Read the following sample sentences, determine the problem with the use of quotation marks, and devise a solution. (Note that I use single quotation marks rather than double quotation marks because of my custom of framing the entire sample sentence in a pair of the latter.) Then, take a look at my revisions and explanations at the bottom of the page and see how they compare with your changes:

1. “The IQ evaluation provides a ‘snapshot’ of a child’s cognitive skills at a particular point in time.”

2. “Perry is connecting with a growing number of Republicans because of his uncompromising rhetoric and his back-slapping, guy-who-married ‘the first girl I dated’ persona.”

3. “Consider the glass ‘half full and not half empty.’”

4. “The old fixer-upper looks like it was designed by “The Amityville Horror” house architect.” (This example is from a newspaper; many such publications use quotation marks, rather than italics, to denote titles of films, books, and other self-contained compositions.)

5. “They reviewed cross-border reproductive care, or “medical tourism,” as an increasing phenomenon in respect to egg donation.”

6. “Our waterworks have reached the classic ‘run to failure’ moment.”

7. “He used scientific reasoning to show that singing and dancing could cure melancholy by stirring up the ‘secretions’ in the human ‘machine.’”

Answers and Explanations

1. The informal usage of a word need not be excused with what are sometimes called apologetic quotation marks (what I refer to frequently in these posts by a more common label: scare quotes): “The IQ evaluation provides a snapshot of a child’s cognitive skills at a particular point in time.”

2. This sentence attempts to allude to erstwhile presidential candidate Rick Perry’s pride that he married the first girl he dated, but the writer, after a promising start in which they began stringing the relevant words together in an extended hyphenated phrasal adjective, fumbles by attempting to employ a direct quote. The best solution would be to abandon the attempt at direct quotation and fold a paraphrase into the adjective string: “Perry is connecting with a growing number of Republicans because of his uncompromising rhetoric and his back-slapping, guy-who-married-the-first-girl-he-dated persona.”

3. This reference to the idiomatic metaphors for optimism and pessimism implies that there is an idiom consisting of the phrase “half full and not half empty.” However, only the distinct antonyms “half full” and “half empty” are valid, and there is no reason to enclose them in quotes (also, a comma seems more effective than the conjunction and): “Consider the glass half full, not half empty.”

4. Here, the writer is attempting to employ the first word of the movie title as a direct article for the framing sentence, but it cannot serve double duty. In this case, it is acceptable to transfer the to duty with the sentence and leave the title temporarily bereft of the direct article that begins it (“The old fixer-upper looks like it was designed by the ‘Amityville Horror’ house architect”). However, the sentence would read more smoothly if it were relaxed, including the insertion of a couple of additional direct articles and the retention of the full movie title: “The old fixer-upper looks like it was designed by the architect who designed the house in ‘The Amityville Horror.’”

5. This sentence is doubly irritating. As in the first example above, the scare quotes are extraneous. In addition, it seems illogical to me to introduce the gloss (brief definition) of the phrase “medical tourism” before it; why, then, bother introducing the idiom at all? Use a term-then-gloss structure: “They reviewed medical tourism, or cross-border reproductive care, as an increasing phenomenon in respect to egg donation.” (A compromise is to explicitly identify the idiom as such following the literal description for the topic in question: “They reviewed cross-border reproductive care, known popularly as medical tourism, as an increasing phenomenon in respect to egg donation.”)

6. The phrase “run to failure” may be a partial quotation from someone, but unless it is a clever coinage heretofore unfamiliar to readers (and even then, use the explanatory solution in the fifth example, above), the phrase should simply be strung together as a phrasal adjective: “Our waterworks have reached the classic run-to-failure moment.”

7. Trick question — in the original context, as least, it’s clear that “secretions” is a direct quote. Sometimes, it’s best to indicate that an unusual word was actually written or spoken by the source, and sometimes, scare quotes are helpful (as in the case of those framing machine, which may well have also been a direct quote). In this case, I’d leave the sentence as is.

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One Response to “A Quiz About Quotation Marks”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 22, 2012 9:25 am

   Blast, the dreaded quotations. Great article, though I have to admit I had an eyebrow raise and giggle at #4. This is why I never could write an article for someone else when I was younger and had the drive. Oh well, found my calling now. Thanks for sharing this!

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Blond and its feminine form blonde, both from the Latin word blundus (“yellow”) by way of French, may have in turn come from a Frankish word that could be related to Old English blondan, “to mix,” which shares its origins with blend. Blond is usually employed as an adjective, the term as a noun for a man with blond hair, by contrast, is rare. Because blonds and blondes are more likely to be fair-skinned as well as fair-haired, the term is also associated with light complexion.

The presence of both masculine and feminine forms for blond/blonde and brunet/brunette is due to their French (and ultimately Latin) roots, as it were, as opposed to the Germanic origins of black and red, the words for the other major hair colors, which have a neutral form.

Normally, English might have jettisoned one gendered form for blond/blonde. However, the venerable theme in popular culture of the blonde-haired woman as more sexually attractive and available (as well as flighty, shallow, and dimwitted), as compared to females with hair of another color, has caused the noun form blonde and brunette to endure.

The numerous terms for variations in blond hair, not necessarily in order of darkness, include sandy, strawberry, and dirty. Towhead (the first syllable refers to its resemblance to tow, flax or hemp fibers used for twine or yarn) describes a person with yellowish and often unruly hair.

Brunet and brunette, from the gender-specific diminutives of the French brun (“brown”), mean “brown haired.” (Brun and its diminutives originally also referred to a dark complexion.) As with blond and blonde, the male form is rarely used on its own as a noun, though the masculine and feminine variations persist probably because of the same double standard in association of hair color with female sexuality and with personality characteristics as mentioned in reference to blondes above. (Dark-haired women are stereotyped as serious, sophisticated, and capable.) Words for shades of brown hair, from darkest to lightest, are brunet/brunette, chestnut, walnut (the last two as compared to colors of the respective nuts), golden, and ash.

Redhead is yet another term for hair color used as a noun; in contrast to the colors mentioned above, it is not gender specific, though as blonde and brunette are much more common in usage than blond and brunet, it is more likely to refer to a woman than a man.

Variations in red hair, listed in alphabetical order rather than according to depth of color, include auburn, copper, ginger, and orange. (Auburn derives ultimately from the Latin word albus, meaning “white,” but thanks to the influence of brun, the French spelling — auborne — changed, as did the meaning, to “reddish brown.”) The prevailing — and long-standing — cultural stereotype about redheads is that they are hot tempered; the hair color has also been associated with a high libido.

Alone among descriptions of people with general hair tones, a black-haired person is never referred to by the word black alone.

Hair-color categories are arbitrary — strawberry blond is sometimes considered a type of red hair, and auburn might be classified as a type of brown hair — though a system called the Fischer-Saller scale, devised for anthropological and medical classification, assigns alphabetical letters and roman numerals to various grades of hair color.

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One Response to “The Story Behind Words for Hair Color”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 21, 2012 10:01 am

   Huh, never thought about hair color in-depth like this. You guys never cease to amaze with the knowledge. Can’t wait to see what you come up with for the eye color (if I haven’t miss that one already).

   Thanks for sharing with us!

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The reader confused the appearance of two negative words with the concept of the double negative, which is not the same thing. In the sentence I used, each negative is located in a separate clause: Hadn’t appears in the dependent clause, and couldn’t is in the main, independent clause. Therefore, they don’t contradict each other.

But even if they did, would that be wrong? Not necessarily.

Two forms of double negative exist. One, referred to as two negatives resolving to a positive, is also known as litotes (LIE-tuh-tees), a rhetorical device in which emphasis is conveyed by understatement. For example, “I do not disagree,” a form of two negatives resolving to a positive, is an effective way to convey lukewarm concurrence.

“He is not unattractive,” likewise, is not the same as “He is attractive.” By using the double negative, the writer intends to damn with faint praise. The double negative carries the euphemistic connotation that the man in question is only merely pleasant looking rather than handsome.

The other form of double negative, known as two or more negatives resolving to a negative, is the one we associate with the grammarian’s admonition to avoid double negatives. Here are some examples of double negatives that are not considered specimens of proper English usage:

“I ain’t no fool.”
“She didn’t do nothing.”
“They ain’t going nowhere.”
“We don’t never go out.”
“You don’t have no money.”

Related examples employ a minimizing adverb instead of a negative:

“I can’t hardly tell.”
“He couldn’t barely see in that fog.”

But are these sentences grammatically challenged? Not really. They aren’t exemplars of Standard English, but they’re seldom unclear, and they are appropriate in context, to authentically convey the substandard usage of uneducated speakers of English.

To review, “In case you hadn’t heard, I couldn’t care less” is unimpeachable, “I do not disagree” and “He is not unattractive” are eloquent equivocations, and “I ain’t no fool” and similar constructions are entirely acceptable as expressions of dialect or of jocular usage.

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One Response to “Don’t Be Negative About Negatives”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 20, 2012 2:26 am

   Ah, the sticky double negative. These are no fun, I can assure you. It is a great article and brings up something people often ignore. Glad you shared this with us and thanks as always!

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1. Anon (adv.): soon, or later (“They will arrive anon”; “I will reveal more anon”)
2. Aright (adv.): correctly (“Did I hear aright?”)
3. Athwart (adj., prep.): across (“The locked chest lay athwart the planks”)
4. Belike (adv.): probably (“Belike we are more similar than you think”)
5. Enow (adj., adv.): enough (“If I had loved enow, I would be a happier man”)
6. Fain (adj., adv.): willing, compelled, inclined, pleased (“Fain am I to hear you sing”)
7. Forsooth (adv.): indeed (“Forsooth, I do believe you envy him”)
8. Forthwith (adv.): immediately (“Carry this message forthwith”)
9. Froward (adj.): contrary, adverse (“His horse was forward, and threw him when he set his spurs”)
10. Heretofore (adv.): up to this time (“Heretofore, I had not believed it possible”)
11. Hither (adj., adv.): to this place (“Come hither when you are able”)
12. Hitherto: see heretofore
13. Lief (adj., adv.): beloved (“You are my lief friend”); willing (“I would as lief be beside you now”)
14. Mayhap (adv.): perhaps (“Mayhap we shall see them tomorrow”)
15. Meet (adv.): appropriate (“It is meet that you do so”)
16. Nary (adj.): not any or not one (“Nary a sign have I seen of him”)
17. Natheless (adv.): nevertheless (“Though it is dangerous, natheless will I go)
18. Needs (adv.): necessarily (“I must needs be heard so that all shall know”)
19. Nigh (adj., adv.; prep.): near, nearly, direct (“Those who pursue are nigh upon us”)
20. Peradventure (adj., adv., prep.): see mayhap (also n.: a doubt or chance)
21. Posthaste (adj., adv., n.): immediate (“Your posthaste reply is appreciated”); as quickly as possible (“We will arrive posthaste”)
22. Puissant (adj.): powerful (“She is a puissant adversary”)
23. Sith (adv.): since (“Sith that time, I have wept often over the memory”)
24. Strait (adj., adv.): narrow, or strict or rigorous (“I would have you be strait in your habits”)
25. Thither (adj., adv.): there, on the other or farther side (“Our host took us thither”; “What you seek is in the thither valley”)
26. Verily (adv.): certainly, truly, with confidence (“Verily, I did see it with my own eyes”)
27. Whereof (adv., conj.): of what (“Whereof have you seen in the world?”)
28. Withal (adv., prep.): besides, nevertheless (“Though you may be right, I withal must see for myself”)
29. Yare (adj.): agile, handy, ready (“She’s a yare vessel, all right”)
30. Yon (adj., adv., pron.): over there (“I ride to yon village”; “What do you see yon?”)

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The root word for both terms is exist, from the Latin term existere, which means “to emerge” or “to stand forth” (hence the ex- element, which means “out of” or “from”), as well as “appear” or “be.”

The adjective existent derives from the noun existence, which stems from the Latin term existentia, itself coming from existentem, which means — you guessed it, “existent.” (The second syllable, from sistere, which means “cause to stand,” is also found in assist and subsist and their variants.)

Synonyms include inherent (verb form inhere), from the Latin term inhaerere, “to stick in or to,” and the aforementioned subsist, which has a connotation of minimal survival.

Several other words that include the root exist are coexist (“exist together” or “live together peacefully”) and preexist (“to exist beforehand”), as well as existential, which refers to a philosophy centering on the absence of certainty about morality, which has overshadowed the generic meanings of “grounded in existence” or “relating to existence.” And then there’s the unfortunately obsolete existimation, a synonym for esteem or estimation.

So, what about extant? Its Latin origin is extare, which means “stand out, be visible, exist,” but it has acquired a slightly different connotation — a more extended one — than existence: It means “in existence,” even “still in existence.” Thus, to say that something exists and to say that it is extant are two distinct statements.

What this means is that extant is appropriate for describing something that still remains or survives, though it is reasonable to assume that something might not do so. It’s employed usually in references to artifacts and documents, or to species and other categories of biological classification. Something that exists, by contrast, merely is.

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One Response to “Existent vs. Extant”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 17, 2012 2:10 am

   Huh, never thought about it that way. Of course, my etymology is rusty so I am in awe of this bit here. It is good to know though, thank you for the tip on this little trip up here!

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1. “Now he needed ‘new worlds to conquer,’ in his own words.”

2. “She makes this moral argument, ‘Taking whatever we need from the world to support our comfortable lives is not worthy of us as moral beings.’”

3. “Only a few days before the sisters flew off to the Caribbean, Smith said Jane had moved from her apartment in San Francisco.”

4. “Unfortunately, he estimated that it’s 25 percent less effective at eliminating odors than standard brands.”

5. “I think they’re going to have that mentality of: ‘How dare he?’”

6. “And while Osama bin Laden’s killing has dealt a crippling blow to his terrorist organization, she said, ‘Nobody should believe individual al Qaeda leaders cannot be replaced.’”

7. “To pass a necessity test usually means a negative response to the question: ‘Can the same result be obtained by other means?’”

8. “He explained that unlike during the previous droughts, ‘When the drought breaks, we will not return to cooler, wetter conditions.’”

9. “‘We were very worried,’ says Jones, ‘It was the winter from hell.’”

10. “He voted against the bill, declaring: ‘The only thing this bill will stimulate is the national debt.’”

Answers and Explanations

1. The original sentence is correct, but there’s more to good writing that correct grammar. There’s a great opportunity in this sentence for a rhythm of tension and release, so exploit it: “Now he needed, in his own words, ‘new worlds to conquer.’”

2. When an attribution is in itself grammatically self-contained (“She makes this moral argument” is a complete sentence), use a colon, rather than a comma, to signal the setup (as I’ve done when prefacing each correction here): “She makes this moral argument: ‘Taking whatever we need from the world to support our comfortable lives is not worthy of us as moral beings.’”

3. The punctuation in this sentence conveys that Smith made the statement shortly before the sisters’ flight. But “Smith said” is a parenthetical attribution that tells the reader who made the comment that the move occurred just before the trip: “Only a few days before the sisters flew off to the Caribbean, Smith said, Jane had moved from her apartment in San Francisco.”

4. This sentence’s problem is the same as the preceding one; it’s only the length of the introductory part of the sentence that differs. The estimate described was not unfortunate; “unfortunately” is part of the larger sentence, not part of the attribution: “Unfortunately, he estimated, it’s 25 percent less effective at eliminating odors than standard brands.”

5. By contrast with the second sentence, above, in this case a colon immediately preceding the quotation clumsily brings the sentence to a halt. No punctuation is necessary in this type of construction: “I think they’re going to have that mentality of ‘How dare he?’”

6. When a person’s comments are partially paraphrased, and an attribution separates an indirect quotation from a direct quotation, the latter element, because it doesn’t constitute a complete sentence, should not begin with a capitalized word — even if it is grammatically complete: “And while Osama bin Laden’s killing has dealt a crippling blow to his terrorist organization, she said, ‘nobody should believe individual al Qaeda leaders cannot be replaced.’”

7. As in the fifth example, above, this sentence requires no punctuation preceding the quotation: “To pass a necessity test usually means a negative response to the question ‘Can the same result be obtained by other means?’”

8. As in the sixth example, above, though the direct quotation is a complete sentence, a preceding paraphrase has been attached to it as an introductory phrase. Even though, unlike in the similar example, the attribution begins the sentence rather than appears between the indirect and direct quotations, the two elements constitute a single statement and the direct quotation should not begin with a capitalized word: “He explained that unlike during the previous droughts, ‘when the drought breaks, we will not return to cooler, wetter conditions.’”

9. This sentence consists of two complete statements separated by an attribution, so the attribution should be followed by a period: “‘We were very worried,’ says Jones. ‘It was the winter from hell.’”

10. When an attribution includes a verb, the punctuation following it should be a comma, not a colon: “He voted against the bill, declaring, ‘The only thing this bill will stimulate is the national debt.’”

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1. Read the titles of books you own or those at the library or a bookstore. Create a story based on one or more titles or words therein.

2. Watch an unfamiliar TV show or movie with the volume turned down and invent a story based on the setting and/or the characters.

3. Look up names in a baby book or on a baby-names website. (Yes, of course there are baby-name websites.) Create characters based on interesting names you find there, and build a story around them.

4. Research historical figures on Wikipedia or in some other reference resource. Write about a fictional episode in their life — perhaps a chance meeting with another famous person (before or after they became famous) — or assign some invented secret to their life and write about it.

5. Randomly look up words in a dictionary, or in any book or other publication. (Randomly select them by closing your eyes and lowering your fingertip to a page.) Create a situation or a plot around any combination of words you find (not necessarily all of them).

6. Study a painting or a photograph and write a story about the subject, whether it’s a person, a place, or a thing, or a combination of two or all three.

7. Cut words and/or pictures out of magazines, and arrange them in linear sequences or in groups or webs of relationships until you can articulate a through line of thought. Make that thought the first line of an article, poem, or story.

8. Visit a historical location — a building, a site, a city — and write a factual account of its history or create a story in which it features, or one inspired by it. Or do the same for any structure or location, even if it’s brand new.

9. Go to a public place and watch people (without, of course, making yourself obvious). Create backstories based on their appearance, their habits, and their communication styles.

10. Visit a zoo or an aquarium, or even a pet store or a dog run at a park, and study the animals. Develop human characters based on their characteristics and interactions, and write about these people you’ve created.

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One Response to “10 Experiential Writing Prompts”

1. Chandler on
   February 15, 2012 1:26 am

   These are great suggestions! I usually write fanfiction, due to the fact that I don’t get real-life story ideas, but these are great! Another great article!

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No, I’m not shouting at you; A WHITE BUS is a mnemonic initialism that reminds you about a set of conjunctions with which you can begin dependent clauses. (A dependent clause is a phrase that must be attached to an independent clause — a series of words that can stand on its own as a sentence — to make grammatical sense.) Below, you’ll find the words or phrases that the letters in A WHITE BUS represent, and sample sentences in which they’re employed.

A

1. “After dinner, we’ll go see a movie.”

2. “Although I’d rather not, I’ll make an exception.”

3. “As you know, she’s rather eccentric.”

W

4. “When we’re done, let’s get some ice cream.”

5. “Whenever I go, I try to see something I’ve never seen before.”

6. “Whether or not you agree, I think it looks fine.”

7. “Where I go, they always have sales.”

8. “Wherever I go, I try to enjoy myself.”

9. “While I’m there, I play music on a jukebox.”

H

10. “How is it that even though you go there all the time, you’ve never noticed that before?”

I

11. “If you find out, please let me know.”

12. “In case you hadn’t heard, I couldn’t care less.”

13. “In order to enjoy your trip, take your time and enjoy the sights.”

T

14. “That I like wearing red — that has never been in dispute.”

15. “Though I’m flexible, I draw the line about that.”

E

16. “Even if it is true, I’ll forgive him.”

17. “Even though I’d heard the song before, I hadn’t known who sang it.”

18. “Ever since I met her, I haven’t been able to think about anything else.”

B

19. “Because I’ve been there before, I’d rather go somewhere else.”

20. “Before I saw the house, I was ready to just rent an apartment.”

U

21. “Unless you’re willing to wait, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

22. “Until we find it, we can’t leave.”

S

23. “Since then, I’ve had a different opinion of him.”

24. “So sure were you of your theory about them, you ignored evidence that you were wrong.”

25. “So that I’m sure I understand you, please repeat what you said.”

Sometimes, ON, representing “only if” (“Only if I get to drive will I go with you”) and “now that” (“Now that we understand each other, things are much better”) precedes A WHITE BUS in the mnemonic phrase.

Note, too, that the order in which the dependent and independent clauses appear can be reversed (though often, the comma separating the clauses is then not necessary). However, because the independent clause generally contains the essential information, the sentence is usually more effective when the independent clause trails the dependent clause.

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One Response to “25 Subordinating Conjunctions”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 14, 2012 9:16 am

   Always learning something new from you here, I can say I never heard of ON A WHITE BUS as a mnemonic device, but I can see where it would apply in any sort of writing endeavor. Great as always, thanks for sharing!

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Each of the sentences below contains an expletive. Recast each sentence as necessary to omit it, then compare your revisions with mine (there’s usually more than one right way to excise an expletive) at the bottom of the page:

1. “There are several vicious cycles that facilitate the progression of alcohol abuse.”

2. “There are federal and state legislators who want to bring government into the picture.”

3. “All across the country, there are numerous private facilities that have figured out the breeding techniques.”

4. “At the same time, there are also motives and pressures toward normalcy.”

5. “Unless there is significant progress soon, we’ll have to cancel the program.”

6. “He wants to know if there is life on other planets.”

7. “At the other house, there is an outdoor patio.”

8. “I think there is a good chance that the proposal will be accepted.”

9. “I am concerned that there is a false impression about our objectives.”

10. “According to recent studies, there is a tendency for the syndrome to worsen over time.”

11. “But then there is John Smith, who has another take on the matter.”

12. “There is a considerable range of expertise among so-called experts.”

13. “Nevertheless, there are numerous private facilities that have figured out the techniques.”

14. “At the same time, there are also motives and pressures toward normalcy.”

15. “To make matters worse, there are several vicious cycles that facilitate the progression of alcohol abuse.”

16. “His understanding is that there are still countless such volumes in existence.”

17. “Ultimately, there are sensitive implications about the issue that remain.”

18. “He adds that there are numerous ethical concerns raised by this practice.

19. “Each year, there are more and more workshops, seminars, and conferences for practitioners in this field.”

20. “As I see it, there are two lines of logic that follow from this premise.”

Answers

1. “Several vicious cycles facilitate the progression of alcohol abuse.”

2. “Some federal and state legislators are itching to bring government into the picture.”

3. “All across the country, numerous private facilities have figured out the breeding techniques.”

4. “At the same time, motives and pressures toward normalcy present themselves.”

5. “Unless significant progress occurs soon, we’ll have to cancel the program.”

6. “He wants to know whether life exists on other planets.”

7. “The other house has an outdoor patio.”

8. “The proposal has a good chance of being accepted.”

9. “I am concerned that they may have developed a false impression about our objectives.”

10. “According to recent studies, the syndrome tends to worsen over time.”

11. “But John Smith has another take on the matter.”

12. “So-called experts demonstrate a considerable range of expertise.”

13. “Nevertheless, numerous private facilities have figured out the techniques.”

14. “At the same time, motives and pressures toward normalcy present themselves.”

15. “To make matters worse, several vicious cycles facilitate the progression of alcohol abuse.”

16. “His understanding is that countless such volumes still exist.”

17. “Ultimately, sensitive implications about the issue remain.”

18. “He adds that this practice raises numerous ethical concerns.”

19. “Each year, practitioners in this field have the opportunity to attend an increasing number of workshops, seminars, and conferences.”

20. “As I see it, two lines of logic follow from this premise.”

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One Response to “A Quiz About Expletives”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 13, 2012 9:04 am

   I always get tripped up by these at times, I am glad to see this list pop up. Looks as if it is time to go back to the word forge again. Thanks for putting this up and sharing this with us!

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1. Exacerbate: to make worse
2. Exact: to call for and obtain (“exact revenge”)
3. Exaggerate: to overemphasize or overstate
4. Exalt: to glorify or intensify
5. Examine: to inspect, investigate, or scrutinize
6. Exasperate: to aggravate or enrage
7. Excavate: to remove or expose by digging or as if by digging
8. Exceed: to be greater than or to go beyond a limit or normal boundary
9. Except: to keep out or to object
10. Excerpt: to take out or select, especially writing, for other use
11. Exchange: to trade
12. Excise: to remove by cutting or as if by cutting
13. Excite: to arouse or stimulate
14. Exclaim: to cry out passionately or vehemently
15. Exclude: to bar, or to prevent entrance or inclusion
16. Excogitate: to devise
17. Excommunicate: to bar from membership
18. Excoriate: to abrade or censure
19. Excrete: to discharge or eliminate
20. Excruciate: to torture
21. Exculpate: to clear of blame or fault
22. Excuse: to forgive or remove blame from or to justify or make an apology for
23. Execrate: to denounce
24. Execute: to carry out or perform
25. Exemplify: to embody or make an example of
26. Exempt: to set apart or release from a requirement
27. Exenterate: to disembowel
28. Exercise: to practice, train, or put to use
29. Exert: to put forth effort
30. Exfoliate: to cast off or remove
31. Exhale: to breathe out
32. Exhaust: to wear out
33. Exhibit: to show or demonstrate
34. Exhilarate: to refresh or stimulate
35. Exhort: to appeal to or to warn
36. Exhume: to disinter or to rectify neglect
37. Exile: to drive out
37. Exist: to continue to be or to have being
39. Exit: to go out
40. Exonerate: to reverse an accusation
41. Exorcise: to get rid of an evil spirit or something troublesome
42. Expand: to enlarge or spread
43. Expatiate: to wander, or to communicate at length
44. Expatriate: to banish, or to withdraw from residence or allegiance
45. Expect: to await or to suppose
46. Expectorate: to discharge or spit
47. Expedite: to cause to occur quickly, or to dispatch or issue
48. Expel: to eject
49. Expend: to spend, use up, or utilize
50. Experience: to learn or sense by direct participation or observation, or to undergo
51. Experiment: to test or try
52. Expiate: to absolve of guilt, or to make amends
53. Expire: to conclude or die, or to breath out
54. Explain: to make something known or understood or demonstrate knowledge or understanding
55. Explicate: to describe or analyze
56. Explode: to burst or give forth, or suddenly accelerate or increase
57. Exploit: to utilize, or to take advantage of knowledge
58. Explore: to analyze, investigate, or study, or to test or travel
59. Export: to carry, remove, or send
60. Expose: to make known, to show, or to subject to the elements or to view
61. Exposit: see expound
62. Expostulate: to discuss or examine
63. Expound: to argue, comment, or state
64. Express: to force out, to show, or to symbolize, or to offer feelings or opinions or to perform in order to demonstrate artistry and/or communicate creative material
65. Expropriate: to deprive of property or take another’s property for one’s own
66. Expulse: see expel
67. Expunge: to destroy or to strike out
68. Expurgate: to remove something objectionable
69. Exscind: to cut off or out
70. Exsert: to throw out
71. Exsiccate: to dry
72. Extemporize: to improvise
73. Extend: to put or send out
74. Extenuate: to mitigate or to reduce strength or effect
75. Exteriorize: to bring out from inside (as in surgery)
76. Exterminate: to get rid of or kill
77. Externalize: to rationalize, or to make manifest
78. Extinguish: to eclipse, nullify, or quench
79. Extirpate: to cut out, destroy, or uproot
80. Extol: to glorify or praise
81. Extort: to wring from, to obtain from by argument or intimidation
82. Extract: to draw out, remove, or select
83. Extradite: to deliver a fugitive from one jurisdiction to another
84. Extrapolate: to infer, expand on, or predict
85. Extravasate: to cause to escape, or to force out (as in surgery)
86. Extricate: to free or remove from difficulty, or to distinguish from
87. Extrude: to press or push out, or to shape
88. Exuberate: to demonstrate unrestrained joy
89. Exude: to diffuse or spread out, or to display obviously
90. Exult: to rejoice

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Then I realized I had been doing it all wrong. Writing Down the Bones is not a book to be absorbed in one sitting, or even sequentially in a handful of reading sessions. Each of those dozens of distinct chapters should be experienced discretely — this is a book for snacking on over a period of time, not gorged on in one or a few meals.

Goldberg shares in the introduction that she put out this book at an ideal time, in the mid-1980s, when many more people than before began to indulge their interest in writing. (Soon, the ubiquity of home computers would ease their effort considerably.) Since then, the book has been used widely in schools and writing workshops as a source of inspiration, and when it’s read piecemeal, I think, it provides a steady diet of encouragement and exercises.

Why? Goldberg’s breezy anybody-can-do-this essays are a little Zen, and sometimes a little kooky, but her comments about how quotidian life can get in the way of striving to become a Great Writer are reassuring, somehow: “This woman has had false starts and personal crises and self-doubt, just like me,” I tell myself, “but here I am, holding in my hands a book she wrote, a book of hers that was published (the second of about a dozen so far), a book that multitudes have read, and continue to read.”

Goldberg recommends writing in many diverse environments: not just at home or in a cafe or at a workshop; how about setting up a spontaneous-writing booth at an outdoor fair or festival? It’s just like those kissing booths of yore — except that instead of giving out smooches for a dollar (did people actually do that once upon a time?), you write a poem on a topic of the customer’s choosing. She says the booth was always a hit.

Her advice ranges from the practical — she prefers to write in longhand rather than on a computer because it seems more personal and closer to the heart — to the spiritual, though even her Zen master is matter of fact: “No matter how many times they knock you down, get up again.” Not very profound, is it? But no writing guide will do the writing for you. All it does it kick you in the keister — and Writing Down the Bones gives you more than a year’s worth of weekly booting for about two dimes at a time.

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1. “Not in years, like more than ten years, have I seen someone so committed to owning the stage.”

2. “Such pioneers trigger and indeed hope for gentrification — leading to more and more middle-class home buyers being willing to take a chance on the neighborhood.”

3. “You, yes you, can say you were there for the advent of the Apple iPod.”

4. “It’ll take years to know if it works in humans — but in mice — the tumors almost completely disappeared.”

5. “Consumer-oriented businesses are trying to find the words, logo, image — and, of course, products — that will indelibly brand themselves as environmentally friendly.”

Answers and Explanations

1. The phrase “like more than ten years” (with like, as an interjection, separated from the rest of the phrase with a comma), is more emphatic than one that would merely be parenthesized between commas: “Not in years — like, more than ten years — have I seen someone so committed to owning the stage.”

2. The clause beginning with leading does not merit being set off from the rest of the sentence with an em dash, but the phrase “and indeed hope for,” with the interjection indeed bracketed by commas, should be emphasized by being framed by a pair of em dashes: “Such pioneers trigger — and, indeed, hope for — gentrification, leading to more and more middle-class home buyers being willing to take a chance on the neighborhood.”

3. “Yes you,” with a necessary comma between the words, is such an interruptive element that bracketing by a pair of em dashes is necessary: “You—yes, you—can say you were there for the advent of the Apple iPod.”

4. Just as you’d do in the case of a pair of commas in a sentence that doesn’t sound quite right, diagnostically remove a parenthetical phrase framed by em dashes from an awkward sentence. In this case, “but in mice” is an essential dependent clause for the second half of the sentence, and the em dash following it is incorrect. The first em dash can be replaced by a comma, or the single dash can be retained: “It’ll take years to know if it works in humans — but in mice, the tumors almost completely disappeared.”

5. Parentheticals are just that — interjections, short or long, that are parenthetical to the main sentence, and any parts of speech within them are integral to the interjection alone. Therefore, without the parenthesis set off by em dashes, this sentence lacks a conjunction in the list of three elements preceding the first dash. Here’s the corrected version: “Consumer-oriented businesses are trying to find the words, logo, and image—and, of course, products—that will indelibly brand themselves as environmentally friendly.”

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One Response to “A Quiz About Parenthetical Punctuation”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 9, 2012 10:06 am

   Huh, totally didn’t know any of these. Seems as though I have to learn more. Always a good day when I know I can learn more. Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it!

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1. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

This quotation attributed to Gandhi is a later invention by an unknown person, likely inspired by the following passage: “As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. . . . We need not wait to see what others do.”

2. “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win.”

Gandhi was also credited with this pithy progression, but something like it was actually uttered in a speech at a union meeting in the United States in 1914: “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”

3. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

This is an amended version of a line by playwright William Congreve, who flourished around the turn of the eighteenth century. The actual comment is “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

4. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

As with many of these lines, the person to whom it is attributed — in this case, Voltaire, perhaps would have wished he had been so eloquent. This ringing pronouncement, however, derives not from the French philosopher’s own pen, but from an early-twentieth-century biography of him.

5. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

This is a slightly recast alteration of Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet’s query about how his mother likes the play he has, unbeknownst to her, scripted to prompt a guilty reaction from her and King Claudius, who Hamlet believes conspired to murder his father. She is saying that the character of the queen is trying too hard to appear innocent. The original, no better or worse — merely measured differently — is “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

6. “Money is the root of all evil.”

This alteration of a biblical verse, by omitting a vital element of the original, changes the meaning significantly. The verse actually reads, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”

7. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

This misquotation lacks the equivocation of British historian Lord Action’s actual statement, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” — and omits the blunt next sentence: “Great men are almost always bad men.”

8. “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast.”

The actual quote, from the same play from which the line in the third entry above is taken, is “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast.” The next line, elaborating on the theme, is “To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

9. “Nice guys finish last.”

Legendary baseball manager Leo Durocher wasn’t making a blanket statement when he uttered these four words. They are a contracted repetition of his assessment of a baseball team’s prospects for the season. The entire quotation is “All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys — finish last.”

10. “No rest for the wicked.”

This line, uttered jocularly by a busy person, perhaps as an excuse for departing, is probably inspired by the biblical verse “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

11. “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

These first few words of Shakespeare’s Richard III are often expressed to mean “The present time is the winter of our discontent.” What the titular character means, however, is made clear by including the second part of the statement, which demonstrates that the phrase is merely a preface to the counterpoint of a reference to better times: “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York.”

12. “Pride comes before a fall.”

This is a contracted version of the biblical verse “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

13. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Mark Twain’s actual comment is more straightforward: “The report of my death is an exaggeration.” In addition, the statement is in reference not to a prematurely printed obituary but to a reporter’s inquiry about his health.

14. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

This quotation is a vast improvement over this vaguely similar statement by Irish-born British statesman Edmund Burke: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

15. “Theirs but to do or die.”

The legendary phrase from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” has a subtly but significantly different penultimate word. The entire line reads, “Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die.”

16. “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

The line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” has been tidied up a bit. The original is “Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.”

Two other well-known statements considered to be misquotes are actually later versions of lesser-known comments. Winston Churchill’s phrase “Blood, sweat, and tears,” widely believed to be an erroneous version of “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” is actually a more concise and euphonious update of the more extended form.

By the same token, “I laughed all the way to the bank” is an alleged misquotation (and misunderstanding of Liberace’s quip “I cried all the way to the bank,” but he actually did use laughed in response to a poor review of a financially successful concert of his. When he later won a lawsuit — with compensation — stemming from a newspaper’s veiled contention that he was gay (the nerve!), he altered the earlier utterance with a change of verb to reply to a query about whether the accusation made him distraught.

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3 Responses to “16 Misquoted Quotations”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 8, 2012 8:47 am

   I remembered a few of these from a class long ago, but they are still good to know for those times when you are looking for correct attribution and how amazing the human brain is at morphing and changing things through no fault of anyone. Always good to see the original quotes mixed in there as well.

2. Deborah H on
   February 8, 2012 12:17 pm

   I never trust myself (or anyone else) to remember quotations correctly, but always look them up.

3. Shirley in Berkeley on
   February 8, 2012 1:43 pm

   Does 2., the Gandhi quotation., mean that he was in the United State in 1914 and spoke at a union meeting? Didn’t know that.

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1. Abstraction: a theoretical idea; also, the process of abstracting, the condition of being disassociated, an abstract work of art, or the quality of being preoccupied
2. Apprehension: the act or quality of becoming aware or grasping a meaning; also, the act of arresting someone or to a sense of foreboding
3. Assumption: a statement taken for granted; also, the act of taking for granted that something is true, or taking something on or laying claim to it, or arrogance or pretension
4. Belief: something held to be true or proper; also, a conviction that something is true, or the state of mind in which someone places confidence in someone or something
5. Brain wave: see brainstorm; also, variations in voltage in the brain, and resulting electrical currents
6. Brainchild: an idea or product one has thought up or created
7. Brainstorm: A sudden idea; also, a brief bout of insanity
8. Caprice: a sudden change in an idea or way of thinking; also, a whimsical inclination, or a lively musical composition
9. Chimera: a fantasy or unrealistic idea; also, an imaginary or mythological creature with anatomical features of various animals or biological phenomena involving genetic diversity in a single organism
10. Cogitation: a distinct idea; also, the act of thinking, or the capacity to do so
11. Cognition: the result of a mental process; also, the mental process itself
12. Conceit: an imaginative idea, or an idea held to be true or appropriate; also, excessive self-regard, a complicated or far-reaching metaphor, a theme, or a fancy trinket
13. Conception: an idea, or the result of abstract thinking; also, the forming or understanding of ideas, the body of ideas that constitute one’s understanding of something, or a beginning or the process of beginning pregnancy
14. Conclusion: an idea formed based on consideration, or a judgment or inference; also, a result or the act of bringing something to an end, or of deciding or summing up a legal case
15. Conjecture: an idea inferred or supposed, or reached by deduction; also, something that has yet to be proven or disproven
16. Conviction: a strongly held idea; also, the state of mind of someone who firmly holds an idea as true, or the act of finding someone guilty of a crime or the state of being found or having been found guilty
17. Delusion: an idea that is mistaken or misleading; also, the act of state of having false ideas, or holding such a false idea as a symptom of mental illness
18. Fancy: see primary definition of whim; also, liking for something, or imagination
19. Freak: see primary definition of whim; also, a strange event, person, or thing, or a person who is enthusiastic about or obsessed with something
20. Guess: an idea one has based on initial or incomplete information
21. Hallucination: an idea or sensory phenomenon produced by a drug or a mental disorder
22. Hunch: see intuition; also, a bulge or lump
23. Hypothesis: an unproven idea assumed to be true as a basis for experimentation or investigation
24. Illusion: see the primary definition of delusion; also, a misleading phenomenon, or the fact or state of being misled
25. Image: a mental picture, or an idea one is able to envision based on words; also, a depiction or picture, the ideal depiction of someone or something based on propaganda or publicity, or someone who closely resembles another
26. Impression: an uncertain or vague idea; also, the act of pressing something into a medium or material to make an outline of it, or producing a figurative equivalent in someone’s mind, or the literal or figurative result of such an action, or an imitation, for the purposes of entertainment, of a well-known person
27. Inspiration: an imaginative idea or feeling; also, something that prompts or is the product of such an idea or feeling, the quality or state of this condition, or the prompting of emotion or thinking, or the act of breathing in
28. Intellection: the act of thinking or reasoning
29. Intuition: an idea based on a sudden realization, or on feeling without conscious thinking
30. Kink: see the primary definition of whim; also, an unusual or clever approach, an eccentricity or fetish, a curl, twist, or other imperfection, or a cramp
31. Mind’s eye: the ability to envision ideas or depictions, or the product of this ability
32. Notion: an idea or understanding that may be imaginative or speculative; also, something believed to be true or appropriate, or, in plural form, practical personal or hygienic items
33. Observation: an idea based on awareness or notice; also, adherence to a custom, principle, or rule, the act of seeing or thinking about something or the ability to do so, the gathering of information or evidence, or the state of being noticed or watched
34. Opinion: a statement or idea one holds to be true or appropriate; also, a judicial statement summarizing a decision about a case
35. Perception: an idea based on noticing; also, awareness, or the ability to understand
36. Phantasm: a misleading idea; also, a fantasy, a ghost, or an illusion
37. Picture: a mental image; also, a copy, depiction, or image, an exemplar, or a set of circumstances
38. Preconception: an idea assumed before careful consideration
39. Prejudice: an idea or feeling of dislike or animosity about someone or something; also, wrong done to someone
40. Premonition: an idea or feeling of impending action or occurrence
41. Prepossession: see the primary definition of prejudice; also, an obsession with one idea or thing
42. Presentiment: see premonition
43. Reflection: an idea formed, or a comment made, after careful thinking; also, the act of careful thinking, or something that causes a negative response, or the return of light or sound waves from a surface, the creation of such a phenomenon, or the phenomenon itself
44. Speculation: consideration of what may be true or what may happen; also, a risky investment with potential for great profit, or the act of investing in this manner
45. Supposition: an idea based on preliminary consideration, or one that someone believes
46. Surmise: see guess
47. Theory: an unproven idea, or one presented for consideration; also, a group of ideas or principles
48. Thought: an idea formed in one’s mind; also, the act of thinking, a way of thinking, or an intention, or consideration or the power to consider
49. Vagary: an odd or unpredictable idea
50. Whim: an unusual and perhaps sudden idea; also, a rotating drum or shaft

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1. “The corporation runs hydropower plants from Maine to Montana.”

2. “Because Martinez was so young, it was natural to compare his potential with Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.”

3. “If she could, she would travel to Saturn to see the rings as well as other galaxies to see if there is life elsewhere.”

4. “Remember the sixties dream of an entire meal served in a pill, like the Jetsons?”

5. “The practice field utilizes the same dirt on the warning track as the team’s home stadium.”

Answers and Explanations

1. The impression is that the plants are somehow interconnected in a continuous string from one state to the next, rather than that the plants can be found in various states in and between the two states mentioned. Complete the thought with the addition of a phrase that clarifies that the plants are located intermittently and eliminates the possible misapprehension: “The corporation runs hydropower plants in many parts of the country, from Maine to Montana.”

2. The comparison should not be described as the one between Martinez’s potential and Sandy Koufax; it should be between the respective potentials of the two men. That distinction is clarified by the addition of two words that indicate the true parallel relationship: “Because Martinez was so young, it was natural to compare his potential with that of Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.”

3. As written, the sentence suggests that the subject desires to travel to Saturn to see two features — the planets rings and other galaxies – both for the purposes of determining whether life exists elsewhere besides Earth. But the two things she wishes to experience are Saturn’s rings and other galaxies — and only in the latter case because she’s curious about the possible existence of extraterrestrial life. This significant misunderstanding is due to one small but important omission: The sentence is missing a preposition before the reference to other galaxies that parallels the one before “Saturn to see the rings”: “If she could, she would travel to Saturn to see the rings, as well as to other galaxies to see if there is life elsewhere.”

4. This sentence implies that the Jetsons constituted an entire meal served in a pill. However, the writer is referring to a futuristic idea reminiscent of something that might have appeared, or perhaps did appear, in the 1960s animated television series The Jetsons — referring to the program, not the family featured in it — and that’s what the sentence should indicate: “Remember the sixties dream of an entire meal served in a pill, as in The Jetsons?”

5. The suggestion here is that the dirt on the warning track at the practice field is dug up and deposited in the home stadium — and that it is shuttled back and forth repeatedly. What the writer means is that the dirt on the practice field’s warning track and the dirt on the home stadium’s warning track are from the same source. This fact must be explicated in such detail, including specifying that the dirt in question at the home stadium is to be found not just generally within the structure, but, more precisely, on its warning track: “The practice field utilizes the same type of dirt on the warning track as that found on the perimeter of the team’s home stadium.”

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One Response to “A Quiz About Missing Connections”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 6, 2012 9:04 am

   Again, another stellar test here to get the brain working. I think I might be getting the hang of this… heh.

   Great little quiz though, always appreciated these for their ability to make me feel accomplished and ashamed of my “wording” skills at the same time. Thanks for sharing this with us!

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1. Abstract: disassociation from a practical reference that would aid in comprehension
2. Abstruse: difficult because of technical considerations
3. Arduous: great physical exertion
4. Augean: unpleasantly, overwhelmingly hard (a classical reference to the Augean stables, cleaned by Hercules as one of his legendary twelve labors)
5. Backbreaking: tiring and often dispiriting physical effort
6. Bruising: physically wearing and damaging
7. Brutal: unpleasantly difficult
8. Burdensome: physically or emotionally difficult
9. Challenging: requiring special effort; may have a positive or a negative sense depending on context
10. Complex: difficult because of multiple interrelated factors
11. Complicated: see complex
12. Convoluted: see complex; with an additional connotation of twisting or intertwining
13. Cruel: marked by uncompromising difficulty that disregards the worker’s welfare
14. Daunting: inspiring a feeling of great difficulty
15. Demanding: suggestive of a great commitment of time and effort
16. Distressing: causing emotional anguish
17. Effortful: requiring effort
18. Elusive: difficult to comprehend, or evasive
19. Exacting: requiring meticulous attention to detail, or requiring relentless effort
20. Exhausting: difficult in terms of physical or mental exertion
21. Formidable: discouraging because of expected difficulty; also has a positive connotation of impressiveness
22. Frustrating: producing feelings of hopelessness or defeat
23. Grievous: causing pain or suffering
24. Grim: evidencing unyielding difficulty or severity; can also mean “grim,” “gloomy,” or “sinister”
25. Grueling (also spelled gruelling): requiring unrelenting or extreme effort
26. Hairy: difficult (informal)
27. Harsh: excessively difficult
28. Heavy: involving great effort
29. Herculean: suggestive of great difficulty
30. Inhuman: so difficult as to seem beyond human capability
31. Insoluble: seemingly too difficult to be solved or resolved
32. Intimidating: so difficult that the task or prospect inspires fear or hopelessness
33. Intricate: see complex
34. Involved: see convoluted
35. Knotty: see convoluted
36. Labored: requiring wearying physical or mental exertion
37. Laborious: see labored
38. Merciless: marked by effort that seems to be required with no regard for the welfare of the worker
39. Moiling: requiring much effort
40. Murderous: suggestive of risk of physical or mental harm (informal)
41. Onerous: see burdensome
42. Opaque: difficult because of a lack of clarity or communication
43. Oppressive: harshly difficult
44. Overwhelming: too hard to do or bear without suffering
45. Painful: causing physical or mental discomfort or harm
46. Pick-and-shovel: suggestive of great manual effort
47-48. Problematic/problematical: difficulty in solving a problem
49. Punishing: difficulty heedless of consequences of physical or mental strain
50. Recondite: difficult to comprehend because of obscurity or the need to possess more knowledge
51. Rigid: inflexibly difficult
52. Rigorous: difficulty caused by conditions of inflexibility or requirements of great precision
53. Rugged: suggestive of conditions requiring strength and stamina
54. Serious: requiring a great deal of effort
55. Severe: difficult because of the nature of requirements or constraints or because of the need to expend great effort
56. Spiny: replete with difficulties
57. Sisyphean: suggestive of relentless, repetitive toil (a classical reference to Sisyphus, tormented in Hades by having to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill, then retrieve it when it rolls down again)
58. Stiff: see rigid
59. Strenuous: see arduous
60. Stressful: so difficult as to cause tension or nervousness
61. Strict: difficult especially because of standards imposed
62. Stringent: see strict
63. Stubborn: persistently difficult
64. Sweaty: suggestive of great physical exertion, causing perspiration
65. Tall: see formidable (informal)
66. Taxing: see burdensome
67. Testing: calling for great effort, as if to test one’s abilities
68. Thorny: see spiny
69. Ticklish: difficult because of the problem’s sensitive nature
70. Tight: hard because of a lack of flexibility
71. Toilsome: see labored
72. Tough: physically or mentally demanding (informal)
73. Tricky: see ticklish
74. Trying: requiring great endurance
75. Uphill: see labored

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1. Air borne
2. Anti social
3. Audio visual
4. Back log
5. Blood pressure
6. Book keeping
7. Bull’s eye
8. By law
9. Catch all
10. Check book
11. Child like
12. Clearing house
13. Court martial
14. Crew neck
15. Cross reference
16. Dog sled
17. Father land
18. Far reaching
19. First hand
20. Free style
21. Freeze dried
22. Fresh water
23. Go between
24. Great uncle
25. Half brother
26. High school
27. Higher ups
28. House hold
29. Inter agency
30. Key word
31. Jewel like
32. Land mass
33. Life size
34. Light year
35. Long term
36. Lower case
37. Main frame
38. Mass produced
39. Mid week
40. Mother ship
41. Multi purpose
42. Near collision
43. North west
44. Off shore
45. On site
46. Over supply
47. Pine cone
48. Pipe line
49. Policy maker
50. Post war
51. Pre existing
52. President elect
53. Pro life
54. Pseudo intellectual
55. Quasi realistic
56. Real time
57. Record breaker
58. River bed
59. Sea coast
60. Self control
61. Semi final
62. Shell like
63. Six pack
64. Snow melt
65. Socio economics
66. Step mother
67. Stomach ache
68. Strong hold
69. Toll free
70. Two fold
71. Under water
72. Vice president
73. Wild life
74. World wide
75. Year round

Answers

1. Airborne
2. Antisocial
3. Audiovisual
4. Backlog
5. Blood pressure (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate, except when combined with another adjective, as in “high-blood-pressure medication”)
6. Bookkeeping
7. Bull’s-eye
8. Bylaw
9. Catchall
10. Checkbook
11. Childlike
12. Clearinghouse
13. Court-martial
14. Crew neck (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
15. Cross-reference
16. Dogsled
17. Fatherland
18. Far-reaching
19. Firsthand
20. Freestyle
21. Freeze-dried
22. Freshwater
23. Go-between
24. Great-uncle
25. Half brother (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
26. High school (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
27. Higher-ups
28. Household
29. Interagency
30. Keyword
31. Jewel-like (because of the collision of two ls)
32. Landmass
33. Life-size
34. Light-year
35. Long term (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
36. Lowercase
37. Mainframe
38. Mass-produced
39. Midweek
40. Mother ship (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
41. Multipurpose
42. Near collision (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
43. Northwest
44. Offshore
45. On-site
46. Oversupply
47. Pinecone
48. Pipeline
49. Policymaker (not in the dictionary, but other -maker constructions, such as winemaker, are closed; if it looks wrong, leave it open)
50. Postwar
51. Preexisting
52. President-elect
53. Pro-life
54. Pseudo-intellectual (not in the dictionary, bust pseudo- constructions in which the second word starts with a vowel, such as pseudo-event, are hyphenated; those in which the second word starts with a consonant, such as pseudopod, are closed)
55. Quasirealistic (not in the dictionary, but most quasi- constructions, such as quasiperiodic, are closed; it if it looks wrong, hyphenate it)
56. Real time (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
57. Record breaker (not in the dictionary, but all other compounds with breaker, such as “circuit breaker,” are open)
58. Riverbed
59. Seacoast
60. Self-control
61. Semifinal
62. Shell-like (hyphenate only because of the collision of the ls)
63. Six-pack
64. Snowmelt
65. Socioeconomics
66. Stepmother
67. Stomachache
68. Stronghold
69. Toll free (hyphenate when the phrase modifies a following noun)
70. Twofold (but hyphenate with a number, as in 10-fold)
71. Underwater
72. Vice president (always open, though other compounds containing vice, such as vice-regent and viceroy, are treated differently)
73. Wildlife
74. Worldwide
75. Year-round

Scoring guide

0-25 correct: Always look it up.
26-50 correct: Always look it up.
51-75 correct: Always look it up.

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1. Ahold/a hold: Ahold is a variant of the noun hold, used in such sentences as “I’ll get ahold of you later.” But when you mean to refer to an actual grip on something, use two words: “She really has a hold on you.” If it’s hard to decide which form to employ, try this test: If you can insert an adjective between a and hold, the two-word form is appropriate.

2. Already/all ready: Use the former when you need an adverb, as in “I told you already.” The latter form is correct in sentences such as “We’re all ready for the party.”

3. Alot/a lot: These two forms are interchangeable except in one significant respect: The one-word version is wrong. It is used often in informal writing and may one day be standard, but until you get the official memo, refrain from using it if you want to be taken seriously as a writer.

4. Alright/all right: See item number 3.

5. Altogether/all together: The one-word form, an adverb, suffices to mean “completely” or “in total,” as in “Altogether, we saved $100 on the deal.” (It also means “nude” in the idiomatic phrase “in the altogether.”) The phrase is appropriate for sentences such as “We are all together in this.”

6. Anybody/any body: The on-word form is a pronoun used in such constructions as “He doesn’t get along with anybody.” The two-word adjective-noun form is applicable in limited contexts, such as in the sentence “Any body in motion responds to gravity.”

7. Anymore/any more: The one-word form is used as an adverb in sentences such as “We don’t go there anymore”; the two-word form consists of the adjective any and the noun more, as in “I just can’t eat any more of that pie.”

8. Anyone/any one: The one-word form is a pronoun, synonymous with anybody, used as in “Anyone can make that claim.” “Any one” consists of the adjective any and the noun one, as in “Any one of you might be next.”

9. Anyplace/any place: The adverb anyplace is a synonym for anywhere: “She won’t let me go anyplace without her.” The latter usage is an adjective-and-noun phrase that describes a location: “He doesn’t want to go to any place he can’t smoke.”

10. Anything/any thing: Anything is the likely usage: “I don’t remember anything.” The two-word adjective-noun form is generally separated by an another adjective: “She’s just does any little thing she wants.”

11. Anytime/any time: To describe with what frequency something might occur, use the one-word adverbial form: “Stop by anytime.” The two-word adjective-noun form is preceded by the word at: “You may leave at any time.”

12. Anyway/any way: Anyway is a synonym for anyhow: “We didn’t want to go anyway.” The two-word adjective-noun form is preceded by the word in: “That doesn’t change the results in any way.”

13. Awhile/a while: The noun phrase “a while” and the adverb awhile are virtually interchangeable in a sentence, though you should precede the two-word form with the word for: “I think I’ll sit here for a while” and “I think I’ll sit here awhile” mean the same thing.

14. Cannot/can not: Cannot is virtually the only proper alternative. The second usage is wrong except in the correct awkward construction in the sentence “I can not go,” meaning “I can decide not to go.”

15. Everyday/every day: The one-word form is an adjective meaning “ordinary,” used to describe something usual as in “These are my everyday clothes.” The two-word phrase, an adverb, is used in such sentences as “I go there every day” to explain how something is done.

16. Everyone/every one: To refer to everybody, use one word: “Everyone’s a critic.” To emphasize a single individual or item, use two words: “Every one of them is broken.”

17. Everything/every thing: Everything is the default choice: “You’ve ruined everything.” The two-word adjective-noun form is usually divided by an additional adjective: “Every little thing she does is magic.”

18. Maybe/may be: The first choice is an alternative to the adverb perhaps; the second is a verb phrase used in such sentences as “It may be that she was right after all.”

19. Overtime/over time: As one word, this means word done beyond a regular shift: “I’ve worked overtime several days this week.” As two words, it refers to the passage of time: “Over time, we’ve seen dramatic changes.”

20. Sometime/some time: The one-word form is an adverb describing vagueness about when something will happen, as in “I’ll get around to it sometime.”

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1. Ad lib (from ad libitum): an improvisation
2. Baroque: elaborate, extravagant, and/or flamboyant
3. Beat: a brief measure or pause
4. Cadence: a sequence or measure of rhythm
5. Choir: a group of people sharing beliefs or values (“preaching to the choir”)
6. Chord: the target of a stimulus (“strike a chord”)
7. Chorus: a unified response (“a chorus of approval”)
8. Coda: a conclusion
9. Conductor: someone who organizes an enterprise or scheme
10. Crescendo: a high point
11. Cue: a signal to start or do something or cause it to happen
12. Downbeat: pessimistic
13. Duet: an action undertaken by a union of two people
14. Encore: an additional performance or achievement
15. Ensemble: a group in which no one person stands out
16. Falsetto: an unnaturally high voice
17. Fanfare: celebratory attention
18. Finale: a concluding performance or act
19. Gig: a job or assignment
20. Impromptu: spontaneous, improvised
21. Interlude: a planned interruption or intervening period
22. Leitmotif: a recurring overarching idea
23. Maestro: an accomplished person
24. Medley: a series or other collection of ingredients or actions
25. Opera: extended to “soap opera,” the slang term for domestic radio and later television dramas (so called because detergent manufacturers often sponsored these programs aimed at homemakers) and “horse opera,” another name for westerns (plural of opus)
26. Opus: a major work
27. Orchestrate: to organize strategically, with a possible connotation of conniving or conspiracy
28. Overtone: a suggestion or connotation
29. Overture: an invitation or act of persuasion
30. Pitch: the nature of a sound based on its frequency, or a degree of interest (“fever pitch”)
31. Prelude: a preliminary to a main action
32. Prologue: an introduction
33. Reprise: a repeated performance
34. Requiem: a composition in any medium to honor the dead or a failed effort
35. Resonance: an evocation of feeling or sense
36. Rhapsodic: any overwrought or elaborate creative effort or speech (“waxing rhapsodic”)
37. Riff: a verbal performance, especially as in a fast and furious routine by a stand-up comedian; also refers to a brief witticism or to a variation, synonymous with the informal noun take
38. Rock: to be very impressive or pleasing (“That rocks!”), to inspire excitement (“The band rocked the concert hall”), or to flaunt an ostentatious style of clothing or coiffure (“She rocked her new boots”)
39. Serenade: an effort to persuade
40. Solo: alone
41. Staccato: a suggestion of speed rather than simply detached sounds (“staccato bursts of gunfire”)
42. Suite: a collection or set
43. Tempo: speed or rate
44. Theme: subject or style
45. Timbre: the distinguishing quality of a voice
46. Tone: the quality of expression in writing or speaking as well, and the quality of a physical form
47. Unison: agreement or union
48. Upbeat: optimistic
49. Virtuoso: one particularly skilled in an endeavor
50. Waltz: to move in a bold, confident, or lively manner (“She triumphantly waltzed into the room”)

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One Response to “50 Musical Terms Used in Nonmusical Senses”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   February 1, 2012 7:36 am

   Love these lists, they always get the mind going and make me think of all the Castlevania titles. Yes, I think of video games first, it is an old habit.

   Thanks for sharing this list, Mark. I’ll have to keep this one handy when I tackle the next fiction piece!

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1. “Joseph Priestley began to suspect that air was not a simple substance while he was at Leeds.”

2. “It was under these conditions that Protestantism was introduced to Europe, a branch of Christianity that declared public festivities sinful and vulgar and convinced large numbers of people that their lives should be spent on disciplined labor and worship.”

3. “He had accumulated millions of dollars there that couldn’t be taken out of the country according to rules established after the war ended.”

4. “I already had a number of books and comics under my belt I had drawn with my brother.”

5. “A list of states with the highest past-year rates of driving while under the influence of alcohol among adults ages 18 or older follow.”

Answers and Explanations

1. As organized, this sentence implies that the scientist limited his doubts about air’s composition to the time he spent in Leeds, rather than stating that his suspicion began during his time there. To clarify the sentence, move the modifying phrase to the head of the sentence, and, for good measure, change the tense of the second verb, because air’s substantive nature has not changed since Priestley’s lifetime: “While he was at Leeds, Joseph Priestley began to suspect that air is not a simple substance.”

2. Because Europe is the noun immediately preceding the gloss, a reader might assume that the gloss defines Europe, rather than Protestantism, the correct subject of the definition. To eliminate that ambiguity, move the reference to the continent to the end of the sentence so that the definition is a mid-sentence parenthetical: “It was under these conditions that Protestantism, a branch of Christianity that declared public festivities sinful and vulgar and convinced large numbers of people that their lives should be spent on disciplined labor and worship, was introduced to Europe.”

3. This sentence is not egregiously incorrect, but the phrase beginning with according seems to modify country. It would be easier to read — and the most essential information would effectively be reserved for the end of the sentence — with the phrase inserted as a parenthetical: “He had accumulated millions of dollars there that, according to rules established after the war ended, couldn’t be taken out of the country.”

4. As constructed, this sentence implies that the writer and his brother had collaborated on drawing a belt, under which a number of books and comics were kept. The phrase “under my belt” should be shifted closer to the head of the sentence: “I already had under my belt a number of books and comics I had drawn with my brother.”

5. This painfully contracted sentence needs to be relaxed. The impetus to avoid a weak “to be” form of a verb is admirable, but it is awkward for that verb to be located at the very end, after a confusingly extensive subject. It would be better to immediately state the location of the list, then uncoil the tightly wound phrase identifying the subject of the list: “The following is a list of states with the highest rates of adults ages 18 or older who drove within the last year while under the influence of alcohol.” This is a rare instance in which the modifying phrase (in this case, the subject of the list) is more effectively placed at the end of the sentence, rather than inserted somewhere in its midst.

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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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4 Responses to “10 Types of Wordplay”

1. Leif G.S. Notae on
   January 30, 2012 8:21 am

   Great list here, I haven’t heard the technical names for these but I knew them pretty well when I read the definitions. Thanks for sharing this on a dreary Monday (at least in my part of the world)!

2. Cinzia on
   January 30, 2012 8:55 am

   Very nice!

   Portmanteaus is also known as “blending” in linguistics.

3. Andre Bourque on
   January 30, 2012 10:19 am

   I was hoping to find the word that describes a brand name that becomes iconic for the item. Examples include Q-tip for cotton swab, Vaseline for petroleum jelly and Scotch tape for well, scotch tape! There must be a name that describes this type of word but I have for years now been unable to find it.

   Any ideas?

4. Cinzia on
   January 30, 2012 11:33 am

   Hello Andre!

   The correct definition for such names is eponym, and specifically product eponyms! I hope this helps!

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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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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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One Response to “4 Books That Show You How to Write”

1. Stephen on
   January 27, 2012 6:07 am

   The heading also doesn’t say “Five Books That Tell You How to Write” because the article lists four books. Other than that little typo, this is a great article and I look forward to picking up some of your recommendations.

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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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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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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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However, other three-letter words pack a lot of punch as nouns, adjectives, and verbs (sometimes adaptable to all three forms of speech), and are suitable for purposes as diverse as fitting into a tight headline or packing a punch in prose. Here’s a list of vivid vocabulary consisting of three letters:

1. Apt: appropriate, or suited or inclined

2. Ire: anger

3. Ken: something known or understood, or to know or recognize

4. Wee: small

5. Vex: to distress, irritate, agitate, or puzzle

6. Eke: to accomplish with great effort (also used to mean “increase” or “also”)

7. Cog: a tooth on a gear, or, in a figurative sense, a person as an insignificant part of an enterprise; a similar projection on a piece of wood for interconnecting with another piece; also, flattering, or throwing dice unfairly (also used to mean “to cheat or deceive,” as well as referring to a medieval sailing vessel)

8. Cwm: a valley or hollow

9. Err: to make a mistake, or to transgress

10. Ere: before

11. Gig: a short-term job

12. Yen: a yearning or urge for something

13. Bar: a beam or rod or other manufactured device or natural feature, or a counter for serving drinks or a commercial enterprise for this purpose, but also a verb meaning “to obstruct or prevent” or in reference to an exception (“barring that”)

14. Jet: a powerful stream of material, a jetlike emanation, or an airplane that uses jet propulsion, but also a very dark black, a type of glossy coal often used as jewelry

15. Ram: a male sheep, or a tool used for forcing movement or for breaking through a door or other structure, or a part of a vehicle or vessel designed to damage other vehicles or vessels; to use a tool or similar device

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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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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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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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One Response to “Is Identifying a Person’s Age Necessary?”

1. Chihuahua0 on
   January 20, 2012 2:29 am

   In YA, this is pretty much unavoidable. Grade is usually an important part of the character. Two years difference can be a lot.

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