Skip to main content

Collecting Words with The Daily-ism: a Word-a-Day Microblog

Several months ago I began the practical application of my Master's degree in Liberal Studies through the creation of a Tumblr blog entitled, The Daily-ism. The blog seeks to provide an ism word a day with a definition gleaned from Google without commentary. To date, I have posted 86 entries and garnered 17 followers.

What has been most interesting to me is seeing how people respond. The most popular posts so far have been:
  1. egalitarianism (20 notes)
  2. prescriptivism (7 notes)
I've identified enough words for almost an entire year's worth of content if I post five times per week. One thing I like about the functionality of Tumblr is the ability to schedule posts out in advance. This means that I can essentially plan out a month's worth of content in an hour of spare time. 

Not that I have a ton of spare time, but I've discovered that micro-blogging is much easier to accomplish while working full-time and being a father of three. A great resource for cataloging isms has been The Phonistery

I also am tinkering with the idea of creating a sketch or cartoon for some of the isms I've collected and posting them again. But since the mission I set for The Daily-ism is not provide commentary, I may have to post these elsewhere -- perhaps my sketchbook.

If you're interested, take a look at The Daily-ism and feel free to leave me a comment on this blog (or that blog). I appreciate the time and feedback.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kids' Reward Charts and the Treasure Box

Being a parent to two children under 4 and caring a great deal about how our kids turn out with respect to manners and courtesy, I am so glad my lovely wife devised a daily rewards system ritual for the kids. The Process The kids need to behave a certain way consistently throughout the day and perform specific chores in order to get stickers. These stickers go into a chart or grid and at the end of the day we review and provide feedback on how the day went. If they fill up their charts, then they get to pick anything they want from the "Treasure Box". The Template Each child gets his or her own chart. The tasks or behaviors are "SMART" (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Don't worry, we aren't trying to micromanage our children like the " anal retentive chef ". Here's a link to a PDF of our two kids' reward charts  if you're interested in trying this yourselves. The Review Process We tre...

Neverwhere on BBC Radio 4

Thrilled as I am to hear that Neil Gaiman's newest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane , has been published, I was even more excited to hear that Neverhwere  the first book of his that I ever read had been adapted into a BBC Radio drama produced by Dirk Maggs. For those of you not already in the know, Dirk Maggs is the man responsible for the great "continuation" of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  as well as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency that ran on BBC radio. So, not only did I just finish listening to one of my favorite stories, I got to hear it interpreted through a full cast produced by a man whose previous work had already won me over. The result? I enjoyed it thoroughly and could not stop listening. I think that time has shown me that Neverwhere is not a perfect story. If you haven't read it, it's basically about a man who, through performing an act of kindness, gets thrown into an alternate "fan...

If I Were a Carpenter (Bee)

Imagine if you will that you saw a pile of fine sawdust near the support beam of the stairs leading down from your deck. Next, imagine that you heard faint, pained singing coming from the direction of that pile. The closer you approached the pile, the louder the song became. Until you finally recognized the melody was this: Drawn closer to the song, you realized that it came from a perfectly circular hole carved into in the support beam. It's as if an itinerant handyman with a circle cutter stopped by to make a hobo sign on part of your house. Well, if you take out all of the stuff I've written up to this point involving Tim Hardin 's classic song, that's what we discovered this weekend at our house. We have carpenter bees ! Actual photo of the circular hole made by the bees Despite this beam being treated with stain, the bees made themselves right at home. According to the ever useful about.com, the next step to take to avoid structural damage is to a...