Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Fiance, Fiancee, or Affiance?

I just learned that I've been using the word fiancé wrong!

I just always say "fiancé" when I'm talking about someone who is engaged, but did you know that fiance actually refers to an engaged male? Fiancée should be used if you're talking about a girl. If you're talking about both a male and a female who are engaged, do you say fiancés? Grammar Girl said maybe, and asked "Merriam-Webster Editor at Large, Peter Sokolowski" for his opinion. Grammar Girl found out that:

Peter believes the proper way to identify a group of male and female people engaged to be married is to call them "affianced couples" or simply "the affianced." "Affiance," the verb, is pronounced with the emphasis on the middle syllable: \uh-FYE-unss

So today I learned that Kristi is Matt's fiancée, Matt is Kristi's fiancé, and Kristi and Matt are affianced.

P.S. For randomly relevant grammar tips, get Grammar Girl's newsletter!


Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Turtles

Click on the image to feed my turtles.

Fish



I'm retiring my a.bowen gadgets, but I really like them, so I didn't want to delete them. These are my rainbow fish. I really like fish. I think for my second bachelor's degree I will study fishology (I can't remember the real word, but I know it starts with an 'h'). This will come after the Masters in Library and Information Science, so it will be a while before I am a fish know-it-all.

On the subject of fish. All my tetras are gone. Two Fish and Red Fish were the last two surviving and I let them go. Lost Boy took me to the river and we sat and looked at the moon for a while before I let them go. I was worried about them going into shock and I was concerned that they might be carrying domestic germs that could affect the river's equilibrium. I hope they at least survived the night, but I decided that an exciting - if short - life in fresh clean water was more than I was offering them at home (I wasn't taking very good care of them). For some reason I was much more interested in my Black Moore, Squishy, than I was in the tetras (I did like Milton though and was upset when he got sick.)

There is a black virtual fish in my gadget in honor of Squishy. You can feed the fish by clicking on the image.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

5 Good Things Today

  1. Nap ♥ I'm sure there will be naps in heaven.
  2. Megan's blog. Made me laugh (and miss my sisters). Meg writes like she talks, I can almost see the arm gestures and the facial expressions. Especially when she is talking about stuff she and Di did together.
  3. Netflix. Firefly Disc 4. I'm so hooked. I know this is the last one. Then I'll watch Serenity, then it will be over. But there is still one more disc left, and it came today!
  4. 21 years ago today Diane was born ♥ I love my sisters!
  5. My cell phone. It let me read to Lost Boy while he was at work. We're reading Genius Squad* by Catherine Jinks. The plot is complex and unusual (Think Artemis Fowl).

*Genius Squad and it's prequel Evil Genius are not Clean Reads due to language.