I want to introduce two new words : abase and abate. They are rhyming and four of the five characters are the same. They refer to the same action, but they are worlds apart. I am not trying to be philosophical here, cutting to the chase!

Abase means degrade or belittle the subject at hand. Abate indicates reduction or something that is lessening or subsiding.

Huh! It has probably crossed your mind that both are the same, and am I nuts! So why not say abase = abate?

I am an IT professional and a geek at heart. I will get a little technical here and give you the fine dust between the two words. When we use the word abase, we are referring to a reduction in quality while abate is all about quantity. So, any referral to quality degradation, the word we need to use is abase while quantity reduction brings in its twin, abate.

What a coincidence? Quality and quantity differ by a single character. Does it remind you of something?

I can probably live with an abatement in the frequency of articles I post on my blog, but can never imagine abasing it for the heck of quantity.

In French, the word means already seen, but in English it is a lot deeper. This word had kinda faded away from my memory until I started reading Time Traveler’s Wife. The author, Audrey Niffenegger uses déjà vu a number of times to reflect on Clare Abshire’s feelings when she sees her husband in the present.

So, I could say, my dad wanted to watch some Occidental movies and I believe such movies sets the generation apart.

From dictionary.com:

oc·ci·den·tal – of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants.

A word that is close to my heart, well, you could say that it is a word that I used as a title for my first website. Long long ago, so long ago, Abhinav learnt HTML programming through a book and built his first website and called it, AC Premonitions; AC stood for Anti Christ.

AC Premonitions was in 1997, and things have changed since then, but the word has stayed on (as you would expect). Premonition simply means intuition but it is generally used in a negative connotation.

As most words in English, this one comes from Latin as well.

The world economy is going to fall, well, that’s my premonition.

Meaning of muse from dictionary.com : to meditate on

Now, when people at work give me a suggestion, I could just say ‘let me muse over it for a while, and let you know my thoughts’. It works wonderfully well, and I am excited. I just hope that the opposite person understands this word. If not, I can point him to my website.

This is something new. I will start to publish the word of the week every Sunday. I believe that all of us have to grow, especially with our personal English lexicon.

So, the first word that I want to introduce is spasmodic. The word sounds biological but the usage is purely in non-technical terms.

Meaning of spasmodic : sudden and short lived

You could call something spasmodic if it occurs without caution and lasts for a brief period of time. A good example is earthquakes in Jakarta. They are frequent, and the seismological indications are close to nil, and they last for a few seconds, but is deadly.

Definition on Dictionary.com

I am a little sad that most of the best tools are designed for Mac, and Windows users have to settle with something ordinary. Either way, I am trying out Dramatica at this point of time. Reviews later if I feel it can add value to others.

The answer to the question of best time to write can never be one fold and far from being universal. You should be the best judge to judge when you would be at your productive best and more importantly, creatively flowing.

Here are some things to consider when you are best equipped to write:

Time of the Day

If somebody tells you a particular time or segment of time is best for writing, they are probably taking you for a ride. Write when you have a clear mind, it can be any part of the day. Write when you don’t have too many things floating around like household chores, social problems, spouse issues and economics to name a few.

I have heard that ‘experts’ suggest mornings as the best time to write. Well, it could be true, but not quite, at least not for all. To cite an example, I have counseled an acquaintance of mine who thinks and plans stuff in his dreams, and continues doing so in the mornings. What are the chances that his mind would be fresh in the morning? He is not a lone specimen but there are many out there would agree with me on this.

Long advice short, don’t pre-meditate your timings, instead, be prepared to jump into it whenever you feel ready.

Lighten up your Mood

Most of us freelancers have deadlines, which necessarily means we don’t have the luxury to wait for that point of time which puts our mind on cloud #9. So, we need to artificially stimulate good thoughts. Ain’t that easy?

I come home pretty late in the night exhausted and I will have some deliverables that I need complete before I hit the sack. Trust me, the last thing that I would want to do is to write (and read tons before writing). I have a way of getting out of this mess. Movie freak am I and I watch movies on HBO or any other channel for sometime and have dinner simultaneously. The next few minutes is spent socializing. It helps some but not enough. So, I try to get into the mood by going through my mails and thinking through what I will have to start doing. Wham! I get the urge when I think of the end result that I will have to achieve.

So, try to find the stimulant that soothes you and puts you on the right track. Artificial or natural, it works, especially for freelancers.

Distractions

I have talked to a few writers who keep their TV running while they write. They can’t write a single phrase if the TV is turned off. For them, TV in OFF position is a distraction. For most of us, anything noisy is impeding to our thoughts and hence the flow. Identify the thing that hinders your thought process and get rid of it before you put your hands on the keyboard.

Distractions may not always be noise, it can in the form of mind wandering off to far away places. These distractions are hard to keep in check. And, to do away with these distractions, tremendous will power is needed. If you are one of those who suffer from this, set your eyes on the goal that you need to achieve, and this is perhaps the only way you can overcome mental distraction.

To Conclude

Don’t go by algorithms and theorems to set things in motion especially when it comes to kindling your creativity. Your mind understands what you need and you need to be ready the apt remedy to satiate it.

Let me know how different you are from me.

A nice write-up by Grammar Girl on misplaced modifiers is something that smacks most of us right in the face. Here’s an excerpt:

Today guest-writer Bonnie Trenga is going to help us take a break from serious grammar and instead delve into the world of comedy—some intentional, some not. Groucho Marx said it best: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know”. I’m sure you thought that was funny, but did you ever consider why it’s hilarious?
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Groucho’s joke is funny for the same reason that this real classified ad, laughed at in the book Sin and Syntax, is: “FOR SALE: Mahogany table by a lady with Chippendale legs” . Both sentences contain a misplaced prepositional phrase. Groucho intentionally put the phrase “in my pajamas” next to the word “elephant” to create the funny image of an elephant wearing PJs. Of course, the man, not the pachyderm, was wearing PJs. In the classified ad, the table, not the lady, has Chippendale legs. The writer carelessly put the prepositional phrase “with Chippendale legs” in the wrong place. Oops!
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…also quotes a student who once wrote this: “Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope”. This amusing sentence suggests that Lincoln traveled on the back of an envelope instead of wrote on the back of an envelope.

Also worth a few chuckles is this headline, quoted in Barbara Walraff’s book Word Court: “Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Counter”. So these ladies spent 18 years at checkout? Hmm.

Lastly, we have this incorrect sentence, found in the latest novel by a New York Times best-selling author: “We found the address he gave me without difficulty”. I’m glad it wasn’t difficult to give out the address. Here, the prepositional phrase “without difficulty” has been misplaced. It’s next to “gave me” instead of “found.”
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Solution to the Problem

It’s easy to fix overly long sentences: just make them shorter! In all seriousness, though, if you are writing a sentence and are having trouble fitting together all the components, consider making your enormous sentence two more manageable sentences.

via

However, learning is something that takes place every minute. We see others do things and most often mimic involuntarily. One such example is the use of sentences starting with ‘AND’. The trend is changing, for the better or for the worse is yet to ascertained. Several authors, big and small, in novels and professional books, start sentences with ‘AND’, not once or twice, but regularly. Has the English grammar been rewritten? The answer is NO.

Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers, best known for work on style guides for writing the English language states – That it is a solecism to begin a sentence with and is a faintly lingering superstition. The OED gives examples ranging from the 10th to the 19th c.; the Bible is full of them.

Interestingly, this was stated and is in use well before most of us were born. Did the paradigm shift start earlier than it was realized?

Going by the usage of sentences starting with ‘AND’, one has to comprehend that it is OK to use it but there might be a few objections from a different front. English grammar books such as Wren and Martin and Cambridge Guide are still dead against it.

Different views are thrown across the board on the usage and here’s an abridged version :

* AND still sounds informal – only suitable for blogs, novels and not business proposals, contracts etc
* AND is a great sentence starter for blogs as it maintains an easy, conversational style
* AND resurrects a link between two sentences, whilst it delivers in short, punchy vein
* More importantly, we can get rid of long complex sentences, which makes readability tougher

Some English grammar teachers still vouch for non-usage of AND at the beginning of a sentence and provide ample examples to convey the same message in a grammatically correct way:

Instead of: “And, we hope to see you this fall at our fundraising event.”

Try: “In addition, we hope to see you this fall at our fundraising event.”

Or try: “Furthermore, we are pleased that you will be attending our fundraising event this fall.”

To conclude, I must confess that it feels great to be given the liberty to start a sentence with ‘AND’ but one must use it wisely. Overusing it might kill the charm of long sentences and under rate one’s writing skills.