Words Fail Me

Every time I sit down to write a post my mind goes blank. In the shower is where I have my most brilliant ideas for posts. I write them all out in my mind. I get myself motivated and gee'd up, but by the time I've left the shower, my ideas have all but gone.

The smart little sentence structures wiped from my mind. The funny one liners - woomf! - vanish in a flash. (Btw, Woomf is the new word for a finger click - yo).

You'd think I was a great wordster the way I've just written what I've written above. I never claim to be a great wordsmith. In fact, English was one of my least favourite subjects at school. That whole grammar, full stop, comma, semi colon thing really didn't sit well with me. Perhaps that's why i like Twitter so much. There's not really much that can go awry in 140 characters, is there?!...

Fear not though. I'm working on keeping these ideas alive. I've added a suitably large notepad by the side of my bed for scrabbling down any mere hint of a blog post idea. I've cleared space on my iPhone so that i can tap a few words down in any spare given moment. I've drafted a few 'fillers' for the off days and I'm going to try to brush up on my grammar, if i can be bothered.

Angela x

.

Blogtober Stalled

Blogtober hasn't gone quite as planned. You see I've found that you can't command words to pop into your head just because you have to blog that day to keep up the Blogtober you gleefully promised at the beginning of the month. But i'm totally fine with that. For me blogging started off as a diary, of that trek. Then after that was over it became more about me, and my (not so exciting) life. I sometimes hanker after those bygone days when i had things a plenty to blog about. But then i might just be making things up if i did.

I've always thought blogging should come naturally and not be forced. If it so happens that on a certain day/week you have nothing to say then that is fine. I've read a lot of blogs recently who seem forced and constricted to certain topics on certain days. I don't think that could ever be my thing, i mean how often do i miss the Friday Five posts?! (note to self, still to write last weeks).  

The blogs I like the best are blogs that seem real and natural and random. Maybe they're just great at hiding that fact that they've got a master document full of blog schedules and topics or maybe they're just great. I like to read stories and I'm a sucker for a picture heavy story post. Love pictures that are windows into peoples lives. 

In saying that, i do love a good beauty blog. Nails, nail posts are good too. And fashion. I've found a few fashion blogs recently that are on my reader list. Not high fashion as in Vogue or Victoria Beckham (I do love the VB though), no, fashion blogs which are of really stylish people with great everyday style. I sometimes dream that i'm one of them (obviously i'm not!). But yeah i like those blogs.

I suppose i'm still trying to figure out what this here blog is meant to be. Maybe it'll always just drift along being what it is, about me and my life. And i'm fine with that. I didn't intend for it to be anything else from the outset. 

Angela x

.

Poetry, Words and Pronunciation

I found this poem on Pinterest here. I wanted to share it because I think it's cool.


IF YOU CAN CORRECTLY PRONOUNCE EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU WILL BE SPEAKING ENGLISH BETTER THAN 90% OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS IN THE WORLD. AFTER TRYING THE VERSES, A FRENCHMAN SAID HE’D PREFER SIX MONTHS OF HARD LABOUR TO READING SIX LINES ALOUD. TRY THEM YOURSELF. 


Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? 
Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! - B. Shaw


Isn't it cool?


Angela xx


.