PSA: Stationary vs. Stationery

In today's PSA post, I will be talking about the difference between "stationery" and "stationary" and when each one should be used. These two words are not only confused within the bullet journal/planner/calligraphy communities, but it is also a grammatical error that I see with people in general.

Stationary

Stationary with an A is an adjective used to describe something that's not moving. For example, "The toy car remains stationary when it runs out of battery."

Stationery

Stationery with an E is the thing we love so much--a category of objects often associated with office or school supplies that includes notebooks, notepads, pens, pencils, etc. For example, "I need to get new stationery before the school year starts."

How to Remember Which is Which

I think the difference in meaning between the two is fairly clear, so it's more of a matter of remembering which spelling indicates which definition. Here's one way to remember:

• Stationary with an A is an adjective
• Stationery with an E is something we get excited about (even though it can be expensive)

That's it; I hope this short little guide was helpful for distinguishing between "stationary" and "stationery!"

Are there any other things you want clarified in regards to stationery/bullet journaling/calligraphy? Make sure to leave a comment if you do!

PSA: Planner vs. Bullet Journal vs. Normal Journaling

Something I see that confuses both people who do and people who don't is the difference between a planner, a bullet journal, and just a normal journal. A little egotistically, I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on all three, so in today's installment of my "PSA" series, I'll be explaining each one of these words and how they relate to each other.

PSA: Embossing vs. Debossing

I started a series last year (it feels weird to say that . . .) called "PSA" where I would explain common misconceptions about bullet journaling, calligraphy, or just stationery in general. Today's installment is about the difference between embossing and debossing. These are both embellishing techniques and are related in a way, but they're the opposite of each other.

PSA: How to Pronounce Kuretake

Today's PSA is about how to pronounce "Kuretake". Kuretake is a Japanese stationery brand especially known among calligraphers for their brush pens and watercolors. I have no idea what the name itself means, but this is how to pronounce it!

"Kuretake" can be broken up like this: coo-ray-TA-kay. Here is a more in-depth explanation of the pronunciation syllable by syllable:

1. coo: like in the word "cool", but almost like you're making a bird call
2. ray: rhymes with "say"
3. TA: the accented syllable, rhymes with "la"
4. kay: like in the word "okay"

I hope this short little guide on how to pronounce "Kuretake" helped you out!

If you have any other requests on things you want to see in the PSA series (like other stationery words that you want to learn how to pronounce), make sure to comment it down below!

PSA: Calligraphy vs Handwriting

Today's segment of my PSA series is another thing that I see so often misconstrued, especially since not only do people mess it up online (usually in the bullet journal community), but people also frequently do the same in real life if they happen to see my calligraphy. This topic, as you can tell from the post's title, is the difference between calligraphy and handwriting - and this is a big difference.

PSA: Talent vs. Skill (In Terms of Calligraphy and Bullet Journaling)

Today's PSA is is something that bothers me so much. The difference between talent and skill is not only confused within the calligraphy and bullet journaling communities, but also in society as a whole.

First up, here are the dictionary definitions of the two words, taken from Merriam-Webster.

• Talent: "a special often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude (i.e. natural ability)" or "the natural endowments of a person"
• Skill: "a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability"

In other words, talent is what you're born with, the things you inherently are good at doing, while skill is what you work for. It's not necessarily a big deal to everyone, but you are disrespecting and discounting someone's hard work and all of the countless hours that they've put into developing their craft if you describe their skill as talent.

In terms of calligraphy, people practice a lot to get to where they are. Every person that you admire started from somewhere. People work diligently and spend a lot of time in order to improve their art. Personally, I'm not a very artistic person; I've never been good at drawing, and my handwriting is naturally really ugly. However, through lots of practice, I've been

When talking about bullet journaling, you usually don't see the behind-the-scenes: the mess that is some people's desks, mistakes and smudged ink, blank or half-used spreads, being dissatisfied with their current system, sketching out and carefully drawing spreads, etc. It does take experience to create conventionally pretty spreads and pictures. (And of course, a "good" bujo is just any that benefits its user, regardless of how "pretty"it is,)

So, in conclusion, talent = good at something because you were lucky and happened to be born with a certain ability, while skill = good at something because you put in a lot of effort and worked hard. Though it's annoying for creatives themselves, the biggest problem with people confusing these two terms is that it discourages others from trying to improve at something because they think, "Oh, I might as well give up because I'll never be able to get better since I don't have talent."

However, that is so not true. Hardly anyone ever starts out already good at their craft; though a natural affinity might aid some, it's a skill that's developed over time for the vast majority of people. See this as inspirational because anyone - regardless of natural born ability - can become good at anything that they put their mind to. Don't perceive your own lack of talent, something only a fortunate few possess, as an insurmountable barrier to success.

What other things bother you in the calligraphy or bullet journal communities? Make sure to leave it in a comment down below!

PSA: How to Pronounce Leuchtturm

I think that this will be quite a useful post for a lot of people. A couple weeks ago, I explained how to pronounce "fudenosuke", but in today's installment of PSA, I'll be addressing a very common issue: how to pronounce Leuchtturm. If you don't know, Leuchtturm1917 is a famous notebook brand based in Germany, and their notebooks are especially popular for bullet journaling.

The word "Leuchtturm" itself means "lighthouse" in German. I've seen a video on YouTube of an employee of the brand saying the term, but it's quite a heavily Anglicized pronunciation of the word. The correct German pronunciation is something like "LUOYSH-torm". That's really confusing (just like the language itself), so here's an attempted breakdown of each syllable:

1. LUOYSH: this is the accented syllable, and it's pronounced like "loo-oy-sh" but all mushed together so that you can't hear the distinction between each part of the syllable
• "Loo" as in British slang for toilet (rhymes with "moo")
• "Oy" as in British slang for getting someone's attention (rhymes with "toy")
• "Sh" just like in other words that end with "sh" (such as "lush" or "posh")
2. Torm: it almost sounds like the name "Tom" but with an "r" in it
• Kind of rhymes with the word "dorm" (and the pronunciation of the "o" is more similar to this than it is to "Tom"), but with a softer, less noticeable "r" sound

German is a hard language to speak, and nobody is expecting us English speakers to say it exactly like a native speaker. However, people should try to pronounce things at least kind of correctly, so I hope that this guide has helped you do just that.

What other other bujo/stationery words do you want to know how to pronounce? Make sure to leave it in a comment down below!

Edit: Sabine Dio, who lives in Germany, made a really high quality voice recording, and I think this'll be super helpful, too!

PSA: How to Pronounce "Fudenosuke"

This is the first "real" PSA post (other than the introduction), and today, I'll be talking about how to pronounce "fudenosuke", as in the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens. The word itself is Japanese, and it roughly means "Mr. Brush" in English.

According to slightly Anglicized Japanese pronunciation rules, it should be pronounced "foo-day-no-SOO-kay". Here is each syllable broken down:

1. "Foo" as "food"
2. "Day" as in "daylight"
3. "No" as in the word that's the opposite of "yes"
4. "SOO" as in "Susan" or "suit" (this is the stressed syllable)
5. "Kay" as in "okay"

However, I found this YouTube video from Tombow USA. In the video, it's pronounced kind of like "foo-dough-NO-ski". Unfortunately, I completely disagree with this pronunciation. Since the word itself is Japanese, and Tombow is based out of Japan, "fudenosuke" should adhere to the original Japanese pronunciation as closely as possible.

Thus, I have to say that "foo-day-no-SOO-kay" is the proper way to pronounce this word.

What other words in the stationery community do you want to know how to pronounce? Let me know in a comment!

PSA: Introduction

I've decided to start a new series on my blog called "PSA". Basically, there are some things in the stationery, calligraphy, or planner/bullet journaling community that bother me in terms of vocabulary, terminology, or just general ideas. Generally, it's newbies that happen to be ignorant just because they haven't had much experience with all of the different lexicon. However, I'm a big stickler when it comes to things like this, so it really bothers me every time I see someone use the wrong word if I know that it's wrong.

So, I resolved to make this series in the hopes that it will help someone out there. These posts will generally be short and sweet, but some will be longer. Most of them will be terms that are often confused (like stationery vs. stationary or embossing vs. debossing) and how to pronounce some words (like "Leuchtturm" and "fudenosuke").

I hope that these posts will be helpful to at least one person out there!