Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Pepper Basham's blog today
Pepper asked me two questions.
1. Who is your favorite heroine & hero you've ever written?
2. What is the 'behind the scenes story' for the creation of that hero & heroine?
Mean, cruel questions,
cuz I love ALL my characters.
If I didn't, I rewrite them before I turned them in, now wouldn't I?
Come see who I picked.
on
Faith and Fiction on Fire
Come see who I picked.
on
Faith and Fiction on Fire
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Fun with Words
LONGEST CALCULATOR WORD
The art of calculator spelling--Type in numbers and turn the calculator upside down and you've got a word.
The longest is 53177187714 which spells hILLBILLIES. Eleven letters long.
A close second 378193771 or ILLEGIBLE with nine letters.
The art of calculator spelling--Type in numbers and turn the calculator upside down and you've got a word.
The longest is 53177187714 which spells hILLBILLIES. Eleven letters long.
A close second 378193771 or ILLEGIBLE with nine letters.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Fun With Words
English is a language which permits the legitimate extension of existing words to serve new purposes by the addition of prefixes and suffixes.
This is sometimes referred to as agglutinative construction.
This process can create arbitrarily long words: for example, the prefixes pseudo (false, spurious) and anti (against, opposed to) can be added as many times as desired.
A word like anti-aircraft (pertaining to the defense against aircraft) is easily extended to anti-anti-aircraft (pertaining to counteracting the defense against aircraft, a legitimate concept) and can from there be prefixed with an endless stream of "anti-"s, each time creating a new level of counteraction. More familiarly, the addition of numerous "great"s to a relative, e.g. great-great-great-grandfather, can produce words of arbitrary length.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism" is the longest common example of a word formed by agglutinative construction, as follows (the numbers succeeding the word refer to the number of letters in the word):
establish (9)
to set up, put in place, or institute (originally from the Latin stare, to stand)
dis-establish (12)
to end the established status of a body, in particular a church, given such status by law, such as the Church of England
disestablish-ment (16)
the separation of church and state (specifically in this context it is the political movement of the 1860s in Britain)
anti-disestablishment (20)
opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishment-ary (23)
of or pertaining to opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishmentari-an (25)
an opponent of disestablishment
antidisestablishmentarian-ism (28)
the movement or ideology that opposes disestablishment
The use of additional affixes could stretch the word to the oft-cited 'pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism' (34) or 'antidisestablishmentarianisticalized,' (36)
This is sometimes referred to as agglutinative construction.
This process can create arbitrarily long words: for example, the prefixes pseudo (false, spurious) and anti (against, opposed to) can be added as many times as desired.
A word like anti-aircraft (pertaining to the defense against aircraft) is easily extended to anti-anti-aircraft (pertaining to counteracting the defense against aircraft, a legitimate concept) and can from there be prefixed with an endless stream of "anti-"s, each time creating a new level of counteraction. More familiarly, the addition of numerous "great"s to a relative, e.g. great-great-great-grandfather, can produce words of arbitrary length.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism" is the longest common example of a word formed by agglutinative construction, as follows (the numbers succeeding the word refer to the number of letters in the word):
establish (9)
to set up, put in place, or institute (originally from the Latin stare, to stand)
dis-establish (12)
to end the established status of a body, in particular a church, given such status by law, such as the Church of England
disestablish-ment (16)
the separation of church and state (specifically in this context it is the political movement of the 1860s in Britain)
anti-disestablishment (20)
opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishment-ary (23)
of or pertaining to opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishmentari-an (25)
an opponent of disestablishment
antidisestablishmentarian-ism (28)
the movement or ideology that opposes disestablishment
The use of additional affixes could stretch the word to the oft-cited 'pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism' (34) or 'antidisestablishmentarianisticalized,' (36)
Author by Night
I had a lot of fun with this interview.
in the November Issue of
Christian Fiction Online Magazine
Come and read about Mary the Insomniac
who is
Saturday, October 31, 2009
HAUNTED HOUSE
Build a home for the spirits
who have fallen from this terrible weapon.
You must never stop building the house.
If you stop, you will die.”
TODAY ON
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I seriously predicted this nearly ten years ago
WALMART SELLING CASKETS
Costco, too.
Walmart doing funerals.
I've believed for years that the funeral industry was ripe for someone to come in and compete. The massively expensive strangle hold they have on a family, during a terrible time of loss is terrible.
I feel a little bit psychic today. :)
Long overdue.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble Minded Youth
I'm on Petticoats & Pistols today
School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Children, South Boston (moved to Waltham in 1887) – Massachusetts State Reform School, Westbrorough (later “Lyman School for Boys”)
Okay, why can’t I quit laughing about this having it’s name changed to School for Boys?
It’s my own male bashing reflex no doubt.
When we’re doing research we just stumble on the weirdest things.
When we’re doing research we just stumble on the weirdest things.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Fun with Words
Common words in general text
Most of the longest English words are not likely to occur in general text, meaning non-technical present-day text seen by casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use an unusually long word.
The longest words likely to be encountered in general text are deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries, with 22 letters each.
A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is uncharacteristically, at 20 letters.
Most of the longest English words are not likely to occur in general text, meaning non-technical present-day text seen by casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use an unusually long word.
The longest words likely to be encountered in general text are deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries, with 22 letters each.
A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is uncharacteristically, at 20 letters.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Petticoat Ranch now available on KINDLE
I just found this out.
Petticoat Ranch
and most of my other books
is now available on
KINDLE.
I don't know how many Kindle users there are out there
But this is new and interesting.
Buy it on
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Elle at rest
I try to resist putting picture of my granddaughter on this blog. I mean, at FIRST I didn't try very hard. But lately I've been trying. Until I got this picture and I realized that she is so incredibly beautiful that honestly, it's just not right for me to keep it from you. And it's not right to wield that kind of power over the world-the power of having this picture and not sharing it. The world is just so much better of a place with this picture up for all to see.
To keep it from you would be wrong of me.
But mostly I have been trying to resist putting pictures of Elle up.
But who could resist this?
:)
Monday, October 19, 2009
An Example to us All
Pepper Basham used my hero Red from
Montana Rose
as a good example today on her blog
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Fun with Words
Typed words
The longest words typable with only the left hand using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard are tesseradecades, aftercataracts, and the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses.
Using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is johnny-jump-up, or, excluding hyphens, monimolimnion.
The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort.
Similar words with 10 letters include: pepperwort, perpetuity, proprietor, typewriter, requietory, repertoire, tripertite and pourriture. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen.
The longest words typable by alternating left and right hands are antiskepticism and leucocytozoans respectively.
The longest words typable with only the left hand using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard are tesseradecades, aftercataracts, and the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses.
Using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is johnny-jump-up, or, excluding hyphens, monimolimnion.
The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort.
Similar words with 10 letters include: pepperwort, perpetuity, proprietor, typewriter, requietory, repertoire, tripertite and pourriture. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen.
The longest words typable by alternating left and right hands are antiskepticism and leucocytozoans respectively.
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