Hello there!

If you’re new, welcome. If you’ve been here before, yay.

In March I’ll be rested, caught up and human. — Sylvia Plath

March is a month for albums. End the playlist tyranny, pop on an album, and listen to it end to end — ideally while cooking. I’ve not been able to eat lately, so I’ve been cooking a lot, which I usually hate. It turns out the key to fun cooking is to absolve yourself of the burden of eating what you’ve made.

In current rotation, if you need inspo:

• Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Bob Dylan (for cooking gently)

• I., Cigarettes After Sex (for cooking longingly)

• Getting Killed, Geese (for cooking BPD-style)

• Extremely Cool, Chuck E. Weiss (for cooking lackadaisically)

I can’t promise this prescription will fix your life, but it might fix your March. Sylvia please,,,,,,,,,,, 💕

Meanwhile in editing

You’re probably on top of whether to use an or a before a word. If not, it’s (relatively) simple: a goes before a consonant sound, and an goes before a vowel sound — regardless of the letter the word starts with. The only time this gets a little messy is when accents wander in and rearrange the furniture, which is how some weirdo Australians end up writing things like ‘an historic event’ (yucko!).

But what if the ‘word’ isn’t really a word at all? Enter acronyms and initialisms. Acronyms are pronounced as words (SCUBA, ANZAC, etc.) while initialisms are sounded out letter by letter (A-T-M or S-O-B).

Because the rule is about sound, the article follows suit. You’d take a QANTAS flight, but make an ATM withdrawal. With something like NAB, it depends on how you’re saying it: a ‘NAB’ branch if it’s an acronym, an ‘eN-Ay-Be’ branch if it’s an initialism. Tricky little beasts!

Meanwhile in style

When we last spoke about infixes, I introduced the one common infix in English (expletive). But there are two others, less common, that still deserve their flowers. These are the Homeric infix (named after history’s most famous Homer) and the infixes that appear in hip-hop. Let’s start with Mr Simpson’s:

The Homeric infix takes the form of -ma (/mə/) and follows the same structure as expletive infixes (sitting before a stressed syllable). Particularly packed with pleasing prosody are edu-ma-cated and sophisti-ma-cated, but all Homeric infixes inject a little affected pomposity into a normal sentence. Sounding v perspi-ma-cacious, my good sir.

The infix you’ll most commonly hear in hip-hop is -iz or -izn (via AAVE). It’s doing a different job, though still a prosodic one. (Thank you, Mr Big Boi, for the example above.)

The structure of rap demands a mastery of poetic tools like assonance and sticking to a tight syllabic metre. Hence, when desired, shit becomes sh-izn-it, and dick becomes d-izn-ick.

Interestingly — and unlike its expletive and Homeric cousins — the -iz/-izn infix also works in single-syllable words, as in c-iz-oast and dr-iz-eam, likely thanks to its opening vowel. There are plenty of examples in this paper! Or you could just listen to Frankie Smith’s Double Dutch Bus to learn from one of the OGs. 🚌

Meanwhile in reading

Sylvia Plath, despite her inflated March optimism, continues to be the world’s most relatable journal girlie:

Oh, god give me the guts to live through this week. Let me someday confront him, only confront him, to make him human, and not that black panther which struts on the forest fringes of hearsay. Such hell. They refuse to face me in daylight. I am not worth that. I must be, when if they ever come. They will not come. I don't want to eat, to go to tea today. I want to rave out in the streets and confront that big panther, to make the daylight whittle him to lifesize.

Imagine being able to write like this 👆 feeling like that. Equally relatable is Sir Charles Darwin, who, when not wolfing down Galápagos tortoises, wrote letters about how he was really feeling on the good ol’ Beagle 👇

Hard same, Charlie boy. On the topic of scientists eating their subjects, I’m positive that Darwin, if given the chance, would’ve roasted up the lead character of March’s book of the month:

Help! I’m in a reading rut!

One of the most common self-chastisements I hear is, ‘I wish I read more’, as if ‘reader’ were a permanent personality trait, like genuinely enjoying exercise or knowing what goes in the FOGO bin. Reading can soothe, entertain and distract us from The Ghastly State of Things™, but it’s not a virtue. We’re all designed to wax and wane, and reading habits are no exception.

What seems to happen in a reading rut is that we reach for something dense and ‘worthy’, but an ~improving~ book 🧐 isn’t your friend right now. Instead, try rereading something you love. Pick up a favourite children’s book (mine) or a low-stakes, high-reward article. Read without committing to the finish line, and if the mood still doesn’t arrive, don’t force it — it tends to come back on its own. If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.

Meanwhile online

I recently came upon this enchanting 1893 ad for Shirk bicycles (stunning name and Adverbsish colour palette). It’s a complete stylistic mess once you look at it closely, but the copy is just so compelling — cycling really does cure the blues and save the shoes! 100/10, would choose the latest, neatest and lightest Shirk on which to become a cruel lady cyclist.

Meanwhile in art

This month’s adverbial coda is playfully, illustrated by the eternally playful Bethany Tan of Wild Rabbit Designs. One to watch for gorgeous colours, adorable illustrations and quirky designs.

That’s all for March

Thanks for reading Meanwhile in March! If you were sent this and fancy subscribing, you can do so below — feel free to share it far and wide or keep it squirrelled away just for you. I’ll see you in April. 🫶