words

NaNoWriMo Widget

NaNoWriMo 2016 Participant widget with word count

This post is idea 101 out of 101 Ways to Procrastinate During NaNoWriMo. Look out for my eBook for the 100 other ways. It is a pretty cool widget though, being dynamic, meaning the word count updates and the image changes, including ‘PARTICIPANT’ changing to ‘WINNER’ once I reach 50,000 words. Right, those words won’t write themselves…

A Word…

speech-bubbles

During the annual review of the Clear English Dictionary, each word had a chance to state their concerns, or bring to light any new usages of their name, to be taken into account for the next edition. One word put up a passionate case for its removal from the dictionary altogether. In a slightly long-winded manner (but how else to name drop as many other words?), this is what the adverb said:

Fellow words, I am tired of my name being bandied about by all manner of people, without concern for the consequences. I have been letting my feelings be known by issuing personalised, handwritten letters to those offending me, however, that is starting to wear thin, particularly as I can categorise offenders in one (or more) of 5 categories. Bear with me, fellow words. The class of people using, and then often misusing my name, simply by the virtue of not following through on what I mean and all I stand for are:

  1. Short Sighted: those who are yet to act on something, and believe a time won’t come when they will, one day, partake in said act
  2. Hind-Sighted: Those who used to do something which then brought them displeasure, resulting in cessation of the behaviour, with at times an almost religious zeal that they will not behave in such a way at any point in the future
  3. Blinded: Those with dreams but a lack of commitment and absence of fear to allow themselves to achieve the dream. This category of offenders I almost have a soft spot for. They are usually blocked creative types and cannot imagine how their dreams could materialise. This category of offensive use of my name often results in a self-fulfilling prophecy- neurolingustic programming anyone?
  4. Blurry Visioned: Those who really confuse matters and indulge in the use of my name in a series of double negatives
  5. Tunnel Visioned: Category 2 people who feel the right to issue warnings to others about the kind of behaviour they should avoid, thus creating more people in Category 1 until of course those same people someday become Category 2 and the cycle continues…

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