Educational Intermission: Clever Birdies

Shaping of Hooks in New Caledonian Crows
A. A. S. Weir, J. Chappell, A. Kacelnik
Science 297, 981 (2002)


I wonder what he'd be capable of if he had opposable thumbs. 

Bad Seeds: Lay and Lie

One of the Wordy Bird’s biggest pet peeves is misuse of the words lay and lie, and it's also probably the most common grammar mistake I see. 

Nestmate pointed at Baxtor. “Lay down,” he said. Baxtor laid down. Nestmate laid down beside the dog. Chickling laid on top of them.

What’s wrong with this?

“It’s lie down!” puffed Wordy Bird. “Not lay down. Unless you are actually laying the dog down, which you’re not.”

Lay is a transitive verb, so Baxtor cannot lay down—

Ok, let’s back up a bit. What’s a transitive verb? A transitive verb takes an object. For example: put. You wouldn’t say:

The dog put.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? A transitive verb must take an object for the sentence to make sense.

The dog put the bone down.

The opposite of a transitive verb is an intransitive verb, for example: run.

The dog runs.

An intransitive verb doesn’t take an object.

Lie is an intransitive verb, so it doesn’t take an object. Some of the confusion between the two verbs comes from similarities when they are inflected:

Lie, lay, lain

Baxtor lies down.

Baxtor lay down.

Baxtor has lain down.

But the transitive verb lay is inflected like this: lay, laid, laid

Baxtor lays the bone down.

Baxtor laid the bone down.

Baxtor has laid the bone down.

So when Nestmate wants the dog to be on the floor, he should say:

“Lie down, Baxtor. Good boy.”

Then he can lie beside the dog and Chickling will lay herself over both of them and everyone will be happy. Especially Wordy Bird. 

Children of the Revolution

Publisher's Weekly provides a thorough and interesting article on The Digital Revolution in Children's Publishing.

How do you feel about e-readers and their effect on publishing? Excited? Concerned? Horrified? Frustrated? Indifferent? Resigned?

Musical Interlude

I know it's not Musical Interlude Wednesday, but Wednesday shot through before I knew it. Suddenly it was Friday afternoon and I was cleaning my office, possibly feeling a just little melancholy, listening to the rain and to this...

...and it made me feel better. I hope it makes you feel good, too. 


WB wishes you a chirpy weekend. 

New Page: ART

I invite you to visit a new page on my blog, 

which showcases some of my art and illustration works 
over the last ten or so years. 

Rejection is What You Make It

Firstly: Happy First Blogisheriversy to the Rejectionist who has invited us all to blog about "What Form Rejection Means to Me" .    


My first form rejection made me cry. I think. I really don’t remember it that well, though at the time I probably felt I'd never forget the sting. In the twelve years since then, I’ve had many rejections. Somewhere along the way, ‘positive rejections’ began to outnumber form rejections, and after a time I gathered a few non-rejections—um, I mean ‘acceptances.’ Form letter induced tears have given way to forced laughter, then grim-but-determined smiles, wry sighs, and now indifferent shrugs.

All of this is par for the course. And it’s a challenging course. It’s not for the faint of heart. It will:

·    bamboozle the uninitiated

·    overwhelm the lazy

·    shrivel up the gutless

·    stymie the passive aggressive faster than they can wail, “It’s not my fault, it’s theirs!”

·    quickly teach you whether or not you’re a quitter.

Achieving publication requires:

• guts
• stamina
• passion
• hard work
• vision
• professionalism
• a hearty dose of mindless, blind faith that success is just around the corner… or the next… or the next...
•  the belief that the journey, the lovely people met along the way, and the countless hours spent learning, creating, crafting, revising, and editing are worth the struggle
• niceness.

Glorious and bountiful form rejections:

·   force you to be a better writer

·   teach you to accept rejection (any kind of rejection in *Life!*) with dignity, learn from it, shrug off any residual pain, and bloody just get on with it

·   tell you you’re probably gutsy, strong, passionate, hard-working, accepting, professional, and if you’re not already, at least on the way to being nice. And cool. And dignified. And visionary! And possibly slightly delusional, but that’s ok... You’re a writer.

Libraries Get Spicy!