Tag Archives: writing

Hilarious

If something is actually hilarious, then say that. Say it’s hilarious.

If it’s not truly hilarious, don’t say it’s “sort of hilarious.” This may be my new pet peeve, because I believe that “sort of hilarious” is something we already have a perfectly good word for: “funny.”

I’m all for synonyms and fancy turns of phrase.

Turn of phrases? Turns of phrases? Fuck it. Expressions.

I’m a fan of colorful expressions.

But “sort of hilarious” is lazy and it makes me angry.

It’s akin to “sort of pregnant” isn’t it?

It’s entirely possible I need to lay off the coffee a bit.

AbFabbing



AB FAB 012, originally uploaded by kevin wofford and made available under a Creative Commons license. This image is the 1st one I found when I went looking for ab fab images. Perfect.

I’m not a morning person.

That is an understatement like few others.

If we have cocktails in the evening I have to make sure the glasses are emptied of any melting ice and put in the sink. This is so I don’t grab one the next morning before coffee, blearily note that it is a glass and contains liquid, and proceed to wash down my vitamins with diluted vodka at 8 a.m.

That is a maneuver Husband has come to call AbFabbing.

I was concerned about this.

Then I thought to myself, “Fuck it. I’m a writer.”

Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. What’s that? You ask. Here’s a short and sweet answer:

Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians — who have inspired you to become who you are today. The aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in STEM.

I wanted to construct a mighty post about some of the inspiring women who are doing great science and/or ably communicating about science online. I also wanted to get my homework done before class tomorrow. Nothing I could have written would come close to the epic post that Ed Yong (Not Rocket Science) has written.

“Happy Ada Lovelace Day – a celebration of women science writers”

I’m taking a slightly different tack. I’m sharing the names of women who tell stories – science writers whose work I admire. (If anyone’s wondering, here’s the intensely scientific method I used to compile the list: I sat down, wrote names, and stopped when I got to 15) Each name is accompanied with a brief reason why I think they’re awesome and some links to past work. And as I’ve said before, this is not a list of top female science writers; this is an all-female list of top science writers.

[go read the whole post and check out the writers he’s highlighted.]

Science!