"Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset." Saint Francis De Sales

Friday, January 8, 2016

2016, Grammar & a New Look


My Slow Takes

1. I do not make annual resolutions, but prefer to make adjustments as the need arises. Dee has made some for her and has asked me to assist in reminding her about them. That’s probably not a good thing for me to do. I’ll see how that develops.

2. Winter is slowly moving into Virginia. Cold temperatures and snow flurries started on Monday.

3. Grammar review for when to use “into” and “in to.” Brian Klems, over at “The Writer’s Dig,” has the following.

“The word “into” is a preposition that expresses movement of something toward or into something else. I made it into work a few minutes early today. The tooth fairy tucked the tooth into her pocket before placing a $1 bill under my daughter’s pillow.

“In to,” on the other hand, is the adverb “in” followed by the preposition “to.” They aren’t really related and only happen to fall next to each other based on sentence construction. My boss sat in to audit the meeting. The tooth fairy came in to collect my daughter’s tooth.

One trick to help you decipher which word (or word pairing) is correct is to think of it this way: “Into” usually answers the question “where?” while “in to” is generally short for “in order to.” So look at your sentence and replace “into” or “in to” with “where?” If the second half of your sentence answers it, use “into.” If it doesn’t, replace “where” with “in order to.” If that works, use “in to.” Here is this method put into practice:

The tooth fairy put my daughter’s tooth where? Ah—into her pocket.
The tooth fairy came in where? To collect my daughter’s tooth? Hmm … that doesn’t work. The tooth fairy came in order to collect my daughter’s tooth.
Grammar police, rest easy—we’ve got this one under control.”

4. A new look for my blog for 2016. It’s a good idea to try different things once in a while. 

5. The new television series, Shannara Chronicles, started this week. It is based on Terry Brooks “The Sword of Shannara Trilogy.” I watched the two hour premier and I liked it. If you have read the books, there are things that are different, but the theme of the story is still there. I like Manu Bennett as the Druid Allanon. He portrays the character very well.

6. Our friend Jeanine took this photo of me, Dee and my brother Tom. It was during our New Year's celebration at our home. Thank you Jeanine.



7. Don McLean - “Vincent” (Starry Starry Night)  




Go over to "This Ain't the Lyceum,” where Kelly is hosting more takes.




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