The subject matter of Beyond the Rhetoric can be best described as eclectic. I approach a lot of different topics here, from the advice on logistics of running a small business to reviews of some of Vancouver’s most popular eateries. All in all, over 300 blog posts were published in 2012 and they do a good job of representing this broad spectrum of material.
It wouldn’t really be fair of me to look up the 12 blog posts that had the most page views in 2012, because this gives an unfair advantage to the posts published earlier in the year. And so, what I’ve done is dug into my Google Analytics account and had a look to see which post in each calendar month received the most views. And here is what I found.
January 2012
Grammar 101: Inverted Sentence Structure
“When it comes to writing style, one tactic that I like to use from time to time is something called inversion. This can take on many different forms, but the inverted sentence structure is one of the most common ones. Basically, you take what would normally be the second “half” of your sentence and put it in front.”
February 2012
Fray on Fraser, Vancouver Restaurant
“Fray is quirky, to be sure, but it’s also trying to offer good comfort food. That gets into the territory of places like Burgoo Bistro. One such example of this is the Fat Bastard Pork Belly. You get a nice thick wedge of local pork belly, along with an apple peach compote, white balsamic chive reduction, and fresh slaw.”
March 2012
Grammar 101: The From-To Construction
“In previous Grammar 101 posts, I’ve discussed things like either/or vs. neither/nor and how certain word pairs should almost always be used together. That’s why it frustrates me when someone wants to provide a list, but opts to use the word “from” without following it up with “to.””
April 2012
Song Lyrics As Re-Interpreted by Spock
“Inspired from a George Takei post on Facebook, Ed Lau and I started to wonder how would other popular songs be affected if Spock from Star Trek was given the opportunity to rewrite the lyrics.”
May 2012
Sunday Snippet: John Steinbeck
“As John Steinbeck reminds us above, we come to like summer, because it is such a stark contrast to the cold of winter. This is the same reason why people escape to all inclusive resorts in sunnier climes.”
June 2012
Grammar 101: Between This and That
“Which one is correct? Whenever you use the “between” construction as shown above, the two numbers that “book-end” the range should be separated by the word “and.” It is always between X and Y, never between X to Y. This is related in some ways to the from-to construction that we discussed earlier this year.”
July 2012
Sunday Snippet: Rodney Dangerfield
“Indeed, one of the greatest lessons we can learn from Dangerfield is that we all need to have a sense of humor about ourselves. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then you really shouldn’t be laughing at anyone else.”
August 2012
Sushi California Japanese Cuisine, Coquitlam
“The dining room isn’t particularly special, looking like any number of other sushi joints in Metro Vancouver, but it is well-lit and airy. One thing that did strike me, though, is that our server took our order on an iPad. They have a wireless network (no free Wi-Fi for patrons, unfortunately) and it looks like the food orders are sent directly to the chefs. That’s pretty nifty.”
September 2012
Filmed in Vancouver: Supernatural
“On the recommendation of a good friend who was looking for a replacement for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he suggested I check out Supernatural. It’s a pretty darn good replacement – full of cheese, full of supernatural things to kill and most importantly, full of Vancouver.”
October 2012
The Vancouver Home + Design Show 2012
“Real estate is increasingly expensive in Vancouver, but that doesn’t mean you can’t shoehorn a complete home in your tiny condo. In fact, a special exhibit called Close Quarters was at the show, put together by interior designer Alykhan Velji. The display suite was a mere 300 square feet, but it had a complete kitchen, two beds, a couch, a dining table and more.”
November 2012
Has the Internet Made It Harder to Meet People?
“On the one hand, we have social networks like Facebook that make it so easy to amass hundreds of “friends,” but how many of these people are really your friends? How many of these people have you actually met in person and with whom you’ve forged some sort of real connection?”
December 2012
Kimbab Cheonguk (Kimbab Heaven), Coquitlam
“As its namesake suggests, the signature items here are the kim bab. These are essentially the Korean version of sushi, except they use Korean style seaweed in this maki-style rolls and the fillings tend to be cooked food, rather than raw fish like their Japanese counterparts. Also on the menu are rice bowls, noodle bowls (ramen), spicy rice cakes (bok ki) and cold noodles (naeng myeon).”
Did you have a favorite blog post from 2012 that I missed? Is there a subject area that you’d like me to cover more (or cover less)? I’m always open to feedback, so do make use of that comment form below. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2013 filled with more blogging.
Food, grammar and Sunday Snippet seem to be the theme. Your grammar posts always bring out the commentor’s. While, I like all your topics for thoughtful reading, my favorites are the Sunday Snippets.
The food posts are always cool to look at the different choices in food and your amazing ability as a photographer.
Month on month, your ‘Grammar 101’ posts topped the page views in 3 out of the 12 months. I’m sure the series garnered top views in the whole year.
The question is, did they come in tops in terms of quantity of comments posted & exchanged?
And, more subjectively, were they top in terms of *quality* of comments received.
But it certainly doesn’t surprise me to see them on top, people search for grammar related things all the time, so it makes sense that these would show up in Google.
Most of the time posts that get a lot of comments are the more interesting or thought provoking. That leads to better overall quality of comments. I have rarely seen any post on btr degenerate into argument or low quality, high volume comments.
In fact the post that probably has the largest volume of posts that were interesting, while albeit a little off was one that lead to a banter about star trek. Michael, could you refresh me on the original post that was? I would actually like to read it again.
I think I remember that, but I can’t recall which post that was. Was it associated with the movie review?
Ah yes Ray, that’s a good point.
Michael, I believe it was in August 2009 because screen and I both had 86 comments for the month. I also made a comment in the Top Thinkers for that month about commenting and going off on tangents.
I can sort the posts by the number of comments, but that’s with all-time posts. I can’t seem to restrict it to just one year in WordPress. I don’t want to dig through all of them, but it seems the most commented post of 2012 is Money Monday: On the Death of the Penny, followed closely by Beyond The Latte Effect (Buying No Name vs. Name Brand), both by Aaron Koo.
I’m certainly not surprised to see the death of the penny was the most commented. It’s a naturally extremely controversial topic that everyone wants to debate.
It’s like the top posts on my blog last year were topical that were hot button topics that have strong opinion or questions related to them.
The 2 by Aaron are very hot topics that get strong opinions from both sides.