Happy Holidays everyone. I hope you are enjoying your Christmas celebrations or if you’re not Christian, looking forward to a lovely winter weekend. Though the only posts I always do are my Friday ones, there will be neither a Monday nor a Wednesday post next week as I will be away. So, see you almost in the new year.

Grammar

A look at the differences between American English and British English with some proposals as to why this is which have different levels of support. The comments provide some other perspectives. However, the one thing I would add is that the British use of punctuation with quotes is not presented very clearly. That style is to put the punctuation in the appropriate place, which requires more judgment than the US standard of “always inside”, but makes the presentation more logical. (Note: that’s an example of British English style as American English would put the comma inside the quotes even though it belongs to the sentence as a whole not the quoted passage.)
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/british-american-english-differences.aspx

Life

A look at the good and bad sides to science fiction conventions that provides a relatively balanced look for those trying to figure out if they want to go. Note that it has adult content.
http://jdsawyer.net/2010/12/02/cons-are-they-worth-it/

Online Read

Secretario by Catherynne M. Valente is a provocative mood piece about the nature of a city filed down to the bone, about the cycle of life and death. It’s beautifully written and powerful.
http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2010/12/20/free-original-fiction-from-weird-tales-issue-356/

Research

An interesting exploration of male clothing styles in the 15th century, compiled by the Company of Saynt George, a living history association (Note: you do need to leave an email to download the file):
http://www.companie-of-st-george.ch/cms/?q=en/Clothing_Guide_Download

Writing

Insanity is an element I’ve explored a number of times in different characters, and it offers a bounty of possibilities. Juliette Wade gives a good basic overview of the advantages along with pointers to different sections of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) website that offer more information:
http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2010/09/so-your-characters-insane-what-does.html