Nylecoj

Thanks Q, Midnight. I will rewrite it and post it again if no one has any objections. Hopefully I'll get it done later today.

midnightpoet

Ny, no objections, would love to see a rewrite.

Doug, how dare you send me to my corner! I just got out and I'm exploring the whole wide world outside of it! NOW I'm offended! ...okay, not really...:) But, either way, I'm out of my corner for now, so you guys will just have to put up with it. *insert evil laugh here*

o.O

Qsilv

...casually tosses midnightpoet that whip Q snagged from doug while he was trying to wield it a while back... *winks

Doug

There's always more than one whip!

Dragon

Ooo, a whip fight. Man ThinkWrite just keeps getting better and better!

giraffe

Doug, your story is very cute too. Hope you submit more cute little ditties.

Nylecoj

All right here it goes again! Hopefully I got everything fixed! Its still 123 words and still has no title.


In a white bed, under a white sheet, looking at bare white walls that had not even a garland to break their white culmination of boredom, Linda lie musing over the synchronized apathy of the doctors. She shivered. The regional health-care was not considered good, but this extravagant lack of attention, this failure to attend, this malicious show of not caring made it ostensible that the whole staff may have fallen asleep, or were they purposefully ignoring her?
A pitiful strangled cry escaped Linda's lips, so faint that the man working the popcorn kiosk outside the door didn't even hear it. Cold, pain, lack of breath inundated her mind till panic took its hold. Then a soft soothing voice whispered, "Its okay Mom, I'm here."

Dragon

I wrote this one by hand so I think I'm at 123 exactly not including the title (no word count at work alas). Every word of this one is true from back in the days when I had a job selling Magic Eye 3-D posters from a kiosk in the mall.

Minimum Wage

Making my way to my job at a kiosk in the mall I don't even notice the extravagant garland festooning everything in sight. It's been there since October, ostensibly to get everyone in the Christmas mood but the shoppers still move with a kind of lethargy now. I know that by mid-December they will have shucked off their apathy and their movements will culminate into a frenzied dance of synchronized mayhem and desperation to find that perfect gift. I find myself musing over whether my co-worker has once again filled the register with nothing but coin. I know he doesn't do it out of malice but I could strangle him sometimes. Ah but these are the joys of working retail at Christmas time.

Robindcr8l

Based on a true story: 123 words. I never use titles. I'm not creative enough.

My malice toward the geese is growing. Initially I admit I found them charming. The way they synchronize their wings, and their “honks”... so cute! Endearment turned to apathy when they decided my yard was their toilet. Turds dot my driveway like an extravagant garland. Makes me want to strangle them. They are oh so lovely in those paintings at the kiosk in the mall. But when they culminate on my lawn, ostensibly to graze, I see them laughing at the mess they make. So I will sit here and muse over their demise. Perhaps I'll just let the cat loose. He's not that fast, but fear might keep them at bay. I just hope he wipes his feet on the way in.

mouse

Robin- Enjoyed this Remined me of the time I took my grand kids to the state park only to find the entire beach at the lake a maze of goose droppings.

ladyhwin

Hmmmm...... great job everyone (Jocelyn, you finally wrote something! I'm proud of you! I've been waiting for that to happen!!)

love the word list, midnightpoet, and am trying to work with the shorter word count. Hard for me, but I'm going to try! Maybe I'll have something up later!

marius

Wow! You all have been busy! Nylecoj ... love the re-write! Also love the helpful comments folks offered.

Giraffe, Doug, Dragon, Robin: enjoyed all your stories AND the ways you've shown how to used this word list and word count. ; )

Qsilv, I get 'lying' and 'laying' mixed up now and then so tend to avoid using them. Anyone have a trick to remember the rule for those two? Seriously! If you start talking about tenses my eyes will glaze over and the brain will shut down ... so it needs to be a trick. A phrase? A rhyme? ; )

Nylecoj

I haven't come up with a way to remember yet, but I need one too. Mom and I went and looked it up and wrote it down, I am planning on making a 'cheat' card to put in my notebook so I won't get them mixed up again. And yes, thank you for the help, I never would have found the mistakes without it.

Qsilv

Here's your trick.... odds are you remember the old child's prayer: "now I lay me down to sleep"

The explanation is simple -- we lie down on our own, but we lay objects (things OR people!) down.

See, objects don't do, they get done to.

Just understanding about objects getting done to helps me avoid quite a few other embarrassing grammatical goof-ups.

; >

Nylecoj

That makes sense! Thank you Q!

Qsilv

The above was the trick, the theory, the rule. Now a few examples--

I can lay my baby down for a nap, but I lie down.

Then we're both lying down in our beds.

We can NOT say we're laying down in our beds...
but we do say we're "laying down" vegetables in salt, like to pickle them
...or we're laying out a blanket in the sun, or a laying bountiful harvest on the table, or laying out a dead body (dressing him in his finest suit).

Nylecoj

But after we lay him down he is lying in the grave?

giraffe

JUDY Ch.2

"Miss Garland, before the MGM heads strangle me, I must inform you that they are about to culminate your extravagent contract. You have been under-producing, you're gaining weight and your attitude seems malicious. Just minutes ago you were yelling at the kiosk vendor. You seem apathetic about our company."

"Sir, I'm 16 and synchronizing my schoolwork with my acting carreer. What else can I do?"

"We have some pills that will help you with your weight, the attitude and your energy level. Take 3 blue ones through the day and one red one at night. Your ostensible carreer will be assured and your creative muse won't suffer. Your mother approves."

"I hope they aren't addictive. I don't want to die."

Qsilv

Another huge "object" confusion happens all the time... "I" or "me".

When we're little, we're taught to put ourselves last in a sentence just to be polite. It's a sweet gesture. But then we forget which word to use, because it's just sort of hanging out there on the end.

So we say things like "Mom and Aunt Clara and I went shopping together".... and we're not sounding like we're putting ourselves first. We're nice!

But then we say "The florist gave the sweetest flower to them and...." I? or me? ....ooooops

"The florist gave us each a tiny rose... one to Mom, one to Aunt Clara, one to me."

Notice we each got done to... in this case given to. So in this case we are objects... and the words for people as objects are --

me
him
her
us
them

If we're the ones doing.... giving... then the words for people as the doers (the subjects) are --

I
he
she
we
they

(In English "you" stays the same word whether it's the object OR the subject.)

Hope that helps a little.

Qsilv

yep, Ny.... after we lay him down, he is lying in the grave.

~~~

..and now I have to say, you guys are fair mangling certain words in this list...
especially culminate and ostensible...
rather than write another lesson thingie, may I suggest you look them up not just for dictionary meanings but for quite a few examples of how they're regularly used?

Then later we can talk about connotations vs denotations.... lol

; >