caroljane

What's "twee"? Who said "twee"? kekeke How about cackle? Is that ok? You know what I don't like? Cockle. As in "warmed the cockle's of my heart". Mine has no cockles. Ninth, Cackling is certainly ok and should be more widespread. Of course you don't like cockles if you don't have any in your heart, you enervated postmodernist, you. Abandon your evil ways and learn to like cockles, which will warm the places that axioms don't.

I think it would be interesting to see a map of where OLivers who have shared their locations are doing their OLiving. I might have to go to the States sometime and I hate to pay for lodging. And I might win the lottery and travel the world. Es posible?

kekeke Sound of coffee splatter on keyboard. I demand that chuckle be immediately replaced by kekeke in all lexicons. "she kekeked softly to herself at the discomfiture of her enemies..." I like it.

Yeah! Like D'Anconia! JR Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian D'Anconia, for short. 19/26 --Brant Peter G__d_ 6/9--she would have liked my name better! Aieee! Auwe! I started a whole thread on how ugly her names sound to my ear (Randian Nomenclature). Btw yours doesn't Brant. Consonants aren't bad, just the ones she liked so much to put together.

I think the verdict is in on chuckle. No character over the age of four should be allowed to do it.

I suppose those pictures of lovely redhead Rita Hayworth are right up your alley: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Nod5f2vKNKo/TLOZi0nioiI/AAAAAAAAFSo/JfxWxHT1Es0/s1600/b-473715-Rita_Hayworth_has_red_hair.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.geburtstag-seite.info/2010/10/wer-hat-am-17-oktober-geburtstag/&usg=__6Vy0MVROtmBQiZ4v5vwDcWv7oWQ=&h=350&w=270&sz=20&hl=de&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=R7u51zLZayimnM:&tbnh=161&tbnw=124&ei=I1x-TYnsLMSr8AOFx6TLAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRita%2Bhaywroth%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:de:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D832%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1050&vpy=105&dur=789&hovh=161&hovw=124&tx=147&ty=133&oei=I1x-TYnsLMSr8AOFx6TLAw&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0 http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/9/944/8NBK000Z/poster/ballester-arturo-rita-hayworth-in-seduction.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.allposters.de/-sp/Rita-Hayworth-in-Seduction-Poster_i396602_.htm&usg=__hP7eMVTmM0am7TVP68fi2cYMc_o=&h=450&w=338&sz=56&hl=de&start=138&zoom=1&tbnid=oT3YmRla77OOTM:&tbnh=159&tbnw=113&ei=y3d-TZbVA4rzsgbXwPX3Bg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRita%2BHayworth%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:de:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D832%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C3363&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=461&oei=JXd-TfujMczOswaV7cH3Bg&page=6&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:138&tx=49&ty=72&biw=1280&bih=832 De gustibus non est disputandum, but imo Rita was far more erotic than most of the peroxide-blonde hyperbusty film stars of those days. And for the non-peroxide-busty crowd, Grace Kelly. Now we just need the brunette - hey, I'm a brunette and I am younger than those gals would be if they weren't dead. Well, actually I am two-toned right now, but next week when Belle Color goes on sale I will be somewhat brunette again. As to the men of that era, the Laurences, Harvey and Olivier,just ruled.

And you're not?

Go Team Coates! You're on a roll.

I hear you. I know an Objectivist who quit an excellent job, suited to his skills and highly paid, because he "felt like a lackey"-- i.e. because he was an employee. The O-soul is freer when self-employed, although then he has the worst bosses in the world - himself and his clients. I have been self-employed (that is a freelancer) at various times and marvel at those who are so organized and industrious as to start and run businesses. I would never hire me as an employee, but if by some fluke I did get hired, I would work for me but not very hard.

Also, Celine could redesign the Leafs uniform. She already knows a thing or two about shoulder pads.

This is just too Canadian for words. The Leafs are being sold now - by the public school teachers union. I think Celine Dion, Jim Carrey and K'naan should form a consortium and buy them. They would continue to choke, of course, butat least the national anthem would be sung spectacularly.

You can not only claim such descent, you probably have it. Somebody had to repopulate the world when AS ended, and we all know how much fidelity exists in the marriages of actresses and "pirates". Victor will never learn. He should send his lawyer over to Coronation Street and get poor Gail out of jail before evil Tracy frames her for that non-murder that she did not commit.

Chuckle is a special hate of mine too. You just feel it is the writer who is chuckling, at his own cleverness. The absolute worst is when all the characters chuckle merrily at some witticism of the hero and IT ISN'T FUNNY.

I don't get it, how are we supposed to know that this is bad writing? An excellent question, but one I suspect few here have a clue how to even think about, much less answer. Hint: the use of meaningless terms like "twee" will get you nowhere. JR You illustrate my point. You react to the word "twee" by concluding that the writer who uses it is unthinking and going nowhere.

On the other side of the coin, I hate it when writers have scenes during meals and don't tell you what the characters are eating. "After the waiter had cleared the table, he reached in his pocket for the Tiffany box.." cleared the table of what? Pork chops, cobb salad, tourtiere,beer floats, what?

I don’t get it, how are we supposed to know that this is bad writing? Is it an opening line? An omniscient narrator? A character speaking? Try these: The stars are God's daisy chain. Every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born. You’ll have to trust me that these are terrific lines in context. As to opening lines, try this: Chapter One In which Benny Profane, a schlemihl and human yo-yo, gets to an apocheir Sends you scrambling for your dictionary, where “apocheir” is likely not to be found. It isn't about bad writing per se. Of course, in context of a whole book, any words or phrases turn out to be bad or good as to the job they do in the book. It's about the reaction a reader has to certain phrases, which can irrationally turn him off the whole book however worthy. We have seen good examples here already. The first sentence of 1984, though good writing, conveyed such a bleak sense of life (it was supposed to) that Greybird was repelled from reading further. The tiptoeing week was so twee that pippi decided she wanted no more of a writer like that, whatever he was saying. It's about how subjective reading is, and how demanding readers are. As we should be.

"He was unaware of the admiring glances which followed him"... yeah, sure he was.

You are right. That one is entirely off-putting. I am apparently guilty of cutesiness myself, but I don't think I would write that. I'm not a visual reader and I can't stand long descriptive passages of the scenery, characters' appearances and so on. I always skim them now, even the sex scenes. This is a good thread.

Great! What theatre are you going to? Expect your reactions by 3:00 that day at the latest!!

PS There goes my image of Mr Coates, legendary math teacher and basketball coach, Feared and Revered in locker room and study hall alike at Riverside High.

Good one. My Troy burned when recession decimated the workforce of the health charity where I had toiled as writer/editor, pr flack etc for five years, after a decade previous of similar work in government and business. 1/10th of the workforce was was simultaneously, individually fired and escorted out the door in a well-planned and executed surprise operation. After collapsing from the shock/trauma, I rose again and threatened to sue them for wrongful dismissal, so they raised the payoff satisfactorily. Then I had a year of getting interviews for nearly every comparable job I applied for, often getting to the last round, and never getting the job. One day I walked into a place where it is impossible not to get hired, a call centre. I think I've described my adventures there elsewhere on this forum. One of my workmates was the husband of an ESL school principal. He told me I should teach adult ESL because I "had the personality" for it, whatever that meant, and that if I got my certification his wife would hire me. So I did, and she did.The story is longer, of course, but that's the gist of it. I had never considered teaching children or teenagers. I could never even get my own kids to do their homework. But after the usual newbie faux pas (initially I was so over-concerned with treating my students as adults that I made the lessons too hard and we never had any fun) I eventually hit my stride in the best job I ever had. We do not work to a curriculum, only benchmarks, and are expected to create our own lessons according to the needs of our individual classes. The teacher has near-total autonomy and bureaucracy is minimal at my level. The supervisor only visits the class once a term. The students are remarkable, warm, valiant human beings with the usual human mix of a few shifty characters and hopeless screw-ups. It's a joy in my life to know them and learn from them.

Your use of "kid" here is insightful, I think. Many, maybe most of us have that hole when very young, and as we grow if fills, and one day, without our noticing, it is full. If we are lucky. You're a good person, Michael K.

I agree. I can't see this adding much to language learning, for example, except for vocab and grammar lessons and tests which students could do at home.But maybe I am not imaginitive enough. For math and science it looks just terrific. What a boon to teachers, it really could revitalize the classroom. Btw Phil, I think you mentioned somewhere that education was your second career (same here). Did you become as Adam would say a "slave of the state" and work in the public system? NO, the poutine hut will not deliver to Florida, and certainly not for the the fee you are offering.

The volume on my computer is unadjustably low, so I did some amateur body-language analysis on Yaron brook, who I never saw before though I have heard of him. Obviously he is thoroughly media-trained. His hand movements are restricted and his elbows seem to be glued to the table. At some points he makes open-handed gun-signs, close-to-the body prayer signs, and clenched-hand signs that I don't know what they mean, if anything. I got the feeling that he would have liked to throw up his arms and wave them around, but I could not hear anything he was actually saying.

-Thoreau This is a great quote. My grandfather was a woodsman who went to the woods with the same intentions, besides wanting to escape his numerous family and having to work in the cotton mill. He soon found that putting to rout all that was not life deprived him of a major source of food. He reached the conclusion that life sucks, but when he came to die, discovered that he had indeed lived.