Law1iet @iilaw1ietii - Tumblr Blog

ソファーに座っていると、左目の端に入ってきたこの本が気になって開いてみる。

今までもずっとここにあったはずのこの本が、ここにあることに今、気づいたことも不思議だけど、

数ある本の中で、この本を選んで手に取って開いている自分が不思議な感じがする。

Youthful modern outfit pairing beautifully painted tabby cats obi, with a cute kimono with yarn ball-like shibakusa (grass) and sprinkled small flowers

whatagrump

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

thewritinggrindstone

And!

“If you’re breaking dialogue up with an action tag”—she waves her hands back and forth—”the dashes go outside the quotation marks.”

writing-is-a-martial-art

Reblog to save a writer’s life.

jaydove-writes

Thank you

localcanadiancryptid22

Oh my god thank you. No wonder grammarly keeps complaining about my punctuation when I boot my writing up into word counter

daily-hyosatsu

Do you recognize the name 辻 Tsuji? We've covered it once before, along with why I think it's so cool (it's written with a cross 十 and a road 辶, and it means crossroads), but we're covering it again not only because this carved and painted nameplate charmed me BUT ALSO because I just learned that 辻 is a 国字 kokuji, or Japan-made kanji. Which is why it has no on-yomi; it doesn't exist in Chinese.

I took some time to look at other kokuji, and here are some others we've covered here so far: 畑 (farm/field/garden), 桝 (masu), 俣 (fork/junction/crotch), 杤 or 栃 (horse chestnut) (yes, a kanji that is both Japan-made and Japan-simplified!), and 栂 (southern hemlock). Lots of plants! Which makes sense given that we're dealing with proper names.

You can find a more complete list here but a lot of them are pretty specialized or obscure, so here's a few that are very useful but unlikely to come up in names:

働 (hatara.ku, dō)* to work

込 (ko.mu, ko.mi, ko.meru) to be crowded, mixture, including/inclusive, inserting, in bulk

匂 (nio.u, nio.i, nio.waseru) smell, fragrant, to stink, to glow, to insinuate

枠 (waku) frame/framework, spindle, spool

*This one is unusual because it has both on-yomi and kun-yomi readings! I don't know if any other kokuji do. It takes its on-yomi from the Chinese-made 動 (ugo.ku, ugo.kasu, dō ) meaning to move. So, person radical 亻+ 動 move = work.

taken-aurally

I'm aware of at least one kokuji that has only an on'yomi:

腺

セン、with the "flesh" radical on the left and the "[water] spring" radical on the right, meaning gland, with the reading taken from 泉

daily-hyosatsu

Oh, good one! The must-know vocab for 腺 sen is 甲状腺 (kōjōsen), meaning thyroid gland, so let me slap that up here for reference when we inevitably cover 甲 and 状.

hoao

when furudate wrote “today you happen to be the defeated. but what will you become tomorrow?” and then “nothing would ever get started if they didn't first think, 'let’s give it a try.'” and then “he who climbs the ladder must begin at the bottom” and then “we’re not limited to just one way of being great” and then “being weak means that there is room to grow” and then “does losing prove that you are weak? isn’t losing difficult for all of you? a challenge where, after ending up on your hands and knees, you must see if you can stand up again? if you stay on your hands and knees, that proves that you are weak.”