I recently wrote Blogging Is About Writing as a guest blogger on Darren Rowse’s Problogger. It covered some basic tips on blog writing, but its purpose was to remind us that blogging is about writing.
In “Saying YES and/or NO to life…”, Subcorpus Blog reminded me of the importance of words and their usage in a lesson in English about a billboard near the beach of Male’ near Majeedhi Magu.
The sign says… in bold red letters…
“Say yes to life OR no to drugs”…
Well… I know I don’t have a degree in English…
Nor do I know much about advertising…
But I’m guessing… this is not what they wanted to say…
I think it would have been better if they say said…
“Say yes to life AND no to drugs”…
But hey… that’s only me saying… I might be wrong…
While teaching English in the Middle East, my student, a brilliant Russian pediatric surgeon, was learning to get directions when lost. He stood in my living room, map of the city in his hand, ready to get my attention as I walked past him on the imaginary street corner.
“Excuse me, if you would be so kind as to please to help me as I have become lost…”
I stopped him. “You have to get my attention immediately. I’m four blocks down the street before you finish your first sentence. Let’s come up with something short and to the point.”
He fussed over it, battling with the politeness that infuses his native language, and came up with “Excuse me, would you please help me?”
We took our positions to replay the stranger-stopping-a-passerby as my student practiced how to say it fast, like an “‘mericahn” would. “Excuse me, would you please help me? Excuse me, would you please help me?” He recited it over and over, faster and faster. Finally he was ready and I “passed” by.
“Excuse me, would you please me?”
I don’t know how long I was on the floor laughing. Every time I went to stand up, I’d see his puzzled face, not understanding, and realize that I now had to tell him the difference between “would you please help me” and “would you please me”, a task I wasn’t up to.
All it takes is one word to totally change the entire context.
As we write our blog posts, how often do you stop to pay attention to what you’ve written? Do you pause and examine the words, making sure it really says what you want it to say? Or do you just rant and rave and hope everyone will forgive you for missed spellings, bad grammar, and mind-reading writing? Do you fix the errors later, or just let them go, on to the next blog post? Are the words you use to express yourself important enough to get them right before hitting the publish button?
I believe editing is the most important part of writing. Many bloggers just type their thoughts directly to their blogs. I would hate to rummage around inside your head to try to figure out what you were thinking, so why should your blog posts resemble a download straight from your brain?
Once we have the idea down on paper, it’s up to the smarter part of ourselves to edit it, making the words make sense, grouping them into collected bits of data to form ideas and cohesive thoughts so others can follow along with us.
It’s easy to let your mind race ahead of what you are typing. Your eagerness to get your words out can leave some behind or scramble what does make it to the published page. Take time to edit, evaluating each word on the page before you hit publish. It’s harder to fix it later.
Remember, all it takes is one word to change the entire meaning.
Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on Lorelle on WordPress.
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