled about this. I understand that lots of red pen scrawled across a child’s work might be off-putting, but our daughter (who’s in year 3) seemed to have had nothing marked at all. I decided to mention it to the teacher the following day. She looked at me as if I was mad. “Oh no,” she said. “We don’t correct spellings.”

I must have looked shocked, as she continued. “You have to trust me on this one. All the research says that I’m right.”

Nothing could have been a better spur into action. I am a real stickler for correct spelling and would like my daughter – who’s apparently so good at literacy – to realise that she won’t get far with her writing unless she knows how to spell. I haven’t yet found “all the research” which says that the teacher was right, but I have discovered that many other parents also find the lack of spelling corrections frustrating.

“They call it phonetic plausibility in my school,” one father told me glumly.

You can read the full article here.  Wondrous world we live in where correcting spelling mistakes is viewed as stifling creativity, isn’t it?

In any case, posting this here because I want to get the thoughts from YWSers – young people who write short stories and poems for fun – as to whether you think correcting spelling mistakes stifles your creativity.

So hopefully, you all have seen Nate’s announcement about the developing YWS News. If not, check it out here! http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic60489.html

The second question in the FAQs talks about what will be considered in the approval process for articles in YWS News. Nate mentions something called “top down pyramid fashion.” This is actually a technical journalism term! Crazy, right?

More commonly known as the “inverted pyramid,” this is the accepted style for crafting a news article. When thinking about the inverted pyramid, think of a pyramid standing on its head!  The widest part of the pyramid is at the top, and the narrowest point is at the bottom. This is how news articles should also be — that is to say, the widest, broadest piece of information you have should come first. The lead, or first sentence and first paragraph of a news article, should be all that your reader needs to read to get the gist of the story. It should answer the 5 Ws and H of journalism — Who, What, Why, Where, When, and How. This is the most basic information of your story. For example, say I’m writing an article about budget cuts in the public transportation system. I might start off with “City officials met today to discuss how to overcome the budget shortfall in the public transit system.”

Let’s look at that in the context of the 5 Ws and H, shall we?

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In 1999, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization named March 21st World Poetry Day to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry around the world.

In honor of today, why not write and review a few poems, even if you’re not so hot at poetry? Be as liberal and open minded as possible and extend beyond your normal horizons.  Finish it up by reading classic works by various poets — e.e cummings, William Blake, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Sylvia Plath are all wonderful places to start.

The best way to improve your poetry is to read poetry. When today draws to a close, maintain your reading of poetry — next month is National Poetry Month which presents the challenge of writing a poem every day for 30 day, and there are few better things than being prepared.

Okay, this one is a bit of a doozy.  That is, does posting your work on the Internet ruin your chances of getting that work published? At play here is something called “First Publication Rights”, but first, lets step back a bit.   (If you wish, you can skip the background info and go to the middle of the article titled “Does posting on the Internet void first print rights?”)

Now, when you write something new, you automatically have a copyright on it.  If it’s an entirely new work then your copyright extends to the entire work.  If your work is based on a previous existing work (such as Harry Potter), then your copyright only extends to what you added.  Needless to say, you cannot do much of anything with your work unless you have a copyright in the entire work.  To understand more about copyright, click here.

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I thought this was pretty cool: in Alabama, Gov. Bob Riley has declared that March 10 is Young Writers’ Day.   The news story I found on it doesn’t give the reasoning for it, and there are no press releases on it either, but if you’re living in Alabama, you’re young and you write, then today is your day.

Does it mean anything?  Heck no.  But it’s better than the typical Wednesday.

Source

The phrase “eat healthy” gets thrown around a lot these days.  It’s what people say when talking to one another, and you find it in pamphlets and books.  But here’s a curve-ball for you: “eat healthy” is bad grammar.

Surprised?  It comes down to basic sentence construction.  The word “healthy” is an adjective.  The word “eat” is a verb.  However, adjectives only modify nouns, not verbs.  Adverbs like “healthily”, on the other hand, do modify verbs.  So “eat healthily” is correct whereas “eat healthy” is quite wrong.

Does it matter?  Probably not.  One thing grammar nuts forget is that English is a living, breathing language.  Its rules change over time and for every rule, there are dozens of exceptions.  So while “eat healthy” is technically wrong, I think you can be forgiven for using it (especially seeing as how “eat healthily” is so awkward to say).