Bronte Follower: Blog

uploaded last night.

Somehow, I lost an entire paragraph... plus a bit more between finishing the writing and my final edit after which I posted it. The missing paragraph is not all that critical, but I've rewritten it (and the other bit), fixed some other mistakes and some small flow problems, and put the edited chapter in the queue. I've no idea when it will hit, so....

Enrique wondered into the lingerie store and wandered if his girlfriend's mother would object to him buying her daughter a sexy item or two.

Anyone noting a problem in the above -- unless you're Enrique's girlfriend's mother -- may have noted the confusing of two very similarly spelled words that mean very different things. If you ponder what will happen, you are wondering. If you move semi-aimlessly, you are wandering.

Whether authors here and elsewhere use the wrong word due to simple typing mistakes (and as long as one spells it correctly, spellcheck won't catch it) or because they don't know that there are two different words, I find this mistake frequently.

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for your attention and have a great day!

While I had written bits of this chapter on various dates over the past month or more, I returned home from working in the field manic to get it done and posted. Being gone so long from the office means that I've got a lot on which to catch up there, so may have little time for writing for the rest of the week. Besides, readers of Beth have already waited too long for a substantial chapter. And this one is quite substantial.

I wrote another blog piece a day or two ago that I never saw come up on the front page of SOL. Hmm.

Since I have had a few readers of Beth thank me for teaching them a bit about soccer, I thought I would take advantage of a recent post on the Tifo Football YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9QpXX47Mo4) to write here about the subject of that video.

The point the video makes is spot on, but I also wanted to give Tifo a shoutout for using an example from women's football (which is a rare occurrence in general soccer/football videos). The point of the video is that just because two players occupy the same named position, that does not necessarily mean that they have the same roles (term from the video).

Close readers of Beth will note that, though Rachel and Kim are both starting wing fullbacks on the high-school team (left and right, respectively), they have differing roles. While the primary tasks of the two are defense, Rachel has a secondary responsibility on offense, specifically making runs up the sideline to spread the offense. In fact, during the season, Rachel had two goals and an assist to Kim's single assist.

Another example from the high-school team are the two starting strikers, Rhee and Heather. Rhee is something of a big, bruiser of a striker. She can mix it up in heavy traffic and often come out the winner, while Heather, who might not weigh even 100 pounds, would do poorly in that role; she is more a finesse player.

My final example comes from the premier team, again involving Heather. Before her ankle injury, Lissa was the starting right wing and, though it's not specifically discussed in canon, she was there simply because she was too good not to start, but other positions were filled by others whose talents were more optimized for those positions. When Heather got a chance to show her skills because of Lissa's injury, she proved herself to be a better right wing than Lissa, thus relegating Lissa to being a backup.

In soccer/football, various players have differing skills and interests, and, all else being equal (which it rarely, if ever, is), the team that can maximize on the various skill and interest sets of its players -- that is, have the various positions and roles filled by players that excel in those SPECIFICALLY -- has a higher likelihood of winning the match.