Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

This is my technical communicator parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s monster hit “Bad Romance”. Her Youtube video is approaching 200,000,000 views. For related videos and lyrics, do Google searches. Note: Lyrics accuracy varies among sites. Lyricsmode.com, which I used for most of my research and initial lyrics, had the best accuracy contrasted with other lyrics sites.

Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

Uh oh uh oh oh oh no no no no no no,
Your doc seems pretty poor.
…

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/04/bad-prose-rants-from-lady-wawa.html.]

Rich Man Poor Man

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Rich man. Poor man. Beggar man. Thief. Doctor. Lawyer. Indian chief. From my recollection, these occupations/titles were designators in a child's poem for buttons that would foretell the clothing-wearer's fate. (Never mind that people don't wear only one article of clothing for life.) …

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/04/rich-man-poor-man.html.]

52-week Year As 13 Months

Instead of the current calendar that has the inconsistent spread over 28, 29, 30, and 31 days—depending on leap year, leap century, or regular year numbers, it'd be dandy to divvy up the 52 weeks differently. How about 13 months of four weeks each, with the leftover one or two days as bonus day(s) for the 13th month of the year? A year has 365 days in a normal year. Using 13 as the divisor, the quotient winds up as 28 (four exact weeks), with one day left over—two if 366-day year. …

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/04/52-week-year-as-13-months.html.]

[Two] Name Game

I recently and inadvertently coined a phrase. I was asked a simple question: “How do you know she’s Southern?" I weighed my potentially loaded answer. Finally, I shyly admitted, “Because she’s one of those two-name girls.” The room erupted in laughter. Apparently my hypothesis was an astute one

What or whom is a two-name girl? A two-name girl is a female whose spoken name consists of two distinct names. According to sources, the two-name or double name practice is a way for parents to honor family members in a non-traditional way. Ironically, this naming system has become so prevalent in the Southern region of the United States, it is no longer unique. According to Lee Pederson, specialist in Southern dialects, this occurred because of the “much longer tradition in the South of passing on language through speech, rather than . . . written English."

There are no hard-and-fast rules concerning the structure or rhythm of said monikers. Hyphenated, two names scrunched together into one (a frankenword) or two distinct nom de plumes with a space between are typical written variations. Some names are more lyrical than others (Georgia-Marlane vs. Curly Sue). Some are succinct (MaryJo), and others are lung-capacity challenging (Alexandria Josephine).

Whether she is an icon’s daughter, tycoon’s wife, entrepreneur, artist or fire chief , two things are true of all two-name girls:
1) She is Southern born or the progeny of Southerners
2) She will never allow you to refer to her by merely one of her two names
Furthermore, bearers of double derivative names – male or female – have a harder time and less fun playing . . . “The Name Game.”

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter

This article is a sibling recipe to my Valentine cooky recipe. This simple recipe requires only 4 ingredients:

• 1 box vanilla or otherwise light-color cake mix
• 1/3 cup of oil
• 2 eggs
• various-color sugars

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/03/convenient-cake-mix-cooky-batch-easter.html.]

Pronunciations Heck with Hermione and Homage

As my occupation (technical writing) is more involved with the written rather than spoken word, I often trip over pronunciations of words that I read rather than speak, particularly non-English names. But even with a name common in England consciousness, one gives me problems in particular—Hermione …

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/03/pronunciations-heck-with-hermione-and.html.]

Technical Communications Means

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Telephone and mail correspondence—mostly referenced in songs, movies, and a few TV shows are the technical communications means I'm talking about. At the time of those media release, they reflected the prevailing technology for non-f2f interactions. Back then, letters did not reach recipients within seconds, older phone calls person-to-person required manual dialing on a rotary dial (woe if numbers were 8s, 9s, or zeros and your dialing finger slipped), and there was no Caller ID nor answering machine. Cheap mass mailing? Fuggedaboutit!…

• Songs that Feature Letters
• Songs that Feature Phones
• Movies that Feature Phones and Letters
• TV Shows that Feature Phones

[Read entire article at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/03/technical-communications-means_09.html.]