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How to Use Apostrophes

Niall O'Donnell 22 Comments

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That little  chap there is by far and away the punctuation mark that causes people the most consternation, for a variety of reasons. Some hate it because they have no idea what to do with it, and others hate it because those first people have no idea what to do with it, and it drives them crazy to see it misused or not used at all. Before getting into why people have difficulties with it, and why that infuriates others, let’s look at the basic rules of using the apostrophe. It has three basic functions: Continue reading →

Different How?

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

Any time I’m writing and want to show a difference between two things, I find myself pausing. For example:

Reading a language is very different…

…from writing it?

…to writing it?

…than writing it?

They all sound ok, but in the end I usually plump for from, as it sounds more natural, but I’m never quite satisfied, as the other two still sound basically ok too… Continue reading →

My Left Hand: a Sinister Tale

Niall O'Donnell 23 Comments

I hope you appreciate how lucky you are to be right-handed. Of course you might actually be left-handed, in which case my apologies for the assumption, but statistically you’re probably right-handed. You’re also probably right-footed (90% of right-handers are also right-footed, and about 50% of left-footers). You might not have been aware that footedness is a thing. If sports involving kicking balls don’t occupy a position of any importance in your life, the concept may not have occurred to you. If you’re not sure which is your dominant foot, go kick the nearest person in the shin with each foot (not simultaneously, you don’t want to get hurt) and see which one hurts them more.

I’m entirely lopsided: both left-handed and left-footed. I was quite proud of this when I was a child. I felt it made me stand out. As a football fan, I was impressed by how left-footed players like Ryan Giggs always seemed to be so quick and dynamic and creative. My footballing career did not quite follow his trajectory, mind you. But mostly I just liked being different from everyone else. And I still do. But as I got older, I began to realise that it wasn’t so easy being left-handed… Continue reading →

Ambulance Chasing

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

An ambulance passed me by yesterday, and as I was looking at the word written on the side, I got to thinking about its etymology. Ambulance: surely there’s some association with walking in its history, considering similar words derived from the Latin verb ambulare (to walk) still exist today. To amble is an obvious one, but also the adjective ambulatory (associated with walking) Less obvious is pram (stroller or baby carriage in American English), a short form of the now outdated perambulator. Continue reading →

What a Drag it is to See You

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

You might have noticed that Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, for “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Some people have expressed surprise at this, feeling that a lyricist shouldn’t be given the award. I don’t see why not though. First of all, there’s not such a difference between poetry and song lyrics. They’re very similar structurally, tending to be divided into verses, and share the same concerns with rhythm and rhyme. I think some people feel that because song lyrics need to match the song’s music, they’re therefore less important than less important than the words of a poem or a novel which the writer was not required to match to anything. But I don’t think that’s much of an argument: all that should matter is the words, and if they’re good, and can be appreciated on their own, without music, then why shouldn’t that count as literature?

Anyway, to celebrate Bob’s win, here are some of my favourite of his lyrics in no particular order, and without commentary, because sometimes I just like them for their own sake: Continue reading →

Exploitation

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

Lately, I’ve been watching the Marvel TV programme Luke Cage on Netflix, when I can find a spare moment. One thing that’s quite apparent early on is that it’s heavily indebted to, and deliberately homages, the blaxploitation genre of movies. In the 1970s, these films were cheaply-made, stylised (and stylish) films featuring African-American protagonists, usually fighting back against oppression from The Man, and looking quite cool while they did it.

This genre was a sub-genre of the exploitation film. In a way the exploitation film had been around since the birth of cinema: cheaply-made films with risque topics aimed at teenagers. What we now recognise as the archetypal exploitation film (cheap production values, questionable acting, sexy young people, violence, more sexy young people) came to prominence in the 70s. Continue reading →

Talking about Language

Niall O'Donnell 1 Comment

One of the interesting things about learning to become a language teacher is just how much your vocabulary improves. There’s a lot of jargon related to different aspects of language that one doesn’t ordinarily come across in life. So here’s a fairly random sprinkling of some of the more interesting (to me!) words we language teachers learn to use: Continue reading →