Tag Archives: language

How “Fifty Shades of Grey” Became a Bestseller and Hollywood Movie

In a thread where a poster is trying to show that “Fifty Shades of Grey” is not representative of the BSDM community like so many people think it is, a person who was part of the Twilight fan fiction community when the original version was written chimes in with a great explanation of how badly […]

Friday Fun Link – How A Password Changed My Life

Inspiring way to reinforce messages you want to communicate to yourself.

Music Monday – “Say you got an “I”,”T” Followed by apostrophe “s”/Now what does that mean?/You would not use “it’s” in this case/As a possessive/It’s a contraction”

“Weird Al” Yankovic is pretty much the perfect musician for the Internet age – nerdy mash-up specialist who  is no stranger to controversy.  So the fact that his latest album has a song about Internet grammar is pretty much perfection (and guaranteed to go viral)… “Word Crimes” – “Weird Al” Yankovic

It’s Not Just the Numbers; It’s The Story Behind The Numbers

I find increasingly that I have a few standard lines that I repeat to myself as little koans of wisdom.  One of these is “Don’t just look at the numbers; look to find the story behind the numbers.” This graphic, which is making the rounds on social media today, sums this idea up perfectly. A […]

10 Years Ago Today – Remembering My Eulogy for Grandma Hammond

A cousin’s Facebook post reminded me that today marks ten years since my Grandma Hammond passed away. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown! I had the great privilege of delivering her eulogy and although I know some family members were a bit uneasy about the fact that I didn’t do a very typical […]

In One Or Two Sentences, Why Are You An Atheist?

Recently Reddit’s /r/atheism sub-reddit had a question asking users for a one or two sentence explanation for why they’re atheists. I’ve got a lot of reasons but my own two-sentence answer would be something like this: When I was a kid, my friend and I were really into Greek mythology.  He pointed out that the […]

Librarian Privilege?

So the concept of privilege has been on my mind lately. Thanks to the kind (and kind of) folks on my Facebook feed, I’ve been regularly sent articles about “white privilege“, “male privilege“, “heterosexual privilege” (uhm, for anyone keeping count, I get to tick the box for all three…plus most other types of privilege out […]

Too Many Tabs Tuesday

The Stanley Cup playoffs are heating up but it’s still the off season for some teams.  The official Twitter accounts of the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Tampa Bay Lightning engaged in what is perhaps the world’s first game of Twitter Tac Toe! “Dad Jokes” are shorthand for lame jokes that inevitably get groans from […]

Fired University of Saskatchewan Professor Re-Hired After Major Outcry

Professor Robert Buckingham, a long time professor at the University of Saskatchewan, was recently fired for speaking out about some major ongoing budget cuts and restructuring plans at the U of S. The University administration claimed that there was a difference between the freedom of expression tenured professors should expect for expressing controversial or politically incorrect […]

CMV: There’s Nothing Wrong with Language Death and Attempts at Revitalizing Dying Languages Are A Complete Waste of Time and Effort

I’ve got numerous sub-Reddits that I love including one called Change My View (r/changemyview) where people pose their positions on sensitive (and not-so-sensitive) topics and ask others to try to convince them to change their mind. And unlike debate on 99% of the Internet, the respondents are often successful in changing the view of the original poster! A recent questions […]