Iseng Press A.K.A Iseng Blog

10 Types of Wordplay

2012-01-31T10:20:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Humorous works of fiction are easily enlivened when the author resorts to one or more of the following categories of playing with prose:

1. Acronyms: An acronym is an abbreviation consisting of a string of initial letters pronounced as a word. Fictional examples, such as SPECTRE (for “Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion”), from the James Bond novels and films, and VILE (for “Villains’ International League of Evil”), from the Carmen Sandiego computer-game series, can be serious or humorous depending on formation and intent.

2. Anagrams: An anagram is simply a word with its letters scrambled in a new order. Many humorous phrases have been derived by scrambling expressions or people’s names, such as forming “I am a weakish speller” from “William Shakespeare.” (Anagram generators can be found on the Internet.)

3. Chronograms: A chronogram is a phrase in which constituent letters also express a number, as in “My Day Closed Is In Immortality,” an epitaph for England’s Queen Elizabeth I in which the first letter of each word corresponds to a Roman numeral; the numerical sequence, MDCIII, is translated as 1603, the date of her death. A weak variant is a habit of filmmakers (or, more accurately, film marketers) of replacing one or more letters in a movie title with a number vaguely resembling the letter or otherwise related, as in the title of the 1995 crime thriller Seven, represented on posters as Se7en.

4. Initialisms: Initialisms are distinguished from acronyms by the fact that the constituent letters are pronounced individually, rather than sequentially sounded as if they were a single word. Many popular social-networking terms such as LOL (“laugh out loud”) and ROTFL (“roll on the floor laughing”) are initialisms; so is TEOTWAWKI (“the end of the world as we know it”).

5. Lipograms: A lipogram is a composition deliberately consisting of words lacking a letter of the alphabet. Such a work is more or less easily accomplished depending on the letter selected for omission; many writers, astonishingly, have written novels produced without recourse to use of a common letter such as e or t.

6. Malapropisms: This type of wordplay refers to misuse of one word for another by those too ignorant to recognize the error. It’s named after Mrs. Malaprop, a character in an eighteenth-century play who is notorious for such unwitting utterances, as exemplified by the character’s line “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile.” Shakespeare also employed such humor, most notably in lines by the character Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing such as “Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons.”

7. Mondegreens: Misunderstood song lyrics are often referred to as mondegreens; the term itself is based on a mishearing of the phrase “laid him on the green.” A more recent example is “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” rather than “Excuse me while I kiss the sky,” from the Jimi Hendrix song “Purple Haze.”

8. Onomatopoeias: Onomatopoeias (the term is from the Greek words for “make” and “name”) are words that imitate sounds, such as splash or bump. A notable example of an onomatopoeic proper name is that of the Houyhnhnms, the sentient, civilized horses from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

9. Portmanteaus: Portmanteaus, words creating by combining two words and their meanings into one, were named and popularized by Lewis Carroll. He coined several, such as slithy (from lithe and slimy); more recent examples include brunch and smog. (Carroll named the form of wordplay after a word for a suitcase with two separate compartments.)

10. Spoonerisms: The term for expressions in which initial letters, or sometimes entire syllables or words, are transposed is based on the name of a British clergyman supposedly prone to such utterances, though many attributed to him were only inspired by him. Among them is “a well-boiled icicle” for “a well-oiled bicycle”; John Lennon is credited with coining a variation on “Time heals all wounds”: “Time wounds all heels.”

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100 Words for Facial Expressions

2012-01-29T21:01:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Face it — sometimes you must give your readers a countenance-based clue about what a character or a subject is feeling. First try conveying emotions indirectly or through dialogue, but if you must fall back on a descriptive term, try for precision:

1. Absent: preoccupied
2. Agonized: as if in pain or tormented
3. Alluring: attractive, in the sense of arousing desire
4. Appealing: attractive, in the sense of encouraging goodwill and/or interest
5. Beatific: see blissful
6. Bilious: ill-natured
7. Black: angry or sad, or see hostile
8. Bleak: see grim and hopeless
9. Blinking: surprise, or lack of concern
10. Blissful: showing a state of happiness or divine contentment
11. Blithe: carefree, lighthearted, or heedlessly indifferent
12. Brooding: see anxious and gloomy
13. Bug eyed: frightened or surprised
14. Chagrined: humiliated or disappointed
15. Cheeky: cocky, insolent
16. Cheerless: sad
17. Choleric: hot-tempered, irate
18. Coy: flirtily playful, or evasive
19. Crestfallen: see despondent
20. Darkly: with depressed or malevolent feelings
21. Deadpan: expressionless, to conceal emotion or heighten humor
22. Dejected: see despondent
23. Derisive: see sardonic
24. Despondent: depressed or discouraged
25. Doleful: sad or afflicted
26. Dour: stern or obstinate; see also despondent
27. Downcast: see despondent
28. Dreamy: distracted by daydreaming or fantasizing
29. Ecstatic: delighted or entranced
30. Etched: see fixed
31. Faint: cowardly, weak, or barely perceptible
32. Fixed: concentrated or immobile
33. Furtive: stealthy
34. Gazing: staring intently
35. Glancing: staring briefly as if curious but evasive
36. Glaring: see hostile
37. Glazed: expressionless due to fatigue or confusion
38. Gloomy: see despondent and sullen
39. Glowering: annoyed or angry
40. Glowing: see radiant
41. Grim: see despondent; also, fatalistic or pessimistic
42. Grave: serious, expressing emotion due to loss or sadness
43. Haunted: frightened, worried, or guilty
44. Hopeless: depressed by a lack of encouragement or optimism
45. Hostile: aggressively angry, intimidating, or resistant
46. Hunted: tense as if worried about pursuit
47. Impassive: see deadpan
48. Inscrutable: mysterious, unreadable
49. Jeering: insulting or mocking
50. Languid: lazy or weak
51. Leering: see meaningful; also, sexually suggestive
52. Meaningful: to convey an implicit connotation or shared secret
53. Mild: easygoing
54. Mischievous: annoyingly or maliciously playful
55. Moody: see sullen
56. Pained: affected with discomfort or pain
57. Pallid: see wan
58. Peering: with curiosity or suspicion
59. Peeved: annoyed
60. Petulant: see cheeky and peeved
61. Pitying: sympathetic
62. Pleading: seeking apology or assistance
63. Pouting: see sullen
64. Quizzical: questioning or confused
65. Radiant: bright, happy
66. Roguish: see mischievous
67. Sanguine: bloodthirsty, confident
68. Sardonic: mocking
69. Scornful: contemptuous or mocking
70. Scowling: displeased or threatening
71. Searching: curious or suspicious
72. Set: see fixed
73. Shamefaced: ashamed or bashful
74. Slack-jawed: dumbfounded or surprised
75. Sly: cunning; see also furtive and mischievous
76. Snarling: surly
77. Sneering: see scornful
78. Somber: see grave
79. Sour: unpleasant
80. Stolid: inexpressive
81. Straight-faced: see deadpan
82. Sulky: see sullen
83. Sullen: resentful
84. Taunting: see jeering
85. Taut: high-strung
86. Tense: see taut
87. Tight: see pained and taut
88. Unblinking: see fixed
89. Vacant: blank or stupid looking
90. Veiled: see inscrutable
91. Wan: pale, sickly; see also faint
92. Wary: cautious or cunning
93. Wide eyed: frightened or surprised
94. Wild eyed: excited, frightened, or stressful
95. Wistful: yearning or sadly thoughtful
96. Withering: devastating; see also wrathful
97. Woeful: full of grief or lamentation
98. Wolfish: see leering and mischievous
99. Wrathful: indignant or vengeful
100. Wry: twisted or crooked to express cleverness or a dark or ironic feeling

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4 Books That Show You How to Write

2012-01-28T03:55:00.000+07:00

by Daniel Scocco

No, that headline doesn’t read “Four Books That Tell You How to Write.” The verb is show, and that’s exactly what I mean. This post does not list writing guides, but if you want to learn how to create a memorable reading experience, follow the excellent examples below. Note that this is not a definitive list of the most exemplary books; it’s just four I’ve read recently that have fascinated me — and made me think, “Gee, I wish I had written that” (and I can think of no better testimonial than that).

1. How to Distract People from the Fact That Your Book Is Educational by Making Them Laugh

Book: In a Sunburned Country (Bill Bryson)

Bryson, in this book and many others, sets out to entertain people — and does so with great flair (and success). But he also loves to share his knowledge (and his passion for knowledge) with readers, and enhances nutritious information with tasty toppings of humor and whimsy. This book about his travels through — and insights about — Australia (a nation that, given its environment, is even more improbably successful than the United States) delights as it informs.

Bryson has also written or edited books about science (A Brief History of Nearly Everything and others), language (The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way and others), and more, and even when his work doesn’t live up to expectations (At Home: A Short History of Private Life), it’s still fun and fascinating.

2. How to Top Off an Engrossing Story About Exploration with an Ironic Twist

Book: The Lost City of Z (David Grann)

Few tropes stir the romantic adventurer in us as much as a jungle-exploration saga, and this book, based on the archetypal expedition into Green Hell from which popular culture has derived many of its notions about the subject, does the larger-than-life topic proud. The author retraces the steps of legendary Great White Explorer Percy Fawcett (allegedly an inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger), who, accompanied only by his son and the younger Fawcett’s best friend, set out to find evidence of a great civilization in the Amazonian jungle.

The members of the expedition never returned — nor, apparently, did many other adventurers who sought glory by attempting to discover both Fawcett’s fate and the object of his quest. Grann concludes this mesmerizing tale with a wry realization about the expedition’s goal that’s just too good for any but the most adept Hollywood treatment.

3. How to Debunk a Myth with an Even More Compelling Story

Book: Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Nathaniel Philbrick)

Philbrick peels away the facile fiction about Thanksgiving by booking readers passage on a sorely overcrowded one-hundred-foot-long sailing ship with a hundred passengers and more than two dozen crew members and integrating these additional travelers, through commanding scholarship and vivid writing, into the historic settlement the colonists formed against all odds. The story of their harrowing, heartbreaking first winter and their fumbling attempts to get along with their native neighbors, and an accurate account of their day(s) of thanks, stripped of schoolbook holiday hoo-haw, is refreshing.

This account is framed by details about what led a band of religious dissidents and assorted “Strangers” (split about evenly in numbers) to unite in this venture, and by chapters chronicling the tragic misunderstandings and missteps that led to war between their descendants and their erstwhile indigenous allies. Tied together seamlessly, these episodes describe in a nutshell the story of the United States.

4. How to Make Being a Dork Seem (Momentarily) Cool

Book: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Joshua Foer)

Foer, the brother of the editor of the New Republic and of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, holds his own against the literary accomplishments of his older siblings with this absorbing account of how he immersed himself in the highly esoteric world of memory masters and — well, I won’t spoil it for you. Chancing on information about people who demonstrate prodigious memorization skills in competitions they train for with the intensity of Olympic athletes, Foer decides to try it out for himself, and takes us along for the ride.

Along the way, we meet the man who inspired Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man, as well as purported savant Daniel Tammet, whose memorization wizardry Tammet himself (perhaps disingenuously) attributes to autism, in addition to various mental athletes who seem to be exactly the type of poorly groomed, socially inept geeks you’d expect to find devoting much time and effort to a seemingly useless skill. But Foer also shares fascinating facts and history about memorization, and though he soon retires from his short career as a memory-competition participant, advocates the techniques he learned as tools any amateur will find beneficial in life.

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Four Powerful Ways to Bring Your Writing Goals Closer

2012-01-26T20:52:00.000+07:00

by Ali Hale

Do you wish you could get further with your writing?

Perhaps you want to:

Finally finish that novel that you started ten years ago
Improve your spelling and grammar
Make money from your writing
Have a popular blog with lots of readers
Publish a non-fiction book to support your business
…or something else entirely.

Whatever your writing goal is, follow these four steps and you’ll find yourself making much faster progress.

#1: Write More Frequently

You don’t have to write every day, but you do need to write regularly. Be honest: how often do you write? If it’s less than twice a week, you’ll probably find yourself struggling to make any meaningful progress.

The great thing about writing frequently is that small steps really do add up. For instance:

If you write 500 words three times a week, you’ll have 78,000 words after a year.
That’s a whole novel.
If you write two blog posts every week, you’ll have 104 blog posts after a year.
If you write just 200 words every single day (about two paragraphs), you’ll have 73,000 words after a year. That’s enough for three non-fiction ebooks.

Do it: Decide on a time and place for your writing. Aim for at least two sessions per week, and a total of 1,500 words every week.

#2: Edit After You Write

There are two traps that writers fall into with editing, and both cause problems:

Editing while writing
Not editing at all

If you edit while you write, you’ll struggle to get anywhere. You’ll write a paragraph or two and immediately delete them because you think they aren’t good enough. It’s much more efficient to simply write until you’ve finished the article, chapter or scene that you’re working on. You can edit later.

If you don’t edit at all, your work won’t be as good as it could be. Nobody can write a perfect first draft. Your writing might need just a quick polish, or it might need a radical overhaul: either way, editing is essential – after you’ve written.

Do it: Next time you write, don’t stop to edit. Keep moving forwards. When you do finish, print your work out and read it through on paper: this makes it easier to spot mistakes and things that you want to change.

#3: Learn New Techniques

Whatever type of writing you do, there’ll always be something new to learn. Great writers aren’t born that way: they become great through conscious practice and through deliberately developing their craft.

There are all sorts of things you can learn, either from books or from taking a writing course. For instance:

Freelancers: How to write great sales copy for clients
Novelists: How to write dialogue
Bloggers: How to write guest posts to bring in more readers
Poets: How to use different formal structures

Do it: Pick ONE new writing skill that you want to gain, in order to take your writing further. Look for a book or course that could help you. You’ll need to set aside time to learn and time to put what you learn into practice.

#4: Get Help and Support

Writing can feel like a very lonely activity at times – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Help and support from other writers will make a huge difference to your chances of success: it’s much easier to write regularly when you’re part of a supportive community.

Your local area may well have a writers’ group that meets regularly: try looking for adverts in your library or in bookstores, or search on Meetup.com. If there isn’t a group nearby, how about starting one yourself?

If it’s not easy for you to meet up face-to-face with other writers, you can find hundreds of different writing communities online. As well as giving you the opportunity to ask advice and share tips with other members, these also often allow you to share your writing and get feedback.

Do it: Look for a writers’ group locally or online, and consider joining. If you’re not sure about joining a formal group, try searching for other writers on Twitter.

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, and has just launched a new community and teaching site, WritersHuddle.com. The doors are open until 31st January. Inside, you’ll find mini-courses to help you learn new skills, forums where you can interact with other members, and lots of other goodies too. Make sure to check it out.

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A Quiz About Clarity

2012-01-26T12:52:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Writers usually don’t mean to be duplicitous when they write one thing when they mean another; it’s just that what they intended to communicate is not what they communicated. The following sentences demonstrate some of the types of misunderstandings that result from careless composition. Try your hand at repairing the damage, and then take a look at my solutions at the bottom of the page:

1. “The postwar suburban ideal was a Cadillac and a fur coat like a movie star.”

2. “His legacy was also one of social revolutionary, humanitarian, and artist.”

3. “A letter can be mailed via the Pony Express reenactors for the 1860 price of $5.”

4. “That established history is being challenged by a rare book collector and author, John Doe and Jane Smith.”

5. “Although DNA testing is highly effective, those involved in criminal investigations do not always use it because of its high cost.”

Answers

1. The sentence implies that the ideal was ownership of two things: a Cadillac, and a fur coat that resembles a movie star. We know it means possessing a Cadillac and a fur coat, as movie stars were wont to do, but the sentence fails because it doesn’t explicitly state that. This revision does: “The postwar suburban ideal was driving a Cadillac and wearing a fur coat, like a movie star.”

2. The subject’s legacy cannot be that of someone with these identities, but it can be associated with that of such a person: “His legacy was that of a social revolutionary, humanitarian, and artist.”

3. The final phrase of this sentence lacks clarity. The point is that in 1860, sending a letter by Pony Express cost $5, and that today, for the same amount — a more modest total than it was about 150 years ago — one can send a letter on a commemorative ride carried out by reenactors. The sentence should be revised to make this relationship clearer: “A letter can be mailed via the Pony Express reenactors for the same fee it cost in 1860: $5.”

4. As written, this sentence suggests that the challenger is a book collector and author who is rare, and that the person’s name is John Doe and Jane Smith. Hyphenating rare and book to demonstrate that they team up to modify collector, and recasting the sentence to join each single epithet to the respective name, makes all clear: “That established history is being challenged by a rare-book collector, John Doe, and author Jane Smith.”

5. DNA testing is not always used of its high cost? Then why is it always used? Back up a little bit — the sentence means that DNA testing’s high cost restricts the frequency of its use. This important distinction is conveyed with the simple reversal of two phrases and the insertion of a comma between them: “Although DNA testing is highly effective, because of its high cost, those involved in criminal investigations do not always use it.”

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How Do You Teach Someone to Write Well?

2012-01-26T00:51:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Why is the craft of writing in such a dire state? The best writers of our time create magnificent prose, and additional tiers of talents do a fine job of communicating. But the vast majority of people seem competent at best, and many of those who are paid to write — or for whom writing is at least part of their job description (and, these days, that’s just about everybody) — frequently demonstrate a lack of understanding of, or concern about, the most basic rules of grammar and usage.

How can this be? High school graduates spend part of virtually every day of school for thirteen years learning, and relearning, and then learning again, the fundamentals of the English language, from letter recognition to critical essays. Why, then, do many colleges and universities have remedial writing courses packed with students who earned exemplary grades in high school English?

Most people, at least in developed countries, spend at least a couple of years in college, which involves completion of many writing assignments. How is it that many employers bemoan the poor writing skills of their college-graduate workers and toss so many ineptly written resumes in the trash?

Here’s a radical response to those questions: You can teach writing, but you can’t teach good writing. As a former public school student, and as a former public school teacher, I know that much of what passes for instruction in writing is dull and bereft of context. But I also know that many teachers succeed in devising and/or employing imaginative ways of helping students develop their writing skills. As a student, I experienced much of the first approach and little of the second. As a teacher, I used both methods but tried to focus on the latter strategy. I’m not sure that my efforts were successful.

I also taught copyediting to adults for many years. Some students didn’t belong in the class, because they virtually matched me in skill. Others didn’t belong in the class, because they had no business working in the writing and editing business. Most were somewhere in between. Did I help them? In class evaluations, many claimed that I did, or at least that I opened their eyes to how complex and creative editing can be.

I believe that students young and old can be taught the basics of spelling, style, and syntax, and of grammar and usage. But how do they develop the skill to integrate all these components into a clear, concise, coherent whole? As with any other skill, it takes practice, practice, practice — that’s where year after year of language arts instruction comes in. But I also believe that much of writing skill is innate: You have it, or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it.

That doesn’t give anyone an excuse to give up. You can’t help but get better through repetition. Positive learning experiences and inspirational teachers are significant factors, but ultimately, becoming a better writer is a matter of learning what better writing is (reading well-wrought fiction and nonfiction) and of composing your own prose. My tip for today? It’s simple. Read a lot, and write a lot more.

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A Quiz About Parallel Structure

2012-01-24T10:01:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Many writers are thwarted by unsuccessful efforts to express equivalent ideas in phrases that clearly identify the hierarchy and relationships of those ideas. Here are five sentences in which syntactical structure fails to communicate these concepts. Try your hand at resolving the confusion, and then compare your results to my solutions at the bottom of the page:

1. “Learn to use this art form not only for performance but also to collaborate, exercise, and respect the differences of others.”

2. “Children enrolled in high-quality preschool programs are more likely to graduate from high school, hold down jobs, and less likely to be on welfare or end up in jail.”

3. “She will be returned to the same, or a substantially similar, position to the one held prior to the leave of absence, as required by law.”

4. “They pulled him from his vehicle, beat him, robbed him of his money and equipment.”

5. “Dedication, hard work, flexibility, a sense of humor, and the interest and ability to learn and improve professionally are some of the positive qualities the company seeks in all employees.”

Answers

1. This sentence isn’t strictly incorrect, but it would be clearer if it didn’t lead the reader to infer that the additional benefits of the art form are that participants can collaborate the differences of others, exercise the differences of others, and respect the differences of others. That implication is eliminated if the preposition to is inserted before the second and third items in the list: “Learn to use this art form not only for performance but also to collaborate, to exercise, and to respect the differences of others.”

2. This sentence has contrasting “more likely” and “less likely” phrases, but includes two of one and one of the other, and the second “more likely phrase” is confusingly cordoned off by commas, leaving it bereft of context. To make the sentence correct, the brace of commas must be omitted and a conjunction added: “Children enrolled in high-quality preschool programs are more likely to graduate from high school and hold down jobs and are less likely to end up on welfare or in jail.”

3. This type of error is distressingly frequent, considering that it seems obvious that if the parenthetical phrase is removed, the sentence is awkward, therefore the original sentence is awkward. One of several possible fixes is to get the trailing phrase out of the way immediately by moving it to the head of the sentence, then presenting the fully expressed basic statement followed by the alternative: “As required by law, she will be returned to the same position held prior to the leave of absence, or a substantially similar one.”

4. Here’s another common error — the omission of a conjunction before a concluding compound list item. As written, the sentence implies that there were four stages to the crime: 1) They pulled him from his vehicle, 2) they beat him, 3) they robbed him, and 4) equipment. Huh? That’s wrong. Only three things occurred; items 3) and 4) are one step. Because that one step is the final list item, it should be preceded by a conjunction: “They pulled him from his vehicle, beat him, and robbed him of his money and equipment.”

5. Interest and ability take different prepositions, so they need to be separated into parallel phrases where each word is supported by its own preposition: “Dedication, hard work, flexibility, a sense of humor, and the interest in learning and improving professionally and the ability to do so are some of the positive qualities the company seeks in all employees.”

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75 Synonyms for “Angry”

2012-01-21T14:09:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Are you angry? At the risk of infuriating you, or making you apoplectic or exasperated, here are dozens of words to use to describe your choleric condition more precisely:

1. Acrid: extremely harsh (also refers to an unpleasant taste or smell)
2. Acrimonious: harshly unpleasant
3. Aggravated: angrily agitated
4. Angered: made angry
5. Annoyed: angry about being disturbed or harassed
6. Antagonistic: angrily opposed
7. Antipathetic: expressing antipathy, or aggression or aversion
8. Apoplectic: violently angry, from the adjectival form of apoplexy, the former word for stroke
9. Ballistic: explosively angry, from the adjective describing projectile flight
10. Bellicose: aggressively angry, from the synonym for warlike
11. Belligerent: see bellicose
12. Bitter: harshly upset due to resentment
13. Blue in the face: see frustrated, from the idea of facial discoloration caused by extreme emotion
14. Boiling: extremely angry, with the figurative sense of being agitated like heated water
15. Bristling: defensively angry, suggestive of an animal’s hair bristling as it responds to a threat
16. Burning: extremely angry, from the notion of the body overheating because of the intensity of feeling
17. Caustic: cruelly angry, or sarcastic
18. Cheesed off: see frustrated (can also mean “bored” or “disgusted”)
19. Choleric: easily angered
20. Churlish: disrespectfully angry
21. Cold: angry in an emotionally remote manner
22. Contrary: uncooperatively angry
23. Cool: angry but with emotions are held in check
24. Embittered: made upset
25. Enraged: violently angry
26. Exasperated: see frustrated
27. Fired up: see hot
28. Fit to be tied: extremely angry, suggesting that the person angered should be restrained
29. Foaming: so angry as to suggest insanity caused by hydrophobia (rabies), from the idea that foaming at the mouth is symptomatic of the disease
30. Frustrated: angry or upset because of obstacles or challenges
31. Fuming: extremely angry, from the association of the person with a volcano or other heated natural phenomenon
32. Furious: intensely angry
33. Going crook: losing one’s temper
34. Hopping: so angry as to suggest that the person might jump up and down to express or assuage anger
35. Hopping mad: see hopping
36. Horn-mad: extremely angry
37. Hostile: actively intimidating, unfriendly, or resistant
38. Hot: angry, with the sense of physical discomfort caused by emotion
39. Hot under the collar: see hot
40. Icy: see cold
41. Incensed: see indignant
42. Indignant: angry because of a real or perceived slight or unjust attack
43. Inflamed: see hot
44. Infuriated: see furious
45. Irate: see furious
46. Ireful: see irate
47. Livid: intensely angry to the point of being unable to control oneself (livid, however, can also mean “bruised,” “pale,” or “colorful,” with the second sense associated with pain, shock, or fear)
48. Mad: angry; this term has so many other senses and is so easily replaced by any of its many synonyms that it is all but useless except in a statement starting with “I’m so mad I could . . .”
49. Outraged: angry about an offense
50: Perturbed: upset (also means “confused”)
51. Pissed off: angry
52. Rabid: see foaming
53: Raging: see furious
54. Rancorous: malevolently angry
55. Rankled: angry or resentful
56. Ranting: irrationally angry
57. Raving: see ranting
58. Riled: upset
59. Roiled: see riled
60: Seeing red: so angry that one’s vision is blurred, or one is stimulated as a bull in a bullfight
61. Seething: repressing violent anger
62. Shirty: angry
63. Smoldering: see seething
64. Sore: see indignant
65. Soreheaded: see indignant
66. Steamed: see hot
67. Steaming: see hot
68: Storming: having a temper or an anger suggestive of stormy weather
69. Stormy: see storming
70. Ticked: angry; also “ticked off”
71. Vitriolic: see caustic
72. Worked up: upset
73. Wrathful: see furious
74. Wroth: see furious
75. Wrought up: see “worked up”

(This list deliberately omits annoyed and its synonyms, which are numerous enough to merit their own list.)

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Is Identifying a Person’s Age Necessary?

2012-01-20T19:25:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

In writing, should a given person’s age be specified?

In fiction, the number of years since a character was born is of variable importance, depending on the person’s prominence in the narrative and on the nature of the story as well, but at the very least, the author usually provides some clue, at least, as to approximate age.

But in keeping with the creative nature of fiction, the writer should find a cleverly unobtrusive way to signal age indirectly: The story can identify what grade a child is in, rather than their specific age, or can reveal how recently a teenager received a driver’s license, or can mention that a character had just graduated from college when 9/11 occurred. (None of these methods are precise, but they provide a means for the reader to estimate age.)

Of course, subtly referring to the number of candles on a birthday cake, or providing the year of birth (assuming that the current year in the story is evident), works, too — or if all else fails, just provide the number up-front. (If the character is a young child, you can add a note of whimsy by providing a fractional age, as children so eagerly do up to sometime in their preteens or early teens.)

What about age references in nonfiction? A person’s age is traditionally specified in articles about crime to help distinguish the subject from others by that name — a convenient way to avoid incriminating innocent people. However, the Code of Conduct of the National Union of Journalists, which represents press people in the United Kingdom and Ireland, specifies that its members “shall mention a person’s age [and other identifying characteristics] only if this information is strictly relevant.” I could not find a similar Stateside pronouncement, but I assume one exists. But the point is sensible. Unless providing a person’s age serves the purpose mentioned above, it is extraneous.

As in fiction, age can be implied, especially in feature articles, where subjects are also likely to be described physically despite the frequent addition of one or more photographs of the person in question. But the “John Doe, 29” treatment is superfluous (and, when ages are spelled out unless they exceed one hundred, clumsy looking).

I used to work for a nonprofit organization that reports online and in print about innovation and reform in public education, and in the thousands of articles we published, only a handful specified a person’s age. In one case, we reported on the teacher in the United States who had been working in the classroom longer than any other: sixty-nine years (so including her age wasn’t strictly necessary).

Another justification might be to highlight the age difference between an academically precocious student and his classmates — but, just as with fiction, the writer could easily make the point by describing, for example, how a preteen high school student watches television programs geared to children before doing her calculus homework.

If you do decide to directly refer to a person’s years, however, write age, not aged; people may be nutty or sharp, but they are not wine or cheese.

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12 Evocative Words That Include “Ae”

2012-01-19T12:06:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

There’s something about the digraph ae that lends it a dignity and an aura. Perhaps it’s the vowel combination’s ubiquity as a plural marker taken directly from Latin (antennae, nebulae, and so on). Maybe it’s the frequency of its appearance in classical nomenclature (maenad, praetor, and the like). Whatever the reason, words in which ae appears are often vivid in their evocations. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Aegis: Originally the name of a shield associated with Zeus and Athena, the word later came to mean any protective shield or garment signifying that one was under divine protection. The meaning now extends to protection in general, as well as influence, sponsorship, or guidance.

2. Aerie: This word for an eagle’s nest lends itself well to the description or name of a mountain fastness.

3. Aether: This is a variant of ether, which refers to practically to an organic compound but also has figurative and theoretical connotations as well as denoting an element once thought to constitute outer space. In this sense, “the aether” is synonyms with “the heavens.” The adjectival form is aethereal, one of the most elegant words I know.

4. Brae: A Scots term (from a Norse word for “eyelid”) referring to a hillside, especially one overlooking a river. Many words in Scots, such as naething for nothing and waeful for woeful, indicate how their pronunciation of English words diverges.

5. Caesura: A caesura is a break or interruption, especially a rhythmic or rhetorical pause in poetry.

6. Chimaera: Originally the name of a specific mythical creature consisting of anatomical features of various real animals or of similar beings such as centaurs, this word, often in the modern form chimera, is used in science to refer to an organism with genetically distinct cells. It also applies, in architectural, to such decorative yet practical features as rain spouts in the form of gargoyles or other imaginary or actual animals. But perhaps its most interesting usage is to denote an illusion, fantasy, or fancy.

7. Daemon: This archaic spelling of demon invokes its original pre-Christian sense of “soul.” (Philip Pullman used it in his remarkable His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy to refer to human souls manifested as familiar-like animals.)

8. Faerie: This word, often capitalized, refers to the realm of the fairies and/or other supernatural beings, into which unsuspecting and often unfortunate mortals are often lured. The origin of the word is the Latin term fata, referring to the Fates, who in classical mythology determined one’s destiny.

9. Jaeger: This word meaning “hunter,” also sometimes referring to elite soldiers, is spelled jäger in its native German.

10. Lacunae: This is the plural form of lacuna, Latin for “gap” as well as “pit” and pool (ultimately from lacus, “lake,” and the source of the word lagoon). It refers to an omitted segment or a period of silence, as well as a space in or a lack of something. As such, it alludes to the mystery of the missing.

11. Maelstrom: This word for an often permanent whirlpool capable of drowning people and swallowing small watercraft but not larger vessels (literally, “mill stream” — with mill in the sense of grinding) evokes calamity and diabolical forces.

12. Phaeton: The name of the ill-fated son of Helios, the Greek sun god, who burned out when he took his father’s sun-chariot for a joyride, was employed in Victorian times to refer to a type of carriage. The word’s highfalutin airs makes it a suitable ironic appellation for a junky jalopy or a humble farmer’s wagon.

These and other terms that include ae can inspire new nomenclature for fiction writers or provide allusive opportunities.

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A Hyphenation Quiz

2012-01-18T12:33:00.000+07:00

by Daniel Scocco

Yes, I hype correct hyphenation, but proper treatment of the little line enables clear communication, so on this site, I repeatedly attach importance to the attachment tool. In the following sentences, excessive or insufficient use of hyphens clouds rather than clarifies. Correct the connective calamities below, then check my answer key at the bottom of the page:

1. “The program offers student-directed and student-initiated research- and discovery-based learning opportunities.”

2. “The plan includes accidental death and dismemberment coverage.”

3. “The businessman-turned-candidate spoke about his religious beliefs.”

4. “Maybe the country just doesn’t want a my way or the highway Texan in the White House again.”

5. “Travel to near-space in a 400-foot diameter balloon.”

6. “He all-but-lectured the lawmakers assembled.”

7. “The rainbow flag flew at half-staff to honor Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood-star-and icon to gays who died in March.”

Answers

1. This hyphen-saturated sentence, though technically correct (though to be fair but awkward, the second mention of the word student should be elided), reads better when it is relaxed: “The program, based on research and discovery, allows students to direct and initiate their own learning opportunities.” “Student-directed and -initiated” and “research- and discovery-based” are proper examples of suspensive hyphenation, but the double-suspension string “student-directed and (student)-initiated research- and discovery-based” is excessive.

2. As written, this sentence implies that the coverage is accidental. But the coverage presumably protects against two possibilities: accidental death, and dismemberment, so the phrase “accidental death” should be hyphenated to signal that the constituent words combine to modify coverage, and because the insurance also applies to nondeliberate dismemberment, that word should be preceded by a suspended hyphenation.

However, because no insurance company hyphenates this phrase in its literature, I’m inclined to request, as in the previous example, at least a relaxed rewrite that obviates hyphenation: “The plan includes coverage in case of accidental death and dismemberment.”

3. When the verb turned stands between a word describing a former state and one referring to a current state, unlike as is the case with the similarly employed conjunction cum (“with”), no hyphenation is necessary: “The businessman turned candidate spoke about his religious beliefs.”

4. The word string defining what kind of Texan the subject is must be corralled into one group, either with quotation marks that imply that the sentiment is literally or figuratively stated, or with multiple hyphens: “Maybe the country just doesn’t want a my-way-or-the-highway Texan in the White House again.”

5. This sentence manages two hyphenation errors within its ten-word length. Near is often erroneously attached to the following noun; hyphenation is correct only when near and the following word form a phrasal adjective modifying a third term, as in “near-space tourist travel” (where the open compound “tourist travel” is an noun phrase).

Also, the half-hearted hyphenation that follows implies the existence of an odd item referred to as a diameter balloon; this one apparently has 400 five-toed appendages. The phrase should be revised to correctly reflect that the balloon is 400 feet in diameter: “Travel to near space in a 400-foot-diameter balloon.”

6. The modifying phrase “all but” needs not be attached to the verb, nor do the two words in that phrase require connection: “He all but lectured the lawmakers assembled.”

7. Half-staff, like its synonym half-mast (often erroneously used in nonmaritime contexts), is correctly hyphenated. The hyphenation error occurs later in the sentence, when the writer, confused about how to construct the gloss of Elizabeth Taylor, loses steam near the end. The phrase “Hollywood star and icon to gays,” however, requires no connective tissue: “The rainbow flag flew at half-staff to honor Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood star and icon to gays who died in March.”

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5 Confused Word Pairs

2012-01-17T20:06:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

The similarity of the letters e and i leads to frequent confusion between similar-looking and similar-sounding pairs of words. Here are five such word pairs with their respective meanings and tips for keeping each word in its place:

1. Elicit vs. Illicit

Elicit, meaning “draw forth,” comes from the Latin term lacere, “to entice or lure.” Illicit means “unlawful”; the root word stems from the Latin term licere, “to be allowed,” from which license also derives. To keep them separate in your mind, connect elicit with exit and illicit with illegal.

2. Emigrate vs. Immigrate

To emigrate is to leave one country and live elsewhere; to immigrate is to move to a country. To maintain the distinction between the two, associate emigrate with embark and immigrate with immerse.

3. Eminent vs. Imminent

Eminent means “prominent” or “conspicuous” and is generally associated with accomplished people; imminent means “about to happen,” often with the sense of something of import or involving danger. To help you remember which is which, think of an eminent person as one who emits greatness, and connect imminent with immediate.

4. Emulate vs. Imitate

Emulate can be directly synonymous with imitate but often has the sense of an effort to try to be equal to, whereas to imitate is to try to match an example, or to resemble. To keep them straight, think of emulating as something to do to become eminent, whereas imitating involves mimicking.

5. Explicit vs. Implicit

Something explicit is something fully developed or revealed, and something implicit is not expressed directly, though it can also mean “potential” or “without questioning.” Remember the difference between the two by thinking of explicit in regard to something X rated and implicit as referring to something implied.

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7 Negative Prefixes

2012-01-16T19:38:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

What determines which prefix is attached to a word to form that word’s antonym? Why unlawful, but illegal? Why infirm, but impaired? You may be surprised that there’s a method to this madness: Negative prefixes come in forms that vary not only according to language derivation but also depending on meaning, and variations occur according to the letter that follows.

Here are the ins and outs of in- and un- and their like, and details about their distinctions:

1-2. A-/An-

These Greek-derived prefixes mark words expressing an absence of something (atypical, anodyne). A- is attached to words starting with consonants, and an- is the form for words beginning with vowels. An exception is words beginning with h; depending on the root word, either prefix may be present (ahistorical, anhydrous).

3. Anti-

Anti-, from Greek by way of Latin, means “opposite” (antithetical) or “in opposition to” (antivirus), and can also denote defense (antisubmarine) or prevention (antidepressant).

4. Dis-

This Latin prefix, when attached to a word, implies one of several meanings: absence (disaffected) or lack (disabled), opposition (disapprove), or removal (disenfranchise).

5. In-

In- and its several variations, all signaling Latin derivation, also denote lack of a given quality. The variations il- and -ir are attached to words starting with l or r (illogical, irreversible). Im-, meanwhile, precedes m (immaterial) and p (impatient) and the lone example for b: imbalance. The rare prefix ig- sometimes comes before n (ignoble). In- appears before root words beginning with all other letters.

6. Non-

This Latin negative prefix is the least particular of the class, and can often be found attached to root words so that the resulting term differs in meaning from one formed by the attachment of another negative prefix to the same root word. For example, nonrational means “not according to rational means or rules,” but unrational refers to behavior that does not conform to these norms. The nonparticular non- is the go-to negative prefix for neologisms.

7. Un-

By contrast with the other negative prefixes, the attachment of this Latin-based form to a root word can, in addition to expressing lack or absence (unconcern), denote a reversal (uncoiled). It can also refer to an action not yet taken (unopened).

Other Usage Notes

The presence of negative prefixes can lead to awkward constructions such as “nonhearing-impaired people.” The easy solution in such cases is to relax the phrase: “people who are not hearing impaired.”

Note, too, that with most prefixes, the insertion of a hyphen is the exception, not the rule. Prefixed words should be closed except when the root word is a proper noun (non-Euclidean) or in the rare case when confusion with a similarly constructed but distinct word is possible (un-ionized and unionized, for example).

Wags have great fun with humorous poems and other compositions featuring invented examples of antonyms for unpaired words (words with negative prefixes that do not have antonyms), such as ept to contrast with inept – which actually has an etymological counterpart in apt — or ruth in opposition to ruthless.

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50 Idioms About Talking

2012-01-15T02:27:00.000+07:00

by Daniel Scocco

Last week, I offered a roster of synonyms for talk and talking. This list expands on that theme by offering set phrases about talking and their meaning:

1. Beat (one’s) gums: to speak excessively and aimlessly
2. Bull session: a rambling group conversation
3. Chew the fat: to chat
4. Chew the rag: to chat
5. Diarrhea of the mouth: excessive talking
6. Dish out: to deliver critical comments
7. Flap (one’s) lips: see “beat (one’s) gums”
8. Gift of gab: a propensity for talking
9. (One) likes hear (oneself) talk: said of someone who is egotistical
10. Like talking to a brick wall: said of trying unsuccessfully to persuade or reason with someone
11. Run off at the mouth: see “beat (one’s) gums”
12. Shoot the breeze: to chat
13. Shoot the bull: to chat
14. Shoot the shit: to chat
15. Spill the beans: to divulge information, or to confess (see confess)
16. Speak out of turn: to say something inappropriate
17. Speak the same language: to be in agreement
18. Spit it out: to speak about something one is reluctant to discuss — often used as an imperative
19. Talk a blue streak: to talk quickly and excessively
20. Talk a mile a minute: to speak rapidly
21. Talk around: to avoid (a subject)
22. Talk big: to brag
23. Talk dirty: to try to stimulate someone sexually by speaking provocatively
24. Talk (someone) down: to outdebate someone, guide someone through a difficult maneuver (especially a pilot flying a plane), or to successfully bargain for a better price
25. Talk down to: to speak condescendingly
26. Talk (one’s) ear off: to talk to someone excessively
27. Talk (one’s) head off: to talk excessively
28. Talk in circles: to speak in a confusing or indirect manner
29. Talk in riddles: to speak obscurely or with hints
30. Talk (one) into: to persuade someone
31. Talk on: to continue to speak, or to speak on a certain topic
32. Talk (oneself) out: to speak to the point of exhaustion
33. Talk (one) out of: to dissuade someone
34. Talk out of both sides of (one’s) mouth: to speak inconsistently about something depending on who one is talking to
35. Talk (something) out: to talk about something to reach a consensus or understanding
36. Talk (something) over: see “talk (something) out”
37. Talk sense: to speak reasonably
38. Talk shop: to speak about work-related issues outside the work environment
39. Talk some sense into: to talk to someone to persuade them to see reason
40. Talk the talk: to speak as if one is an authority or adheres to certain beliefs or values
41. Talk the talk and walk the walk: to act in accord with one’s stated beliefs or values
42. Talk through: to talk about something thoroughly to achieve a resolution
43. Talk through one’s hat: to speak insincerely, to talk nonsense, or to exaggerate
44. Talk to hear (one’s) own voice: to talk excessively, in an egotistical manner
45. Talk tough: to speak in an intimidating manner, or to bluster
46. Talk turkey: to speak frankly and/or with resolve
47. Talk until (one) is blue in the face: to speak exhaustively, especially in an unsuccessful effort to persuade
48. Talk (something) up: to promote something to draw attention to it
49. Talk (one’s) way out of: to say something so as to evade blame or avoid responsibility
50: You should talk: an admonition to avoid expressing oneself hypocritically

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Analog vs. Digital

2012-01-14T00:18:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

What’s the difference between analog and digital, and why is the latter word, which originally referred to fingers, now the antithesis of “hands-on”?

An analog is something related to physical quantities (hence the name; analog comes from a Greek word meaning “proportion”): An analog clock, for example, shows the passage of time by measuring it with a “hand” that pivots on a central axis, while a measuring tape represents the length of a tangible phenomenon such as a room’s dimensions.

By contrast, digital refers to a device’s reading of binary units, zeros and ones, to perform functions and to the storage of information as binary units rather than an analog recording medium such as magnetic ribbon. Ironically, however, digit stems from the Latin term digitus, meaning “finger” or “toe.” The path from appendages to algorithms involves the use of fingers to count, thus the extension of the definition of digit to “number below ten.” The use of zeros and tens as the basis of the on-off duality of binary computer systems led the technology to be referred to as digital technology.

Indeed, the word bit, referring to the basic unit of digital information, is a contraction of the phrase “binary digit.”

The adjective digital now refers both to something done or having to do with fingers (for example, “digital manipulation”) and something related to digitally rendered numbers, or to computerized data or to electronics. Two other terms with the same root word are digitalis, referring to a plant popularly known as the foxglove and to a medicine extracted from it, and prestidigitation, a sesquipedalian synonym for magic.

Digitalis is a Latinized form of the German word fingerhut (“thimble”), because of the resemblance of the plant’s flowers to the sewing implement. Prestidigitation, meanwhile, is another Latin-looking invention influenced by prestige, which comes from the Latin word praestigiae, “juggler’s tricks.” (Prestige acquired a laudatory meaning and connotation only in the early twentieth century.) It’s a combination of the Italian word presto and digit — hence, “quick fingers.”

Analog, meanwhile, calls to mind its full-form predecessor analogue (which spelling for the adjectival form is also preferred in British English), which means “something similar.” An analogy is also a similarity, or it can refer to a correspondence or to another form of comparison. Analogous is the adjectival form.

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Tips About 10 Technological Terms

2012-01-12T23:25:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Which tech terms merit capitalization, and which are generic? Which terms are open compounds, and which are treated as one word? Here’s a guide to treatment of some of the most common names for technological phenomena:

1. App: This abbreviation of application has existed for nearly a quarter century but has only recently entered general usage. Few publications bother to use the full term on first reference.

2. E-mail: This abbreviation of “electronic mail” prevails in usage over email. (Note that the e should not be capitalized.) The formal plural is e-mail (or, if you prefer “e-mail messages,” to distinguish the transmissions from the term for the concept); e-mails is the informal plural form. E-book, e-commerce, and associated terms follow the hyphenation style of e-mail.

3. Global Positioning System: This satellite-based navigation system is a specific entity enabled by the US government and is therefore initial capitalized. It is also identified by the abbreviation GPS, which is so ubiquitous that some publications don’t bother to spell the name out on first reference. However, to distinguish between the system and a device that employs it, I recommend using the abbreviation as an adjective in that context — for example, “GPS receiver” — rather than the letters alone.

4. Home page: This term for the page from which all other pages on a website are accessed is generally treated as an open compound, though some publications close it.

5. Initial lowercase letters: Honor initial lowercase letters (iPhone), midcaps (YouTube), and the like, but in the case, so to speak, of the former, avoiding starting a sentence with such aberrant branding gimmicks.

6. In-box: This word for your e-mail program’s main folder for incoming messages, borrowed from the name for a tray on the top of a desk in which papers are delivered to the desk’s occupant, is often hyphenated, though Gmail, at least, treats it as a closed compound, as do some publications.

7. Internet: Some publications, arguing that the Internet is an amorphous network of interconnected computers, lowercase this term, but most treat it as a proper noun — as do organizations that set international standards and maintain technological infrastructure. (However, intranet, which refers to a closed, internal online network — for example, that of a company — is generic.) Some day, though, Internet may, like many other once capitalized terms, be downgraded to generic status.

8. Software names: Capitalize names of all software. Also, when referring to word-processing software, include the brand name — “Microsoft Word,” “Adobe Acrobat,” and so on — at least on first reference.

9. Smartphone: This term for is a mobile phone with sophisticated recording and communication functions is a closed compound.

10. Web: When the word appears by itself to refer to the World Wide Web, or when it appears in open compounds such as “Web page” and “Web host,” retain initial capitalization. When it is the first component of a closed compound (webmaster, website), lowercase it. (You’ll find the latter example as two words, with web capitalized, elsewhere on this site, because I just recently accepted the inevitable and started styling the term in the prevailing form rather than the one long favored by the technorati.)

Also, observe the distinction between the Web and the Internet; the former is but one component of the latter.

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Exercise Your Editing with This Exercise

2012-01-11T22:04:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Editing is as much an art as writing is. Whether you’re finessing your own writing or revising the work of another, the process requires simultaneous attention to multiple issues: spelling, grammar, style, accuracy, formality, and the subjective aspect of substance: providing context, assigning meaning and conveying value, and more.

When I was a copyediting instructor, one of my favorite activities was creating error-ridden editing exercises for my students. (Sadistic, I know — but they got their money’s worth.) Here, I inflict one such compositional concentration of calamity of on you — free of charge. But before you read beyond the following paragraph, copy and paste it and give it your best editing effort, then come back and compare your revision with mine:

“On Jan. 20th, 1960 then-President John Kennedy delivered his notorious Ask Not What You Can Do for Your Country Speech. Kennedy launched not only America’s Space Program that sent men to the moon, but stood up to Russia when they threatened the free world during the missile crisis. During his Presidency, Peace Corps was formed; the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by the Soviets; and the Civil Rights Act was passed. (However, he stumbled when, in a speech in Berlin in 1963, he told the Germans, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” He intended to communicate “I am a Berliner,” but the way he said it meant, “I am a jelly doughnut.”) Only 42-years-old when elected, the youngest president, his legacy is a less than three year presidency compared with Camelot.”

Here’s my quick fix, followed by annotations:

“President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address on January 20, 1961, is memorable for the statement “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” and he answered his own challenge. During his administration, he not only pressed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to achieve a manned landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960s but also confronted the Soviet Union over that country’s plan to install nuclear weapons in Cuba that would be aimed at the United States.
Also, during Kennedy’s presidency, tragically abbreviated when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the Peace Corps was formed; the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The legacy of Kennedy, only forty-two years old when he was elected, is of a brief period of peace and prosperity; indeed, his administration was compared to the glory of King Arthur’s Camelot.”

Note the correction of the style of the month and date, and correction of the year itself.
Our thirty-fifth president’s name is John F. Kennedy.
If I had retained “then-President” before Kennedy’s name, I would omit the hyphen and lowercase the name of the office, which because of the modifier then becomes an epithet rather than a specific job title.
Because Kennedy’s inaugural address is notable for other excerpts as well, I chose, in identifying it, to focus on the line — giving it in its entirety — and not on the speech. But if you do refer to a speech, style the reference as follows: “his ‘Ask not what you can for your country’ speech.” (Also, notorious is not an apt description for the address.)
If I were editing someone else’s work, I would query for the writer’s approval of insertion of “he answered his own challenge,” which I think provides a transition to what would otherwise be merely a grocery list of accomplishments.
I corrected the erroneous “not only . . . but also” construction.
There is no such entity as “America’s Space Program,” so the latter two words should not have been capitalized. (And, whenever possible, use the more precise “United States” in place of America in reference to the nation.)
In this context, moon is the formal name of an astronomical feature, rather than a generic word for such a phenomenon, and should therefore be capitalized.
Although Russia is an informal alternative to “the Soviet Union,” it should be avoided in such usage. (“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” was the official name of the country during this period, but the two-word version is acceptable.)
A nation is a singular entity and should not be referred to as “they.”
“Free world” is subjective and provocative in this otherwise neutrally written passage.
Because of the lack of specificity and capitalization, “the missile crisis” implies a previous reference to the incident. It should be referred to by its capitalized full name.
As written, the sentence beginning “During his Presidency” (there is no reason to capitalize presidency, by the way) requires only commas, not semicolons. I retained the latter punctuation marks only because I rewrote the list of achievements in a complex form, with internal commas in the second item. I also revised the passive construction to active form.
I inserted the phrase about his assassination to provide context.
“Peace Corps,” like the similarly constructed names of most entities, should be preceded by the article the.
Several nations signed the treaty, and if any are identified, all should be identified.
The phrase “of 1964” is part of the formal name of the act.
The “Ich bin ein Berliner” gaffe is a popular myth; residents of Berlin did not, and do not, call jelly doughnuts “Berliner.” (Beyond that, even if the story were true, the incident is minor when compared with the other highlights of Kennedy’s presidency listed here, and the passage provides insufficient context.)
A person’s age, when not applied as a modifier, should not be hyphenated (except for linking ones-place and tens-place numbers, as in forty-two). Also, I prefer to follow The Chicago Manual of Style in spelling ages out.
The first phrase of the last sentence is a dangling modifier; “the . . . president” is incorrectly identified as his own legacy.
“The youngest president” is an awkwardly truncated interjection. My more extended parenthetical is only one of several possibilities.
The phrase “less than three year,” as a modifier for presidency, should be hyphenated; I deleted the entire phrase because it seemed to distract from the point of the passage. Also, there was insufficient context for the reference to Camelot.

This passage could be edited in as many versions as there are editors, and, given further context, would be further improved by additional changes. My effort attends to the deficiencies in the several categories I listed in the first paragraph of this post. Share in a comment below how and why your edits differ from mine and others.

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Entropy vs. Atrophy

2012-01-10T21:45:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Entropy is the uncertainty or disorder in a system. In a technical sense, it is the gradual breakdown of energy and matter in the universe; in casual usage, it refers to degradation or disorder in any situation, or to chaos, disorganization, or randomness in general. The stem -tropy, from the Greek word trope, means “change” or “turn.”

It’s easily confused with a similar-sounding but unrelated word: atrophy, which refers to physical or psychological decline: Atrophy, which serves as a verb as well, stems from the Greek word trephein, which means “to nourish”; the prefix a- indicates antonymic form, as in apolitical or atheism.

Atrophy can also mean poor development or loss of a part of an animal or plant, and in that sense it’s related to dystrophy, which in general refers to a condition resulting from poor nutrition, though it’s more familiar as part of the phrase “muscular dystrophy”; that, by contrast, identifies a hereditary disease that results in wasting away of muscle tissue.

Trophy, however, meaning “a prize” or “a memorial,” is — despite the ph spelling — from trope, not trephein. (It evolved from a second sense of trope as “a rout, a victory.”) It’s related, therefore, to the English word trope, which refers to a figure of speech or a cliché (a “turn” of phrase); the primary sense of that word is “a device or theme,” as in a common and perhaps trite plot element in a war movie or a tearjerker.

Trop- features at the head of other words, too: tropic, referring to the two parallel lines of latitude that cross over the tropics, and tropism, which means “a tendency, inclination, or propensity.” The syllable also appears in numerous medical and scientific terms, such as autotropism and somatotropin.

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35 Genres and Other Varieties of Fiction

2012-01-09T18:17:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

A previous post detailed synonyms for story. This entry defines words identifying various genres — categories of story types — and similar terms:

1. Adventure fiction: stories in which characters are involved in dangerous and/or exhilarating exploits

2. Airport novel: a work of fiction, generally genre fiction, so named because of its availability at stores in international airports in order to provide airline passengers with a light diversion during a flight

3. Allegory: a story using symbolism to express truths about the human condition

4. Bildungsroman: a story detailing the emotional and moral growth of a character

5. Black comedy: a story in which the humor derives from the misfortunes and/or reproachable behavior of characters

6. Comedy: a story with elements and situations intended to amuse

7. Comedy-drama: a story with both humorous and serious elements

8. Comedy of errors (farce): a story involving energetic action revolving around humorous predicaments and coincidences

9. Comedy of manners: a story that mocks class pretensions and/or prejudices

10. Crime fiction: stories based on the commission and/or investigation of wrongdoing

11. Detective fiction: stories in which the protagonist investigates a crime

12. Epic: originally a long poem celebrating the exploits of a factual or fictitious hero, but now applied to prose works on the same theme as well

13. Epistolary fiction: stories constructed as a series of letters exchanged between characters

14. Fantasy fiction: stories involving imaginary beings in the real world or in an alternate reality and assuming suspension of disbelief about magic and/or supernatural powers

15. Fictional autobiography: a story purporting to be a first-person account of someone’s life

16. Fictional biography: a story structured to resemble a factual life story

17. Genre fiction: stories intended to appeal to readers because of adherence to a specific formula (such as adventure fiction or detective fiction), rather than on their literary merits

18. Gothic fiction: stories often taking place in an isolated setting and involving strange and/or perilous happenings

19. Horror fiction: stories incorporating supernatural and/or inexplicable elements and intended to arouse fear and dread

20. Melodrama: a story that emphasizes action over characterization and features exaggeratedly dramatic plot elements

21. Mystery fiction: stories that detail the solution of a crime or other wrongdoing

22. Pastiche: a story that imitates one or more established works, or consists of episodes of such works

23. Picaresque: an episodically structured story featuring a rogue or an antihero as the protagonist

24. Parody: a story mocking the pretensions or weaknesses of a particular author,
style, or genre

25. Romance: a love story; also a tale taking place in a distant time and place and involving adventure with often supernatural or mysterious elements

26. Romantic comedy: a lighthearted story detailing a romance and its complications

27. Romp: a boisterously comical tale

28. Satire: a story that pokes fun at human shortcomings such as arrogance, greed, and vanity

29. Science fiction: stories focusing on how science and technology affect individuals and civilizations

30. Screwball comedy: a fast-paced story involving improbable situations and antics from which the humor derives

31. Swashbuckler: an adventure story in which the hero accomplishes great feats to aid a noble cause

32. Thriller: a dramatic story punctuated with action, adventure, and suspense

33. Tragedy: a story with a catastrophic and/or unfortunate outcome

34. Tragicomedy: a story with both humorous and heartbreaking aspects

35. Travelogue: a story with a plot centering on a significant amount of travel

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Book Review: “Garner’s Modern American Usage”

2012-01-07T21:43:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

What is the state of writing today? Pick up any newspaper, magazine, or book, or look at a website, an email message, or a tweet, or examine a newsletter, a brochure, or a report. Want a more useful indicator of how particular words are used? Look them up in a new dictionary.

But these strategies will answer what may be the wrong question, because they provide a descriptivist view of the language — one that describes how writers are using the English language. But perhaps the perspective should be prescriptivist — one that prescribes how writers should use the English language.

An excellent prescriptivist resource for the careful writer — one who strives to produce high-quality prose — is Garner’s Modern American Usage. This nearly 1,000-page book by esteemed wordsmith Bryan A. Garner, first published in 2009 and already in its third edition, is the premier guide for what writers should aspire to.

The tome’s girth is imposing, but just like any other encyclopedic reference work, it is easily digestible. (Though word nerds may find themselves gorging on one entry after another instead of actually, you know, writing.) The entries range in length from curt cross-references and concise confirmations (“gimmickry. So spelled—not gimmickery”) to brief elucidations about words, parts of speech, and types of usage errors and (usually) short essays on topics ranging from “Abbreviations” to “Zeugma.”

These latter entries vary from discussion of parts of speech like adjectives and adverbs to entries on cliches, jargon, and other usage issues to matters of style such as italics and chronological dates.

A glossary of language terms almost fifty pages long — also beginning with an entry titled “Abbreviations” and ending with one labeled “Zeugma” — follows, along with a list of usage books going back 250 years and a bibliography of more than a hundred guides to grammar, usage, style, and more. Another feature of the book is the Language-Change Index, a five-stage system of charting the persistence or introduction of nonstandard language. In addition, erroneous usage is prominently signaled by asterisks.

Garner’s style is authoritative but not arrogant (and occasionally dryly humorous), and he backs his prescriptions up with rigorous scholarship, frequently citing published examples of misuse of one word for another — for example, of cue for queue.

Other usage guides may be more friendly and less formidable, but none matches Garner for thoroughness and clarity. If you have only one such resource at hand, make it this one.

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75 Synonyms for “Talk”

2012-01-06T22:27:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Talk, talk, talk — it’s all the same. Or is it? There are many ways to talk, and each has its own word (or words) for it. Here’s a noncomprehensive roster of many synonyms for the noun and verb forms of talk (I had to stop somewhere):

1. Babble: enthusiastic or excessive talk, or meaningless sounds or nonsense words; to talk in this manner
2. Back talk: a disrespectful response; to respond disrespectfully
3. Backchat: see back talk, badinage, and gossip
4. Badinage: light, witty talk
5. Banter: see badinage, with a connotation of good-natured teasing or arguing; to engage in such talk
6. Barb: a hurtful and/or critical comment
7. Blandish: see cajole
8. Blandishments: see cajolery/cajolement
9. Blarney: nonsensical talk
10. Bluster: boastful or threatening talk; to speak boastfully or threateningly
11. Cackle: see chatter (verb only)
12. Cajole: to persuade with soothing or flattering remarks
13-14. Cajolery/cajolement: talk with the intent to persuade
15. Causerie: see chat (noun only)
16. Chaff: see badinage; also, to tease good-naturedly
17. Chat: an idle or inconsequential conversation; to engage in such talk
18. Chatter: quick, extensive, and/or aimless talk; to talk in such a manner
19. Chin music: see chat (noun only)
20. Chinwag: informal talking; to talk informally
21. Chitchat: see badinage
22. Circumlocution: evasive or verbose talk
23. Comment: an opinion or observation; to say something of this type
24. Confab: see chat (also, a formal meeting)
25. Confabulation: see chat and confab (also, something made up)
26. Confer: to exchange opinions or seek advice
27. Conference: a meeting, or an event consisting of presentations and/or meetings
28. Confess: to admit to a thought or action considered improper or shameful
29. Conversation: a talk between or among two or more people
30. Converse: to speak back and forth with one or more people
31. Crack: an uncomplimentary comment; also, to quickly say something, as when spontaneously telling a joke pertinent to a situation
32. Dig: see crack
33. Discuss: to engage in serious talk
34. Discussion: a serious talk
35. Dish: see gossip
36. Double-talk: intentionally confusing or ambiguous language, or talk that is at least partially meaningless; to engage in such talk
37. Fast-talk: to persuade or influence by deceptively authoritative and/or flattering speech
38. Flibbertigibbet: see gossip
39. Gab: see chatter
40. Gabfest: talking consisting of gab
41. Give-and-take: an exchange of ideas or comments
42. Gossip: see chat, with an additional connotation of talk or talking about the personal lives of one or more other people (also, someone who engages in such talk)
43. Jangle: see chat
44. Jaw: see chat
45. Jest: a humorous or mocking statement; to make such a statement
46. Natter: see chat
47. Negotiate: to talk in order to reach an agreement
48. Negotiation: a talk in which the speakers seek to reach an agreement
49. Palaver: a discussion or conference, especially one between unequal participants, or deceptive speech, or see chat; to talk idly, try to persuade or deceive, or come to terms
50. Parley: see confer, with the possible connotation of talk between antagonists to agree to terms to cease hostilities; to engage in such talk
51. Patter: quick or monotonous speech, as in delivering a humorous speech or in rote delivery of prayers; to speak in this manner
52. Pillow talk: romantic talk, such as would be engaged in while the speakers are in bed
53. Pleasantry: polite, inconsequential talk, or see banter and jest (nouns only)
54. Quip: a spontaneous observation or response; to say something of this type
55. Raillery: see banter and jest
56. Rap: see chat and patter
57-58. Recital/recitation: public delivery of read or memorized material, or of details or answers
59. Recite: to deliver read or memorized material, or details or answers
60. Remark: a statement of judgment or opinion, or a reference to something notable; to comment in this manner
61. Repartee: an exchange of clever, witty statements, a single such response, or skill in talking in this manner
62. Schmooze: see chat, with the connotation of one conducted so as to gain personal or professional advantage; to talk in this manner
63. Small talk: see badinage
64. Spit: to talk about things or opinions a listener disagrees with or disapproves of
65. Straight talk: frank, straightforward talk
66. Sweet nothings: flattering talk intended to charm a potential or existing romantic partner
67. Sweet talk: talk intended to persuade, or to endear oneself to the speaker; to engage in this kind of talk (the verb form is hyphenated)
68. Table talk: informal talking such as that heard during a dinner party
69. Tete-a-tete: an intimate or private talk
70. Waggery: see banter and jest
71. Wisecrack: a clever or sarcastic comment; to make such a comment
72. Wordplay: witty, playful talk
73. Yack: to talk at length
74. Yammer: to talk relentlessly, or to complain
75. Yap: excessive talk (also, slang for mouth)

I’ll follow up with a list of more elaborate idioms about talk and talking like “shoot the breeze,” but let me (and other site visitors) known which synonyms I missed.

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10 Types of Hypercorrection

2012-01-05T23:43:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Well-meaning writers and editors sometimes mangle the language they’re trying to manage — a fault called hypercorrection. Errors of this class are the result either of adherence to a spurious superstition about proper form, a misunderstanding about a point of grammar, or an attempt to fit a square idiom into a round pigeonhole. Here’s a list of some of the categories of hypercorrection:

1. “A Number Of” Followed by a Singular Verb

Occasionally, a superficial understanding of what constitutes proper grammar leads writers to create a disagreeable subject/verb agreement such as “A number of members is supporting reform.” But longstanding idiom trumps strict correctness: “A number of members are supporting reform” is correct, because the focus is on the members, not on the proportion of them supporting reform. The same commonsense rule holds for handful, majority, and similar terms.

2. As in Place of Like

Writers averse to like as an alternative to “such as” are also prone to replace like with as in such sentences as “He charges as a bull.” “He charges as a bull would do” is correct but stilted; the shorter form implies “He charges in the capacity of a bull,” rather than “He charges in the manner of a bull.” What’s not to like about like?

3. Double Adverbs

Avoid the urge to append an -ly ending to an adverb that doesn’t require it. Flat adverbs do just fine without the suffix, and so do doubtless, much, seldom, thus, and others.

4. Foreign Articles Preceding Foreign Terms

When a noun phrase is temporarily borrowed from another language, writers might be tempted to precede it with an article from that language, as in “At the countess’s wedding, she served as le fille d’honneur” (“maid of honor”). The term alone merits both the emphasis of italicization and the retention of the other language’s form: “At the countess’s wedding, she served as the fille d’honneur.”

5. I Substituted for the Object Me

Some people, when they learn that the object in such constructions as “You and me are the same height” and “Me and John are the candidates” should read “You and I are the same height” and “John and I are the candidates,” generalize that me is an undesirable pronoun, even when used in a sentence’s subject, but “There’s no difference in height between you and me” and “The candidates are John and me,” unlike the sentence versions ending in the word I, are perfectly correct.

6. Latin Plurals Formed Incorrectly

The plural forms of words derived from Latin that end in -us are -uses or -i. Sometimes, the -uses ending is preferred over the alternative (for example, octopuses); sometimes, the reverse is true (as with foci); and sometimes only one form is correct (prospectuses). When in doubt, check the dictionary. When not in doubt, double-check anyway.

7. Prepositions Prevented from Ending a Sentence

Despite admonitions from numerous sources, including a previous post on this site, to ignore the pedantic prohibition against sentence-ending prepositions, some writers, in order to adhere to this fallacious “rule,” persist in uncomfortably trussing sentences up. For example, “What did you do that for?” need not be twisted into “For what reason did you do that?” One could easily write “Why did you do that?” but that kind of cleanup is not always a viable alternative.

8. Unsplit Compound Verbs

There is a curious misunderstanding about compound verbs — phrases consisting of an auxiliary verb (a form of “to be”) and another verb — analogous to the spurious “rule” about infinitives discussed below: Some writers mistakenly believe that adverbs should not be inserted between one verb and another, but that syntax is preferable. Nevertheless, they prefer the clumsy construction “They quietly were calling her name” to the perfectly acceptable wording “They were quietly calling her name.”

9. Unsplit Infinitives

The persistent belief that the elements of an infinitive — to followed by a verb — should not be separated by an adverb can result in an ambiguous sentence, such as “I was preparing quickly to depart,” which could mean “I was hurrying to prepare to depart” or I was preparing to depart hurriedly” — which are not the same thing. The former meaning should be expressed “I was quickly preparing to depart” and the latter should be written “I was preparing to quickly depart” (yes, it’s acceptable to separate infinitives with an adverb) or “I was preparing to quickly depart.”

10. Whom in Place of Who

The troublesome pronoun whom entangles many writers, not only at the head of a sentence but also when leading off a subordinate clause, as in the erroneous example “The top vote-getter is Smith, whom Jones knows is a poor choice.” Whom, here, is not the object of knows; it is the subject of is, and who is the correct companion of a linking verb.

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Accidental Shifts in Meaning

2012-01-04T13:58:00.000+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Words often slowly change their meanings over time — and sometimes, as in the case of fulsome, flip-flop — but occasionally popular culture inadvertently puts them on the fast track to transformation.

Movies and television shows introduce or popularize new senses for words all the time, but there are at least two cases in which filmed entertainment unintentionally created new senses for words that supplanted the original usage.

In the first instance, it was actually the print version of The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, in which the author dared to have protagonist Sam Spade refer to a member of antagonist Kasper Gutman’s entourage as “your gunsel.” That word, probably from the Yiddish term for “young goose,” originally was hobo slang for a boy in a sexual relationship with an older man. Lore has it that Hammett intended that meaning and inserted it in the original short story to put one over on a prissy magazine editor.

When screenwriter and first-time director John Huston adapted Hammett’s tale for the big screen — supposedly by merely transcribing the story’s dialogue — he retained the term, and the movie-going public, like the editor, assumed that the word refers to a gunman. Ever since then, writers searching for an evocative slang term for a hired gun have passed the viral error on.

A similar transmogrification occurred with the word nimrod, a generic reference to the biblical character of that name, who in the Good Book is referred to as “a mighty hunter.” How, then, did the word become a synonym for jerk or idiot? We have none other a personage (or, more accurately, a rabbitage) than Bugs Bunny to thank for this significant shift in meaning.

In a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Bugs’s fumbling nemesis Elmer Fudd as a hunter on the rabbit’s trail, the carrot-chomping coney sardonically refers to Fudd as a nimrod — insulting him by derisively comparing him to a biblical personage renowned for his hunting skills. Apparently, later generations of Looney Tunes fans who hadn’t kept up with their Scripture picked up on Bugs’s attitude without understanding the ironic allusion, and the word acquired a new meaning, while its original sense faded into the background.

The moral of these stories? If you come across a mystery word in your reading and are tempted to employ it in your own writing, first be sure you understand its implications.

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The Best of Daily Writing Tips in 2011

2012-01-04T05:58:00.000+07:00

I’m a big fan of DWT, and love all of the tips and lessons provided. Something I would like a review of, though I’m sure its been covered already, is the proper use of the apostrophe. When is it used after the word it’s connected to? When is ignore? Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Andy Brackett

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How to Format Captions

2012-01-03T21:58:00.001+07:00

by Mark Nichol

Captions, like other display copy, are generally styled in contrast to the running text for aesthetic and practical reasons: The appearance of display type offers a change of pace from the uniform appearance of running text and makes it easier for readers to distinguish it from the default content. The font size should be the same as the running text, or smaller.

Captions come in several forms, and they can vary to some extent within a print publication or on a website according to function. At their simplest, captions can consist merely of the name of the person pictured, or can identify, in a few words, an object or a location. A longer phrase, in the form of an incomplete sentence and without punctuation, might describe whatever is pictured. Or the caption might consist of one or more complete sentences that explain the contents of the photograph or illustration. Occasionally, a brief article is itself formatted as a caption. (Be cautious about not overwhelming readers with information, however. Caption copy can be redundant to a passage in the running text but should not go into excessive detail.)

It’s best to minimize the different forms a caption can take in one publication. When captioning a headshot photograph of a person, for example, be consistent about whether you simply label the photo with the person’s name or whether you provide additional information. Because such photos tend to be small, printing the subject’s name alone is recommended. But a caption for a larger candid photo, as opposed to a posed headshot, for example, should provide some context.

Choose between using incomplete sentences or complete sentences when providing more detail; it’s better form to be consistent with one approach or the other.

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