I must say I'm really enjoying the new English Teacher album. It's probably best thought of as post-punk but it defies easy categorization. It's as often chill as it is skronky and the vocals are talky but melodic. Their secret weapon is Lily Fontaine, the young, black, female poet they have as a vocalist/lyricist. The album is a real grower. It shouldn't be my thing at all but I'm really digging it https://englishteacher.bandcamp.com/album/this-could-be-texas#NewMusic#NowPlaying#PostPunk#Leeds#Bandcamp#EnglishTeacher#Music
This week's #poetry post presents Thomas Wentworth Higginson's 'The February Hush'. It includes a simple vocabulary exercise intended for English language learners.
In the latest blog post I'm sharing on how you can use opera as a language learning tool. As an example, I've chosen one of my favourite ones, Henry Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas'.
In the blog post you also find the libretto so you can follow this opera more easily. I hope you'll like it as much as I do!
Although it still feels a lot like summer over here, this week's blog post features an autumn-themed poem, namely 'Fall Song' by the Greek poet Napoleon Lapathiotis (in Alex Moskios' translation). 🍂
If you've never heard of this amazing neo-romantic poet, the post also includes some background on him, as well as a simple vocabulary exercise intended for English language learners.
Going to have a bit of an #EnglishTeacher moment here. If you are a #Writer - if you write stories, market yourself as a writer, present yourself as a writer, use Patreon to post writing, etc. - there are two absolutely fundamental concepts that you MUST understand, that a lot of self-professed "writers" seem to NOT understand:
When to use (and perhaps more importantly, when NOT to use) apostrophes. Apostrophes are never used to make words plural. Ever.
WRONG: "Back in the 1980's"
RIGHT: "Back in the 1980s"
WRONG: "Please read my story's."
RIGHT: "Please read my stories."
The only, single, ultra-ultra-specific exception to this rule is if you have to use an apostrophe to prevent the plural from being confused with another word (for example, "I got all A's on my report card" or "There are two U's in the word 'vacuum'"), but that's extremely rare. The other apostrophe rule that feels counterintuitive is the difference between "its" and "it's." Because you've been taught that "apostrophes are for possession," it's natural to assume that "it's" (with an apostrophe) is for possession. But the possessive apostrophe is only for nouns, not pronouns. "It's" (with an apostrophe) is always, without exception, a contraction of "it is" or "it has." If you can't fit "it is" or "it has" where you're trying to use "it's," it doesn't work. Use "its" (no apostrophe) instead.
You MUST learn the difference between "your" and "you're." There are so many writers who just default to using "your" for everything, which is glaringly, distractingly wrong. If I'm reading a kinky story, absolutely nothing will take me out of headspace faster than a dom character saying "I'm going to do this and your going to like it." It should be "and you're going to like it." The phrase is not "your welcome," but "you're welcome." It's not even that people need to "learn the difference between 'your' and 'you're,'" but rather, people need to start remembering that "you're" exists, because so many people just... don't bother. Any time you use "your," ask yourself, "does 'you are' fit here?" Because if it DOES, you need to use "you're" instead. "Your" means "belonging to you," as in "Have you finished eating your breakfast yet? Is it time to change your diaper?"
These are not just pet peeves. These are elementary mistakes that I see a lot of self-professed writers make constantly. It bugs me that so many people who want to call themselves "writers" seem to think that the rules of grammar and syntax are "pedantic." Literature is an art - and just like any other art, there are rules and conventions for composition, and that orthodoxy has largely developed because they are the forms that make the most sense for clearly communicating to the audience. Those rules and conventions are not immutable; you can certainly be unconventional and break the rules. But you're not being a "rebel" or a "maverick" by refusing to learn elementary syntax forms; all you're doing is giving the appearance that you can't be bothered to take the time to learn your own craft.
I'm not being a "Grammar Nazi" (god I hate that term); I'm not going to come into your stories and say "you're doing this wrong" or publicly criticize you (specific person reading this) when you haven't asked for criticism, because that's a rude thing to do to artists. I'm just saying that these are common mistakes I see among self-professed writers, and I hope any of you who see this will take note of it so you can improve your craft - because ultimately, I want writers to succeed; they don't get enough love as it is.