You’ve probably heard writers (or teachers, or critics) talk about “style” in writing. What exactly is style, though? It can be tough to pin down, because there are a variety of things we might be looking at when we talk about style. In most cases, though, style is about the individual word choices and the … Read more
Many writers—professionals and creators of casual composition alike—employ a form of emphasis that is usually unnecessary and often clumsily intrusive. Scare quotes, pairs of quotation marks placed around a word or phrase for emphasis, are valid when writers frame wording they are using ironically or mockingly, when they wish to imply that the enclosed word … Read more
After French, Latin and Viking (and Old English of course, but that is English), the Greek language has contributed more words to modern English than any other – perhaps 5%. Many Greek words sprang from Greek mythology and history. Knowing those subjects was evidence that a person was educated, so dropping a reference to Greek … Read more
American English has been enriched by the widespread adoption of words based on vocabulary of Native American tribes, including the many tribes that spoke (and, in some cases, still speak) one of the Algonquian languages of what is now eastern North America. The following is a list of such terms, more or less commonly used, … Read more
Most of us heard or read stories about cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, blockchain and so on over the past few years. Few of us, however, understand what those terms mean. Given that those technologies are probably here to stay, writers and readers alike would benefit from a basic understanding of the terminology involved. Below you will find … Read more
Writing and publishing a book is a huge (and wonderful) undertaking – and you’ll want all the help you can get. There are loads of great downloadable tools out there for book authors, like Scrivener (for writing), Calibre (for producing ebooks) and KDP Rocket (for finding good keywords to use on Amazon). But in this … Read more
Writers sometimes sabotage their efforts to express themselves by leaving key information out of a sentence, resulting in confusing statements. Each of the following examples suffers from obfuscation due to one of more missing words. Discussion after each sentence explains the problem, and a revision provides a solution. 1. It has been called one of, … Read more
Do you ever find yourself distracted when you’re writing? I don’t think I’ve ever met a writer who could honestly answer “no” to that question! Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, checking the news headlines, browsing a few webcomics, answering emails, ordering that book from Amazon you’d forgotten about … there are so many distractions just a … Read more
Point and words and compounds containing that root, as well as terms with the element punct- and some similar (and not so similar forms), are all cognate, deriving from the Latin verb pungere, meaning “prick” or “stab.” Such words are listed and defined in this post. appoint: officially fix or set, or assign or name, … Read more
This post lists and defines words stemming from game and gamble, both of which derive from the Old English word gamen, meaning “amusement,” “fun,” and “joy.” A game is an activity for amusement or diversion, or a scheme or a tactic, and to make game of someone is to mock that person. In the first … Read more
Blog posts might look straightforward, but if you’ve ever tried to write one, you may have found it was harder than you expected. Whether you want to start a blog as a hobby, as a step towards freelancing, or as a tool to promote your book … your blog posts need to be well-structured and … Read more
This post lists suffixes—any group of letters attached to the end of a word, a base, or a phrase to convey a meaning related to that of the root element—that pertain to qualities. Examples of nouns featuring a particular suffix are provided after the suffix. Suffixes attached to words to refer to a quality of … Read more