Mazzou's Melliflous Memories: A Young VF Girl's Blog

[mockingbird]

She's not great at big words. "Imaginable" doesn't mean "imaginative".

LOL, I was just coming over to post about that one :lol: Another skill in writing is to know your audience, and part of that means using words they are familiar with instead of just throwing in random archaic/"big" words to prove your intelligence. The point of writing is to communicate with others... if they can't understand you, your ability to communicate is lost. Granted, I'm not sure if the average fundy teen/young adult knows the word "prolix" because learning "big words" seems to be a common hobby among that population, but if you were writing to the general American teen/young adult "verbose" might be a better choice.

I do feel sorry for some of the SAHDs too. The ones who try to sound so intellectual... it's like they are grasping at anything and everything they have. I think those types of bloggers would probably enjoy further schooling than their parents have allowed. I spent awhile dissecting some of Lady Bibliophile's posts, but I really think she'd probably LOVE a real literary criticism class, if she were allowed to take one, and might like a job in publishing. She could even work in freelance and still be a SAHM if she wanted, but she can't do that without better writing education. So I feel bad they aren't able to pursue those things (or doing so would possibly cost them a good relationship with their family if they were to "break free").

Anyway, I had to watch the "dramatic flip flop rescue" video and it reminded me of the Arndts... so "exciting" to watch :penguin-no:

I also think it's stupid that they were switching paddleboats while in the water/not docked. I don't think that is the greatest idea but I guess they needed the rental place to explicitly spell that out to them :doh:

Her book reviews were kind-of shallow and short, but I have to say they were a little better in my mind than Lady Bibliophile's because she seems to get the point of a book REVIEW: she focuses mostly on giving her opinion rather than a summary, AND she comments on the writing style/content of the book in addition to "is this book 'Godly'?" This though: "the author has that unique weakness as I for such elite foods as bacon-wrapped dates, figs, chocolate, cheese and such" Sorry, liking chocolate and cheese doesn't make you unique! :lol:

[MyName]

Couple pages into the blog there is, I shit you not, a young guy dressed up in a white wig "reading the Constitution."

[dairyfreelife]

oh man, I wish she posted more of that "native american" themed party. Got to love the casual racism of throwing a party themed as an oppressed people's culture. Of course, she seems to think she is English and from a few hundred years ago so maybe its all part of colonializing fun.

Glad I wasn't the only one who saw that was like :wtf: . Also, the war-theme...because war is so cool and fun, y'all :roll: :cray-cray:

[Confused_by_religion]

I just glanced at her last entries and compared to other fundie families these people actually seem to be doing things that are fun.

Plus you can also learn that, once you "give [your] body to the Lord", it becomes much, much easier to avoid sugar and other sinful comfort foods. (That's in her book review of "Why Diets Don't Work"). So that might be useful, especially after Christmas.

[Rosie]

You mean you do not celebrate Labour Day with your Mum?

I don't spell things in the English way, but I grew up in the Boston area calling my mother "mum," and she signed cards that way. All of my relatives' and friends' mothers were *mum* as well.

[artdecades]

I tend to use British spellings because the first few years at school we were taught those instead of, say, American spelling. It was only after a few years when we heard spoken American English and the whole class started to laugh. It just sounded so odd (and later Australian English even more odd...). Mind you, my English classes started back in the eighties when we had only 2-3 TV channels in our television and hearing English was not so common as it is today when one cannot escape English anywhere (not saying that it is a bad thing).

Name Marjo was something I noticed immidiately. It is quite popular name here in Finland but how common it is in the US? Do they have European/Russian background because sibling names are also a bit different than I would expect in American family. Katia, Elodie and Nikola, for example.

Based on her facebook, I think they may be Serbian. There are a lot of posts about Serbian statehood day

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mazzous- ... 4023615970

[nelliebelle1197]

Her book reviews were kind-of shallow and short, but I have to say they were a little better in my mind than Lady Bibliophile's because she seems to get the point of a book REVIEW: she focuses mostly on giving her opinion rather than a summary, AND she comments on the writing style/content of the book in addition to "is this book 'Godly'?" This though: "the author has that unique weakness as I for such elite foods as bacon-wrapped dates, figs, chocolate, cheese and such" Sorry, liking chocolate and cheese doesn't make you unique! :lol:

THIS! I ran over here to post this blog again when I saw the posting on the "elite" foods! I was hoping someone else would spot that little gem.

[nelliebelle1197]

I don't spell things in the English way, but I grew up in the Boston area calling my mother "mum," and she signed cards that way. All of my relatives' and friends' mothers were *mum* as well.

Which is fine. But this and the other comments are made in context of the rest of that blog, not your life.

[acheronbeach]

Why does she start so many of her sentences with "and"? Why use all those unnecessarily turgid words? She's also fond of exclamation points and ellipses with too many periods. Her writing doesn't reflect someone who has been taught even the basics of how to write. She's obviously never even glanced at Strunk and White, and I feel like that's a pretty basic English class text.

Another sad example of the SOTDRT, unfortunately.

[Palimpsest]

Stuff like what you said drives me batty. I spell things half British and half American because my Mom is from Scotland and I read a great deal more British lit and visit more British websites than I do American. I'm also a translator & linguist, so I work with a lot of writing that was written with British conventions. I'm not trying to be cute or whatever; it's simply how I spell. If I spell colour with a U, I'm not being pretentious. It's because I've *always* spelt colour with a u. Gah.

Thank God for spellcheck, though. At least that helps me write with American spellings in work & school documents so that I don't look like an idiot.

LOL, I agree and I must drive people nuts because I don't always run spell check when I post on FJ. I have to professionally. On FJ I usually don't bother.

I used to be able to spell really well -- in British English. After 30 years in the USA I now waiver between American spelling and British spelling and they often both look wrong. It is not the color/colour thing that bothers me. That is easy. What is hard is the defence/defense, skeptical/sceptical, focused/focussed stuff. :angry-banghead:

[Rachel333]

I'm talking about Americans who just choose to use British spelling. I have a friend who still does this, and he's in grad school. He's never even left the US, and I don't think he'd approve of the UK's evil socialized health care system these days anyway. He over-corrects, too; all throughout college he'd talk about his "majour." :lol:

[Palimpsest]

I'm talking about Americans who just choose to use British spelling. I have a friend who still does this, and he's in grad school. He's never even left the US, and I don't think he'd approve of the UK's evil socialized health care system these days anyway. He over-corrects, too; all throughout college he'd talk about his "majour." :lol:

:cracking-up: :cracking-up: :cracking-up:

[ladyamylynn]

Poor girl seems to have it pretty bad for one or more of the Thomas boys.

They were all SO HAPPY that Matthew and Micaiah attended their dance practice! mazzoumemories.blogspot.com/2013/06/april-overview.html

In this post, they pose in front of a Thomasville Furniture store, captioned coyly "The Happiest Place on Earth."

mazzoumemories.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-marvelous-and-belated-may.html

I think she's barking up the wrong tree here.

[grovelina]

On the jail/gaol spelling, is gaol pronounced the same way as jail? Whenever I read that word I always pronounce it (in my head) ga-oul.

[JesusFightClub]

On the jail/gaol spelling, is gaol pronounced the same way as jail? Whenever I read that word I always pronounce it (in my head) ga-oul.

Yes, they both say "jail".

[snarktastic]

On the jail/gaol spelling, is gaol pronounced the same way as jail? Whenever I read that word I always pronounce it (in my head) ga-oul.

Yup, you say them the same.

I'm a Brit and I'm forever forgetting the British words for things (too much American telly).

Glad you lot are just as confused as we are :D

[August]

All I want to know is why you visit a pediatric orthopaedist.

[Loveday]

I'm talking about Americans who just choose to use British spelling. I have a friend who still does this, and he's in grad school. He's never even left the US, and I don't think he'd approve of the UK's evil socialized health care system these days anyway. He over-corrects, too; all throughout college he'd talk about his "majour." :lol:

Okay, now I'm not THAT bad. I do at least try to use correct British spelling! :lol:

[mockingbird]

All I want to know is why you visit a pediatric orthopaedist.

It's orthopedist in the states... and both are "paed" in the UK AFAIK... :)

ETA: I didn't know the official US society spells it with the "ae". I think my orthopedist did not (in the office name/description) so I just assumed it was the norm. You learn something new every day! :lol: Anyway I think the "e" is perfectly fine here, but I don't know why one stayed over the other!

[IamCanadian]

I'm American, but I've been spelling many words the English way for over 40 years, thanks to early and much exposure to British literature. I don't do it to be cool, or 'more English,' I do it because it's natural to me; I can't type 'neighbour' without the u unless I stop and think about it for a minute, which slows me down too much. If that makes me seem loony to you, I can easily live with that. ;)

-our and -re isn't the English way as much as it is the non-American way. It's only the US that removes the U and switches the -re around. The rest of the English-speaking world leaves these words intact.

[nelliebelle1197]

Poor girl seems to have it pretty bad for one or more of the Thomas boys.

They were all SO HAPPY that Matthew and Micaiah attended their dance practice! mazzoumemories.blogspot.com/2013/06/april-overview.html

In this post, they pose in front of a Thomasville Furniture store, captioned coyly "The Happiest Place on Earth."

mazzoumemories.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-marvelous-and-belated-may.html

I think she's barking up the wrong tree here.

She really does have it BADDD for them. I am almost embarrassed for her.

[Trynn]

LOL, I was just coming over to post about that one :lol: Another skill in writing is to know your audience, and part of that means using words they are familiar with instead of just throwing in random archaic/"big" words to prove your intelligence. The point of writing is to communicate with others... if they can't understand you, your ability to communicate is lost. Granted, I'm not sure if the average fundy teen/young adult knows the word "prolix" because learning "big words" seems to be a common hobby among that population, but if you were writing to the general American teen/young adult "verbose" might be a better choice.

I do feel sorry for some of the SAHDs too. The ones who try to sound so intellectual... it's like they are grasping at anything and everything they have. I think those types of bloggers would probably enjoy further schooling than their parents have allowed. I spent awhile dissecting some of Lady Bibliophile's posts, but I really think she'd probably LOVE a real literary criticism class, if she were allowed to take one, and might like a job in publishing. She could even work in freelance and still be a SAHM if she wanted, but she can't do that without better writing education. So I feel bad they aren't able to pursue those things (or doing so would possibly cost them a good relationship with their family if they were to "break free").

Anyway, I had to watch the "dramatic flip flop rescue" video and it reminded me of the Arndts... so "exciting" to watch :penguin-no:

I also think it's stupid that they were switching paddleboats while in the water/not docked. I don't think that is the greatest idea but I guess they needed the rental place to explicitly spell that out to them :doh:

Her book reviews were kind-of shallow and short, but I have to say they were a little better in my mind than Lady Bibliophile's because she seems to get the point of a book REVIEW: she focuses mostly on giving her opinion rather than a summary, AND she comments on the writing style/content of the book in addition to "is this book 'Godly'?" This though: "the author has that unique weakness as I for such elite foods as bacon-wrapped dates, figs, chocolate, cheese and such" Sorry, liking chocolate and cheese doesn't make you unique! :lol:

It does if you like to combine the two...

[Lainey]

-our and -re isn't the English way as much as it is the non-American way. It's only the US that removes the U and switches the -re around. The rest of the English-speaking world leaves these words intact.

Yes, this. Thank you.

[Loveday]

Yes, this. Thank you.

I was going to ask if anyone knew why the US is different, but decided to research it for myself. :) Seems it's Noah Webster's fault:

"...According to "A History of English Spelling" (Manchester University, 2011) by D.G. Scragg, Webster's dictionary of 1828 is largely responsible for standardizing the accepted spelling of American English. Before 1828, many words, such as humor (or humour), defense (or defence) and fiber (or fibre), had two acceptable spellings on both sides of the pond, because they were introduced in England via both Latin and French, which used different spellings. Webster picked his preferred forms (the former ones in each example above), justifying his choices in various ways, but partly on nationalist grounds: he wanted American spelling to be distinct from, and (in his opinion) superior to, British spelling." http://www.livescience.com/33844-britis ... lling.html (I hope it's okay to not break the link in this case)

I learned something new today. :dance: