Scott Westerfeld loves language. Read Bogus to Bubbly and you’ll see how much effort he puts into creating worlds. I found myself saying “nausea-making” in conversation and realized I had read too much about Tally Youngblood.

I’m reading Behemoth right now and it’s a good follow-up to Leviathan. What I’m noticing, though, is his repeated use of lingo from the time period. In reading a blog post of his about using wordle to judge word choice, I caught on to how I overuse words like “just” or “walked” in my own writing (and offenses from an author whose name rhymes with “Ames Atterson”).

That’s why I’m surprised to see squick, Dummkopf, and barking spiders show up on almost every other page. I’m no Clanker expert, but I’m sure steampunkers have other ways to say words. In Uglies, it was a set of syntax rules. Here, it’s more a short list of vocab words. It doesn’t take too much away from my reading enjoyment, but, as I’m working on a writing project with its own grammar rules, I’m trying to learn for my own nausea-making world-creating.

I’d tell you more but I want to read.

Here’s today’s example, a project for our maintenance staff:

I love the font.

A friend of mine uses FirstGiving to organize fundraising events for HopeKids. I’m wondering if our school could use it for raising money for ALS research/treatments, like what we did with our staff fashion show.

Check out Improv Everywhere re-enact the opening scene from A New Hope:

Check out the real-life interview of Mark Twain by Rudyard Kipling here.

io9 has a great article about using the Find feature in Word to improve your manuscript. That article can be found here.

I’ve seen other videos parodying the Black-Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”, but this one is fun for librarians:

Also, a congratulations to the school for choreographing that many students.

Here’s a hint: De Beproeving has been around longer.

I find it funny that:

1. There is a Spelling Society.
2. The author of the article had misspelled the Spelling Society guy’s name.

Here’s the article from the Associated Press:

Sat Jun 20, 3:49 pm ET

LONDON – It’s a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned — “i before e, except after c.”

But new British government guidance tells teachers not to pass on the rule to students, because there are too many exceptions.

The “Support For Spelling” document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools, says the rule “is not worth teaching” because it doesn’t account for words like ‘sufficient,’ ‘veil’ and ‘their.’

Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling, said Saturday he agreed with the decision.

But supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of Bovill, sted Bovell, in graf 4.)

Is it a reference to 1984? Is it a book about tax codes? Whatever it is, it’s a book that’s selling out in Japan before it hits the shelves – no one knows what it’s about, except that they want it.