Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 9; another writerly get-together of Alphas with the opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics that matter to us because we’re writers.
I suppose we all know that switched-off look in the eyes of our dear friends and relations if we get carried away about our latest magnum opus or ask them to read something we’ve written. Not so when you’re among Alphas, thank goodness. We’ll lap up all your ponderings and add some more, and we’ll eagerly peruse any writings you’re willing to share with us.
Our ever-helpful Alpha team have been busy preparing today’s agenda with the idea of offering a stimulating mix of items that will appeal to our members. What might those items be? Well, our guess is that there’s no escaping the three Rs: Reading, wRiting and wRiting. So that’s roughly what’s on today’s menu, as follows:
- This bulletin from me
- The results of the drama challenge from Chris
- The collated entries for the poetry challenge from Sarah
- The brief for challenge 9 from Suzanne
- A prompt for our Writers’ Reads from Morgen
- The Log edited by Sally
- A Showcasing piece presented by Suzanne (Surely! Somebody must have…?)
It’s all there: your writing, feedback, a fresh writing challenge, news of your personal writing, discussion topic about your reading… what more could you possibly want? And if you have an answer to that question: fire off!
Alpha news:
We have an unusual membership situation right now. It’s not unusual for us to have one or two new members biding their time before ‘daring’ to enter the fray with their input. What is unusual about the present situation is that we have as many as six members hanging timidly back – resisting the temptation (or the urge) to come out and join in. So I’m putting out a call for all you silent Alphas: please, let’s hear from you; we could do with some fresh input from you newbies. The Log is the perfect place to tell us about your writing, but if you missed that, don’t worry, just send out a group email with your Log addition. Enter challenge 9. There are plenty of other prompts and snippets waiting for you; it’s up to you; don’t wait for somebody else to go first!
General news:
World news is sad, bad and mad. I’m seriously worried about lots of places like Syria, Holland (no catastrophe there, apparently. Phew!) and France.
Here’s a far more productive problem to tackle: is “whom” still a word you use in your everyday conversations?
I found the following excellent little teaser:
Sample sentence; which is right?
I’ll just give this to whoever/whomever wants more. Angela?
Answer: to whoever
Explanation: Yes, to is a preposition that introduces an object. Yes, whomever is the objective form. But the verb wants needs a subject, which would be whoever not whomever. And in fact the object of the preposition to is not just the word that immediately follows it but the entire noun phrase whoever wants more. Does your head hurt yet?
We wouldn’t have to discuss any of this, if grammarians would just stop trying to make whom happen. English word order almost always makes whether a noun is a subject or an object perfectly clear. Somehow, as a society, we all get on despite the fact that the word you can be singular and plural, formal and informal, specific and general, subjective and objective. So to pretend that there is anything legitimately clarifying about distinguishing between a subjective interrogative pronoun (who) and an objective one (whom) is to completely ignore the reality of how English is spoken and written. All whom does is make one half of English speakers anxious that they don’t use it and the other half foolish whenever they say, And whom shall I say is calling?
I’ve given up ‘whom’; not just for Lent, but forever. What about you?
Finally: Art! I love that bronze statue they’ve put up in Wall Street of the little girl facing the bull. Brilliant!
Christine