Shirley’s Valentine Tart It’s a family tradition: on Valentine’s day, I make a chocolate dessert and we all throw dietary caution to the wind. This year I dreamed up a new creation adapted from various recipes I’ve used over the years. Can’t go too far wrong with warm chocolate, pecans and ice cream. Here it […]
Let’s Talk About Romo
Tony Romo retired as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys and now he’s a beloved football announcer, but this entry isn’t about word origins and I’ve now told you all I know about Romo’s football career. This is about style. He has plenty of that. An editorial in the New York Times today explores the value […]
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The Word of the Week is — Daggers
Political talk is full of idioms. A politician is “over his skis” when he speaks out of turn and the TV pundits love to point it out. The first time, it’s a great metaphor, easily understood, even by those who’ve never tried the sport. He got ahead of himself and now he’s going to crash. […]
The Word of the Week is — America
In my last post I was contemplating the eponyms, words derived from the name of a person. I didn’t mention the most famous, the name of our country, derived from Amerigo Vespucci. As every schoolchild learns, the explorer made several voyages to the “New World,” and a contemporary mapmaker thought, in error, that he’d […]
The Word of the Week is — gerrymander
“Gerrymandering” is the practice of drawing voting districts in convoluted shapes in order to benefit a certain group. The Supreme Court is going to issue an opinion on the practice in the months to come, but they might not mention the origin of the term. It came into use in the early nineteenth century when […]
Where Do Books Come From?
Apparently it’s embarrassing to discuss it with the “kids:” the innocents out there, like me, spinning their tales oblivious to the unseemly adult wrestling in the dark that must take place before the new baby emerges in the marketplace. The Writers League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference was a chance to think about the question […]
Hurrah for the Fact Checkers
What? Some of us have been surprised to learn about the thriving industry of manufactured, fraudulent information promulgated on the internet simply for profit. Fake news. Suddenly, the term is applied to any story someone doesn’t like, but we know the difference, or we think we do. An article published at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-fake-news-find-your-social-media-feeds/ explains how the […]
Exciting News for You Can Tell Me
Exciting news! My current project, YOU CAN TELL ME, won the @Writers League of Texas manuscript contest for mystery. Many thanks for the help of my generous and wise critique group: Babette Hale, Brenda Liebling Goldberg, Lucie Smith, Angélique Jamail, Author, Meredith Moore, Adam Holt, Jennifer Waldo. I’m so grateful for the encouragement from my wonderful agent, Elizabeth K. Kracht, a […]
Who Reads What? (My Target Audience Won’t Read This Post)
90% sounds unbelievable, a number claimed by a despot in a fraudulent election. But no! It’s the Pew Research Center, reporting for 2015, the percentage of adults with “college +” level of education who said they’d read at least one book in the previous twelve months. 81% said those were printed books, but a […]
Contest: Nominations for Most Annoying Phrase
I confess I’ve been watching way too much cable news. While I have sympathy for those commentators who have minutes to fill in front of the camera (I’d be completely tongue-tied) I cringe at the repetitive nonsense phrases. Why does it grate to hear someone “walk it back?” Because it’s dishonest. It’s a euphemism for […]