VARIETY OF THE VARIED

 

You may have heard a variation of the phrase two people equals three opinions.

 

This phrase purports the notion that each pair of eyes sees a variation of an image, each pair of ears registers sounds as variations on a theme, and each person’s mind colors the same set of facts with a different hue.

 

I am reminded of this miracle every week, when my online picture book critique group gives feedback to a single manuscript. We share a group email thread so everyone can read others’ take.

 

I am usually the first or second to respond, and I give it all I’ve got. But when others’ feedback comes in I’m astounded at the points I missed, the typo I didn’t mark (less about that, because I’m Ms. Typo myself) and the essential fixes I never saw a need for when I read.

 

Conventional wisdom is to revise if more than one person highlights the same flaw. To be sure, there are matters most of us will note even as the offered fixes vary.

But it’s the singular opinions that strike me every time. Once pointed out, they pulsate in neon as so obvious I wonder how I missed such in my feedback.

 

 

Which is my way of appreciating the dynamic and usefulness of a good group.

©Image by Diane Kress Hower

http://pensandbrushes.weebly.com/

THIRTY YEARS, and counting~~~

 Thirty years ago today

💗 Oh my 💗

💕 Feeling very accomplished 💕

💞

GENERATIONAL WORDS

 

Language is a living organism.

When I learned English (starting in fifth grade) my teachers, all of them, would have dinged me for referring to a single individual as “they” or “them.”

 

But it’s more than the new pronouns. I learned that generation Zers use the word interesting as a negative, when you don’t want to say someone or something is peculiar in a negative way. To me, interesting is one of the highest compliments.

 

I learned that ending a text* with a period may be grammatically correct, but Zers find it negative and admonishing.

*Speaking of texts, lol and lmao

 

I learned that referring to another as being on the same wavelength is a radio reference that makes me a hundred years old.

 

I learned that rad, short for radical, is high praise. Not being empathetic to radicalism, this feels wrong. Sue me.

(Speaking of, “sue me” is also very baby-boomerish.)

 

Yikes is an expletive/interjection only grandmas use.

 

Bad used to mean bad. Then it became good, as in very good. It’s back to being bad again, depending on the community.

 

Ms., once a neutral replacement to Miss/Mrs., is moving towards Mx. and replaces Mr. also.

 

Language is a living thing, and that’s cool.

 

At least cool, which replaced warmly wonderful, has stuck around since the 1950s.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY

💖 USA 💖

Celebrating you today 🎪