Word of the Week – devil On the long Fourth of July weekend, boats are everywhere on Monterey Bay; fishing boats to paddleboards, everybody wants to get out on the water. All the fans of Patrick O’Brian’s series featuring Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin appreciate how the special nautical vocabulary created a vivid world of […]
Fictional characters are a great outlet for fantasies. In my novel the main character’s best friend, Alexa, owns a thriving bistro in Kemah, Texas. What does she do with Gulf Coast seafood? She makes my favorite recipe for Cioppino. Cioppino – Seafood Stew Serves four. Make this Mediterranean style soup base in advance when you […]
etymology, Word of the Week 7 comments
Just a few choice words allow linguists to pinpoint where you (and your characters) are from. Take ten minutes for the old New York Times quiz at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html. It’s fun. But the linguists don’t know everything. The Cambridge Online Survey of World English gives several multiple choice answers for the question, “What do you call the […]
etymology, Word of the Week 0 comments
The term “foodie” has been with us longer than I thought. According to etymologist Barry Popick it was 1980 when Gael Green, food writer for the New Yorker, first put the word in print. The Oxford English Dictionary distinguishes a foodie from a “gourmet” who wants only the best, as compared to the foodie who […]
I’m fixin to light out for the horse show in Waco, Texas. Like the rest of the world, I depend on the online tools for distances and driving instructions, but there’s nothing like an old -fashioned paper highway map for local flavor. Still, even the map won’t help with pronunciation. I had an east coast […]
Revising thirty pages of my new mystery to submit to the scrutiny of my wise critique group. Not to worry, they know the rules for constructive criticism. The following is a good article by my friend Angélique Jamail. A critique group of writers supporting each other through constructive discussion about what works, and what doesn’t so […]
Writing guides warn against clichés, avoid them at all cost! They’re ubiquitous and it makes me wonder why we’re so attracted to them. Especially the repetitive phrases: hale and hearty, trials and tribulations, vim and vigor. Maybe it’s the alliterative quality that rolls off the tongue. Many times, I notice the spillover from legal documents, […]
I want to learn basic polite phrases to say when I go to Paris next October. I can’t simply keep my mouth shut, I know this about myself, so I need to prepare. Long ago, lost as usual, I accosted a startled French pedestrian demanding, “Where is the war?” when I meant to ask directions […]
The political season has hijacked the news cycle, with no hope for reprieve until November. A dispiriting prospect, except for us word people who find a certain fascination in the sheer volume of utterances pouring out of the mouths of candidates. Thus the increasing use of the phrase, “walk that back.” I did a bit […]
Widespread derision greeted Donald Trump’s choice of a taco bowl lunch to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, as if, we, the cognoscenti could look in satisfied scorn on such a reduction of our rich Mexican-American heritage. I asked a couple of my fellow Texans what they thought the celebration was about. Mexican independence was the vague […]