Been gone for a few days and will be for a few more for a much needed vacation, so no posts pending except a few Quotes and maybe a short blog or two.

Hope to be back in full swing around the first of February.

In the meantime, keep doing whatever you’re doing to make the world a better place!

Then I started wondering about why he or she would say there were misspellings. It’s possible the comment was spam. It’s also possible that the person lives in a country other than the United States and doesn’t realize there are spelling differences between American English and English in other English-speaking countries. As if English isn’t already hard enough to learn, right?

Without going into exactly why they’re different and consciously not complicating things by including Canadian, Australian, New Zealand’s or any other English-speaking country’s words, I thought it would be fun to explore the difference between the American and British ways of spelling some words.

Take a look at these lists. Kind of interesting, isn’t it (especially if you’re a word nerd like me)?

Even though I consider myself a decent speller, I sometimes get mixed up or forget how to spell certain words and have never taken the time to analyze (or analyse) why. Now I believe most of the confusion stems from the fact that as a child I read (and still read) a lot of books by British authors, enough to have to think about whether it’s “orthopedic” or “orthopaedic” when I’m writing.

So the next time you’re flying on an airplane (aeroplane), analyzing (analysing) the color (colour) of the grey (gray)  clouds while enjoying the flavor (flavour) of a donut (doughnut), remember that there are  differences in the spelling of some British and American English words!

Happy writing!

Photo by John Abel

– Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

My parents, now both deceased, were one-of-a-kind and hard acts to follow. My father, in chronological order, was a flight surgeon/paratrooper in China/India/Burma and New Guinea WWII, a neurosurgeon in Michigan, a world-class marine zoologist traveling frequently to the South Pacific, and a medical/missionary to third-world countries including Haiti, Ethiopia, and the Khmer Rouge refugee camps on the border of Thailand/Cambodia. From him I learned a sensitivity and love for the natural world and a sense of adventure.

My mother was the first woman city commissioner the city in which I grew up, a woman’s libber in the early sixties–way before her time. I gained from her a strong sense of right and wrong, a passion for fighting what is right and just. She was my first role model of a woman in a man’s world.

From my father, I inherited an adventurer’s spirit and love of travel, books, nature and the outdoors. From my mother I inherited my sense of justice and fighting for what I believe is right in the world. From them both I learned compassion for humankind and a commitment to serve others.

Like I said–hard acts to follow.

What the heck is a paraprosdokian? I’d never even heard of the word before.

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech “in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected” and which causes the reader to re-consider or re-interpret the first part of the sentence. Paraprosdokians are frequently used for humorous effect, sometimes playing on the double meaning of a word. Comedians like them. Apparently so did former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and American humorist, Dorothy Parker.

Here are some of what I thought were the best ones:

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”

“Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.”

“To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.”

“A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.”

“Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.”

“How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?”

“You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.”

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

One from Groucho Marx: ”I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

Another from the oft-quoted (at least in my household) Dorothy Parker: ”If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

Fun stuff!

Happy writing!

If you’re a writer, published or not, keep writing!

If you’re a human being–live your life to the fullest!!

Regardless of your religion, pray for peace!

Here’s to a fabulous 2012 for all the world!