How to tackle any English essay question

--UPDATE-- 
I've made a new site dedicated solely to teaching academic writing! Click here to check it out! Every week you'll find a new tutorial, and every tutorial will be easy to read and easy to learn. I'm also writing an ebook that I'll give away free to anyone who subscribes. I hope the site proves useful!
Sadly, I will probably no longer be updating this site. But the new site is better. In every way. 

In my template for how to write an English essay, I used a rather straight forward essay question, i.e. 'Show how a character in a text presents a main theme'. This is a rather basic essay question, perhaps too basic; and while the structure of an essay may be easy for you, the essay questions you're told to answer might not be. In fact, if you read that last post, you were probably sitting there screaming, "But my essay question has nothing to do with character! And worse, it has nothing to do with theme! GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!"

So I wrote this post as well. It's really long.

Important: main theme, main idea, central idea, author's purpose, and all other such phrases mean the same thing. Feel free to put them into the 'theme' box.

To start, you should know that one of the most important rules for writing an English essay is that you should connect your essay question with a main theme, even if your essay question doesn't contain the words 'main theme'.

Why:

1. The goal in any essay is to show how something in the text conveys something relevant to society.
2. Themes are relevant to society.
3. Use a theme.

Q: What's a theme?
A: A theme is a recurring idea in a text, such as courage, discrimination, or something a little more specific, like kingship vs tyranny. (Hint: if you aren't sure what themes are present in your text, google them.)

In short, no matter your question, always talk about theme (with tight reference to the text) for the sake of making your text relevant. Make sense?

Let's pretend you've been given the following question:

First things first: substitute specific details for the general ones in your essay question.

The tricky part about this question lies in those last two words: 'surprised you'. Ugh.

Don't worry. It's easy. All you have to do is replace those dumb words with the reason that Lennie's death surprised you (even if, in truth, you weren't all that surprised).

Not all reasons are useful. Here are some examples:

GOOD reasons:
1. Lennie's death surprised me because it exposed the predatory nature of mankind.
2. Lennie's death surprised me because it reinforced the punishing nature of life on earth.

BAD reasons:
1. Lennie's death surprised me because it was unexpected.
2. Lennie's death surprised me because he killed Curly's wife by accident, and the others should forgive him.
2. Lennie's death surprised me because he was my favourite character. Sniffle.

There's a very important difference between a good reason and a bad reason. Good reasons, you'll notice, are themes! Bad reasons are not themes, and they trap you into talking about something that nobody cares about. Pick a GOOD reason, and you'll see that the words 'surprised you' have been conveniently substituted for a theme. Magic!

Note: even though the essay question doesn't contain the words 'main theme' or 'main idea' or whatever, that doesn't mean you can't discuss a theme. And if you can discuss a theme (which is always), you should discuss a theme. Why? Because a theme makes your essay, and the text, relevant to society. It answers a sort of "Why does this essay matter?"-type question, which is a very important question to answer.

You might be thinking, "But my teacher said to 'stick to the essay question'. Isn't talking about theme, when 'theme' wasn't specifically mentioned, bad?"

Nope! By talking about theme, you're simply answering the essay question - whatever it is - in the way it was designed to be answered. It's an essay, remember, not a plot summary.

Think about it. If your essay question didn't state the words, "With reference to a text you've studied..." would that mean "don't reference a text you've studied"? Of course not. You'd fail every time - EVERY TIME - if you avoided referencing a text.

"Yeah, all right," you say, "so that question wasn't so bad. But there are worse ones!"
And you're right; there are worse ones. Let's take a look at one of them.

Such a stupid question, right? Who cares? (The person who hands out grades, that's who.)

It's difficult even to substitute stuff; but don't worry, you don't need to. All you have to do is describe a main incident and how that incident shaped future events. Then, explain what that shaping of events meant for the text as a whole (but secretly with reference to a theme).

To do this, it's important to remember why you're writing this essay. You're writing this essay to make a point that readers should care about. In this sense, it's kind of like writing a persuasive speech, or having an argument with your mum. You're right, they're wrong. Prove it.

So, for an essay to work, you need to have something that the marker should care about, and you need to know why they should care about it. In the first essay question (above), the marker isn't going to care that Lennie is your favourite character, but they are going to care that John Steinbeck used Lennie's death to convey a theme. This theme is a much better foundation for your essay, rather than, "Uh, he was my favourite character."

It works the same for the second question. With regards to the shaping of future events, the marker isn't going to care that the death of a mouse led to the death of a man, but they are going to care if John Steinbeck used this death of mouse/man to show something, like, I don't know, a theme.

Look at the question again. It's an annoying question because it doesn't look theme-able. But to make it theme-able, all you need to do is apply that unspoken question I revealed earlier. "Why does it matter?" This is the underlying question that any essay question is and isn't asking you. You need to answer it because it makes your essay relevant to society. I keep saying that.

Anyway, the answer to the question "why does it matter?" is this:
It (the shaping of future events) matters because it presents a theme (or themes). It impacts the text as a whole because it helps the text present the theme. And it's this theme which you can use to relate the text to society.

In other words, what the essay question is really saying is this:

Admittedly, this is a trickier essay question to manage than one of those 'character to theme' or 'setting to theme' or 'relationship to theme' ones. So, below you'll find an essay I prepared earlier (It will help if you've read the book, Of Mice and Men). In it, I chose to a) describe the incident that changed the course of future events first, and then b) explain the themes presented from the impact that this change had on the text as a whole.

Note: This (a) then (b) process is recommended when answering two-part questions such as this one. It's also recommended that you answer the essay question in the order that it's given. Do the describing, then do the explaining. (If your essay question just says 'explain' or 'analyse' or 'discuss', then don't worry about describing anything.)

Here's the essay:

(Unsure about how to structure an English essay? Click here)

At the heart of every essay is a message to society. In other words, you get marks for making the text relevant to today. The easiest way to make a strong case for why your text is relevant to today is through theme. Therefore, theme-ify your essay question. Next, find proof from your text (examples - ideally with quotes and/or techniques). Finally, explain how your proof is evidence of your theme.

© Matthew Ferri 2014 (no plagiarising)

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The mobile phone: my closest friend

Literally. I take him everywhere I go because I feel vulnerable without him. He sleeps beside me, wakes me up, tells me that it’s raining outside. During the day, he sits squarely in my pocket. Perhaps you have a similar friend?

Every now and then I teach him a new skill. He learns it in seconds, kind of like how Trinity in The Matrix learnt how to fly a helicopter. Only, unlike Trinity who’s human and will grow old and stop learning things, this companion of mine will continue to learn until the day his heart stops beating - or battery stops charging. 

But I can’t teach him everything;  this one has a limited knowledge capacity. Nonetheless, he’s sturdy, cheap to run, fast. You might as well say that he’s… no; he isn’t perfect. He gets close.

When I introduce him to friends, I say he’s this super nice internet-connected gizmo who does amazing things. The downside is that he occasionally buzzes and wants me to talk to someone. I’m not fond of those moments. Not fond at all.

We’ll be hanging out, he and I – writing things, reading other things, playing games – when all of a sudden: Vvvvrrrrnnngggggg! The name of a person I probably know interrupts my aloneness, and my friend here sings a song – loudly – to break the silence. It’s a song I’ve grown sick of. In fact, I’ve grown sick of every one of his songs.

I get it, he’s warning me – like your dog yapping to warn you that someone’s on your property. And that someone will keep coming back unless you deal with him now. It’s a universal truth that it’s better to deal with him now. But as that damnable song screeches through the pores of that tinny speaker, I’m less inclined to appease it and more inclined to question why I live in a society that insists on answering - answering doors, answering questions, answering phones - and why I have a problem with it. Actually, why do I keep a device whose fundamental purpose is to make answering stuff easier? Why would I do that to myself?

I’m an introvert; I choose my friends carefully. But this friend – this closest friend – isn’t so good at discriminating. He sings for everyone. Every single one. If only I could live without him.

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The be-all rule for using apostrophes

Correct usage of the apostrophe is a lot more straight forward than most people think, despite all the evidence otherwise (see: internet). In fact, one friendly rule can be used to solve every apostrophe crisis, and that rule is:

**Apostrophes are tags**

Seriously. That’s all they are. If you think of apostrophes as tags, you'll never be confused again.

Basically, when you’re tagging (attaching) a word to another word, add an apostrophe. When you aren’t, don’t.

Here’s how it works:

Tagging to indicate possession
Rule: When tagging to indicate possession, put the apostrophe on the end of that word. If there isn't an 's', add one of those, too.

Case 1:
Kirin the Enquirer: “Hi there. So, I have this sentence. It goes, ‘The laptop belongs to Matt.’ I want to attach the word ‘belongs’ to the word ‘Matt’ in order to make them one word.”

Hello, friend, and how very resourceful of you. Sure thing; simply tag the words ‘belongs to’ to the word ‘Matt’ using an apostrophe and adding an ‘s’.

Case 1b:
Kirin: “Sweet rolls. Thanks! What about this one? The food belonging to the cat has gone stale.”

Same thing, partner. Merge’n’tag!

Case 2:
Kirin: “Right, but what if there are two or more cats, and the food belongs to all of them?”

Ah, a tricky question – not! Just go right on ahead and tag’em!

Kirin: “Whoa! You put the apostrophe after the ‘s’. What’s up with that??”

Nothing, squire. It’s the same idea as before. We took the word you wanted to use – cats – and tagged it with an apostrophe on the end of the word. But because 'cats' already has an 's', we didn't need to add one. Here’s a breakdown for you:

Word: Cat (without s)
Tagged form: Cat’s

Word: Cats (with s)
Tagged form: Cats’

Word: People (without s)
Tagged form: People’s

Word: Peoples (with s)
Tagged form: Peoples’


Case 3
Kirin: “Okay, got it, but what about possessive pronouns? Words like its, yours, his, hers. Why don’t they get apostrophes?”

Haven’t you been paying attention? You only add an apostrophe when you want to tag words together. However, possessive pronouns are words on their own. None of them consists of two words being joined together (tagged), so the apostrophe is unneeded.

Think about it. You wouldn’t write, “I think this laptop is your’s” because that expands to: “I think this laptop belongs to your.”
Yours, by itself, has already done the work of combining ‘belongs to’ and ‘you’.

Also, the opposite of yours is mine. If yours had an apostrophe, mine would need an apostrophe as well. Mine’. Min’e. Mine’s. You see my point.

In other words, because possessive pronouns are words on their own and not tagged words, and because they already do the apostrophe’s job by themselves, possessive pronouns don’t need an apostrophe – ever!
(Possessive pronouns include: yours, mine, his, her, theirs, ours, its*, whose*.)

*Examples in which you would use 'its' and 'whose':
"Shae, whose car was written off last week due to its engine disintegrating into dust, is going to the auction today."
"Whose car did you say it was?"
"Shae's; it's the car with its engine missing."

Kirin: “Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But aren’t there, like, other itses and whoses, which are tags?”

Yes, there certainly are other itses and whoses, which are tags, but they're different. They come under contractions.


Tagging to indicate a contraction
Case 4
A contraction is an informal word that results from meshing two separate words together. An example of a contraction is the word doesn’t. It’s the contracted - and tagged - form of does and not.

Similarly, the word it’s is the tagged form of it and is or it and has. It’s (with the apostrophe) always means either 'it is' or 'it has', as in, “It’s really unfortunate that your car engine disintegrated into dust.”
So, if you put an apostrophe onto its in the *examples above, then you're indicating that the word has been tagged - that it is a combination of two or more words. That sentence will no longer make sense, and it will be in some serious need of proofreading.
Its = possession (belongs to it)
It’s = contraction (it is/it has)

The only other contraction worth noting is the word who’s – the tagged form of 'who is', or 'who has'.
Ask yourself, "Which two words am I tagging?" If the answer is you aren't, then use whose (see the *example above).
Whose = possession (belongs to someone)
Who’s = contraction (who is/who has)

Kirin (drunk): "Choice, thanks! One more thing. Can apostrophes be used to make singular words plu--"

No! Apostrophes cannot be used to make singular words plural. That’s what the letter 's' does. Apostrophes are, however, used to tag - either for possession, or for a contraction. That's all they're used for. That's all they will ever be used for. In other words, when you aren’t tagging, you shouldn’t be apostropheeing.

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"It's not instant enough!"

Snappy and passion-filled, these were the words of a friend speaking on the subject of reheating food in the oven as opposed to the microwave.

The oven, I'd argued, retains the crispiness of a pizza base or the stability of a pie pastry - and we all know that a pie's pastry is make-or-break, literally. I said if we didn't have to contend with time, the oven would win.

But she was quick to remind me that we are always contending with time, and so, whenever we juxtapose the quick-start blitzer with the oven's knobs, fan-force and backlight, most of us will simply give shrug to the latter and declare, "It's not instant enough."

Little did I know then, but she had it right. In another time I was content with waiting for my dial-up internet connection to load my Neopets profile or that Homestar Runner episode, even though the latter's audio would run ahead of the video by dint of, you know, the dial-up. Things like this were far from instant, but they were more than enough.

In another time, there was this thing called 'patience'; and even when it came to technology - even when a web page would load in its stop-motion-style unveiling as each bit by literal bit of content appeared onscreen - I remained content.

Now, jump forward to last week: I did not remain content. There was an internet outage - or rather, an internet hissy fit - and it just wouldn't sit still. I tell you, the web of 2014 was as sporadic as a flickering dim light swinging on a cord in a horror film, and had this fit lasted any longer than it did, I would've had a case of hissy to call my own.

See, I'd been promised broadband with download speeds that made one's face alight. But on that day, during that bout of internet indecision, it was more akin to dial-up, albeit without the electronic scratching noises that many of us can play by ear. This wasn't right, I said. This wasn't instant enough!

Even when the connection appeared to have fixed itself, web pages would load in a jittery slowness. It was like coming early to the airport, expecting it to be empty, and finding an impossibly long queue leaking into the foyer because everyone else had had the same idea. It was the bane of the first world, and I was its unsuspecting victim.

But yet, in this moment of strife was an afterimage of reminiscence. I recalled my old dragon from Neopets - now starving to death from a lack of sausage omelette - and asked him, "At what point did this all start to change?"

Coffee will never be instant enough. Not ever.

Technology is meant to help, not hinder; it's the magic of the modern world; it's there to astound and to surprise us on a planet which grows increasingly destitute of wonder. And indeed, it does astound - once. But following that, it becomes common place - so much so that even wonder itself may soon wither into novelty.

Somehow, over the last two decades, our expectations have become so inflated that they now coincide with basic rights. Our soons have been superimposed onto nows, and our needs and wants have become so interlaced as to remove all difference. The time bracket has become our worst enemy, and technology's best selling point. Wonders are no longer appreciated but expected.

However means through which this change has occurred, it's been slow and insidious, a usurper who for years we never knew was king. And if we are the masters of ourselves, then we have only ourselves to blame. Ironic, isn't it, that in many ways my twelve year-old self was more mature than I am now at twenty-five? A small part of me knows that this isn't how life is meant to work.

We are mammals; we adapt; and we adapt far faster than it does us good. We rip the extraordinary into its constituents, but the re-assemblage thereafter is a chore that takes too long. A web page used to take thirty seconds to load; now, if it asks for more than three, my instinct is to hit refresh repeatedly and with increasing violence, rather than give it the time of day.

You can sit on a seat thirty thousand feet in the air and travel at over 900kph, and that was wondrous, too, once. Now, along with the cramped seating and the lacklustre movies, human flight is an age-worn oven. It's not instant enough.

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Matt defies standardised grammar and teaches a new grammar - part two

If the whole thing about split infinitives wasn't convincing enough that adherence to strict rules can be stupid, here's another:

Which of these sentences is correct?

1. The pack of wolves is hunting the chickens.
2. The pack of wolves are hunting the chickens.

Answer: both. You can decide. The rule is that there is no rule! (But there should be.)

Part two: group nouns are fiddly
What's a group noun?
Words like 'pack' are called group nouns. 'Faculty' is a group noun; 'group' is a group noun. There are thousands of group nouns.

British English tends towards treating group nouns as being plural, and therefore using 'are' in the case above rather than 'is'. Americans favour the opposite. In either dialect, no firm rule has been decided on. While one may be preferred, either is correct.

Personally, I favour logic, and therefore I think that there should be a rule for all cases in which group nouns are used. For the example above, I think Americans have it down pat, but their reasoning (none) is stupid.

Logic begins here.

Like everything in grammar, it's not the exact word choice (is or are) that makes you correct; and it's not really to do with what sounds right, either. Instead, it's what you mean by your word choice - what you're really trying to convey - that determines which word, which rule, you should use. Remember, language is a road, not a destination; so, when you're trying to get somewhere smartly, it's always right to take the smoothest road.

With that said, here is the rule that should exist for the above example:

The phrase 'of wolves' is prepositional; it describes the word 'pack'.
"The pack [of wolves, not potatoes, or fun-size Snickers] is/are hunting the chickens."

Prepositional phrases can be removed without harming the grammatical integrity of the sentence. So, which word would you prefer if we were to remove the prepositional phrase?

"The pack is hunting the chickens," or, "The pack are hunting the chickens?"

An interesting example: "Leonard's family is very big; Leonard's family are very big."
Different meanings entirely, no?

Still unsure about the is/are conundrum? Don't worry; it's less unreasonable than it looks.

Aside from omitting the prepositional phrase 'of wolves', we can also replace the first word of the sentence, 'the', with another, more convenient-for-Matt's-argument, word.

FOR INSTANCE, say we chose to use 'are' rather than 'is'.
"A pack of wolves are hunting the chickens."
"This pack of wolves are hunting the chickens, but that pack are not."
"One pack of wolves are hunting the chickens."

One pack are hunting the chickens.
'One pack are'
ONE, AND ONLY ONE, ARE!

Hmm.

Here's a helpful illustration:

Straight forward, right?

Now, please understand that, while I believe that the 'is' rule applies to this example, it only applies because the intended meaning of the sentence is better conveyed with the word 'is'. The 'is' road is far smoother than the 'are' road for this one.

Now, here are some exceptions that give the 'are' argument, or are-gument, some dignity:

"Leonard's family are real-estate agents," sounds better than, "Leonard's family is real-estate agents."

"The team are conversing amongst themselves," sounds better than, "The team is conversing amongst itself."

But there's a subtle difference between these examples and the one with the wolves. The 'are' works better here because we aren't really talking about the family or the team as a unit; we're talking about the members within the family and the team.

We're really saying: "Leonard's family [members] are real-estate agents," and, "The team [members] are conversing amongst themselves."

So, the rule should be that, when you're talking about members, you should count the number of members to figure out if it's better to use 'is' or 'are', but when you're talking about packs or groups, it's better to count the number of packs or groups instead.

In other words, if you're talking about each wolf within the pack, use 'are', but if you're talking about the pack itself, use 'is'. Therefore, the pack of wolves [regarding the pack itself, as in, "Look at that pack go!"] is hunting the chickens.

Sadly, this isn't the rule. There are no rules. But I guess it doesn't matter too much. After all, we still have common sense, right? I mean, there's no law that says, "Slow down when you see flashing lights ahead," but you'd still be the fool if you didn't.

**********

Part One

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The sweetest essay on language that you'll ever read

My good friend Rowan was inspired (special thanks to our society) to write this short but awesome essay; and then he let me post it on here because Facebook's chat box wasn't built for sustaining rants. Read and be nourished.

“Punch the keys, damn it!” - by Rowan Thorpe

Finding Forrester had it right: while writing, one must indeed punch the keys. This is true not only of the typewriter but also of the laptop. I, at least, find the need to be very noisy when I write. I’m not sure why this is; I just find it gratifying. But perhaps the thing that I miss most is the ability to express myself in my own words – not to have to muzzle my expression while being around those who constantly require the definitions for my words. 

The requirement to explain myself is annoying and almost degrading to the other person; I feel as though I belittle such people as I speak to them. I know that this notion is incorrect, and I am aware that, in truth, I am in fact expanding their mind and their vocabulary by educating them in the art of the English language, both in diction and in knowledge. Yet still I feel almost aloof, and so I do what I must to avoid the long and mind-numbing explanations that come with speaking at my level of language. I tone down my vocabulary to the lowest level, the lowest common denominator, so that all might understand. I’m not sure that everyone can appreciate this dilemma. I fear that it is one only experienced by those who have been brought up to love the English language and appreciate its finer points, to be able to argue it down to the definitions of words and why one should use one word instead of another when addressing certain types of people or making an argument in a certain arena.

Some might say that I’m an English snob, and there is a certain truth to that. I cringe when I hear “th” pronounced “f” or those who mumble, mispronounce or otherwise mutilate the mother tongue. It bugs me that people do not take enough care to communicate effectively with their speech, let alone the murderous way they portray the English language on common social media websites, especially when they are trying to make a point that they wish people to take seriously, or indeed when they are commenting on a major life event. These are the times when accurate and precise language are needed so that all might share in the news or appreciate a strongly held belief.

Now it is true that language evolves, changes and grows. But what we are currently witnessing is more unto the reduction of language foreseen by Mr Orwell is his Novel 1984 – we are killing language, reducing its form and size until we are left with a strange mutilation involving numerals and symbols, to the point that a person living 50 years ago would not understand the diatribes polluting the internet, and as such our common use of the English language, so that we all lose our extended ability to both recall and use words, words, words, as Shakespeare once put it.

Read this book.

This loss, therefore, is suffered not only by me but also by the public at large as we bring up children who not only use acronyms to describe how they are feeling in online situations but have started to use these same acronyms in everyday “speech” going as far to say LOL rather than laughing and to say BRB rather than the full version, be right back, for fear that the extra half second it costs them may in some way be massively detrimental to their life and that they may miss some experience because they uttered a fully formed sentence rather than the only slightly shorter and yet far less descriptive one. And some would say even more heinous acronyms, like WBU, that they have become accustomed to using. And all the while English loses so much of its expression to the point that one must oft even define ‘acronym’ itself to the very culprits who use them as common place language, as they know not what they do.

This sad predicament that we now find ourselves in is largely due to technology. The very thing designed to make our lives easier, better and more knowledgeable has had the opposite effect, culling the language of Shakespeare, of Milton and of Wilde to a state where none of those giants would be able to recognise it, let alone read it.

Perhaps in punching the keys all too often we have killed the very thing we were trying to create – not by a thousand paper cuts; but instead, by a million million strokes of the keys, we have stabbed and typoed our way into a pseudo English scarecely worthy of our predecessors.

Perhaps we should all put down the laptops and pick up a pen every now and again, open a book instead of waiting for the movie to come out and speak – though speak with elegance it would, like those who came before us.

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Matt defies standardised grammar and teaches a new grammar - part one

Recently, Al Yankovic (Weird Al) published a song called Word Crimes, which immediately became my favourite song ever, because a) it parodied Robin Thicke's misogynistic Blurred Lines, and b) it promoted good grammar.

Al, in a gesture of poetic irony, took a song that bespoke society's decline in love and respect, turned it on its head and suited it in an armour sturdy enough to take on the almost-as-crucial decline of the English language.

Unfortunately, a meddlesome Third Group of people seemed to notice that Al, in his song, made a grammatical mistake of his own. This group singled out the error over and above all of the critical truths he very humorously conveyed.

What was his error? In one of the last lines, he split an infinitive.

Part One: It's quite all right to split an infinitive

Weird Al's sacrilegious line reads, "Try your best to not drool." Are you cringing yet? Because, according to a rule somewhere, you should be.

What's a split infinitive?
You split an infinitive whenever you slot an adverb between the words 'to' and 'be', or 'to' and 'go', or 'to' and whatever.

The line, "To boldly go where no man has gone before," is a famous example.

What's an adverb?
Adverbs describe verbs or adjectives. 'Run' is a verb; 'run slowly' is a verb plus an adverb. 'Go' is a verb, and 'to go' is also a verb, but it's called an infinitive.

'To boldly go' is a half infinitive, then an adverb, and then another half infinitive. Evidently you're not meant to break infinitives in half (split them).

Personally, I, if at all possible, prefer to soundly reason than to blindly follow.

The commandment that "thou'st an infinitive shall 't be split, else thy head," comes from Latin, from which much of English grammar was derived.

In Latin, splitting an infinitive would render the sentence useless. You couldn't do it and still make sense.

But - and here's where the sound reasoning kicks in - we don't speak Latin.

More sound reasoning:
Language is a road, not a destination, and there's no point having roads if you've got nowhere to drive. It's the meaning that's important, not the density of your silly infinitive. Just look at him! (Above)

My understanding is that language is how we communicate, not what we communicate.

Third Group's counterexample to sound reasoning:
Beyond pretending that English is Latin, in most cases, splitting an infinitive will make your sentence sound awkward. There's normally a better way to write the sentence than to split the infinitive. So, basically, the meaning of your sentence is usually conveyed better with the infinitive left whole.

What this is really saying, though, is that rules exist for a reason. Full stops, for one, separate sentences. Stop signs keep people from crashing. Un-split infinitives, well, they help keep things sounding nice.

The Third Group, however, rant about Weird Al's split infinitive with none of this reasoning in mind. Their argument goes as follows:

"He split an infinitive!"
...
...
...
"Burn him!"
...
...
...

Right. Anyway, in the song in question, Weird Al achieves two important things by splitting an infinitive: humour and rhythm. These things are important because Weird Al is trying to a) be funny, and b) write a song.  Funny things need humour and songs need rhythm. What they don't need are roads with dead ends.

The last three lines of the final chorus, with the emphasised words in bold, read like this:

Go back to pre-school

Get out of the gene pool

Try your best to not drool

A little bit rude, right? That was intentional. The joke wouldn't have been effective had the infinitive not been split and the line read instead, "Try your best not to drool," (preserving the sacred infinitive).

This is because the emphasis on 'not' (rather than 'to') is what communicates the idea that not drooling is an exception to the norm. The only other way that the humour would have remained intact would've been to, I guess, rewrite the entire line and break the rhyme, but that would compromise the rhythm, and in turn the humour... so, actually, no.

Splitting the infinitive made that third line incredibly effective because it achieved exactly what Al had intended.

It should be known: grammar rules work most of the time because, most of the time, following them is the best way to achieve the exact form of communication you intend. For instance, I have followed a heck of a load of grammar rules in writing this blog post.

But the rules do not always help. Take the word 'silence', for example. By itself, 'silence' is just a word; yet, you can find it in many a novel, alone, by itself, acting as an entire sentence. Gasp? Not yet.

The word tells you one thing: that there was silence, but the word being by itself can show you other things, like suspense, tension, fear, and uncertainty. Had the sentence read like a sentence, "There was silence," then the emotions might not have been effectively conveyed.

The emotional value of the sentence is strengthened due to its simplicity (one word); and, if this is what the author intended, then writing "silence" as a sentence was entirely justified.

In saying that, a person should understand a rule before he dares to break it. He should know the rules by heart before he toys with them, otherwise it could very well be his head.

In a way, the Third Group is right. They know that you need a rule book before you can drive, but they're forgetting that no one drives without first having somewhere to go. And for that, you need a brain, too.

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How to sound more intelligent - part three

You know, learning good grammar ought to be a responsibility for all native English speakers. My reasoning goes something like this: if four year-olds should know the alphabet, twenty-four year-olds should understand English grammar.

This third and final part is for those who've read and learned, or who already know, what I explained in parts one and two.

Part three: words you should stop misusing

Like someone who buys two pairs of shoes and over time wears only his favourite pair, so a lot of people neglect to say farther because they think that further does a better job. Even writers get this wrong. Writers of books!

Anyway, if you're one of these people, then, half of the time, you're wrong; you're wearing the wrong pair of shoes!

The words farther and further are not interchangeable.

Farther has to do with physical distance.
"Look there, Marie! The sprinter in first place is farther ahead than the chap in second!" - Captain Obvious

Further has to do with mental distance.
"Mrs Obvious rolled her eyes. Her last name notwithstanding, on the subject of education, she had progressed leagues further than her dolt of a husband."

Imply is the opposite of infer. The writer implies; the reader infers.

"Matt loves to write, but occasionally readers will infer something totally other than that which he was intending to imply."

Comprise cannot be used in place of consist or made up.
Comprise can be used in place of consist of or are made up of.

In other words, you can't say, "Clouds are comprised of water," because doing so is the equivalent of saying, "Clouds are are made up of of water."

Instead, say, "Clouds comprise water."

The Game of Thrones writers got it wrong when, on the subject of the Iron Bank, Tywin said, "A temple is comprised of stones." He should have said, "A temple comprises stones." Tsk tsk, Tywin Lannister. Oh, and Cersei made the same mistake in the same scene.

Now, before you get all funny: yes, I spotted the mistakes as I watched the show, but no, I wasn't trying to scrutinise.

In short
You move farther, you think further; your words imply, your ears infer.
Game of Thrones comprises awesomeness, but the script still needs editing.

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How to sound more intelligent - part two

A lot of people - public speakers in particular - attempt to sound fancy by manipulating the English language in strange and obscure ways. They replace words like 'me' with 'I', saying things like:
"So when that Microsoft representative rocked up to our front door and offered Erwin and I the job, my heart, like, jumped out of my chest. I was so excited!"
Read: it's Erwin and me, not Erwin and I. See Part One.

It's like using a sword as a walking stick instead of a weapon. I mean, sure, it does the job, but it makes you look silly. Also, playing with grammar is a lot like playing with a sword. In a word: don't.

These same people also prefer to use 'myself' when they should have used either 'I' or 'me'. They do it like this: "If you have any questions, please talk to Leonard, Janora, or myself [me] at the end of the discussion." Argh! They remind me of those people who insist that the sun revolves around the earth, and not the other way around. Okay, fine, I don't know anyone who believes that, but you get the idea.

Part two: when to use 'myself' in a sentence

The word 'myself' is a reflexive pronoun. The reason that it's a reflexive pronoun is because it reflects onto an earlier noun used in the same sentence. The earlier noun is like its mother, and they're connected by an umbilical cord, which I can't draw.

'Myself' can be used here because it's referring to the 'I' preceding it. If there was no 'I' acting, then there would be no reason to use the word 'myself'.

All reflexive pronouns are the son or daughter or their mother noun.

As you can see, the reflexive pronoun gets its life from the mother noun to which it reflects. It can't breathe without it.

So, when you use a reflexive pronoun without giving it a mother noun, it suffocates. The reflexive umbilical cord has nothing to attach itself to, and the son or daughter dies.

So many people make this mistake, yet they wouldn't say, "Please talk to myself afterwards"; they'd say, "Please talk to me afterwards". The same applies here. When you add Leonard and Janora, nothing changes. 'Me' is still the correct term to use.

In short
reflexive pronouns come with umbilical cords. They must have a mother noun, or they will die. Moreover, you'll sound silly.

Part three: words you should stop misusing

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How to sound more intelligent - part one

Some of the most common discrepancies in the spoken English language can weaken the best of us at the worst of times like a fatal chink on solid steel.

There are those of us who care enough to fix it, those of us who don't realise it's there, and those of us who don't care either way; after all, it's not like anyone else cares.*

*I do.

But it's one thing to have learnt good grammar before discarding it like a Best Buy circular because you opted for sounding cool rather than smart, and quite another thing to claim to appreciate things like brains, words and fountain pens, only to open your mouth and reveal to every passer-by that you are, in fact, the fountain pen. Don't look at me like you don't know what I mean.

Part one: there's a difference between I and me

At some point in our childhood we were saying things like, "Me and Jimmy are going to the park." But then our parents were all, "Jimmy and EYE," and they'd repeat this phrase a gazillion times like they had grammar tourrettes. Then we hit adolescence and stopped caring about our parents' wellbeings, and about grammar. Okay, fine, we never cared about grammar.

The problem was, thanks to the adults in our lives, the word 'me' was expunged from our vocabulary and replaced with the far more pristine 'I'. So, ironically, for the few brats young adults of us who might have once cared about grammar, there was no room left for 'me'.

Stuff we were taught as kids:

1. Don't say 'me'; say 'I'
2. Put yourself last. Say 'Jimmy and I', not 'I and Jimmy'.

Fun fact #1: rule 2 is table manners, not actual grammar.

Fun fact #2: 'me' still exists.

Stuff I've learnt as an adult:

1. People who say "me and Jimmy" don't care about the rules, whether or not they know them. 
2. People who say "Jimmy and I" do care about the rules, but, more often than not, only know half of them.

Here's the other half:

'Jimmy and I' is correct in this sentence: "Jimmy and I are going to the park."

'Jimmy and I' is incorrect in this sentence: "A man approached Jimmy and I and offered us candy from his van." Such a nice man.

You: Why is the second sentence incorrect?

Me: I'm glad you asked!

Method A - easy answer:

When you take "Jimmy" away from the sentence, you're left with "I".

     "Jimmy and I are am going to the park." :)

     "A man approached Jimmy and I and offered us me candy from his van." :(

The second example sounds silly, right? 'Me' should have been used instead of 'I'. 

     "A man approached me and offered me candy from his van."

Much better, now add Jimmy.

     "A man approached Jimmy and me and offered us candy from his van."

Easy, right? I'm getting goosebumps.

In short 
the phrase "Jimmy and I" is not always correct. To find out which of 'me' or 'I' is correct, simply get rid of Jimmy. He was more a neighbour than a friend, anyway.

Method B - boring/technical answer:

'I' is a subject pronoun; 'me' is an object pronoun. The subject is the thing that acts; the object is the thing that gets acted upon.

"Jimmy and I are going to the park."

In this sentence, Jimmy and I are the subjects. They are going to the park, which is the object.

"A man approached Jimmy and me and offered me candy from his van."

In this sentence, the man is the subject, and he's approaching the objects, which are Jimmy and me.

Other subject pronouns include 'he', 'she' and 'they'. Other object pronouns include 'him', 'her' and 'them'.

In short, stick with Method A.

Part two: how to use 'myself' correctly

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Why an atheist shouldn't take offence when a religious person presents his or her beliefs

Every atheist I know would say that God does not exist. They know what the word 'atheist' means, and they stand by it. If I asked them if God is a fairytale character, they'd probably say yes.

I'm fine with this. I'm all for people making up their minds. I just wish that more people would.

So, God is a fairytale character. This means that he's in the same boat as characters like Pinocchio, Snow White, and, according to Once Upon A Time (and nothing else), Elsa the Snow Queen.

Of course, if God and Pinocchio are interchangeable, then it's fair to say that their values are interchangeable, too. So we could take God's words away from God and attribute them to Pinocchio instead.

Some of Pinocchio's words, values and commands include:
"Love Pinocchio with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
"Honour your father and mother."
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with Pinocchio's spirit."
"In the beginning Pinocchio created the heavens and the earth."
"For Pinocchio will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

Ridiculous, right? Pinocchio isn't even real, let alone a real boy. Living by these words, or even letting myself be affected by them, is tantamount to me crafting a wooden puppet, naming it Pinocchio, and deciding that this puppet wrote a bunch of laws by which man should live, all with his stubby little puppet hand that can't even grip.

In fact, I am so certain that Pinocchio hasn't written a single thing in the history of the world (what with not existing), that if someone approached me with a Pinocchio doll perched on his shoulder and said, "My friend Pinocchio says that you're living a sinful life," I would probably laugh. In any case, I wouldn't care. And the reason I wouldn't care would be based on my absolute certainty that Pinocchio does not exist. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. No doubt this man would be judging my beliefs, but I personally wouldn't be offended.

Whenever someone's judgements personally offend me, it's as a result of one of two things: my own doubts or my own insecurities, and the two are not mutually exclusive. I would argue that this cause and effect relationship applies to everyone.

I might feel insecure if I walked into a corporate building in shorts and a tee shirt and found that everyone else is wearing suits and ties. If those in suits and ties stared at me, I would feel even more insecure. I'd feel this way because, while a part of me believes that people shouldn't care about what I look like, another part of me would be believing that I'm out of place, that I don't fit in, that those staring are silently ridiculing, and that I should probably find the nearest exit before someone decides to say something. This same part of me might even take offence at all the staring.

This compiled feeling of judgement would be based on an insecurity in my belief system regarding my image, caused by an overwhelming and opposing belief (however strong) that anyone who enters a building like this one ought to be dressed in smart attire, and anyone who isn't ought to be shunned. A silly belief, I know.

Of course, it wasn't until this moment that I realised my 'who cares what you wear' beliefs weren't as firm as I'd thought. It was hardly the pairs of judging eyes that caused me to take offence so much as the volatility of my self esteem. It turns out that, regarding personal image, I didn't truly believe what I thought I did.

On the other hand, I'm never offended by someone's judgements when I'm certain that I'm right. If someone approached me and told me that I can't spell, I wouldn't be offended because I know that I can spell quite well, and this knowledge would be stronger than their opinion. I might get frustrated if the person persisted with examples that actually proved my point rather than his, but I wouldn't be offended.

I wouldn't be offended if someone told me to sweep my chimney to make way for Santa this Christmas, either. If I prided myself on the dust-ridden state of my chimney, I might feel sore about this man ordering me, without using much tact, to clean it. But I wouldn't feel offended over the fact that my disbelief in Santa was being judged because I would know that my disbelief in Santa is the correct belief to have.

And I wouldn't be offended if someone told me that Pinocchio created the world, Pinocchio loves me, and Pinocchio has a plan for my life. Even if my way of life was being judged, I wouldn't be offended because Pinocchio is a fairytale character.

To many an Atheist, God is also a fairytale character, and yet the mention of his name stirs offence almost anywhere, as if each person has been personally attacked. Strangely, if the name 'God' was substituted with 'Pinocchio', I highly doubt that we'd get the same results.

Someone, please, tell me what the difference is.

To recap:
1. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. I would not be offended if you told me that he was real.
2. God is a fairytale character. An atheist should not be offended if I tell him that he is real.

Like I said, I'm all for people making up their minds, but anyone who takes offence when their beliefs are challenged - anyone who feels insecure when their way of life is called to question - hasn't.

Either God is a fairytale, or he isn't.

If he is, then there's no reason to be offended when a Christian presents his or her beliefs, because those beliefs are a part of the same fairytale. They're fake. They have nothing to do with real-world morality.

So if a man does get offended or is affected in any way, then my guess is that there's an underlying doubt or insecurity regarding this man's disbelief in God. What he wants to believe (what he claims) doesn't line up with what he might actually believe (how he reacts/taking offence). Two beliefs are conflicting, like mine in that corporate building.

Now, I'm not saying that the condemning stares and scowls were morally just. Those people aren't perfect, either. But people will always believe things that you and I don't believe. When someone's belief is strong enough, he lives by it, and he feels the need to share it with others. Sometimes it's out of passion, sometimes out of love, and sometimes to condemn. Whatever the case, his attitude isn't my problem. My problem lies in what I believe and how I choose to react.

I felt insecure in that building because the stares and the scowls made me second guess my 'wear what you want' belief system. I wasn't as secure in those beliefs as I am about, say, my competence at spelling. In order to avoid taking personal offence, I need to make up my mind about the beliefs regarding my image. In the same way, a lot of atheists need to make up their minds about their beliefs regarding fairytale characters.

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Flint and Steel: Episode Four

Here, Nicky, is where you will discover your ultimate fate, and the fate of your husband!

Will you and Flint live happily ever after? Is Tatai, the obligatory villain, truly defeated? And what happened to Rowan? Will he be rescued?

This episode is rated PG. It contains mild romance (that means you, Nicky) and slightly less mild violence.

Past episodes

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

The prison bars wouldn’t relent. Flint’s jaw was simply not sharp enough. He wished he had a whetstone, but there was no whetstone in sight. The only furnishings in his six by six prison cell were a bucket, a steel bed with paper-thin mattress, and a wooden plate bearing a wedge of moon cheese. Flint grimaced at the moon cheese. He was hungry, but he wasn’t that hungry.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, his pangs of hunger were soon quashed by those of the pains in his neck and forehead, those of his misery, and those of his confusion as a direct result of his misery.

His head pains had been brought on during his escape attempt, which had mostly involved moving his head back and forth like a hacksaw – only this hacksaw had brains and muscles in place of solid steel. The resulting aches were unwanted, but not unexpected. However, Flint's misery was something he'd never planned to persist even after killing the president. Strange, he’d thought. I’d always imagined that killing a president would solve all of life’s problems.

It hadn’t. And therein lay his confusion.

Sitting on the concrete floor of his cell, Flint might have berated Ashleigh for her poor weapon choice (a blow dart) if only he could contact her, but communication between earth and the moon was impossible due to the immensity of waste disposal pods bordering earth’s atmosphere. These pods ate up communication signals like miniature hackers. Were it not for them, Flint would have arranged to be in constant contact with his sharp-nosed ginger wife.

The notion of seeing her again blanketed him in an overpowering sensation of weakness. Fond and intimate memories of her loosed his eyelids, ushered his mind elsewhere, and brought a smile to his lonely lips. The image was warm and nostalgic, almost real; and her voice, while nasally, was a balm to his lonely soul.

When he reopened his eyes, he saw a concrete wall in place of his spouse. It bore no resemblance to her whatever, save for that one incident when she came home after a week of non-stop dancing and proceeded to remove her make-up. Flint couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.

The hard floor beneath him felt colder now, and the light permitted through the small barred window appeared dimmer than before. Alone in the dark, Flint’s tender smile faded like a rose kissed by blight.

The darkness did more than just surround him. He could taste it, feel it like it he’d felt Nicky’s presence moments before. The shadows deepened until, seconds later, he was struck with an unshakeable fear. He could have sworn that the walls echoed the pounding of his chest. Out from the deepest recesses of his heart in which hides irrefutable facts came the stark realisation that someone – someone he knew – was going to die.

*

It was a fine thing that the Ozricks spacecraft landed when it did, for no sooner had Nicky walked off the gangway than the entire ship suddenly collapsed. With her back to the craft, Nicky could only hear the moans and groans of twisting, melting metal, followed by crashing, more moaning, and the faint cry of a single parrot. Nicky cringed in time with the sounds; there was only one explanation for the sudden disintegration of her carrier…

Cheese vomit.

Never would Nicky eat moon cheese again.

With the ship in pieces, Nicky would need to find another means of escape. Once I find Flint, everything will be all right, she thought, reassuring herself. Unfortunately, most of her hope scurried away the moment she beheld the immense building in which her husband was supposedly being held.

The exterior of the Ozricks Maximum Security Prison, or OMSP, was a brooding mass of stone and steel. Sparse of window and void of colour, it lacked any semblance to an ordinary building. Had it not been for the underground parking access, the smoke rising from chimneys, and the duos of sentries who manned every entrance, Nicky might have mistaken it for the ruins of a massive ancient alien vessel. The shadow of the building, which seemed to darken as she drew nearer the entrance, revived the itch at her neck and made goose prickles sprout on her arms. As she eyed the vicinity, tall barbed fences surrounding the area only made her shudder. Those thorn-like curls preventing her escape looked as coarse as Nicky’s head on a bad ginger hair day.

Fortunately, during the final seconds of her journey, Nicky had procured her original set of clothes – fake eyelashes included – and placed them in an eco-friendly canvas bag, which now hung from the handles on her right arm. Peering into the bag lent her some small solace. Nicky loved her clothes; she loved them so much that she’d more than once considered changing out of her disguise. Except, Nicky never compromised the things that mattered most in life, such as her husband’s welfare. If saving him meant having to wear an unfashionable, uncomfortable set of uniform, then that was exactly what she was going to do, no questions asked.

Nicky entered through the prison’s main entrance without so much as a second look from the guards. Notwithstanding, she had poised her hair in prime twirling position on the off-chance that they questioned her. A simple flick of her ginger locks would ward off an assailant as quickly as pepper spray – only with her hair the damage was permanent. She had learned this technique years ago in her co-ed ballroom class. Her only co-ed ballroom class.

Inside, Nicky identified an unmanned terminal that was sure to contain a directory of every inmate and his whereabouts. A quick search revealed that Flint was in ward C4, which, after counting with her fingers, she confirmed was somewhere between wards C3 and C5.

The grey corridors went on and on. They might have been as long as Rowan’s beard, if he had trimmed it. As Nicky remembered it, his beard was such that, if she were to snip it right off and entwine the strands into rope, it would still be long enough for her to uncoil it in her footsteps as a means to trace her way back to the exit. Of course, the lord of beards didn’t much want to shave, nor was he in snipping range. Indeed, had he not been so busy getting captured, Rowan might have been able to update Nicky on Flint’s status. She didn’t even know if Flint was even alive in that cell; and worse, assuming she succeeded in rescuing him, she would then have to rescue Rowan as well. She sighed. Two rescues in one day. What am I, Wonder Woman? She pondered the thought – Oh wait, I am! – and failed to contain her giggle.

She entered ward C2 to find that it was much the same as C1 – that was, boring and stuffy. Her hair, growing frizzier by the minute, didn’t like this place one bit.

Metal doors with tiny windows lined the walls. Flint would be behind a door such as these, but Nicky knew that the exact cell in which he would be kept was still two wards hence.

The corridor seemed endless at first, but eventually she made out where it met another corridor at a junction. Occupying this crossroad was a janitor mopping the floor, though Nicky wasn’t sure why; the floor seemed perfectly clean.

It was difficult to tell from the overalls and hat, but when the janitor turned side-on, Nicky deduced by way of bosom that this cleaner was female. And what followed snuffed out any further doubt.

As the janitor lifted her mop and dipped it in the bucket beside her, she moved with the suppleness and grace of a cat – or, Nicky thought, a dancer. The manoeuvre was so precise that, as this janitor wrung the mop, nary a drop splashed out of turn. She pivoted on the ball of her foot back to her mopping space with a finesse Nicky hadn’t seen since before the end of her dancing career. The ginger spy slowed her pace; it wasn’t her dancing career that had taught her to question everything she saw.

For instance, at the point when she was about to pass this janitor, she noticed the woman reverse her grip on the mop and swivel her right foot in Nicky’s direction. Just so, Nicky was prepared for the swing of stick from floor to face, which she caught halfway with well-timed hands. Ginger and janitor were locked in a test of strength, which lasted two seconds before the mop split in two. Nicky had the bigger half, but she was never a fan of sticks. Instead, she kicked the bucket, sending it spinning into the air past the head of her assailant. On the way, the metal handle brushed the janitor’s hat, knocking it off and freeing a mid-length heap of layered brown hair from its containment – a heap that could have belonged to only one woman. Nicky cursed her ginger eyes.

“Ashleigh? My old dancing rival?”

In return, the girl threw her a dark look that signified sheer hatred. “The bucket,” she said, “you missed.”

Nicky smiled back. “I never miss.” During their momentary reunion, the pail had continued its trajectory to bounce off the rear wall, now finishing its course with a satisfying thunk on the back of Ashleigh’s head. The pseudo-janitor stumbled and nearly fell, but lunged a leg forward to maintain balance. Crouched, she used her thigh to snap her half-mop into quarters. Nicky, realising that two was better than one, did likewise – after tossing her eco-friendly canvas bag to a safe distance, of course. Sticks in hand, the two women circled each other like gladiators, or perhaps dancers on ice. “Before we kill each other for no reason,” Nicky said, “tell me, why are you here?”

          Ashleigh darkened her dark look. “You were always a better dancer than me. I hated that about you.” Her voice was as cold as the figurative ice upon which they were figuratively figure skating. As she spoke, she flipped her sticks in hand in what seemed like an effort to appear intimidating. “When I heard you’d quit dancing for spying, I knew that that was my chance. See, I’m a far better spy than you are.”

“I don’t know,” Nicky said. “I think I’m better at that, too.”

Ashleigh glared at her with a gaze sharp enough to rival Flint’s jaw. Nicky went on. “What I don’t understand is why you’re here, opposing me. I thought that we were on the same side.”

“We were, but my hatred for you exceeds my loyalty to your husband. So I snuck a ride on the ship he took to get here.”

Nicky debated Ashleigh’s words. “Honey, that doesn’t make sense. Why did you help Flint kill the president if you wanted to betray him?”

In saying those last two words, Nicky was reminded that her rival lacked a certain something called ‘common sense’. No surprise, then, that Ashleigh replied with sticks instead of words. The two engaged in a dance so fierce that their respective weapons were soon ground down to splinters the size of toothpicks. And on they fought, performing a cat rendition with fingers, nails and teeth, even as flurries of mop-stick sawdust showered them like confetti.

Next, they were at each other’s throats, throttling, choking, nails sinking – followed by another round of cat fighting.

They fought for several minutes, but for Nicky it felt like seconds, before exhaustion, pain, and oxygen-deprived lungs got the better of them. Leaning on her knees, Nicky looked over at Ashleigh and saw the results of her nails in the mangled and torn remains of what must have been her face. Ashleigh’s cheeks looked as if they’d been mauled by a bear; her nose was visually broken; and her bottom lip dangled by only a few strands of skin tissue. One of her eyelids was sealed shut, and the other, vaguely open, revealed an empty socket where an eye used to sit. She’s blind, Nicky thought.

Ashleigh flailed aimlessly, her arms lurching for something solid. “Get ack here!” she screeched (the ‘b’ was missing due to insufficient lip). Nicky determined to seize the opportunity, but doing so was almost impossible; the excruciating pain she felt all over her face bespoke a fate not unlike Ashleigh’s. As if her now nail-less fingers weren’t agony enough. Both her face and hands were on fire…

…but a ginger like Nicky eats fire for breakfast.

She swallowed her pain like a hot orange-zested chai with no milk, and channelled it into strength. At the same time, something stood out from the corner of her eye: a whole fingernail on the ground that must have been ripped off in one fell scratch. I knew my lengthy nails would come in handy someday. This rogue nail, while short for Nicky standards, was still half the length of a dagger’s blade, and twice as sharp. Yet her opponent was likely too wary for a direct approach to work. This ginger would need to improvise.

Noting the position of the mopping bucket between her and Ashleigh, she propped the fingernail up on a standing position, stepped back and ushered her rival closer with a contemptuous “Over here!” The girl fell for the bait, scrambling in Nicky’s direction. On her second step she tripped on the bucket and fell forward to hit the ground face down. It wasn’t the resultant thud of impact so much as the shlick of nail through stomach that Nicky took to confirm Ashleigh’s death and, thus, a hard-fought victory. This caused her to don a wide grin, which in turn released a number of teeth to clatter out of her mouth, followed by a decent-sized morsel of recently-bitten off flesh, Ashleigh’s flesh, no doubt. Nicky hadn’t realised how many teeth she’d lost, but it was the morsel of flesh that captured the better of her attention. “Hmm,” she said, “I suppose I won by the skin in my teeth.”

Battered and bruised, but giggling at her awesome pun, she retrieved her bag and limped onwards in search of her husband.

She found Flint in Ward C4 as expected. He was inside a more traditional cell unlike those Nicky had seen in the wards heretofore. This one had bars instead of a door.

“Nicky?” he said. “Nicky, is that really you?”

His words were hard to comprehend over the ringing that had taken residence in her ears some time after the cat fight. Still, the sound of his voice seemed to numb every aching nerve in her body. “Flint! Oh, sweet Flint,” she said, limping towards him. “How many months has it been?”

“Too many,” he replied. “Now, get me out of here.”

She had trouble moving her eyes off of his face, perfect razor jaw and all. His complexion was to her eyes as an orange-flavoured cake would have been to her stomach. She would have devoured the cake whole had there been no bars in the way. “Hurry up!” he yelled.

“Oh, right.” She pulled at the bars with her burning hands, but they refused to yield. “Um,” she said, “it’s not working.”

“It’s locked. You’ll need a key.”

“A key?”

“You know, to unlock the door.”

Nicky looked away, troubled. “Rowan normally handles those kinds of things.”

Flint grimaced. “Well, where’s Rowan?”

“He got captured.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You’re telling me!”

“THERE YOU ARE!”

These last words hadn’t come from either of them. Indeed, they belonged to a third voice, a voice that had emerged from the far end of the corridor. While distant, it carried a carefully-balanced weight of authority.

Nicky turned in its direction, and gasped. “Old Captain Tatai?! I… I thought-”

“What?” Tatai broke in, “That I had died with the ship?

Nicky shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Perhaps I would have, had my trusty parrot not come to my aid.” Nicky had been wondering why there was a bird circling the air above Tatai. Now it perched on his shoulder. “Mr Fringe and I make a great team. But I digress. You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

“Yes,” Nicky said. She wanted to stroke Mr Fringe’s fringe -- perhaps when her fingernails had regrown.

“Well, you see, I lost a hand in the upheaval of the ship.” He raised a handless sleeve to add emphasis. “And even though I gained this-” he drew his sleeve up to reveal a shiny metal hook in place of a hand- “I still want my vengeance.”

Captain Tatai’s do-up of trench coat, eye patch, parrot and hook-hand reminded Nicky of something from earth – something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. All she knew was that it had something to do with water. The word ‘ocean’ came to mind, but she’d forgotten what an ocean even was.

Tatai broke her reverie with the words, “Okay, I’m going to kill you now.” Immediately, he burst into a run, his lengthy strides eating up the distance between them. Nicky gasped. Not only was she too weak to fight again, but Flint would be unable to help her so long as he was in his cell.

“Nicky, you have to flee!” Flint said. “He’s too strong. You’ll die if you stay here.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she asserted, quoting every film she’d ever seen. “There has to be another way.”

Flint took her hands into his own. “I love you, Nicky.”

Admittedly, touching his hands was not making it easy for her to leave. Not that she would have. “What about our secret weapon?” she asked.

“Secret weapon?” He raised his eyebrows in realisation. “Oh! That! Are… are you sure? We’ll, um… we’ll die.”

“No time.” Nicky couldn’t save him, but she could kiss him. Cheeks against the bars, her lips met his. Flint reciprocated in a most love-endowed fashion. With the right head angle, they were able to touch lips while avoiding the hazards of nose and jaw. 

Somewhere at the back of her mind it occurred to her that her lips were still fully intact. But none of that concerned her anymore. If she died here, it wouldn’t matter.

As the thuds of Tatai’s footsteps grew louder and closer, Nicky thought she heard a second set of steps approaching from the other direction. Her eyes were closed, but she peeped one open and saw what looked like a giant hedge made entirely out of facial hair bounding towards her. “Stop!” came a voice from inside it. But Nicky had no reason to listen to an oversized clump of black hair. Even if she wasn’t on the brink of death and was instead lying in bed or watching television – even then she wouldn’t have listened to an oversized clump of black hair. No, she and Flint smooched unabated, and at some point his rock-like jaw on her fiery skin seemed to create a spark. It was a small spark, inconsequential in all other kissing affairs, yet Nicky’s dry hair was so hay-like that, as a single ginger lock brushed between them, it turned the spark into a powerful firework, powerful enough, perhaps, to demolish the entirety of an ancient alien vessel. Tatai’s grasp must have been two paces hence when he was blown apart by fire – and not just the 'love' type of fire, either.

Nicky embraced death like she might a potent hair conditioner. Yet she felt no pain, and the explosion that was sure to deafen her ears sounded muffled and distant. When she realised that Flint’s lips were still on hers, she wondered if she was immortal. In a few moments, when she’d decided that they’d kissed for long enough, she opened her eyes.

Everything, everywhere, was dark. The air was thin, and she could have sworn that she smelled smoke.

 “Nicky, are you all right?” It was Flint’s voice.

“Fine, I think.”

“Why is it so dark?”

“I don’t know.”

Seconds passed before a white dot appeared like a speck on the blackness. The dot grew, letting in light. Soon there were multiple dots, each one spreading and growing, merging with the others. They looked to be within an arm’s reach. Burning away the blackness, they grew to be several inches in size. She realised then that they weren’t dots, but holes. Wider still they became, until she breathed in a foul stench, vile as if hair was being scorched. She touched the rim of one of the holes. It was hot and coarse.

“Facial hair!” she exclaimed.

The light was bright enough now to define the blackness as a tapestry of dark hair sheltering them like a tent. But soon the holes burned so large that the whole thing collapsed to their feet, revealing before them an entirely different scene. They found themselves dead centre in a ruin of smoke, rubble and ash. “We did all this?” Flint asked. Nicky was too slack of jaw to reply. Also, her scalp felt cold.

Through pillars of smoke and motes of ash, she saw that her and Flint’s kiss had levelled the compound so fast that it seemed as if the prison had all but up and left. The ground beneath their feet was all acrumble, and the barbed fences previously surrounding the perimeter appeared to have toppled as one. Watchtowers sturdy as brick had been turned to hollow shells a fraction of their former height. Small fires burned amidst mounds of brick and stone; their smoke rose thick and black as poison. Orange light from the setting fiery-red-thing-in-the-sky tinted the ruin a dull tone. By contrast, Flint’s steely jaw sparkled like diamonds in the twilight.

“Flint, why aren’t we dead?” Nicky asked.

Flint reached down and retrieved a tuft of black hair from the rubble. “I think that wall of hair sheltered us from the explosion.”

Nicky was dubious. “Even the impact?”

“It seems so. This hair was very strong. Whomever it belonged to must have groomed it well, unlike your-” he pointed at something just above her head- “never mind.”

Nicky scanned the rubble around them. “Where did this hair come from?”

“It’s hard to say.”

 “Well, where is this man?”

“Buried and burnt, most likely.”

She sighed, and then hugged her husband in a firm embrace. “At least we have each other.” They held one another for what must have been minutes. And then, her head still on his shoulder, she saw a set of eyes staring back at her from amongst the debris. “Is that…?” She let go of him and rushed towards it to obtain a closer look.

Even in the dim hue of twilight, Rowan’s beardless complexion was unmistakable, yet when she crouched beside him, she noticed that the eyes were unmoving, and no breath entered or escaped the mouth. Half of the body was covered in rocks. The face was unblemished, but Rowan was gone.

“We killed him,” Flint said.

Nicky picked up a disposable razor lying in the rubble beside him. “Why was he here?”

Flint seemed to dwell on that question for a moment. “Do you remember the huge mass of facial hair that had been running towards us just seconds before the explosion?”

“Yeah.”

“That was Rowan’s beard.”

Nicky didn’t like what she was hearing. “But he'd been captured. How did he escape?”

“I don't know, but I think it's safe to say that he wanted to save us, and, well… it worked.” He gestured to the razor in her hand. “He must have been using that razor. I'm guessing that, as he ran, he trimmed his beard into a veil of facial hair, and then draped the veil over us in order to shield us from the blast… all at the cost of his own life.”

A tear trickled down Nicky's cheek and onto her lips. It tasted like liquid ginger. “He really... he really took the ‘h’ out of ‘shave’.” Despite the awesomeness of her pun, this time, she didn’t laugh.

Flint crouched down beside her. “Back in the prison, I knew someone would die, but even I didn’t foresee this kind of an ending.”

Beside Rowan’s corpse, Nicky saw what looked to be a plastic card half buried in stones. A row of digits indented into its surface reflected the last of the fiery-red-thing’s light. She pulled it out to discover that it was Rowan’s credit card.

“He’d fashioned himself a wallet made from the hairs of his own beard,” she said, flipping the card in hand, “which is why this is still intact.” A useful thought crossed her mind.  “We can buy our beach house.”

To that, Flint made a wry face. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

Nicky regarded the card again. Its golden finish was the only thing that glowed in the dying light; well, besides Flint’s do-not-touch jaw. “Yes,” she asserted.

He shrugged. “You knew him better than me.”

“That I did.” She stood, pocketed the card and brushed the dust off her clothes. “Let’s go.”

They walked for no more than ten seconds when Flint, in a foreboding tone, declared, “There’s something you should know.”

“What is it?”

“Your hair-” foreboding and timid- “it’s… it’s all gone.”

Nicky pretended to ignore him. She gawked at him, waiting for him to tell her that it was all a joke – a bad joke that she would subsequently warn him never to make again. Only, he wasn’t laughing. Uneasy now, she halted and threw her hands to the top of her head, still expecting Flint to say something along the lines of, “Fooled you!” Yet he spoke no such words; and as Nicky felt her scalp, she realised that she was touching something other than hair – more specifically, a stark lack thereof. Her resultant scream was enough to upset the ringing in her ears again, and to rekindle every fire in a two hundred yard radius.

“I… I’m sorry, babe,” he said.

But apologies did little to bring her hair back. She was as bald as Tatai, as hairless as the face of Rowan’s corpse. Her head was as void of hair as this compound was of an ancient alien vessel. She wanted a mirror even though she dreaded the thought of seeing herself. The pain in her face and hands returned, more intense than ever before. She withdrew Rowan’s credit card from her pocket.

“What happened to my face?” she asked.

“Your face?” A pause. “Your face is fine. In fact, your nose is a normal length now. It's never looked better! Why do you ask?”

Moving her hands from her head down to her face, she realised that the pain there was as a wounded nose, resulting from her fight with Ashleigh. While her rival’s face was torn to pieces, hers simply had a nose job. “It’s nothing,” she said, somewhat relieved.

“What are you going to do?” Flint asked.

“The only thing I can.” Her tone was a mix of despair and resolve.

He blinked in quick succession, evidently confused. “A beach house can’t bring your hair back.”

“We aren’t buying a beach house.”

“Well, then, what are we buying?”

The bald ginger clutched the card tight in her fist. “Time.”

Flint’s mouth went crooked. “Time? You aren’t thinking of…”

“Yes.”

“But that’s… that’s dangerous, and hardly legal.”

She gave him a sarcastic look that said, “And you’re one to talk,” but knew that such an expression would have been far more effective with hair on her head.

Flint dropped his shoulders, conceding. “Okay, fine, so I killed the president. But this is different; you could die!”

She ignored him and turned to face the night sky. The fiery-red-thing had been replaced by a full moon, and stars had emerged from out of the darkness. The air was less stuffy and more crisp, especially so on Nicky’s scalp. But the ginger-lacking ginger was unfazed. “I’ll get my hair back,” she said. “I’ll get it back even if it means taking a trip back in time to find it.”

THE END

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