Who is Kim Siever?

You’re probably well versed in how to use those sideways eyebrow thingies, better known as parentheses. First, remember that a pair of them is called “parentheses,” whereas a single one is a “parenthesis.

Red the rest of the article at Grammar Girl : Parentheses, Brackets, and Braces

If there’s one thing I have learned living in a semi-arid climate for 12 years without air conditioning, it’s a few tricks to keeping cool in the hot sun.

Granted, our 30+ degree weather in Southern Alberta is a pittance compared to true desert temperatures like Nevada and Arizona (or the Sahara for that matter). That being said, these tricks should still work in places like that, too.

Now, all the following assumes you don’t have an adobe house, which of course would be perfect for helping you keep cool.

1. Keep the windows and doors closed during the day. This keeps all cool air in and the hot air out.
2. Keep your blinds closed during the day.
3. Dress in as little as possible.
4. Keep air moving with fans. Circulating air will ensure you cool off when you sweat, which is the entire purpose of your sweating.
5. Do not use the oven. Use a BBQ, George Foreman Grill, or something other than your oven.
6. Eat cool foods (like pasta salads, garden salads, etc).
7. Eat foods with high water content: watermelon, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.
8. Eat frozen food (frozen fruit works great)
9. Eat homemade popsicles.
10. At night, keep your windows open. Even better, have one fan blowing air outside and one fan pulling air inside.

I have used all these techniques; they are tried, tested and true.

If you have other ideas, post them in the comments.

All of my birthdays have always been about stuff.

But this year, I’m giving my birthday up.

I’m turning 37 years old this September, and instead of asking for gifts, I’m asking for $37 or more from everyone I know. It’s not going to me, though. All of it is going to build freshwater wells for people in developing nations.

A billion people in the world are living without clean water—but how much are they really living? Millions contract deadly diseases from contaminated water. 45,000 people will die this week alone. The lucky ones won’t, but still walk hours each day to get dirty water to give to their families.

My birthday wish this year is not for more gifts I don’t need; it’s to give clean and safe drinking water to some of the billion living without it. I want to make my birthday matter this year.

Please join me.

Because of charity: water’s unique model, 100% of all donations go directly to direct water projects costs, and each donation is “proved” and tracked to the village it helped when projects are complete.

The troublesome cases are when we have one term that can refer to either sex, and another that refers only to women. Take the word “author.” It can refer to men or women in a sentence like “Our agency represents many authors.” But if you use “author” to refer to writers of either sex, and the exclusively feminine “authoress” to refer to female authors, you now have a way of referring specifically to female authors, but no way of referring specifically to male authors.

Read the rest of the post at When to Use Female Nouns