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Byron Edgington

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Blogs by Byron Edgington

Decorative English
6/25/2013 2:26:33 AM

I've been suspended by a webmaster.
I love the English language. In what other tongue can we say ‘the principal taught important principles’? Or ‘there’re two apples left, and they’re theirs’? or ‘Too many of your shots go to the right, but the last two were okay’? ‘I used to use bran cereal, it’s what I was used to.’ See what I mean? It’s a great language, though I’m not certain how anyone learns it. And many don’t, of course. Lots of folks go through life ignoring the fact that Illusion and Allusion are not interchangeable; That and Which, likewise; Lay and Lie, ditto. Those pesky intransitive verbs, man, what a pain.
Recently I had a fun experience; I was suspended by a webmaster. Now you haven’t lived till you’ve been suspended by a webmaster, so I’m now able to cross another item off my bucket list. I did land in FaceBook jail once for adding too many friends, but that’s kinda different. Here’s what happened. The site was for writers. I subscribed to it (okay, it was free) and started adding my drivel, posting messages, interacting with other members. Over time I noticed that the site itself used rather atrocious language, had many typos and syntactical errors (…we hope you take a time…I am thanking you now etc.) and in general the site’s content paid little attention to the niceties and nuance of the language. It contained what a good friend refers to as Decorative English. I began telling the webmaster about this, gently reminding him/her/it that indeed on a writing website there should perhaps be somewhat better, well, writing? This went on for several days, my pointing out various typos, grammatical errors, miscellaneous literary liberties that I thought ought to be addressed. The upshot of the tale is that I received an e-mail the other day suspending me. They took offense. Didn’t care for my editorial additions.

Guess I’ll always be a language noodge. It bugs me when people say irregardless because it’s not a word. It bothers me when folks mispronounce short-lived, using a short ‘I’ rather than a long ‘I.’ (short-lived, rhymes with short-hived, you can look it up.) Alas, I’m suspended from my language police post UFN. Maybe I love English too much?

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More Blogs by Byron Edgington
• Off Ramp: Weekly Short for 12/01/2014 - Saturday, December 6, 2014
• Weekly Short Story - Saturday, November 15, 2014
• The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life, $1.99 for Kindle - Tuesday, November 4, 2014
• The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life, 99 cents for Kindle - Sunday, November 2, 2014
• 99 cent sale starting 11/7 - Monday, October 27, 2014
• Interview: Mike Petersen, Killer Book Marketing - Tuesday, October 14, 2014
• Audio Review_The Unheralded King - Sunday, October 5, 2014
• Audio Book Reviews - Wednesday, October 1, 2014
• SkyWriting: Essays on the Art and Craft of Aviation - Tuesday, September 16, 2014
• Silent Sky: From 9/11/202 - Thursday, September 11, 2014
• Great stories and a chance to help - Monday, August 25, 2014
• The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life, $4.95 for Kindle - Saturday, August 23, 2014
• SkyWriting: Essays on the Art and Craft of Aviation - Monday, August 11, 2014
• Book review: There I Wuz - Monday, August 4, 2014
• Lip smacking mystery - Tuesday, July 22, 2014
• Book review: The Silver Star - Saturday, July 5, 2014
• Book Review: Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses - Sunday, June 29, 2014
• Free author promo - Monday, May 19, 2014
• Looking for flying tales - Wednesday, May 14, 2014
• Nerds of Ohio unite! My review of Best of Ohio - Friday, May 2, 2014
• Pilots/Crews I need your stories - Tuesday, April 29, 2014
• FREE Download--excerpts from SkyWriting - Monday, April 28, 2014
• I'll publish your flying story - Monday, April 28, 2014
• E-book just .99 cents - Saturday, March 8, 2014
• My aviation memoir is on sale this weekend, March 8/9, just .99 cents Saturday! - Friday, March 7, 2014
• e-book sale this weekend - Wednesday, March 5, 2014
• The Sky Behind Me, 99 cent sale - Tuesday, March 4, 2014
• Call for submissions - Thursday, February 13, 2014
• Catching up - Thursday, February 6, 2014
• Brrrrr! - Monday, January 6, 2014
• Radio Interview tonight - Wednesday, December 4, 2013
• Is it done yet? - Wednesday, November 27, 2013
• Writing a memoir? Check into this: - Friday, November 15, 2013
• From where I sit - Tuesday, November 12, 2013
• Daily Very Short Writing Tip - Thursday, November 7, 2013
• 'To be' or to find a better verb... - Monday, November 4, 2013
• Take a hike! - Thursday, October 31, 2013
• to publish or not to publish - Wednesday, October 30, 2013
• The Sky Writer - Friday, October 25, 2013
• Free sample of The Sky Behind Me... - Thursday, October 17, 2013
• The new world of PCS - Wednesday, October 16, 2013
• Hump Day--Getting over the himp from writer's block - Wednesday, October 2, 2013
• The Three 'tells of book promotion - Monday, September 30, 2013
• We're all mad here--writers take heart - Thursday, September 19, 2013
• How to get the writing off dead plumb: The Writer's Tool Box - Monday, September 16, 2013
• Smashwords author interview 9/5/13 - Thursday, September 5, 2013
• writers, you may want to stand up for this - Tuesday, September 3, 2013
• Writers: Rights, responsibilities and reinventing the flat tire. - Thursday, August 29, 2013
• How to write good - Monday, August 26, 2013
• Book trailer: The Sky Behind Me... - Friday, August 23, 2013
• Author (Self) interview - Thursday, August 22, 2013
• Common Core Standards: Back to Literature? - Tuesday, August 20, 2013
• George W. Bush and other mistakes - Thursday, August 15, 2013
• welcome home - Wednesday, August 14, 2013
• Book review: Bargain With Fate Book RTwo Sage trilogy - Tuesday, August 13, 2013
• I love Harry Reasoner - Thursday, August 8, 2013
• Readin', Ritin' and Wreal Estate--book selling & uts challenges - Tuesday, August 6, 2013
• Book review Friday: Dementia, by Hans Peter Braendlin - Friday, August 2, 2013
• I'm a writer--I write. Sometimes I rant. - Thursday, August 1, 2013
• Memoir as travelogue - Monday, July 29, 2013
• Small presses are back - Thursday, July 25, 2013
• New Book Project: The Emergent Sky - Tuesday, July 23, 2013
• The book biz--short version - Monday, July 22, 2013
• What do you want? - Thursday, July 18, 2013
• The Sky Behind Me at half price--add value - Tuesday, July 16, 2013
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• Blog is my co-pilot - Thursday, July 11, 2013
• ridiculous to sublime - Wednesday, July 10, 2013
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• Asiana 214--poor weather might have prevented this accident - Monday, July 8, 2013
• Book Binding - Friday, July 5, 2013
• Notable deaths 4th of July - Thursday, July 4, 2013
• The Blue and the Gray - Wednesday, July 3, 2013
• Life Du Soleil - Monday, July 1, 2013
• takeoff part 2 - Friday, June 28, 2013
• Takeoff - Thursday, June 27, 2013
• Decorative English - Tuesday, June 25, 2013
• To leak, or not to leak... - Monday, June 24, 2013
• Separation of church and state - Friday, June 21, 2013
• Plus ca change... - Thursday, June 20, 2013
• book promotion - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
• Tom Wolfe was right - Monday, June 17, 2013
• ...can't treat stupid. - Friday, May 31, 2013
• Birds do it, bees do it... - Thursday, May 30, 2013
• Aviation & Medicine--safety last? - Wednesday, May 29, 2013
• Happy Birthday GKC - Tuesday, May 28, 2013
• day of remembrance - Monday, May 27, 2013
• Lady Hooker, my initiation ceremony in Vietnam - Friday, May 24, 2013
• distribution - Tuesday, May 21, 2013
• Marriage Equality: Cleared for Takeoff - Thursday, May 16, 2013
• dead monk seals in Hawaii - Monday, May 13, 2013
• Free download - Thursday, May 9, 2013
• Free sample - Tuesday, May 7, 2013
• May 4th 1970 - Saturday, May 4, 2013
• Entitle-tude - Thursday, May 2, 2013
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• women in aviation - Friday, April 19, 2013
• Aviation and life: Shared conundrums - Wednesday, April 17, 2013
• Misperceptions & helicopters--How to Fly Good #3 - Monday, April 15, 2013
• Helicopters: A Primer - Thursday, April 11, 2013
• Justitia - Wednesday, April 3, 2013
• You gotta laugh - Tuesday, April 2, 2013
• opening day 2013 - Monday, April 1, 2013
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• Equality under law - Monday, March 25, 2013
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• stones - Thursday, March 14, 2013
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• The power of words - Friday, January 11, 2013
• Boys will be... Excerpt from Chapter 11 The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life - Thursday, January 10, 2013
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• The Big TSBM 99 cent sale! - Tuesday, January 8, 2013
• Nobel Prize for Literature - Tuesday, January 8, 2013
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• Byron Edgington Bailey Prize winner for prose in 2012 - Sunday, January 6, 2013
• Looking Back--Looking ahead - Saturday, January 5, 2013
• OOOPS - Friday, January 4, 2013
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• Whither Serials? - Wednesday, January 2, 2013
• HNY '13 Don't 'should' on yourself - Tuesday, January 1, 2013
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• Old man and the scythe - Thursday, December 27, 2012
• Excerpt from The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life - Wednesday, December 26, 2012