"Yellow Submarine: A Short Story"

I was putting a pot of tea onto the oven and whistling to myself while waiting for the others to come. It was almost four o’clock and the lads were coming over for tea, and to discuss how we were going to spend another boring evening. It occurred to me that I may want to eat before John, Paul, and George arrived, so I started to make some toast. While rummaging through the refrigerator for some jam, I hear a knock at the door, but the guests didn’t bother to wait for me to answer (they never do). I hadn’t even had a chance to look up before hearing “Oy! What’re you doin in there Ringo?”
“I was lookin for some jam to spread on me toast. Would you mind takin the water off the stove for tea; it’s whistlin.” George walked behind me and took the pot off the stove and began pouring it into teacups. Meanwhile, I found the jam and started spreading it on the bread.
“Does anyone else want toast?” I asked.
“I do,” said John.
“Me too,” said Paul.
“Me three,” said George, “tea’s ready, too.”
I finished making toast for everyone and settled down to drink my tea. It started raining outside, so the only sensible thing to do would be linger indoors and maybe practice music for our band, but John was not a sensible man. “Look at it pour,” he said. “Let’s go to Marmy’s.” For those of you who don’t know, Marmy’s is the local inn and pub.
“Are you jokin, mate? It’s rainin too hard for me,” Paul whined. “We barely made it indoors to avoid it.”
“I’m game to go,” replied George. “A lil’ rain never hurt nobody.”
“I agree that a lil’ rain don’t hurt nobody” Paul said, “but that’s a lot of rain, it is.”
“I’ll go.” I said. “I’ve been cramped up in here all day and I wanna stretch me legs.”
“Well it’s settled then, isn’t it? Let’s go to Marmy’s,” John said.
“But what about me?” Paul cried, “I don’t want to stay here all by meself.”
“Well then come along, little Pauly,” John taunted. “You can stay or you can come, but we’re going.” With that, Paul sighed and slinked out the door behind me and George. John made sure the door was locked and was the first to run into the rain from the canopy that protected my patio. While George, Paul, and I were trying to stay relatively dry by running from patio to patio, John was getting his white bell-bottoms soaked by jumping from puddle to puddle. By the time we reached Marmy’s, George and I were only somewhat wet, Paul was sloppy wet because he slipped and fell into a soggy lawn, and John was thoroughly soaked. We were fortunate that the rain had prevented many people to want to go to Marmy’s tonight, so the chairs by the fireplace were empty when we arrived.
“Hey there lads, what’re you doin?” Marmy shouted from behind the bar when we began to sit down. “You’re bleedin soaked and you’re gonna dampen me chairs. Get up from there!”
“All right, all right” John said. “You don’t have to get all buggered up.”
“Yeah, Marmy, we’re just tryin to get warm and dry,” I said.
“Let me tell you something about warm and dry,” Marmy said. “I was drier than the desert whene’er I was in the queen’s navy. Those were the days. I was first mate to the famous Captain Finch. Aye! those were the days, indeed.”
“Here he goes again with those tales of his,” George whispered to Paul.
“Aye, he’s lost his bloody marbles, he has,” Paul replied.
“I have not lost me marbles.” Marmy had heard the go between of George and Paul. “Let me tell you lads somethin – it will do you some good to travel the world. Maybe you’ll find the land of submarines. That’s right lads, the land of submarines where life is happy as can be.”
“And where do you find this land of submarines, mate?” John asked with a mocking smile, while Paul, George, and I sniggered at his question.
“Don’t scoff at the land of submarines boys. It’s a perilous journey through the sea. The first thing you need to do is get yourself a submarine so’s you can go beneath the waves. When you’ve gotten your submarine you must set sail into the sun until the water is no longer blue, but green.”
“Green water!” Paul said. “Sounds sickening.”
“It’s not,” retorted Marmy. “It’s the color of the emeralds her majesty wears around her neck. The sea itself glistens like a precious jewel when undisturbed. When, and only when, you have reached the emerald waters, you will dive beneath the waves to the bottom of the sea. There you will pass the Octopus’ garden and reach the land of submarines. A beautiful sight I never saw until my eyes rested upon them underwater water ships.” By this time we were sitting on the floor by the fire, and watching Marmy’s eyes glaze over from his memories.
“I admit, Marmy, you almost sucked me into your fantasy,” I said breaking from my reverie. “You almost had me believin in your tales.”
“It is real,” Marmy roared, “you can see it for yourself.”
“I would really like to, Marmy, but as you can see we don’t have a submarine,” I replied.
“Well I do, and I will loan it to you if it will stop your poking fun of good ol’ Marmy,” growled Marmy in a playful manner.
“You have a submarine?” asked John. “Where do you keep it?”
“Come and I’ll show you,” Marmy said with a smile. Since we were still wet from walking here, it didn’t seem to bother us that we had to go back outside. Marmy ran ahead in the excitement of someone finally believing his tales. We followed Marmy best we could down the street to the docks. When we got down there, Marmy was nowhere to be found. We followed a path that was only visible because of the lanterns that were lit inside the boats. Every so often we had patches of darkness, and in one such patch Paul stubbed his toes. Before long we saw the silhouette of Marmy at the very last dock. “Here we are lads,” he said.
“I don’t see anything,” Paul said.
“Nor do I,” agreed George.
“Well here then,” Marmy said as he lit a match to light a lantern. There it was. The four of us stood in awe before a large submarine.
“Why’s it yellow?” John asked.
To which Marmy replied, “It’s yellow because it’s easier for other submarines to see it. You’ll understand when you reach the land of submarines.”
“I like it,” I said. “The yellow makes it groovy.”
“Well who wants to take a trip?” John asked.
“I don’t know, mate,” I said. “I’ve been here all my life. I was born here and I haven’t left since.”
“Don’t be cowardly Ringo. What’ve you got to stay for? This will be just the adventure you need.” John said in his suave and most convincing voice.
“All right, John,” I gave in. I fall easily to peer pressure.
“How ‘bout you lads?” John inquired about George and Paul.
“What about band practice?” George asked.
“There seems to be room for the instruments; we can practice on the boat.” John answered in his most influential voice.
“Well I guess, I’m in, then.” George said.
“Well that’s well and good and all, but what about food and nourishment?” chimed in Paul.
“How are we going to eat?”
Marmy responded, “this ship has enough food in her to last a crew a lifetime, or my name isn’t Marmaduke Boxen the Third.”
“It’s settled then,” John said, “we leave first thing tomorrow.” By this time it had stopped raining. We made our way to our homes without any incidents and I fell asleep as soon as I got into my bed.
It was ten o’clock when I woke. ‘Blimey’ I thought, ‘I’m late, I hope they didn’t leave without me.’ I put my drum set inside a cart and I pushed it to the docks.
“Here we are then.” It was Paul who had spoken; apparently I was the last to arrive.
“We’ve been waitin for you.” Then he yelled to the others, “Hey blokes, Ringo’s here.” George and Paul came out the submarine to greet me.
“Got everything you need?” George asked me.
“I think so,” I replied.
“Well if you can’t remember it now, you must not need it,” said John.
“I have everything I need then, don’t I?” I retorted. Marmy was there as well, waiting to push us off.
“You lads remember the directions?” he asked us.
“Aye” we all shouted at the same time.
“Then be off with you.” And just like that we set sail.

* * *

The months went by with no sign of the emerald sea that Marmy described; we used that time for band practice and to get to know one another better. One night, while the lads and I were playing music, a storm approached. The ship tossed and turned all over, and the waves crashed harshly into its sides, but just as soon as the storm started, it stopped. We went to the top deck of the ship. Paul ran up first in order to relieve this sick from his stomach. The rest of us soon followed, and what we saw filled us with awe. A sea as green and as shiny as her majesty’s precious jewels laid calm before us. Paul was right in thinking it was sickening; that is, it was sickening watching Paul get sick over the side of the ship; other than that, the sea of green was beautiful. As a side note, Paul’s sick was also green, but not a beautiful emerald green, but more of a rotten lime green. Now where was I? Oh yes, we just arrived to the sea of green, so we prepared the submarine for submersion. John led the way as George helped Paul below deck. I followed the other three enjoying my last breaths of fresh air.
We all watched from the submarine’s round windows as we dived into the sea. The beauty we noticed above the waves was no match to the extravagance we encountered below. Hundreds of fish the color of rainbows swam before us. Some were swimming through the water so quickly that the water stayed still. We glided under the sea until we came upon a large patch of what looked like vegetables. “What is this place?” George asked.
“I think it’s the Octopus’ Garden?” said John.
“Why d’you think that?” I asked.
“For two reasons,” John answered. “Number one – We just passed a sign that said ‘Octopus’ Garden,’ and number two – there is an octopus wearin overalls and a straw hat wavin at us from over there.” We all looked to where John was pointing, and sure enough, there was an octopus wearing farming clothes and waving to us with four of his tentacles.
“Blimey,” Paul said, “will you look at that?”
“Does this mean we’re gettin close to the land of submarines?” I inquired.
“Methinks we’ll be there within a week.” John replied. He was wrong; we had approached the land of submarines within a day. Marmy was right; I had never seen such a beautiful sight as the collection of these underwater automobiles. There were more colors presented before us now than when we first dived and saw all of those rainbow fish. We now understood why Marmy had painted the submarine yellow; this was a happy and animate place, and any color that was not bright and cheerful could not be welcomed. We noticed that many of the ships were attached to underwater docks that connected the submarines to each other. We found an empty dock and suctioned our ship next to the portal. This was the first time we opened the submarine’s door in months, and what we saw when we opened it was a complete surprise. A lot of the mariners from other ships were anticipating our arrival and threw us a surprise welcome party.
“How’d you know we were comin?” George asked.
“Old Max told us,” one of the mariners said.
“Who’s Old Max?” Paul asked.
“He’s the farming octopus you lads passed,” another mariner said.
“He can talk?” I asked.
“Don’t be dim,” John said, “octopuses can’t talk.”
“Then how’d he tell these gentlemen we were on the way,” I retorted.
“He swam here,” A third mariner replied. “Any time Old Max visits, it means a new ship has found its way.”
“So what do you lads do here for fun?” George inquired.
“We sing, dance, and play,” the first mariner replied. “It’s the perfect life, the sea life is.”
“I think I’m home,” I said.
“We all are, Ringo,” John said. “We all are.” The group decided that we would spend our remaining days in the land of submarines where we had plenty to eat, drink, and be merry, and most importantly, we had our friends.

Text Talk - Regression or Evolution?

Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to read a rant - you have been warned. When writing a scholarly essay, please do not simplify it for the sake of typing less. It is unprofessional and does not look good on any academic writings or résumés when you are looking for a job. There are standard rules of writing that must be applied when writing professionally, and text talk seems to reduce the meaning behind our precious literature. Is it that much harder to write because than bc? Maybe I'm missing the point. Perhaps text talk is evolution of the English language. If you think about it, our standard spelling and word usage have evolved since Shakespeare's day, even though we are are in the same language era (modern English). Maybe the new spelling for you should be u because it's that much easier to write. After all, we have entered into the era of technology. But doesn't it just show lack of effort when people cut out letters in a word just to get done with an assignment sooner? I'm curious as to what you all think about this. Do you think that text talk should be allowed in school papers because that is what is becoming the social norm, or do you think that text talk is a regression from what we have been teaching children all these years?

Similes are like Smiles

I would like to talk about the difference between similes, metaphors, analogies, and idioms; however, I am the only one here, so I would be talking to myself; therefore, I have decided to write the differences in this blog instead to let you fine folks read about said differences.

First I want to point out that similes, idioms, and metaphors are most commonly found inside poetry and song lyrics, but the clever writer will also use them to express a point inside other forms of literature.

Let us start our pilgrimage through the hazy taiga we call idioms. An idiom is a phrase which has a different meaning from the meaning of its separate parts. For example, the phrase "it brought tears to my eyes" doesn't necessarily mean that I cried but could mean that I heard sad news. However, idioms may not always be as easily understood as that. In fact, sometimes they may require some thought to understand the meaning. Take the phrase "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth." It infers that someone is born with an eating utensil; however, it implies that someone was born rich. Think about it; the phrase includes silver (a precious metal) and a spoon in the mouth (never goes hungry) - put those two together and you have someone who is wealthy.

We shall progress through our quest by risking the tribulations of badlands that are analogies. An analogy shows the relationship between one set of words and then compares that relationship to a different set of words. For instance, "man is to boy as woman is to girl" would be an analogy comparing the different genders. Analogies are often found on tests; unfortunately, they are not as easy as the aforementioned one. The key to finding the answer for an analogy would be to find the relationship between the first set of words. Here's an example of a test analogy (keep in mind that when analogies are asked on a test the question uses a single colon for is to and a double colon for as - man : boy :: woman : girl):

Foot : Man :: Wheel : _______

a) Unicycle
b) Motorcycle
c) Jet
d) Car

The answer is of course A - Unicycle. Why? you may ask. If we were to break down the first set of words we would find that foot is the bottom appendage of most people. Our first clue is that a man only has two or less feet; since a car and truck both have four wheels and not two, they cannot be the answer for which we are looking. Here's the really tough part, you have to really examine the first set of words to get this. They say foot is to man, not feet. That means they are only talking about one foot or according to the other set of words, one wheel.

Now you see how analogies can be tricky. Ah! But you will be tricked no more.

Now we'll continue our journey by going through the blinding tundra known as metaphors. A metaphor is a way to compare something by saying it is something else. For example, Mr. Lynch is nuts. I am not actually nuts (if I were, I'd be cashews I think), but the phrase is meant to point out that there is a disturbance in my logic that may be considered outside the norm. Be sure not to confuse metaphors with similes.

We will end our search for knowledge in the celestial city of similes. A simile is very similar to a metaphor with the key exception of the word like. You see metaphor says something is something where as similes say something is like something. Think of it like this - a simile is similar, a metaphor just is. Here are some examples of differences between the two:

Similes Metaphors
Bob's head is like a bowling ball. Bob's head is a bowling ball.
Tiffany is like a saint. Tiffany is a saint.
Macy is like a cupcake. Macy is a cupcake
His head is like a rock. His head is a rock.

Now that we have completed this perilous expedition, we are able to tell the difference in these comparisons, idioms, and analogies, and are now able to identify them when listening to your favorite song, reading your favorite prose, or listening to idle conversation.

There There, There There

The two men are taking their dogs to the groomers, and they're taking their cats there, too. It can get confusing using the correct spellings of there, their, and they're and two, too, and to; however, once you know the rules of when to use what spelling, you can marvel your family and friends with your fantastic writing skills.

Rule 1: There, Their, and They're

There is used when speaking of a location (i.e. There is that brand new deli - New Delhi, I miss my home). It can also be used before a "to be" verb to show a time or existence (i.e. "There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o, or There are evil space monkeys plotting my demise).

Their is used when speaking about ownership of more than one noun (i.e. Their dogs are the cutest. In this example, multiple people own the dogs).

They're is a contraction of the words they and are; it is used when writing or speaking slang (i.e. They're the greatest people I know, and I know a lot of people).

Rule 2: Two, Too, and To

Two is a number that follows one and precedes three (i.e. The two birds made a nest).

Too is another way of saying also or as well (i.e. I want a kitty, too). It also means excessive (i.e. Mr. Lynch is too cool for school). Too can also mean very (i.e. I'm not too stressed about the final exam because I studied).

To is the most difficult yet most common of the three. It is generally used as a preposition for a direction (i.e. Mr. Lynch walked to the store, or I read from left to right). It can also declare a recipient of an object/idea (i.e. He gave the report to her). To can express time (i.e. It is ten to nine - not to be confused with 10:29). There are many other uses for the word to; the best way to keep it straight is by remembering the uses of two and too, and when those do not apply use to like I used to, and still do.

There you go
Now you know
Their knowledge grows
And their writing shows
They're able to
Tell the difference, too
Of to, too, and two

My Cousin Venn-y

Hello all, it's now time to discuss comparisons in writing. What I'm going to talk about today is an easy way to compare works of literature and even show some contrast. You will be able to use this information throughout your school years in book reports and literature reviews, and you will even be able to apply this lesson in college and when you go out into the job market and are required by your employer to compare two items to see what they have in common, etc. I am of course talking about a Venn diagram. A Venn diagram is an organizational tool used to compare two (or even three, and I daresay four) items to see what they have in common to create - a superitem?

A Venn diagram looks like this. (Easy, huh?) All you
have to do is draw a circle that overlaps another
circle for each of the items that you're comparing.
Then label each circle so you can remember which
circle is which. Afterward, make a list of things that
differ from the two, three, or four items inside their
separate circles, and make a list of things that the
items have in common in the overlapped space.
Voila. You have just created a Venn diagram.



Here's an example of a completed Venn diagram to show you what one would look like when finished.

Notice how the example was on apples and oranges. If I am able to compare apples and oranges, then this comparative tool must really work.

The Immortal Bard

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I would like to discuss the works of the immortal bard - William Shakespeare. Now, Shakespeare is a hard man to understand because of his writing style, but did you know that Shakespeare wrote in modern English? However, English (even modern English) has undergone a severe transformation in the last 500 years or so. The key to understanding Shakespeare is by reading Shakespeare; the more you read, the easier it is to understand. Once you are able to understand the plays, you will begin to find how funny of a man Shakespeare really was. In fact, there are some theater productions who like to make it easier for today's English speaker to understand Shakespeare's plays. Watch these links to see one such group known as the Reduced Shakespeare Company reinact Romeo and Juliet (the entire play) in 20 minutes. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVyqiskpMk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKUyq-uCZr0

Now after watching a fantastic interpretations by skilled actors, I am sure you are going to go out and read the whole works of William Shakespeare.

The Importance of Grammar

It's interesting to me about how much grammar plays a role in our everyday lives. It does not take much to for a message to be confused when incorrect grammar and punctuation are used. Follow this link to see a perfect example of how punctuation and grammar are important. http://grammar.about.com/od/punctuationandmechanics/a/punctmatters07.htm

You're assignment from this blog is to find or create a sensible example of how grammar can make or break a letter, contract, homework, etc.