# Odd Things



## bazz cargo (Sep 8, 2012)

Every now and then I come across something that I want to share. Bits of interviews, insightful nuggets of information.

So why not share? If anyone else has something to bring to the party, hey why not?

BBC iplayer has an archive of interviews held by a regular arts programme called front row.


BBC Radio 4 - Front Row - Front Row - Books 

Hidden away on yahoo is a nice interview by E L James.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/how...e-l-james.html

Any one else got anything?


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## Bloggsworth (Sep 8, 2012)

1) This site will keep writers entertained for days! Home | clivejames.com

2) Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington...

3) If you come across a word you don't know, look it up, find out what it means and find a way to use it in in conversation within the next 24 hours.

4) A handbook of rhetorical devices http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm#Epizeuxis

5) English 310, a free modern poetry course from YALE http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-310


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## TinyDancer (Sep 9, 2012)

cool site Bloggsworth.


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## The Backward OX (Oct 10, 2012)

Bloggsworth said:


> 1) 4) A handbook of rhetorical devices http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm#Epizeuxis



*41. **Apostrophe* interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back: 

O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect . . . . --Richard de Bury
O books who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully! -- Richard de Bury
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! --Luke 13:34 (NASB)
Apostrophe does not appear very often in argumentative writing because formal argument is by its nature fairly restrained and intellectual rather than emotional; but under the right circumstances an apostrophe could be useful: 

But all such reasons notwithstanding, dear reader, does not the cost in lives persuade you by itself that we must do something immediately about the situation?



Eh? What's he on about?


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## HKayG (Oct 10, 2012)

This is a brilliant thread. I'll be sure to help out when I come across anything useful!


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## Cran (Oct 10, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> *41. **Apostrophe* interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back:
> 
> 
> Eh? What's he on about?


Bad editing - the writing is about the _exclamation mark_, not the _apostrophe_.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 10, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> *41. **Apostrophe* interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back: [...]
> Eh? What's he on about?


"Apostrophe" usually refers to the punctuation mark we so often see abused, but the word also designates a certain kind of speech, described accurately in this quotation. Hence the verb "to apostrophize." 

Here is the Wikipedia entry on the topic: Apostrophe (figure of speech) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Cran (Oct 10, 2012)

Hence the confusion.


> "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!", from Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville


-Apostrophe (figure of speech) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Morkonan (Oct 20, 2012)

Just in case some may not have seen this site before - Home Page - Television Tropes & Idioms


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## Staff Deployment (Oct 21, 2012)

Morkonan said:


> Just in case some may not have seen this site before - Home Page - Television Tropes & Idioms



I am certain I do not speak alone when I say I wish I had not.

_(That's five "I"s for those keeping score. Self-obsession is a powerful drug)_


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## PaoloRuz (Jan 30, 2016)

Talking about the odd things related to writing: recently I've discovered that there is a wholesome business of paid essay writing services: http://writingdeal.com/essay-editing-services. Doesn't it suppose to mean that nowadays the concept of authorship is completely blurred and undefined? I mean, everyone can just order their literary work to be written by someone else and then just claim it as his/her own on the ground that it was paid for? It makes me anxious about future of world’s education and literature to be sure.


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## PaoloRuz (Feb 10, 2016)

To continue that trend, there are also services that offer dissertation writing for money. What's next? Are they going to write literature peaces for lazy writers too?


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## Terry D (Feb 10, 2016)

PaoloRuz said:


> To continue that trend, there are also services that offer dissertation writing for money. What's next? Are they going to write literature peaces for lazy writers too?



Yeah. The're called 'co-authors'. James Patterson has had about a dozen of them.


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