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A Word on Contractions
*This post originally appeared on my previous blog on October 31, 2014 Don’t, won’t, can’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t, it’s (which will have a post of *its* own), and more. I believe in high school I was told it was better to use two words than one contraction. If I remember correctly, I did not use one contraction in any of my college application essays. This practice varied throughout my college career, and while now I prefer not to use contractions, I don’t completely avoid them. Many people, if not most, use contractions when they speak and write. But is this wrong? According to the AP Style Guide and the Chicago Manual of…
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Word? Image? Phrase? Pictograph – of the Year
As you may have heard, the Oxford Dictionaries released 2015’s Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, the first ever pictograph of the year. The “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji is one I have used in texts and on social media, and I have to admit I respect the reasoning behind choosing an emoji, and this emoji in particular, for the Word of the Year: because it is “the ‘word’ that best reflect[s] the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015” based on statistical evidence that shows it is the most internationally used emoji. To justify the selection further, the Oxford Dictionaries research also shows that overall emoji usage has been increasing over…
A blog about books and miscellany
