MEET AUTHOR JAMES R. CALLAN
Brief Bio of James R.
Callan
After a successful career in mathematics and computer
science, receiving grantsWho’s Who in Computer
Science and Two Thousand Notable
Americans, James R. Callan turned to his first love—writing. He wrote a monthly column for a national
magazine for two years, and published several non-fiction books. He now concentrates on his favorite genre,
mysteries, with his sixth book releasing in Spring, 2014.
My Pet Peeve
By James R. Callan
I was listening to the network news the other day and they
managed to broadcast one of my pet peeves – to the entire world! So, if this blog is annoying to you, blame it
on the networks. How can we expect our young people to get the English language
right if the highly paid professionals of television don’t.
My pet peeve? The misuse of badly. Of course, I feel the same way about other common words, but
badly seems to irritate me the most.
Badly is an adverb.
Bad is an adjective. So, if you
are modifying a noun or a pronoun, please use bad and not badly. Here are some examples. “He was feeling badly
today.” This implies that his tactile
sense was not working well. If we mean
that he was a little under the weather, then we need to say, “He was feeling
bad today.”
Watch for sentences in which you really want the adjective
“bad” to modify a noun or pronoun.
Carefully avoid using the adverb “badly” which needs to modify a verb or
another adverb. “The pilot was in a bad mood, so he was handling the boat badly.” “Bad” modifies a noun, his
“mood,” so we need an adjective. “Badly”
modifies a verb, “was handling,” so we need an adverb.
More confusing, and more difficult (so they don’t come up to
the level of Pet Peeve), are effect
and affect.
Effect is the result of something happening. “Bright lights can have a bad effect on your
eyes.” Affect means to influence, or
pretend. “Bright lights affect the eyes.” Or, “He affected surprise, but I knew
he had expected it.” It’s easy to see
why these two give some of us a lot of trouble. Generally, effect is a noun and
affect is a verb - but not always. And that explains the great difficulty with
these two.
Easier to understand,
but just as incorrect, is the misuse of “its”
and “it’s.” Just remember that “it’s” is an abbreviation
for “it is.” Remember, the apostrophe
takes the place of the “i” in the “is.”
Try reading “it’s” as “it is.” If
that doesn’t make sense take out the apostrophe. (“Its cover was torn,” doesn’t make sense if
you were to read it as, “It is cover was torn.)
“Lose” and “loose”
often get mixed up. Lose is the opposite
of win. Loose is the opposite of tight.
“Alot” is not a legitimate word. “A lot” is correct.
And lastly, “farther”
and “further.” Both can be adjectives or adverbs. But “farther” means at a greater distance. Examples:
It is farther to the health food store
than to the ice cream shop. He ran farther than I did. “Further” means to a greater extent. Examples:
I will investigate the offerings at the
bakery further. His look made us believe there would be further desserts.
This distinction is easy to remember. FARther
refers to distance.
I apologize for my ramblings on such matters. These words pop up often in our writing, and
we should be careful they are not used incorrectly. “But their misuse of the
word “badly” always affects me badly (or has a bad effect on me) and it’s obvious the book
needs its editors to do further work or they’re going to lose a lot of readers farther down the road.”
I know I’ve made some mistakes in this post. Let me know about them. I promise not to say bad things about you, nor will I speak badly about you. (Okay, I know that was bad, or written badly.)
A
Ton of Gold
A contemporary suspense novel
By James R. Callan
Can long forgotten, old folk
tales affect the lives of people today? In A Ton of Gold, one certainly
affected young, brilliant Crystal Moore.
Two people are killed, others threatened, a house burned and an office
fire-bombed – all because of an old folk tale, greed and ignorance.
On top of that, the man who
nearly destroyed Crystal emotionally is coming back. This time he can put an end to her
career. She’ll need all the help she can
get from a former bull rider, her streetwise housemate and her feisty 76
year-old grandmother.
A Ton of Gold
By James R. Callan
From Oak Tree Press, 2013
Amazon Author page: http://amzn.to/1eeykvG
Twitter: @jamesrcallan
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