Blog Detail
Harmless Fraud
http://www.harmlessfraud.com/
“The rules of grammar are crabbed things to many persons… and I cannot see that anything is learned with greater success than what is learned by playing, and this is, in truth, a harmless fraud, to trick a person into his own profit.”
After reading this quote attributed to Desiderius Erasmus, we knew we had found the title for this site. That’s because A Harmless Fraud aims to help people write better, read better, and maybe even think better by offering learning experiences that feel a lot closer to play than work. Even by dipping into the site for a few minutes during the week–to take a short quiz or read a blog post–you should soon find yourself sidestepping writing pitfalls you previously fell into unawares. But the site also aims to broaden horizons with coverage of writing and culture that is sometimes hard to find in events-led media. As well as quizzes delivered through an intuitive and engaging interface, A Harmless Fraud is characterised by a lively blog presence focused on literature, journalism, and the way language is used–in other words, anything that might conceivably interest our audience.
Recent Posts
Wish You Weren’t Here
For the past two weeks, courtesy of Hans Fallada, I have been experiencing a nightmare. Fallada, the pen-name of Rudolf Ditzen, is the author of Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies Alone*), a novel that first appeared in 1947. The proximity...
Words: Contango
The occasional “Words” feature on this blog aims to illuminate some of the more esoteric terms the common reader might encounter in fairly mainstream publications. This week’s phrase is contango: Contango is A) the pidgin form of En...
Fragments Shored Against My Ruin
We have enough problems with linear narrative and true memory–from Dr. Grene’s Commonplace Book It is grimly apropos that I finally got around to reading Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture while the nation bobbed about in toxic ...
Ignorance is Bliss II
The previous post described how a correction, even a quasi-erroneous one, can leave a lasting imprint on writing style. But a split infinitive is a mirthless solecism compared to the mockery—a cruelly effective pedagogical tool—the dangling modif...
Ignorance is Bliss I
I guess a common formative experience for anyone whose formal education extends into their third decade is the return of the first college paper. In my case, after successfully throwing myself through the hoops represented by the Leaving Certificate ...
Words: Antitragus
The occasional “Words” feature on this blog aims to illuminate some of the more esoteric terms the common reader might encounter in fairly mainstream publications. This week’s word, antitragus, appears in a much-lauded first novel ...
