Watt Due Ewe Mien?

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left hymn and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of bored fence nine feat heigh. Life to hymn seamed hollow, and existence butt a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and past it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-bocks discouraged. Gym kame skipping out at the gait with a tin pale, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always bin hateful work in Tom’s ayes, before, butt now it did knot strike hymn sew. He remembered that their was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro buoys and girls we’re always their weighting they’re terns, wresting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Gym never got back with a bucket of water under an our – and even then somebody generally had to go after hymn. Tom said:

“Se, Gym, aisle fetch the water if yule whitewash sum.” Continue reading “Watt Due Ewe Mien?”

Trouble with Homonyms by Arline Chase

I saw a query letter this week with a “pear of scissors”in it. The author, who lives in a land that was once part of the British Empire, speaks English as a second language. I didn’t have to read more than the query, to know the manuscript, if accepted, would be riddled with similar problems and so it was a no-go right from the start.

Now I know you all know the difference between a pear and a pair of scissors, but obviously someone had a problem. In fact EASL people by no means have a corner of this market and I have often confused compliment and complement or farther and further myself, among others. These are two that I always search and double-check in a completed manuscript, knowing my propensity for getting them wrong. Continue reading “Trouble with Homonyms by Arline Chase”