Saturday night book talk

[discountsatori]

Hi there, Livejournal. Please note that it is after midnight on Saturday night / Sunday morning and I am sitting here at home, alone for all "intensive purposes"* (don't you hate it when people write that?), since Adam and Gus are sleeping -- Adam because he has to get up at 4 for work, and Gus because he is a dog. I'm just noting this for

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[sirensfall]

Have you read this article yet? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/books/18newb.html?_r=1&oref=slogin%22
About the Newbury award winner that is being banned from some school libraries. I am very curious to hear your opinions, even if it is "childrens" and not YA. It's being posted about the library communities and such.

[she_rambles]

Years and years ago, there was a children's book - I think it was called "In the Night Kitchen" - that caused a fuss because one of the illustrations shows this young boy falling through the sky naked, and you could see his bits. The local library stocked it, but they put big round stickers over the "offending images". My mother thought it was so ridiculous that she made a point of buying a copy of the book for my sister and I. That's just the way that little boys are made, and she didn't see any point in hiding that from us.

I have a son and I wouldn't object to a book like the one I've mentioned, or the one in that article - but I can see why librarians and teachers might feel awkward about having to talk about scrotums to a class full of 10 year olds.

[joellevand]

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm

Some of them, I can kind of understand why a parent might object to the book (though not agree with them on any of them) but others, such as Flowers for Algernon? WTF?

[discountsatori]

I love this line from that article:

“The word is just so delicious,” Ms. Patron said. “The sound of the word to Lucky is so evocative. It’s one of those words that’s so interesting because of the sound of the word.”

Honestly, I think a lot of the uproar is because the word is used on the first page. If the dog had gotten bit on his scrotum on p. 133, buried somewhere in the middle of the page, I bet there wouldn't be as many challenges from parents. I remember reading Judy Blume's Blubber when I was eight or nine, and there are several mild swears in the middle of that book. That was the first time I'd read those words in a children's book, and I was amazed that they were there -- yet they felt hidden, somehow. Blubber doesn't rank as nearly as high in the "challenged books" lists as some of her other books

[she_rambles]

I always thought it was "for all intents and purposes"?! Maybe that's one of those things that varies from country to country ... from what I've heard from Americans (TV, movies, other instructors with Nova), Americans say "I could care less", whereas Australian's say "I couldn't care less".

then when you finally do find a real teen's review, he or she says that the book wasn't realistic or was condescending or something along those lines. That is because they're like, so grown up. And know everything. And don't want to be treated like teenagers because they're adults.

I don't normally read YA, but I loved Garth Nix's Sabriel (which is apparently now a series), and John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began series (which he took so damn long to complete that the series started when I was 12 or so, and finished .. er, now-ish, and I stopped reading them when I went to uni and now don't know how the series ended/ends!).

[joellevand]

It is.

It also should be "I couldn't care less," -- "I could care less" as a statement meaning "I could not be more apathetic" doesn't make any sense, really, since you're saying you could, in fact, care less.

And, as I said below, this kinda goes into the whole momentarily thing that drives my husband mad and makes me irritated. Momentarily means to do something for a moment, not *in* a moment, and is not a synonym for "shortly".

For example, on many flights, the preflight instructional video says "Sit back. The plane will be taking off momentarily." My husband always then turns to me and says, "And what happens after that?!"

[discountsatori]

In the same vein as "momentarily," I'm trying to curb my use of "hopefully" in sentences where I actually mean "I hope." I think that one, like "momentarily," is on its way to being absorbed into the cultural language and not counted as a "mistake" anymore... but I can still preserve the original usage!

Sometimes when I hear "I couldn't care less" used correctly, I get startled. I hear "I could care less" so often that it actually surprises me when I hear the correct phrase used.

[newscane]

There's a bit in Sports Night where a character is discussing some quirks of the English language, and momentarily is ome that's discussed. At least, I'm fairly sure it was Sports Night -- it may have been The West Wing. Some of the Aaron Sorkin works blend together at times. Of course, it doesn't look like Studio 60 will be blending in for much longer, but I digress...

[moonborn]

PLEASE tell me you meant you hate it when people don't write "for/to all intents and purposes" instead of spelling it correctly in the same way that my Inner Aphie cringes and then shrieks whenever she sees that someone has written "rediculous"?

The BookThief was veryvery good. Morris Gleitzman's Once is supposed to be excellent as well, on similar topics. Some of Isobelle Carmody's short stories are fantastic (try Green Monkey Dreams) and my inner TeenGoth loved/loves Greylands, plus DelDel by Victor Kelleher.

[joellevand]

Let's start a debate!

I've always said "for all intents and purposes" and was kind of taken aback that my nice, Nazi-like English teacher (who I loved for her unforgiving torment in pursuit of grammatical perfection) never corrected me on this.

According to Prof. Paul Brians of Washington State University (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors) "Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don’t read much. “For all intents and purposes” is an old cliché which won’t thrill anyone, but using the mistaken alternative [for all intensive purposes] is likely to elicit guffaws."

Also, according to...some source I've forgotten:

To All Intents and Purposes: This cliche (meaning "practically") is a shortening of the legal phrase "to all intents, constructions, and purposes" (found in an act adopted under Henry VIII in 1547). The corruption "for all intensive purposes" is frequently reported.See, that totally makes sense

[moonborn]

Re: the nano boards comment. I think the rule about title works for me, but not necessarily the rule of plot. Writing is such a personalised process, how can anyone dare to dictate how it works to others (then again, this could just be me, ever unsure of myself)?

[discountsatori]

I agree! I can feel myself start to get angry whenever I hear / see / read people trying to dole out absolutes about other people's writing processes. There's a lot of that going around the NaNo boards. I mostly try to ignore it (and I should probably just quit visiting there), but sometimes a piece of advice will stick in my head, and I'll start second-guessing my own process.

[discountsatori]

Not yet, but I really want to! That's another one I've been searching for at the library. Maybe I'll make a bookstore trip sometime this week.