Today's Minor Rants
More things that make Nimby snarl, and me almost happy that they aren't bad enough to cause a full blown Nimby attack. I almost indulged earlier, actually, when one story at HP Fandom made one of my eyes start to twitch, but then it was over and I moved on. I'm feeling downright petty and nasty these days, though. (Note: I think it sucks that Semagic doesn't have a built-in spell checker like Firefox. Murfle!)
( The Rants )
Bonus
I've run across eleventy billion fics recently that all go on about how Harry was never taught how to properly structure an essay. Too many, really. But that's not the focus of today's bonus item. It made me consider things, and think back. I think I've said before that I don't remember a whole lot from my own schooling, and especially what happened in most English classes. I don't know what most diacritical marks mean (and in fact, only understood what the word meant thanks to contextual cues), and I don't know how to diagram a sentence (or even why I'd want to). I don't know what dangling participles are and other interestingly termed stuff unless I take the time to go hunt down a definition (and even then I know I'll forget within a day what I researched).
And I most definitely haven't got the foggiest idea how to properly structure an essay. I know I wrote eleventy billion essays during my school career, and did damn well, but it's all just a blur, you know? I might have some vague idea about summary, content/arguments, and conclusion, but...? Oh, well, and a bibliography. I mean really... is that it? Have I actually remembered something and just don't realize it?
It's like, I write something (or do so and go back to it a month or months later) and realize that something isn't right about a sentence, that I've made some sort of mistake that makes comprehension awkward and is most likely against some rule. So I fix it. But I don't know what the mistake is called. I did once, but only because I ran across a term I couldn't define and looked it up, then promptly forgot it a few days later. Sometimes I think I've learned more about "English" from reading than I ever did in a classroom setting. Dunno, but it's strange.
( The Rants )
Bonus
I've run across eleventy billion fics recently that all go on about how Harry was never taught how to properly structure an essay. Too many, really. But that's not the focus of today's bonus item. It made me consider things, and think back. I think I've said before that I don't remember a whole lot from my own schooling, and especially what happened in most English classes. I don't know what most diacritical marks mean (and in fact, only understood what the word meant thanks to contextual cues), and I don't know how to diagram a sentence (or even why I'd want to). I don't know what dangling participles are and other interestingly termed stuff unless I take the time to go hunt down a definition (and even then I know I'll forget within a day what I researched).
And I most definitely haven't got the foggiest idea how to properly structure an essay. I know I wrote eleventy billion essays during my school career, and did damn well, but it's all just a blur, you know? I might have some vague idea about summary, content/arguments, and conclusion, but...? Oh, well, and a bibliography. I mean really... is that it? Have I actually remembered something and just don't realize it?
It's like, I write something (or do so and go back to it a month or months later) and realize that something isn't right about a sentence, that I've made some sort of mistake that makes comprehension awkward and is most likely against some rule. So I fix it. But I don't know what the mistake is called. I did once, but only because I ran across a term I couldn't define and looked it up, then promptly forgot it a few days later. Sometimes I think I've learned more about "English" from reading than I ever did in a classroom setting. Dunno, but it's strange.