happy earth day, y’all.
i made this at instant hai-
ku generator.

🙂

An Easter-time nod to DuBose Heyward, the American author who wrote one of my all-time favorite children’s books, The Country Bunny & the Little Gold Shoes.

Originally published in 1939, this delightful story of a humble girl bunny who dreams of becoming one of the five Easter Bunnies celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Published just a year prior to his unexpected death, Heyward dedicated it to his only child, Jenifer, as it was one of her favorite stories to hear him tell.

The Country Bunny [spoiler alert!] is a big-dreamer-turned-superwoman figure. The big boy bunnies all laugh at her believing she can become one of the five Easter Bunnies. She grows up and has 21 babies, whom she raises impeccably. Then, when an Easter bunny spot opens up, Little Mother Cottontail [as she is now known] competes for it with the big boy bunnies, who all laugh at her again – so much the louder because she has had 21 children. But the Grandfather Bunny is impressed with her speed, wisdom, kindness and cleverness – all of which she proves through the example of her exceptional children – and names her the fifth Easter Bunny. And the story continues with the adventure of her first Easter Eve, delivering baskets all over the world. It’s quite a tale [ba-dum bum]!

Incidentially, Heyward also wrote a 1925 novel, Porgy, which his wife Dorothy adapted into a a 1927 play, which was adapted by George Gershwin into the iconic 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. No slouch, this guy.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Hawai’ian language fact:

The Hawai’ian alphabet has only a dozen letters:
a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p & w.

Just call me Hikiwale Mea kakau [Easy Writer, hoaloha]!!

Apostrophe misuse got the most votes in Grammarly’s Grammar Madness competition for Most Maddening Writing Error.

Mis-postrophization was my pick [woot!], and my favorite editor’s biggest bane . . . he once pulled over, parked and went into a theatre’s box office to report the appalling apostrophization of the venue’s show sign out in front: a musical tribute to blues singer Fat’s Waller. Ack.

Geocache got the most votes in Hasbro’s Scrabble Word Showdown. This noun-verb combo will become the newest entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s Online Official Scrabble Players Dictionary [redundancy much?].

Geocaching, FYI, is a real-world, outdoor treasure-hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and try to find the geocache (container) hidden at the location.

Oh, well, zen and woot [woot!] – next year is another year.

Now go have a wonderful weekend, full of appropriate apostrophizing & geocaching fun!

Thank you, oh trunky ones, for all the reading material.
Oh, yeah – and for the oxygen, too. You’re solid.

Hi. My name is Kristen and I’m a dash-aholic.
[All together now: Hi, Kristen.]

Truly, as a writer, I enjoy dash use — specifically, em-dash use — a little too much. I’ve also been accused of comma overuse; I blame my broadcast-journalism training for either/both. When you’re writing copy intended to be read aloud, punctuation that is grammatically proper just isn’t as important as punctuation that helps you read the copy correctly, especially on-air.

Regardless of why I do it, I do tend to employ the em-dash early and often. So I’m careful to reread my copy and make sure I’m using it correctly, which means not using it where commas will work, nor confusing it with the colon, hyphen or en-dash.

Still with me? Good! I know you know this, but let’s just go over the right and proper usage of the em-dash and its little[r] friends.

The em-dash [m-dash].
The longest of the group [the width of a letter M, presumably, hence the name], it looks like this: — , and is typically used to set off a parenthetical aside within a sentence. It can also be used to show the interruption of dialogue.

examples:
Sometimes, writing for money — a talent I’m happy to have — means being too tapped [typed?] out to write for fun.
“I reached in and pulled the spray can out of my pants — ” “With your mom watching?”

The en-dash [n-dash].
The middle child of the dash family [the width of a letter N], it looks like this: – , and is typically used to represent a range of things.

examples:
Please print only pages 7–13 and 21–27.
The bats live under the city’s main bridge March–October.

The hyphen.
The littlest dash of all, it looks like this: – , and is used to connect compounded words or grouped numbers.

examples:
I prefer to work out in a gym with a judgment-free zone.
Please call 555-394-1803 today for your free consultation.

The colon.
While a colon, like an em-dash, can be used to introduce further information into a sentence, a colon indicates the “something more” is an extension of the sentence, rather than a separate notion.

example:
She spent the summer indulging in her favorite pastimes: Godzilla movies; mountain-biking; and triage.

So, now that you’ve got all the dash data — dash away, dash away, dash away, all!!

How have I been missing all these writerly March-Madness riffs?

Grammarly – an automated proofreader and grammar checker – has set up its own “Grammar Madness” brackets at its Facebook page for visitor votes to determine the most egregious grammatical error!

Voting is underway daily – the competition is already down to the final four [fore? for?]:
:: your/you’re vs. could’ve/should’ve/would’ve [of]
:: misused apostrophes vs. irregardless

I believe you can vote via Facebook @ Grammarly, or via Twitter using #GrammarMadness.

I’m 100% rooting for [against?] Team Mis-postrophes. How about ya’ll [as a Southerner, I find this misplacement offensive, FYI]?