“The future of e-books, the future of publishers’ control over their own destiny, and the future of retail pricing, is being forged right before our eyes.”
–Richard Curtis, literary agent and e-book publisher, in a Wall Street Journal article about the Amazon-Macmillan dispute and broader e-book pricing issues.
Since elementary school, many American children have been taught to use that when introducing a restrictive clause and which when introducing a nonrestrictive clause. However, some language lovers say that because this is not a grammar rule, but an American preference, it should not be treated as a rule and, thus, does not need to be followed.
John McIntyre says, (in “That which we dispute“) that, though this may be an American preference, it is one that should be followed because it adds clarity. He emphasizes that failing to use the distinction can lead to ambiguity and gives this example: “It’s fair to say that he’s vulnerable,” said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that has been investigating the government’s response to Katrina.
Using which in nonrestrictive clauses helps writers to punctuate the clauses correctly by inserting the commas. When writers use that and which interchangeably, situations like the example above occur, and readers are unsure of how many Government Affairs Committees there are.
Write a poem about your favorite food. How does it smell and taste? What makes it your favorite?
Be sure to share your responses!
My mom and my dad fought, again. It carried into the early morning, and I listened to their screams and yells, berating one another about things they should or should not have done.
When they were taking a break in their fighting, my mom came into my room. Tears streamed down her face as she removed the credit and debit cards from her purse. I watched her as she called and cancelled each account that she and my dad shared. “We’re getting a divorce,” she said.
I felt relieved and joyful. There would be no more fighting in this house. There would be no more of my father throwing my mother against a cinderblock wall. I slept happily and contentedly.
In the morning, I found my mom in the dining room. I greeted her in a cheerful tone, and her response was for me to sit down. She informed me that she and my dad had worked everything out. They would not be getting a divorce.
I felt something inside me fall to the floor—maybe it was my heart, maybe a piece of me died. I felt betrayed that she had given me hope and now had thrown me aside for another chance with my father.
And so, a few weeks later, when she came crying into my room and held a handful of her thin hair that my father had ripped from her scalp, I was not surprised. I remained seated on my bed and looked at her, as my dad entered the room and pulled her from my room, so as not to involve me in their fighting, by yet another handful of hair.
A new online dictionary now offers videoed explanations to help people understand words and their meanings. The website, www.wordia.com, was founded by British television producer Edward Baker and funded in part by Michael Birch, the cofounder of social networking site Bebo.
Wordia is working with HarperCollins to keep the dictionary up to date. Users of Wordia are encouraged to share homemade videos that offer definitions of words. The videos, hosted by YouTube, are linked with their text-based definitions.
Another website, www.wordle.net, allows users to make word clouds from submitted text, and the results can be saved as a PDF. Users can submit text by cutting and pasting into a field or by submitting a URL. From there, users can do what they please with the created word cloud, but if they place it in the image gallery, anyone can access it.