De points to some references for guns and women.

That could come in handy.  Heck, what I've learned about karate will doubtless come in handy, too.

Neil Gaiman posts about literary estate planning -- authors making sure not just that the candlesticks and "second-best bed" are accounted for in wills, but the writing corpus of an author. Worth reading.

John M. Ford was pretty much the smartest writer I knew. Mostly. He did one thing that was less than smart, though: he knew he wasn't in the best of health, but he still didn't leave a proper will, and so didn't, in death, dispose of his literary estate in the way that he intended to while he was alive, which has caused grief and concern to the people who were closest to him.

He's not the first writer I know who didn't think to take care of his or her posthumous intellectual property. For example, I knew a writer -- a great writer -- separated from and estranged from his wife during the last five years of his life. He died without making a will, and his partner, who understood and respected his writing, was shut out, while his wife got the intellectual property, and has not, I think, treated it as it should have been treated. These things happen, and they happen too often.

Estate planning is important. Dammit, I know it's important, and even I'm not nearly where I should be with it.

Bits and pieces of trivia regarding life in space (in the early 21st Century, at least).

Jones said his usual routine would be to stick the floss, the slivers of fingernails and other detritus onto a snippet of sticky tape - then crumple up the tape, put it in a waste bag and seal the bag.

"You can't fly without duct tape or Velcro," said Mario Runco, a veteran of three shuttle flights.

Among the other tips:

• Drinks are generally contained in the kinds of foil pouches familiar to most third-graders on Earth - and the drink straws have to be clamped closed with clips when they're not being sipped from. Otherwise globules of sticky grape juice or orange juice can blurp out of the straw and float around. Jones admitted that he was guilty of this breach during one of his spaceflights, and was embarrassed to find that "our grape spots were still on the walls" of the shuttle interior months later.
• When you brush your teeth, you have to close your lips carefully around the brush, then spit the foam into a towel.
• The shuttle's zero-gravity toilet works by sucking down urine, or using ducted air to blow away solid waste. But because the air currents have to flow in just the right way, you have to make sure to "sit precisely on that seat" to get the proper seal, Jones said. In fact, NASA has a "rendezvous and docking trainer" on Earth so that astronauts can practice their toilet technique before their spaceflight, he said. "After some practice, you begin to get the feel for it, if you know what I mean," Jones said.
• Daily exercise is part of the routine - especially for a long-duration space station flight, because astronauts have to guard against losing bone or muscle mass in zero-G. But because there's no natural convection in freefall, air warmed by the heat of a workout tends to float like a cloud around exercising astronauts. And that leads to increased perspiration. You have to aim an air duct toward yourself to blow away the hot air, or wipe yourself down repeatedly with a towel. Whatever you do, don't let the sweat build up too much. "One false snap of the head, and you'll send a quart of salty water off in someone's direction," Jones said.
• Although the Skylab space station had an actual shower, today's shuttle and station crews bathe by rubbing themselves down with wet, hot towels, then applying some rinseless soap. Hair is washed by applying water to the head (surface tension keeps the water from floating away), then using rinseless hospital-style shampoo. Then you towel yourself off, perhaps putting your head under an air duct to help dry your hair. "If you use that on a daily basis, you'll never offend anyone," Jones said.

Oh, this looks really good. Lots and lots of sites that provide visuals, facts, and suggestions for game plot/story/background types of stuff. Ancient ruins. Geographical info. Photo collections. A random word generator.

Nice.

Despite some inacccurately paranoid bits about radiation, this Flickr set of an abandoned and slowly decaying DEW Line radar station in Alaska is ... really cool. And great setting fodder.

Kids, don't try this at home. Writers, though, might find it handy.

Occured to me I should note this over here as some great background photos to inspire scene descriptions in an underground base / bunker / facility:  an abandoned Russian submarine base.

I tend to be a tad pedantic in my proper, formal English -- but I also recognize that English has a lot of exceptions, colloquialisms, and various rules that are design more for the sake of rules than for clarity of communication.

Here's a fun list of some of the "rules" that aren't.  The fact is that, really, there are no rules to a language.  There are conventions, styles, and gentlemen's agreements as to how to be clear in communication.  The closest we have to "rules" are spelling, and beyond some fundamentals, a lot of what the grammar cops nail folks on are not really rules at all.  And while grammar is critical for clear communication, recognizing how communication is already clear (in spite of the "rules") is also important.

Regime vs. regimen

Some people insist that “regime” should be used only in reference to governments, and that people who say they are following a dietary regime should instead use “regimen”; but “regime” has been a synonym of “regimen” for over a century, and is widely accepted in that sense.

Near miss

It is futile to protest that “near miss” should be “near collision.” This expression is a condensed version of something like “a miss that came very near to being a collision” and is similar to “narrow escape.” Everyone knows what is meant by it and almost everyone uses it. It should be noted that the expression can also be used in the sense of almost succeeding in striking a desired target: “His Cointreau soufflé was a near miss.”

“None” singular vs. plural

Some people insist that since “none” is derived from “no one” it should always be singular: “none of us is having dessert.” However, in standard usage, the word is most often treated as a plural. “None of us are having dessert” will do just fine.

Note also that the first two (and, arguably, the third) of the above are not so much grammar (how language is structured) as definitions (what words mean).  And, as anyone will tell you, dictionaries are meant to be descriptive, not proscriptive.  I.e., they describe language as used, not define how people "should" use language (except insofar as people should try to communicate clearly).

Beyond this, note that all the rules are tossed out the window, pretty much, when writing dialog.  Dialog is how people talk.  It is rarely fully grammatical (unless that's what a character is noteworthy for).  It's conversational, something very different.

Good stuff, and worth a read.  In addition to grammar, there's spelling and definitions and even folk etymology discussions.  And, as always, consider what you're trying to convey and what your audience is likely to understand (or misunderstand). 

But don't try that "irregardless" crap on me.  Or I will hurt you.

Victorian Criminal Slang (part of the broader Victorian Dictionary). E.g.,

'Crankey Jem has done it brown, has'nt he?' said policeman Crisp.
'He has indeed,' replied the inspector. 'But what could he have done with all the swag?' 1
'Oh! he's fadded2 that safe enough,' observed the officer. 'My eye! What a slap-up lily benjamin3 he had on when he was nabbed.'
'Yes - and sich a swell bandanna fogle4 in the gropus.'5
'He hadn't any ready tin though; for he wanted to peel,6 and put the white-poodle up the spout7 for a drop of max.'8
'And because you wouldn't let him he doubled you up with a wallop in your dumpling-depot,9 didn't he?'
'Yes - but I bruised his cannister10 for him though.'
'This'll be the third time he's been afore the beaks11 at the Old Bailey.'
'Consequently he's sartain sure to be lagged.'12
'Ah! it must be a clever nob in the fur trade13 who'll get him off.'
'Well - talking makes me thirsty,' said Crisp, 'I wish I'd some'ot to sluice my ivories14 with.'

1. Booty, plunder. 2. Secured. 3. White Upper Coat : synonymous with 'White Poodle.' 4. Handkerchief. 5. Pocket. 6. Strip. 7. Pawn the coat. 9. Gin. 9. Stomach. 10. Head. 11. Judges. 12. Transported. 13. Barrister 14. Teeth.

George Reynolds, The Mysteries of London, 1848-52

The Fantastic in Art and Fiction, a collection of old Medievalish images and woodcuts, from Cornell University's Institute for Digital Collections (CIDC).

In the context of western literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Fantastic involves dread, fear and anxiety in the face of phenomena that escape rational explanation, or that reveal the notion of reality to be no more than a construct. A fantastic experience can therefore be likened to the breaking or shattering of a frame. While the literary fantastic is limited to the last 200 years, the Fantastic in art can be construed more broadly. This elasticity allowed us to choose images from works spanning a period from medieval manuscripts and printed incunabulae, to the early twentieth century.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose (1811)

A DICTIONARY OF BUCKISH SLANG, UNIVERSITY WIT, AND PICKPOCKET ELOQUENCE.

UNABRIDGED FROM THE ORIGINAL 1811 EDITION WITH A FOREWORD BY ROBERT CROMIE

COMPILED ORIGINALLY BY CAPTAIN GROSE.

AND NOW CONSIDERABLY ALTERED AND ENLARGED, WITH THE MODERN CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS, BY A MEMBER OF THE WHIP CLUB.

ASSISTED BY HELL-FIRE DICK, AND JAMES GORDON, ESQRS. OF CAMBRIDGE; AND WILLIAM SOAMES, ESQ. OF THE HON. SOCIETY OF NEWMAN'S HOTEL.

All quite nice.

Various doomsday scenarios. Always good for the end of a story ... or for its beginning ...

Friends don't let friends write about this stuff. Though I suddenly have a desire, in the next storyball, to see how many of these I can cram into a single tale ...

(via GeekPress)

A map of wealth distribution and poor areas in London, 1898-99, and a story in the Economist on the same:

AT THE end of the 19th century, an intrepid social scientist visited Stockwell, in south London. He was involved in an ambitious project, led by the shipping magnate Charles Booth, to colour-code every street in the capital according to its social make-up. In general, the area struck him as comfortable. But just east of Stockwell Road he found a pocket of filth and squalor, with rowdy residents and broken windows. It was, he believed, “far the worst place in the division”.

Since then, the area has been transformed. Dismal two-storey cottages have been swept away and replaced by grass and the apartment blocks of the Stockwell Park Estate. But the appearance of the neighbourhood has changed more than its character. Julie Fawcett, who lives in one of the blocks, characterises her neighbours as “the mad, the bad and the sad”. Unemployment is more than double the borough average. Next to the very street that appalled the Victorian social scientist is one nicknamed Heroin Alley.

(via BoingBoing)

There are tons of sites of angel names on the web, but here's a particularly nice one, should you be looking for various names with various sources.

How much does it cost to publish a book, and how easy it is to lose money? (A lot and quite.)

Add it up. Your total cost on this book is $36,000. In USD, yes.

(Those of you playing at home should keep track of these numbers with a pen and a piece of paper, because otherwise you may get confused.)

Now -- sorry, more math -- the book's cover price is $6.99. The author gets 8% of that as her royalty -- $.5592. Set that aside -- we're not going to talk about it again for a while.

(via Randy)

The most offensive swear words in the UK, per the BBC.

(via Language Log)

Fascinating web site here with voice samples of people around the world speaking a standard English paragraph. Need a quick reference as to how someone from Houston or Utah or Glasgow or Mexico City or Melbourne would sound? Here's the place.

What words get capitalized in titles? Ask Google:

The Chicago Manual of Style:

• Always capitalize the first and the last word.
• Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions ("as", "because", "although").
• Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions ("and", "or", "nor"), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word.
• Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive.

Though another person quotes the same source, 14th Edition:

In regular title capitalization, also known as headline style:

• The first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are capitalized.
  
• Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title...

Folks in "an internationally operating company in Germany" suggest:

• Capitalize in Heading and Title:
  • First and last word
  • Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives
  • Subordinating conjunctions (for example: before, after, when...)
  • Hyphenated compound words
  • First word following a colon

• Do Not Capitalize:
  
  • Articles (a, an, the)
    
  • Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, so)
    
  • The word 'to' when it precedes a verb
    
  • Prepositions with fewer than five letters.

According to the "Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications" ...

• Capitalize all nouns, verbs (including is and other forms of to be), adverbs (including than and when), adjectives (including this and that), and pronouns (including its).
• Always capitalize the first and last words, regardless of their part of speech ("The Text to Look For").
• Capitalize prepositions that are part of a verb phrase ("Backing Up Your Disk").
• Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the) unless an article is the first word in the title.
• Do not capitalize coordinate conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or).
• Do not capitalize prepositions of four or fewer letters.
• Do not capitalize to in an infinitive phrase ("How to Format Your Hard Disk").
• Capitalize the second word in compound words if it is a noun or proper adjective or the words have equal weight (Cross-Reference, Pre-Microsoft Software, Read/Write Access, Run-Time). Do not capitalize the second word if it is another part of speech or a participle modifying the first word (How-to, Take-off)."

According to someone from Britain (and from Denmark): the first word and all the 'main' words in a title should have initial capitals, and all the 'joining' words should be left in lower case, e.g.: "To Be, or Not to Be, That is the Question," and "Business Case for Selling Fridges to Eskimos."

Wikipedia notes:

• Among U.S. publishers, it is still a common typographic practice to capitalize additional words in titles. This is an old form of emphasis, similar to the more modern practice of using a larger or boldface font for titles. The exact rules differ between individual house styles. Most capitalize all words except for internal closed-class words, or internal articles, prepositions and conjunctions. Some capitalize longer prepositions such as "between", but not shorter ones. Some capitalize even only nouns, others capitalize all words.
• The convention followed by British publishers is the same used in many other languages (e.g., French, German), namely to use sentence-style capitalization in titles and headlines, where capitalization follows the same rules that apply for sentences. This is also widely used in the U.S., especially in bibliographic references and library catalogues. This convention is also used in the International Organization for Standardization and Wikipedia house styles.

The best advice (what I call "The Governmental Agency Rule") is it doesn't matter what rule you use, so long as you then stick to it.

The most frequently asked questions of the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, including the ever-popular, "What is the 'Oxford Comma'?"

Fun.

Have you ever wondered what the value of a dollar was in 1895? Or what the GDP was in 1929? Here is a place where you can ask questions of comparative value covering purchasing power, exchange rates, and other variables between the past and today.

Spiffy. And a nice reference for writing historical fiction.

(via BoingBoing)

Slang and jargon from the American Antarctic bases.

(via Doyce)

Turns out you can't trust the tests that "prove" someone fired a gun recently. Man, that invalidates more old novels and TV shows than discovering that Mars didn't really have canals ...

Next time someone in a movie or TV blows a padlock off a door or fence with their gun so as to effect entry or escape -- consider it as authentic as automobiles turning into firebombs at the drop of a hat. The reality is a lot more prosaic. No surprise there.

(It's worth going to the page to see the demo photos, but the "lessons learned" are listed here below the fold.)

A guide to the origin and common usage of British swear words, via the BBC. Fascinating stuff (as much for which words the article will all but actually print).

(via kottke)

A fun BBC article about some interesting foreign phrases that don't make it into the guide books or language classes. One of my favorites: the Japanese katahara itai, which means laughing so much you get a stitch in your side.

Good fodder for writing, as well as for roleplay.

(via BoingBoing)

Staff and researchers as the Cornwall Record Office have compiled some of the most amusing/interesting names in their various records, dating back to the 16th Century. Obviously it was a slow work day ...

"My all-time favorites are Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane," she said. Other discoveries included Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney.

I suspect that there are similarly amusing names in the Marseilles records office, except that, well, they're all in French.

I would like to write a story about Obedience Ginger, though.

An unofficial dictionary for correctional officers in Texas of prison slang.

UPDATE: And then there's some slang from 1811 ...

(via J-Walk)

The language known as Southern American English, and what-all's goin on with it.

Fun stuff, and a useful writing reference, from the world of the carnival/circus/fair.

(via BoingBoing)

A truly marvelous wiki on TV tropes and idioms, capturing every cliche and standard plot device you have ever rolled your eyes at.

Also applicable to movies and genre fiction.

The entry on Applied Phlebotinum is a particular delight.

(via J-Walk)

Nice article at The Straight Dope on adjusting dollar values for inflation across time -- and how it's not just as easy as looking at the inflation rate. Includes fun links for the Consumer Price Index and a fun (if possibly misleading) simple calculator.

(There's also a fascinating discussion in a classic Cecil column this week about color and language.)

For all your interesting-sounding English place name needs.

Burthenwhistle, Almshead, Cruggcommons, Bulgerwell, Claybottle, Stablechurch, Braunsmere, Kellerlark, Cowillsteeple, Ardenpoole, Dimmockspirits ...

Sweet.

(Posted by CronDave, story via the Flea)

An op-ed in the NY Times takes the position that punctuation is, well, not like a rule or something.

That's the point of punctuation: not to spin a web of arcane rules, but to remind us to write (and think) clearly. It's obvious that force-feeding the rules of punctuation isn't working. Therefore I suggest a more tolerant approach.
The question that readers and editors should ask is not whether the punctuation violates the rules, but whether the meaning is clear. Is anybody addled by the film title "Two Weeks Notice?" Have you ever seen "dont" without an apostrophe, and wondered what the author meant? Of course not.

The tension between rules and freedom is an ongoing one, and most folks would probably agree that the grey area between them is the best course, the media res. The problem is that it's only that tension that keeps extremists on either end from carrying the day.

So while it's true that ...

Some day we may even regard isn't (with an apostrophe) as quaint as to-day seems today.

... that shouldn't mean that we should all start willy-nilly dropping apostrophies out of contractions. Because, frankly, then the question becomes, "What next?"

The thing is, while clarity of communication is always (one would hope) the ultimate goal, it's also a fuzzy one. Punctuation (of which apostrophes are, perhaps, among the least meaningful) is there to provide structure toward clarity. While I agree that language (and punctuation) do evolve, that evolution should be as slow and painful as possible, lest we instead leap into a bold, punctuationless future, or one where it's, like, do your own thing, man ...

I'm not advocating punctuation anarchy. Punctuation that serves to eliminate confusion is as imperative today as ever. But as the language evolves we should put the most picayune punctuation rules out to pasture, the way we do with obsolete rules of grammar.

One man's "picayune" is another man's "critical to clarity and understanding." I'm just saying we need to be careful.

One slight deviation between American and British English is that the Brits have taken to dropping the periods after abbreviations, especially in titles. So it's "St Louis" and "Mr Smith" and so forth. That is, perhaps, not a bad idea, but such things probably make more sense done on a large, institutional basis (e.g., the NY Times changing its house style, and the country either following, gradually, in its path, or not) than in letting 300 million people decide for themselves. They will, of course, but societally such, yes, anarchy should probably be resisted rather than embraced.

Which all feels rather muddled to me, and not very much in keeping with my usual sense of liberty and freedom and personal choice and the like. Perhaps it's because communication is one of those things that, by its nature, intertwines two or more people, so there is a responsibility on all folks' parts to work from a common set of rules and guidelines.

Either that, or I'm just becoming a conservative old fuddy-duddy, bemoaning the good old days when only Capt. Kirk would ever split an infinitive ...

(via Rantingprofs)

An entertaining Wiki collecting (usually cliched) TV tropes, idioms, and plot devices. Good stuff for learning what to avoid, or what to subvert to hit the viewer (or reader) with what they're not expecting.

(via BoingBoing, which has joined the MT Generation!)

A fine random name generator, based on census data and with an "obscurity" factor you can throw in.

(via ScriptyGoddess)

Try your luck with Richard Roth's Hundred Most Common Errors in (American) English usage.

I got a 71/100, which should tell you something. (You do have to keep your own score.)

I learned a few things I hadn't known before (8, 20, 32, 38, 39, 85). But the biggest problem with something like this is that language is an evolving beast -- some of the "errors" stem from "proper" vs. "colloquial" English (3, 34, 36, 42, 56, 67, 83, 98 for example), and that's always dangerous. When does something become "proper"? When enough people use it that it becomes accepted by the "experts" -- which means that the "error" is repeated enough to be a "truth."

Of course, some rules, even many rules, are necessary. Some of the distinctions and errors inhibit communication, introduce confusion, and the like. But even as much as I'm a lover of grammar, it's something you can easily carry too far.

Still, interesting stuff.

(via GoaF)

As mentioned (too many times) before, I'm not participating in National Novel Writing Month, largely because last year was a ball-buster, and I don't want to go through it again.

That having been said, I am actually writing something, which might or might not qualify as a short story.

Well, now that I look at it, it does, or more. According to one estimate provided here (and here), the length breakdown for various types of stories is about as follows:

<100 words = micro-fiction 100+ = flash fiction 1,000+ = short story 7,500+ = novelette 20,000+ = novella 50,000+ = novel 100,000 = epic, or split into multiple parts.

So, given that, what I've already written qualifies as a novellette, since I've done over 8,300 words new. (The total so far is 14,400, but I wrote some of it back in 1998).

Doing some quick looking, I've also seen a short story/novel break point given at 10,000 (or at a more subjective measure, such as something that can be read in one sitting -- which, for us avid readers, could push the number up a lot higher). Another breakdown, given here, is:

<5,000 = short-short 5,000+ = short story 15,000+ = novella/novelette 40,000+ = novel

Or perhaps it's:

<10,000 = short story 10,000+ = novella 30,000+ = novelette, trending into novels (mostly 70,000+)

Or perhaps it is this:

<500 = Vignette (1-2) 500+ = Short-Short (2-9) 2,500+ = Short Story (11-22) 5,000+ = Novelette (22-61) 15,000+ = Novella (66-175) 40,000+ = Novel (175+)

(where numbers in parentheses are approximate pages double-spaced 12-point Courier).

Various magazines have their own submission length guidelines, tending toward shorter than this. As you can see, YMMV.

I must confess, given the numbers, I'm almost tempted to be a late sign-up for NaNoWriMo. I'm just concerned that might turn it into an obsession, rather than a dedication, and that as the month gets busier (my parents visiting this weekend, Margie's folks coming out at Thanksgiving), problems might ensue. I'll see how it goes. If I get through the weekend feeling positive about my input, I might consider going "official."

Regardless, I might see if Margie wants to buy me a NaNoWriMo t-shirt for Christmas.

Anyway, if you have any interest, the work in progress can be found here, or you can follow the "Catspaw" link button in the sidebar (which, via Blogrolling, will highlight any updates I've done).