ENGL 5033 Graduate Research and Writing (BA): Just For Fun

Ode to the Spell Check
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It cam with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew!

How to Write Good
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
3. Employ the vernacular.
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6. Remember to never split an infinitive.
7. Contractions aren't necessary.
8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
9. One should never generalize.
10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
11. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
12. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
13. Be more or less specific.
14. Understatement is always best.
15. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
16. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
17. The passive voice is to be avoided.
18. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
19. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
20. Who needs rhetorical questions?
21. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
22. Don't never use a double negation.
23. capitalize every sentence and remember always end it with point
24. Do not put statements in the negative form.
25. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
26. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
27. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
28. A writer must not shift your point of view.
29. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
30. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
31. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to the irantecedents.
32. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
33. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
34. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
35. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
36. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
37. Always pick on the correct idiom.
38. The adverb always follows the verb.
39. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; They're old hat; seek viable alternatives.

"I had a dream last night that I wrote Lord of the rings, I was Tolkien in my sleep!"

"A man walks into a book shop and says, ‘Can I have a book by Shakespeare?’ ‘Of course, sir,’ says the salesman. ‘Which one?’ The man replies, ‘William."

"A writer dies and Saint Peter offers him the choice of Hell or Heaven. To see what he has in store Saint Peter takes him to Hell where rows of writers are chained to their desks being whipped by demons in a steaming dungeon. However, when they get to Heaven the writer is astonished to see that nothing has changed – rows of writers are chained to their desks in a steaming dungeon being whipped. ‘Hey!’ says the writer, ‘this is just as bad as Hell!’ ‘No, it’s not,’ replies Saint Peter. ‘Up here you get published."

"A writer sends his manuscript to a publisher with a note saying, ‘None of the characters in this story bear any resemblance to any person living or dead.’ The publisher sends back the book with a note saying, ‘That’s what’s wrong with it."

"A young man professed a desire to become a great writer. When asked to define ‘great’ he said, ‘I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!’ He now works for Microsoft writing error messages."

"Dick is introduced to an author at a party. ‘My last book was terribly difficult,’ the author says. ‘It took me over six years to complete.’ ‘I can sympathise,’ replies Dick. ‘I’m a slow reader myself."

"Harry took up writing as a profession and sold loads of stuff – his TV, his stereo, his furniture, his car…"

How many screenwriters does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer:  Ten.
1st draft.  Hero changes light bulb.
2nd draft.  Villain changes light bulb.
3rd draft.  Hero stops villain from changing light bulb.  Villain falls to death.
4th draft.  Lose the light bulb.
5th draft.  Light bulb back in.  Fluorescent instead of tungsten.
6th draft.  Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero's mentor.
7th draft.  Fluorescent not working.  Back to tungsten.
8th draft.  Hero forces villain to eat light bulb.
9th draft.  Hero laments loss of light bulb.  Doesn't change it.
10th draft.  Hero changes light bulb.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."