Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Tomato or Tamato?

The English language is brutal. Of course, I don't know Japanese or Mongolian, so they may be bad too. It's just that I get tied in knots over words like immigration and emigration. As I read over my last blog I hollered, "Hey! is that the right word? Is that the right spelling?" I guess either one will do as they both mean a movement or migration of some sort, but does one more accurately describe people and the other a flock of birds?

Life is complicated enough without having to worry about every word that flies out of our mouths, or finds its way from our heads, to our pens, to the paper, and don't even get me started on punctuation. What's with semi colons, anyway? Sounds like a mini disease that would interest a gastro enterologist. On the other hand, I guess it would be really tough if I had to deal with that mystical picture writing the Japanese have to conquer, right? So, I should just cowboy up and count my blessings.

As an author, words are my stock in trade, so I suppose I should be praising the little lettered creatures, but, in all honesty, they often snarl and bite, and all I want to do is get after them with a rolled up newspaper.

I feel better now that I've vented. Ahhh, deep cleansing breath.

I'd love to hear about your word peeves. Share them with me, and we can grumble together.

3 comments:

  1. Welcome to blog world! The sneaky thing about both words and punctuation is their tendency to transform themselves into something unintelligible somewhere between the brain and the fingers.

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  2. I can tell that I will be visiting your blog often. There's something so warm and wonderful about your writing and I am already looking forward to what lies ahead.
    I am excited about your new book. Congratulations!

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  3. Hi Gale,

    I've heard lots of wonderful things about your books and look forward to reading them. Welcome to blogging.

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