Maria, my wife, has taught me to reduce my use of the word “that.”  And it works!  That may be one of the most unnecessary words in English.  Write a paragraph, notice how many times you include that, then eliminate (nearly) all the occurrences, and you’ll see  you can live without that. I bet your paragraph sounds better, too. There are some valid uses for the word, most notably if you wish to be specific about an item:  “Can you hand me that glass, please?” as you point to the champagne glass among the beer glasses.  Even then, you may be able to use a more specific descriptor to avoid using that.  It’s a crappy word.

I recently bought a new iPad app called Paper.  It’s a graphic arts creation program that allows you to create graphic images in ink, pencil, Sharpie, and brush.  The program is simple, and has quite limited features, but the beauty of the tools seems to outweigh these limitations.  You can try it out with the fountain pen tool for free.  It looks beautiful on the New iPad’s Retina display.  Click the avatar below to learn more.

I just read an article by the wineeconomist.com describing the retail model used by CostCo to sell wines.  CostCo is the largest wine retailer in the US, yet stocks far fewer wines (usually 100-150) than liquor stores.

I personally like CostCo as a source for wine, despite the limited choices, as their quality and price seems to be fit my tastes especially well.  My most recent purchase was a wonderful 2009 Bordeaux from the Medoc area (accompanying photo.)  This is a wine Robert Parker, Jr likes, but honestly, what Bordeaux doesn’t he like?  It just depends on whether he gives it 92 or 98 points.  While this wine would fall on the lower end of that Parker scale no doubt, it’s also less than $20 at CostCo and has a wonderful Bordeaux taste.

I drink French and Italian wines almost exclusively.  Not because I’m a snob, but because I just like the flavors of those wines.  I really enjoy California cabernets, and Oregon pinots, and wine from the central California coast, but most are too pricey.  I generally pay $10 to $20 for wine, and rarely pay more–but when I do, it’s for California wines.  Although I am Australian, I don’t drink Australian wines, and I haven’t found a South American wine I like.

I still think the movie Sideways was one of the best movies I’ve seen.  The dinner scene in the Hitching Post (II) restaurant is exquisite–up to the point when Miles goes all batshit crazy and calls his ex-wife, that is.  The best line (outside the restaurant before that meal): “…if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!”  Words to live by.

I have a few pet peeves, and one that I acquired recently is the abuse of the words then, and than.  I don’t text a lot, and I don’t tweet, but I do read and post on forums, mainly car forums, and sometimes bike, and photography forums.  I have seen an increasing use of the words then and than interchangeably.  Is it because they sound the same, or do people really not know the difference?  I’m often told that poor spelling, grammar and sentence construction is simple laziness, and since the English language is so flexible, and the idea gets conveyed anyway, I should not worry.

Unfortunately I do.  Get bothered, and worry.  To me, badly written posts reflect both ignorance and lack of care and concern for me, the reader.  When I post, I do so, not to impress, but to inform.  And expressing information, or my opinion, in a clear, concise and well written manner makes it easier to read, and hopefully understand, what I am saying.

I’ve always tried to use these two words appropriately, and so I looked up their definitions and common usage only to find that there’s no real clear difference, and they are often used interchangeably. But if there are two distinct words, surely there should be two distinct usages?  So, from my experience, and my research, here’s how I make the distinction.

When you express sympathy with someone, you understand their experience without necessarily having had the same experience yourself. You can imagine what it’s like to be in their shoes, but haven’t, so you are sympathetic.

To be empathetic with someone, you have actually had the experience, or something so closely similar, that you know how they feel, and so your sharing is one of intimate and personal knowledge.  You don’t have to imagine what they feel like, you know from personal experience.