From the category archives:

WRITING

REPORTAGE [rep-awr-TAHZH]: a written report of an act, based upon actual witnessing or research

November 30, 2012

It is possible to pronounce reportage as [ri-PAWR-tij], but I love the way the more French pronunciation sounds, so I prefer [rep-awr-TAHZH], with the accent on last syllable.   It is a 19th century word, obviously from the French language.   Its meaning is simple:  it means to report something, usually in writing. I mention this word [...]

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QUANTUM LEAP: a sudden, dramatic increase

October 31, 2012

Quantum is a word formerly reserved to the field of science and metrics.  It referred to measurement, specifically meaning that there was a huge, sudden up-tick in quantities of whatever was being measured. However, in recent years the word has been co-opted for use in more common language patterns, signifying, again, a sudden, dramatic increase [...]

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ELEGIAC [el-i-JAHY-uhk] : pertaining to an elegy; expressing sorrow or lament

August 23, 2012

Who escaped high school English classes without having to study, memorize, or recite such elegies as “O Captain, my Captain” by Walt Whitman or Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray? At the time the themes seemed morbid and funereal to a teenager, but it was an important piece of literary inquiry which [...]

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SPAM: no longer a canned mystery meat

August 13, 2012

“Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We got a grab a book from our area library but I think I learned more clear from this post. I’m very glad to see such magnificent info being shared freely out there.” I get [...]

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INITIALISMS: phrases, using only initials, emerging from use in social media

May 18, 2012

A whole new language is being created by the creators and users of social media.  It is especially visible on such locations as Twitter which limits the number of digits available on any one message to 140.  Consequently, economy in digits has led to the use of initials which stand for a phrase.   These creations [...]

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PRODIGAL: one who engages in wasteful spending

May 17, 2012

All these years, and I never got it right.  You, too, maybe. My take on the biblical story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) has been to focus on the incident which occurs near the end of the parable.  The foolish son who has gone off to squander his inheritance returns penniless and is greeted [...]

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CLICHE (klee-SHAY): anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.

May 5, 2012

I watch enough baseball and basketball on television to be able to recognize a cliche when I hear it.  You can’t get through a couple of innings without beginning to suffer from listener nausea as the play-by-play broadcaster and his “color” sidekick exhaust their supply of  tired, used, and wrinkled phrases which were fun at [...]

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RIFE: abundant

May 2, 2012

If there is already a word like abundant to describe a more-than-adequate supply of objects, why would you then revert to the use of the word rife?   It’s an Old English word which means the same thing, but is used so obscurely that many people would not be aware of its meaning.   Yet it is [...]

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EDIT: to revise or correct an article, book or manuscript

April 23, 2012

I am increasingly frustrated with the lack of editing of articles in my local newspaper.  As I have watched the economically-motivated redistribution and elimination of personnel over the past several years, I have also watched the increasingly blatant errors which have resulted from those measures. An editor, specifically a copy editor, is more than a [...]

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METAFICTION: fiction which self-consciously reflects upon itself.*

March 6, 2012

The idea of writing a piece of fiction which is about writing a piece of fiction may sound confusing, but it’s actually not.  It’s like an artist painting a self-portrait.  The theme of the story is, in a sense, two-fold:  (1) telling the story of the lead character, an author; and (2) telling the story [...]

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