I loved reruns of "Name That Tune" as a kid.

Let's play a little game of "Guess Who?" I'll write down some song lyrics, and you can guess what really horrible song writer wrote them.

The first lyrics are:
If I ever lose her I will go insane.
I go half crazy when she calls my name.
When she says babababababy I-I-I love you
There ain't nothing in the world I wouldn't do.

The same writer wrote this following little ditty:
If not for you
Babe, I couldn't find the door,
Couldn't even see the floor,
I'd be sad and blue
If not for you.

I know what you're thinking. Lindsay Lohan lyrics are as painful to read as they are to listen to. Except these lyrics aren't Lindsay Lohan song lyrics. Or Britney Spears. Or any modern pop singer. Nope.

They're Bob Dylan lyrics.

Maybe the reason Bob Dylan mumbles all the time is so people will always think he's a genius at writing. The mumble method can really be beneficial. Once, when I took a computer class, we were allowed to work in groups for a project. Each student had to fill out an individual worksheet, but you were all allowed to write an identical answer as the rest of your group mates. One kid in my group had chicken scratch for handwriting (the written version of mumbling) and received a 100 for a grade. My handwriting was entirely legible, and I received a 90. We wrote the exact same thing.

This is pretty much how Bob Dylan gets by in life. I don't know a single "expert" in the field of music who doesn't call Dylan a master at writing. Maybe the problem is that these are music experts and not writing experts? Take away the melody, the harmony, the music and he becomes a mumbling man who you'd cross the street to avoid if you saw him walking in Boston. Maybe packaging is all that matters. The scruffy look, the frazzled hair, the sheer inability to smile--it all makes Bob look like some starving artist, so he earns "cred, baby."

In a way, packaging is no different than what the Pussycat Dolls get by on. They can't sing, just like Bobby can't sing. They can't write lyrics, just like Bobby can't write lyrics. They're pre-packaged to make people enjoy them, like a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner. And because people enjoy the packaging of Bob, we're told he's good. (Maybe not quite Lean Cuisine for him. Bob seems more like a Hungry Jack frozen dinner.)

Here's one last gem from Bob:

I don't think I want this anymore
As she drops the ring to the floor.
She says to herself: 'You've left before.'
This time you will stay gone, that's for sure.

Awww, sorry. That's a Pussycat Dolls' lyric. I get them confused a lot with Bob Dylan these days.

Lights Camera

The beauty of a democratic republic like ours is that we are guaranteed no taxation without white representation, the right to a fair and speedy trial with an excellent prosecution and terrible defense, and your right to federally funded cell phones and cable boxes.

That being said, for English majors, the greatest benefit lies in your first amendment right to speak.

See, with that I can make a comment like, "Obama is far too centralist for his own good. I want him to adopt more socialist and liberal policies," and not be threatened to be killed.

Of course, the beauty in expressing an opinion is that you need to back it up as well. Here's where the crux of this blog lies: Learn how to phrase your opinion properly America.

Using the words "I think" or "I believe" for anything is a sign of weakness in your argument. I don't care what you think or what you believe in. If you haven't already thought out and know what you're saying it doesn't matter what you say 'cause it's halfhearted, boring, and probably wrong.

Case in point: "I think that NH is wrong in wanting to legalize gay marriage. I believe that it's amoral and wrong."

That's nice. You know what was nice as well? My late grandmother. She spoke in a very similar fashion so not to offend anyone. She was also beaten by the black and tans and wronged by the anti-papist movement of America, of course she learned to not say anything that would offend anyone. She also made bullets by the fireplace for the IRA when she was a child as well. She may"think" and "believe" something, but her actions spoke far more than her words.

If you're reading this you probably don't know the first meaning of actual hard times and labor, lord knows I don't thankfully, and therefore have yet to fully exercise that right to free speech you have by being born somewhere other than "outside America"

So, to tie this back to the original half-hearted statement, phrase your ignorant beliefs in this fashion:

"It's wrong for homosexuals to wed because the Lord said it was wrong and sinners will burn for it."

A little rough on the tongue? Of course. But it's supposed to be. Assuming you have the position above, you're arguing from a platform of complete ignorance anyways. So damn it throw a bit of fire into the mix to represent what you're really saying.

Of course, these remarks of mine are timely after the whole Miss USA thing, but that's exactly my point. If you're going to make statements of complete ignorance and blind following at least be assertive in them.

Admittedly, of course, nobody really cares what she thinks anyways... she's not being paid to think. Nor is that Hilton bonehead for what it's worth.

Anyways, this also ties hand in hand with how to take a counterargument and offer a coherent one.

For instance: "Hey Tim, Democrats are nothing but a group of inefficient parasites such as Carter. Moreover the current administration can't even follow up on the Blue policies it meant to implement to begin with."

See that's good, I can't simply dismiss a statement like that. I need to sit down and really think about (hurr) what would be a good counterpoint to that.

Point blank, action verbs for everyone. Being verbs are called that because they represent nothing more than being. We are humans, we do. We commit actions.

When writing, saying, doing anything, make sure you're actually doing it.

What Martha wants, Martha gets.

When I brought up the fact that Birmingham, England, banished apostrophes from their street signs, I forgot to mention one little fact.

America banished them as well.

According to the United States Geological Survey (where the geospatial fun never stops on usgs.gov!), our government banished them long ago. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names wiped the apostrophe clean in 1890. These great scientific minds decided to play fast and loose with grammar back in 1890, BUT said places could keep their possessive "s"--just not the apostrophe showing what that "s" is actually doing there. Yeah. Sure. That makes a ton of sense.

(Little known fun fact: President Benjamin Harrison (huh?) created the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. In a four year term in which Harrison (who's that?) was an complete failure (who's he?), Benjie made sure to bat a thousand and keep up with his futility for the next 109 years.)

In typical American style, we apparently make random exceptions to this apostrophe banishment. There are five places throughout America in which the good ol' boys at the U.S. Board of Geographic Names have decided that English geeks can keep their apostrophes. They are, in order:

1.) Martha's Vineyard (1933): Apparently Buffy and Giles down on the island didn't like how their beloved apostrophe was taken away. After "extensive" local campaigning (a.k.a.: bribe money from one politician to another, who are we kidding?), Martha could lay claim to her Vineyard once again.

2.) Ike's Point (1944): This is down in New Jersey. The ruling in 1944 states that "it would be unrecognizable otherwise." Personally, I don't even recognize it with the apostrophe.

3.) John E's Pond (1963): A pond in Rhode Island, which was granted its apostrophe because otherwise it would be "confused with the nearby John S Pond." All I know if that the locals in little Rhody need to be a little more creative with their pond names.

4.) Carlos Elmer's Joshua View (1995): Located in Arizona, it was allowed its apostrophe because the "Joshua" refers to the Joshua trees that Carlos Elmer was apparently viewing. The Arizona geographic poobahs asked for the apostrophe so people could remember that this Joshua is actually the tree. Ummm...maybe include the actual word "tree" in there, too? That might help. Just a suggestion.

5.) Clark's Mountain (2002): In Oregon, it was granted its apostrophe at the request of the state of Oregon as a visual point for Lewis and Clark during their expedition. As we can see, Lewis totally gets the shaft here. The man can't even get a nearby bush named after him.

According to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, the whole elimination of apostrophes is because "the need to imply possession or association no longer exists." Riiight. As Barbara Wallraff--a language nerd of the highest order who writes for the Atlantic Monthly--states on her own website, why even have these names to begin with? If the Board says the "possession" isn't important, then tell Martha to take a hike altogether. Just call it a vineyard. Just call Clark's Mountain a mountain. Otherwise, why make weird rules altogether?

In reality, why are scientists dictating English language rules? This is the equivalent of English majors deciding scientific rules don't exist on a whim. You know what, to hell with gravity. I've decided that rule doesn't exist any longer. And the four laws of thermodynamics? Boooring. I'm eliminating that, too. Ohm's Law regarding electrical currents? I'll shine a light on all of us and wipe that law clean from the books, too. And I don't want to hear from scientists that humans can't fly. One word: Superman. Don't even tell me he wasn't human, because he entirely looked it to me. And we all know the eyes don't lie.

Birmingham Citys street signs dont like apostrophes.

England's second largest city has decided to do away with the apostrophe on street signs. To us boring Americans, this means nothing. We're the land of Main Street. ((Yawn.)) But in Birmingham, England, they get sassy with their street names. King's Heath. Wheeler's Lane. King's Norton. Acock's Green. The Brits love themselves the possessive street names.

They just don't love using the possessive apostrophe.

According to Martin Mullaney of the city's transportation scrutiny committee (hooray, bureaucracy!), there's no sense in having the possessive apostrophe in all these street signs because, you know, the king doesn't own that heath any more. He doesn't own that norton either. Pssh, there hasn't been a king in 50 years. And the Acock family long ago sold that green. Wheeler? That lane died when he died. So, by jove, it's time to get the whiteout ready and blot out those apostrophes on those street signs! Screw proper English! They are the English after all. They created the language. What's a few centuries of grammatical rules to stop you?

Martin Mullaney is a true politician though. That means when the masses speak, he's sure not to listen. According to Mullaney, "We are constantly getting residents asking for apostrophes to be put back in and as a council we have to make a decision one way or another."

Now, I'm no genius. Help me out here, Martin. No one is asking you to take out the apostrophe, but--according to you--countless residents are asking you to include it? So...you eliminated it? You must be a real sweetheart, Marty. I bet when you're at a pub the smooth moves just ooze out of you when you see a single lady. You offer to buy her a drink. And when she tells you she'll have a glass of wine, you tell her no, she'll have a glass of water.

Now, Marty isn't entirely stodgy. He has his very own blog here on Blogspot. (Maybe we could become a sister blog? We're English majors...he's English and hates the English language...it can be like the Odd Couple, except for shut-ins.) You can find it...here. It's full of such scintillating topics as "planning applications" and "properties being compulsory purchased." But a little searching reveals Marty has a massive, in-depth blog post (here) about the apostrophe issue, explaining that, by golly, the apostrophe started vanishing with the use of cheap-o cast aluminum signs in 1945! The economy weakened post World War 2. Cheap-o signs were a necessity. Jolly good!

Well, that settles it. Whenever the economy dictates it, we should be able to loosen grammatical rules. The economy stinks now, so let's go all ee cummings with our daily grammar rules. Personally, I've always found the semi-colon to have a bit of an identity crisis. Are you a colon or not? What is it? Let's eliminate it. And the comma? Please, none of us know how to properly use it. While we're at it, literacy is totally overrated. I can just drive around and use shapes and colors to tell me what a street sign means. And if I happen to be color blind, well, cut me some slack. Marty will back me up.

You were eaten by the horrors of human nature retry? y/n?

One thing that's interested me within recent years is the idea of a dynamic narrative. While
reading about the exploits of a character and their own development is a reliable standby, the idea of the story becoming a process of co-development between the reader and the author has become a more viable as technology advances and the media of print continues to alternate between dry heaves and dying gasps.

In their most primitive form, we've got those choose-your-own-adventure books every child of the seventies and eighties are undoubtedly familiar with. These simple "if-then" books serve as a good starting off point for what I'm talking about but are the exact connotations of "dynamic narrative" we want to do away with. Adequate for most children's reactions to a given situation, most adult readers would both want more options in how to handle a given situation and narratives more complex that either "you must slay the dragon' or "you must escape an alien planet".

Another past example, and very early example, of the interaction in reading came from text based games made by a company called Infocom- based right out of Cambridge, MA no less! These games, with the their most noteworthy titles being the Zork series, were also incredibly primitive. Usually, a text description would write up what the scene currently is, then players would be forced to punchin phrases to interact with the scene. Though straightforward, they would become incredibly frustrating after a short time as the amount of recognized words available to players would require you to spend more time guessing exactly how to say "walk forward" than actually interacting with the story. Today, Infocom's titles have evolved into a whole sub-genre entitle "interactive fiction". Admittedly, not much has changed in the meantime between Zork, released in the early eighties, and now.

The problem inherent currently is that folks who are skilled writers and folks who are skilled programmers are mutually exclusive for the most part. The genre abounds with drivel that attempts to desperately to ape Vonnegut (urgh), Lovecraft (double urgh), or other games (argh), that good stories are lost amid a sea of sophomoric psudeo-philosophical drivel and stories written by men about women with daddy issues.

That being said, there is a sea of potential at work here with the proliferation of electronic
devices capable of displaying and typing text beyond the beige monolith that was a personal
computer in the 80s.

Of course, the greatest challenge and frustration will land squarely at the feet of writers. Let's take Conway's classic work "Heart of Darkness". Now let's assume that Conway could travel time and wanted to make his piece into an interactive narrative. While the story itself barely totals 200 pages, he'd be looking at over five hundred pages of content he'd need to generate to create a work of similar length and depth. Moreover, he'd have to be aware of the way readers could be
interacting with his story lest they simply walk out of the room before the climatic line of "the
horror, the horror." Will the reader speak to the slaves on the island? Will the reader gaze at the
map of Africa when he's in the overseers office? Who knows, but it'd be up to the writer to provide detail where necessary in the world to fill in the blanks. Suffice to say, that's a whole lot of text you'd need to generate.

At the same time, however, this overabundance of detail and depth could be a writer's greatest
asset. Every reader wouldn't have to have the story unfold in a similar manner as the person next to them. The idea of extracting "personal meaning" from a story would take on a whole new life in every sense of the world.

Of course this isn't to say that interactive narration is good for everything, far from it. There's
a time and place for every medium, but at the moment this form of electronic storytelling seems to be very fertile ground for new ideas to develop. It'll also be interesting to see if currently published authors would be willing to give up that much authorial control over their work.

To put my money where my mouth is, what do you readers say? Would you consider writing a story in this fashion? Do you think interactive stories could even become a sort of "exhibit art"? Could you see any creative pieces you've made rewritten for constant and active reader input? Do you think this is a load of malarkey? Your call.