word choice | word choice
Jul.20.2011
The words we say or write can hurt or heal. Whether we lob a salvo or offer a salve is our choice. In the era of cell phones, texting, and other immediate communication, quick responses are expected. But, hasty, knee-jerk reactions have consequences. To skip an intermediate step to contemplate...
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Apr.08.2011
In an always-on age where the appetite for content is voracious and insatiable, how is a writer to get and keep the creative edge? One way is to mix genres. The lines between creative nonfiction, memoir and essay have already blurred - and the trend will continue - so why not push the boundaries?...
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Feb.01.2011
My ninety year old mother broke her hip last spring. She is a modest woman, but one day she wanted to show me her scar. Why would she do that? And how could I describe it? How much history should I include - for instance, should I let the reader know she has Alzheimer's? I decided to open...
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Aug.05.2009
If you're not writing gibberish, perhaps you should be. A week ago I spent a day with a gang of girl poets generating new work. We each brought a prompt. Poets have mixed feelings about prompts. Some claim to be unable to write to them at all, some say if you need prompts you're not a real poet,...
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Jul.03.2009
An LA Times story today reports:
"Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums. "
Now, back in my day, starry-eyed wannabe wordsmiths were taught that the the plural of "...
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Mar.06.2009
index
I could have sworn that, years ago, I learned that the proper plural was "indices" and that "indexes" was a less-preferred form that was slowly gaining dominance.
Nope.
Webster's New World, American Heritage, and Merriam-Webster all list "indexes" as the first...
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Feb.05.2009
like
adv. ... as for example: 'great dramatists like Sophocles and Shakespeare' - Webster's New World College Dictionary (sixth definition)
prep. ... such as; for example: 'saved things like old newspapers and pieces of string' - American Heritage Dictionary (fifth definition)
There's a cold war...
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Jan.12.2009
A NexTag ad I saw on Yahoo today entices readers to "Earn a Degree in as Few as Two Years!"
How does this happen? Most likely, some copywriter wanted to write as "in as little as two years" then, half-remembering something a teacher had once said about "few" and "...
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Dec.08.2008
healthy diet = 4,390,000 hitshealthful diet = 144,000 hits
Traditionalists say that "healthy" means "in good health." They say that, if you mean "promoting good health," you need to use "healthful." That is, a healthy person eats a healthful diet.That's no...
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Oct.22.2008
Came across this* in a story I was editing yesterday:
The American workforce is becoming more diverse. Experts project that next year ethnically diverse individuals and women will make up 70% of all new hires.
Set aside the logical problems with this passage. I reworded it, anyway, so some of the...
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