It’s National Grammar Day today.

Read up on grammar myths, send an e-card, have fun with grammar and more with Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty here.

And be sure to go forth and write well!

While celebrating Christmas with family in a small Ontario town this past weekend, I ran across countless examples of misspelled signs, inappropriate use of apostrophes in what should have been plurals, random capitalization of Important Words and other affronts to word nerds. Sadly, I did not have anything with me to capture them for your amusement. But here are some other random misspellings from my “glad I didn’t let that one go” files:

• the shear volume of information (sheer)
• tighten the reigns on spending (reins)
• can eek out a competitive edge (eke)
• additionnal information (additional)
• allows buyers to peak inside (peek)
• wheel barrels (wheelbarrows).

And lest you think I only look with a critical eye, here are some examples of expressive writing that I found delightful:

• “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” - Nicholas Carr in Is Google Making Us Stupid?
• “Occasionally I’ll either be tuned into my local NPR station, KCRW, at exactly the right time…or I’ll fall down some Internet rabbit hole…” - Colleen Wainwright
• “Mostly, I herded actors from room to room — I was a border collie for the comely.” - Quinn Cummings in Notes From the Underwire (a funny book, by the way).

What amusing, enjoyable or painful writing have you seen lately?

It took a while, but I encountered the first instance of  “holiday season” in a client’s newsletter I edited yesterday. This phrase drives me crazy, whether or not it is accented by unnecessary capitalization as Holiday Season. Winter is a season; so is spring. Christmas (and the ensuing holiday) is not a season, even though advertising that starts before the Halloween decorations are put away makes it seem so. So please, can we just say “holidays” rather than “holiday season”?

By coincidence, I recently ran across humorist Dave Barry’s funny take on the holiday season (thanks to Wendy Marlow), from Christmas Shopping: A Survivor’s Guide:

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’”

While trying unsuccessfully to find an online link to it, I came across this one, which reminds me of attempting to shop at a mall near me anywhere near Christmas:

“Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around a parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space.”

I hope you enjoy the laugh, and the “season”!

Here’s some more expressive writing.

Love Letter is a public art project in Philadelphia consisting of a series of 50 rooftop murals painted by local and international artists. The project began in August 2009, and is described this way:

The murals, which are best viewed from the Market-Frankford elevated transit line, collectively express a love letter from a guy to a girl, from an artist to his hometown, and from local residents to their West Philadelphia neighborhood. Love Letter, which will be documented in two books, a film, and a gallery exhibition, speaks to all those who have loved and for those who long for a way to express that love to the world around them.

For example, one mural says, “Forever begins when you say yes.” Others say, “Miss you too often not to love you” and “Look look look look any way as long as it’s at me.” (See them all here.)

For writers, it’s a reminder of how the words we choose can say so much.

For the romantic, well, it’s another excuse to admire expressive writing (like Other People’s Love Letters)!

(Thanks to Patti Digh for tweeting about the project!)

Time for a reminder to be careful out there, as we look at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world (because, of course, I am perfect and never make any myself)*:

…the pictures of the bloggers…don’t wreak of the standard sales pitch (I think it means reek)

…the project would not be aloud to proceed (allowed)

…some sight the figure as high as 41 (cite)

…you can eek out six or eight minutes (eke)

…I don’t want to temp fate (tempt)

…we spend the evening with hot totties (toddies)

…do we tow to a version of that old line (toe).

As I said, be careful out there, and watch out for “spelling by ear,” as wordsmith and columnist Alden Wood used to call it.

*Joke. I do, although I try very hard not to.

Now, this is expressive writing! Other People’s Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See (edited by Bill Shapiro), which I commented on recently, has many examples of writing that touches the heart. Here are some that appealed to me:

“I love that you sent me an actual letter. I can feel your hand on the pen, pressing firmly on the paper. Did you moisten the envelope with your lips?”

“If you were here now, I would kiss you. I would hold your hand and look at you with wonder. And then, if you would let me, I would kiss you again. And again. And again.”

“The man of your dreams, perhaps not — maybe just one of the many that have fallen, but for now I am ridiculously happy to be the one who curls himself around you.”

“The first thing I want is a park bench. Wooden, weathered, solid, comfortable. And with a view. Doesn’t have to be of the ocean. Could be a simple garden. Or a squirrel in a tree. Would you sit next to me, on my park bench? Would you take my hand and help me watch that squirrel?”

Besides the romantic interlude, what’s fun about the book is that you see the letters as they were written, on napkins, crumpled paper, e-mail printouts, postcards and scraps of paper. They are scrawled, carefully printed, typed. And at the end, there are comments from some of the people who contributed the love letters, describing how they felt digging them out (”I cried my eyes out,”  “I was completely surprised by how painful it was,” “I saw progress in how I dealt with rejection…”).

The book also includes a section with an update on how some of the lovers met and what happened to them. Some have since married; some dated briefly and then split up. One of the most touching, “Reasons Why I Love Kay” (100 things like “I can be myself when I am with you” and “You’re the one that holds the key to my heart”) was composed as a gift from Don to his wife of 24 years. Not long after, she was killed in a car accident.

When I looked up the love letter book, Amazon helpfully told me that people who bought it also bought PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions From Ordinary Lives by Frank Warren, which I also talked about. I’m not sure what that says about our voyeuristic tendencies!

Again, the book contains heartfelt messages from ordinary people. In this case, they are all writing a postcard to share a secret they have never told another soul, in response to what began as an art project in 2004. Warren started by handing out 3,000 postcards, but he has now received more than 150,000. The secrets are shared in this book and three others, the most recent being PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God, (being released Oct. 6), and on www.postsecret.com. The site gets six or seven million visitors every month, and in five years, the PostSecret community has raised $500,000 for suicide prevention.

There are happy or funny secrets:

“I bought a bunch of postcard stamps to use for PostSecret but I used them to write to my friends instead.”

“I stole your duck and took him to San Francisco.” (with a photo of a stuffed duck in hat and overalls)

“Loving you saved my life…”

but more often they are painful, touching, wistful:

“I hope there is a heaven (and I hope you’re there)”

“I wish my parents could see me for what I am…instead of what I didn’t become.”

“I’m 25, and I’ve never been kissed. It’s not that I don’t want to…it’s just that no one else does.”

Warren says, “After seeing thousands of secrets, I understand that sometimes when we believe we are keeping a secret, that secret is actually keeping us.” He relates his own experience, being reminded of a childhood humiliation he had long buried, then writing it on a postcard and walking away from the post office feeling lighter.

“Some of the most beautiful postcards in this collection came from very painful feelings and memories,” he says in the introduction. “I believe that  each one of us has the ability to discover, share, and grow our own dark secrets into something meaningful and beautiful.”

When interviewing someone for an employee newsletter article, I always ask the meaning of unusual terms, acronyms (a word, like OPEC, formed from the initial letters of other words) and initialisms (a group of initial letters pronounced individually, like CBC). People often reply, “Everyone knows what it means” because they are insiders familiar with the industry’s jargon — and every industry has some — but it’s my job as writer to assume that someone won’t. So I explain what the mystery term is up front.

Probably the worst culprits for throwing around industry jargon are sports commentators.

The men in my household are all sports fans, so I’ve heard a lot of the terms. In hockey, players don’t just get a goal, they go “top shelf” or “roof daddy,” possibly when the other team is unsuccessfully “on the PK” (penalty kill). In baseball, an easily caught fly ball is a “can of corn,” a fastball is “cheese” and a pitcher can be said to “have some good giddy-up.”

Earlier this year, I ran into a whole new vocabulary listening to commentary on curling. This is a sport I know nothing about, so I had no idea what the announcer meant talking about “hit through the hole,” “last draw” and “threw a runback hit and stick for three.” Whaaat?

A friend has taken up lawn bowling; yep, it’s got it’s own jargon, too. A ball is actually a “bowl,” and there are “backhand draws,” “hammers,” “hog line” and “bowling to the Jack.”

Writers have their own secret words, too, as I was reminded when reading a fiction writer’s blog. She talked about “wip” (which from the context seemed to mean work in progress), “pubbed nonfic writer” (published non-fiction writer), “ms” (manuscript) and “SASE” (self-addressed stamped envelope).

Sports announcers can get away with their jargon only because many of the listeners are fans and followers of the sport. As insiders, they get it.

Writers shouldn’t assume any such thing.

Some great terms, many from BuzzWhack:

Menoporsche: Male menopause. Symptoms include a sudden lack of energy, crankiness and the overpowering urge to buy a Porsche.

Seagull platform: Generally a break room or common area, where food is left out for employees to eat (donuts, bagels etc.). One minute they’re there, the next they’re gone.

PowerPoint Ranger: Someone with no real-world experience who relies heavily on PowerPoint presentations to express even the simplest of ideas.

Plankton verbs: Also known as “bottom of the food chain” verbs — is, was, are, were. Try to rework the sentence to use strong verbs instead, like earn, devour, squander, shriek or slouch. (Thanks to Shannon Paul on ProBlogger for this one and Daphne Grey-Grant for the action verbs.)

The sun is shining and it’s a brand new week. Time for a reminder to be careful out there by looking at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world:

• “eek out a living” (eke, although I like the frisson of living on the edge that “eek” suggests)
• “hit the gas pedal instead of the break” (brake)
• “the kind of place that beacons people to wind down” (beckons)
• “custom orthodics” (orthotics)
• “a tight nit group of users” (knit)
• “researchers who poured through reams of sales and demographic data” (pored over)
• “explanative-laced temper tantrum” (expletive)
• “then you’ve peaked people’s interest” (piqued)
• “take a peak at the table of contents” (peek)
• “the caulendar you used to rinse last night’s pasta” (colander)
• “seem to be doing a stirling job” (sterling).

Now, let’s hope Muphry’s law is not in effect and I haven’t inserted my own errors!

Have you noticed the use of somewhat dated phrases in modern copy? While they are interesting, I wonder if the reader’s eyes just skip right over the words without registering them. Here are a few examples:

“Above the fold” when referring to a web page. The graphic design term refers to locating the most important news story or appealing photo on the top half of a folded page, often a newspaper, considered prime real estate. That same concept has been extended to a web page, where it refers to the portion visible without scrolling.

“Lob it (or throw it) over the transom“: A transom was traditionally the horizontal window over a door in Leave-it-to-Beaver-era schools and offices; it could open and close, and I guess that’s where things were lobbed. These days, you’re more likely to see a fixed fanlight on a fancy house. Throwing an idea over the transom seems to mean submitting something for publication, like an unsolicited manuscript, or delivering anonymous tips.

“Representatives who are too far removed from the coal face to know the details…”: I’ve never worked in a coal mine, but I can imagine that the real work gets done right at the exposed surface of coal, and few executives are nearby. It’s probably right around the corner from the place where the rubber meets the road.

Not quite a dated term but certainly an interesting one: “eating our own dog food.” I had to look it up to find out it meant a company that uses the products it makes. Apparently the reference comes from a TV commercial in which actor Lorne Greene said his own dogs ate the food he was promoting.

I wonder what the lasting words and phrases from the Twitter era will be?