zigzackly.bsky.social
Developing writer. Aspiring artist.
https://zigzackly.blogspot.com
Caretaker: @caferati.bsky.social, @poetryinparks.bsky.social, @thegoaproject.bsky.social
He/him/they/them
4,266 posts
962 followers
259 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
*/ fascinating for etymology dorks, grammar geeks and usage nerds.
comment in response to
post
🥺 My apologies.
comment in response to
post
It deeply annoys me that I have not been properly pedantic and bookmarked this when I first read it. Because it has been impossible to find again: the search terms I use lead me to other fascinating things but not this one. 😤
comment in response to
post
The thing I read about and have never been able to find again was this. Stick an en dash between the parts of the compound that are not hyphenated, and then a hyphen between this term and the modifier.
So: She is a literary–prize-winning author.
comment in response to
post
What if I wanted to refer to a writer who has won many literary awards?
‘She is a literary prize–winning author’ could be seen to mean that she is a literary person who has won prizes, not necessarily literary prizes.
comment in response to
post
You could refer to, say, the style of urban planning in New Bombay as New Bombay–style planning. Or you could speak of a Nobel Prize–winning writer.
But (and this is the point of this ramble) this works with a well-known term with initial capitals like Nobel Prize.
comment in response to
post
There are these niche cases where you have compounds that are not hyphenated. Like New Bombay. Or Nobel Prize.
How do you use a modifier with that kind of term?
One school of thought is that you use an en dash.
Or, heh, this is en dash–related trivia.
comment in response to
post
it is clear that the thing I am referring to is a compound modifier. In English, we all do it automatically. For example, we can short-list something, or put it on a short list.)
But.
comment in response to
post
(Compound modification is, simplistically, the use of a hyphen to clarify meaning in the same set of words depending on where they are in a sentence. Like I did in the previous sentence: ‘compound modifier thing’ could be ambiguous, but when I stick a hyphen in there,
comment in response to
post
What makes it worse is that the victims are people I care about a lot.
Natural, I guess, since we like to converse most with the people that matter to us. But still.
comment in response to
post
I have seen so many smart people who seem oblivious to, or at least not be thinking about, the downside of AI.
comment in response to
post
she needs french fries 🥺
in all seriousness, these kids are starving because of Israel's abhorrent unconscionable genocidal mania, and it is on you, me, and everyone able to help Palestinians right now in whatever way we can.
As always, if you can't afford to donate rn, DM me and I'll cover it
comment in response to
post
(My apologies for a tangential response. I tend to be very curious about language and how it changes.)
comment in response to
post
I’m curious: where in India have you heard the term ‘undergrad’ used to describe the course of studies one does immediately after high school to get a Bachelor’s degree? I ask because it is a term I have only heard in India over maybe the last decade or thereabouts.
comment in response to
post
Long ago, advertising days, doing a shoot for a client in Gujarat, and staying in their guest house, the staff set up a secluded area for us where we were served alcohol before after the day's work and before dinner. Because Bombay PLUS advertising, therefore certainly requiring daaru.
comment in response to
post
I drink very ocassionally, but I do get the assumption often: Christian name, so must be needing daaru.
I also get: from Bombay, so must want daaru,
And: Advertising? You must do drugs.
comment in response to
post
I don't get this now, but once upon a when, walking in Colaba, I would inevitably get shady chaps sidle up mumbling "Charas? Brown? "
comment in response to
post
And I once got locked out of Quora because an admin there concluded it wasn't my real name.
comment in response to
post
On the phone, at the beginning of my working life, when I was kind of baby-faced, but thanks to voice-over training, came across as confident and therefore, I guess, older, I often got the feeling people were looking behind my shoulder to see where the real guy they had been talking to would appear.
comment in response to
post
And this puzzles me: I've had a few people who I've met in the flesh after online interactions telling me they expected me to be taller. I'm not tall, but I'm a bit above the average Indian male height, I think.
comment in response to
post
Then, people who I have interacted with purely in emails or SMSes have sometimes expected me to be white. In my previous job, one famous person who I mailed back and forth with before meeting confessed later that with the Forbes job and my name, he thought he was dealing with a gora.
comment in response to
post
What I get most, probably because of the long hair and generally scruffy appearance, is musician. Which is funny-sad because I have zero aptitude for music but would have dearly loved to be a musician. (Extra feels because most of the musicians I know dress really well and are impeccably coiffed.)
comment in response to
post
Ugh.
comment in response to
post
One thing that annoys me is when people use the em dash where a colon should (IMO) be. I say IMO because some style sheets are okay with it, but I only use them for emphatic parenthetical purposes or the interjection or interruption in a thought.
comment in response to
post
I used to be team no-space a long time ago. But over time, I came to prefer the feel of the spaces.
comment in response to
post
Strictly speaking, aren’t a typeface’s em and en dashes supposed to be the width of its M and an N? And so, proportionate in that typeface?
Anyway, conceding to feels and vibes, because that is important. : )
comment in response to
post
😬
I did it again.
comment in response to
post
I know someone who works on open prisons in Rajasthan.
Not sure about their politics, though.
comment in response to
post
Mm. It has been a while since I have had one.
comment in response to
post
The no-spaces em-dash gives a dated feel.
comment in response to
post
#HowMyGardenGrows #Flarz
comment in response to
post
Heliconia
#HowMyGardenGrows #Flarz