Michael To create an anagram, you rearrange the letters of a word or phrase to form a different word or phrase. For example, the word section is an anagram for notices and vice versa. A “perfect” anagram uses all the letters, no more, no less. But sometimes letters are repeated or omitted. Before the modern alphabet … Read more
It used to be that when people thought of songwriting, they didn’t think of great writing. Then Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature. Dylan wasn’t the first songwriter whose work has been respected by literary critics. You might be surprised how much ancient poetry was originally written to be sung. From certain vanished … Read more
Addyson, a sixth grader who loves to write, asks, “How can I learn to spell better?” That’s certainly a worthy question, and over the years, we’ve given many suggestions for better spelling. I Before E, Except After C How Do I Become a Better Speller? Five Spelling Rules for “Silent Final E” The Six Spellings … 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
You might think avoiding other influences makes you a more original writer. But nobody can write in a vacuum. Even the meanings of words depend on how others have used them. You didn’t invent the English language. Everything you write, you learned from someone else, even if only from your first grade teacher. Only when … Read more
You’ve probably read those acknowledgements at the back of a book: “Special thanks to Nobel Prize winner Niels Ryberg Finsen for the many hours of medical advice and strong coffee he shared with me, without which this book would not be possible.” And you’ve wondered what it takes to get a world-famous expert of your … Read more
Every writer, at times, has trouble thinking of what to say next. Or what to say at all. The cause may be fear, pressure, perfectionism, but often lack of inspiration. No doubt even Mesopotamian scribes of five thousand years ago hesitated before putting stylus to tablet. We’ve written about writer’s block several times over the … Read more
As a writer, I have probably learned the most from having tight word counts. In several assignments, each piece had to be 150 words or less, or 250 words or less, or three lines or less. Sometimes the whole publication had to fit on one page, or in one column. This kind of micro-editing is … Read more
Veteran writers often advise aspiring writers to “kill your darlings.” Grisly, isn’t it, but they all say it. William Faulkner wrote, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Stephen King wrote, “…kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” Notice that King said “kill” … Read more
Probably you’ve never studied Conversational Viking, let alone claimed to speak it. But the language of the Vikings, Old Norse, has influenced the development of English more than any other language besides French and Latin. The Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes all spoke Old Norse in those days, usually called the “Danish tongue.” In the … Read more
Hard rules are a good thing for writers sometimes. The sonnet is one of the strictest forms of poetry, but some of the world’s greatest poems are sonnets. A haiku form is even stricter, seventeen syllables in three lines. Hard word counts force a writer to overcome his or her natural laziness by editing ruthlessly. … Read more
Off-color humor is certainly not new: some of the earliest recorded jokes, told thousands of years ago, deal with things that people do in the bathroom or the bedroom. What makes these jokes funny? What makes any joke funny? Experts say that humor is based on incongruity. That is, jokes are based on surprise, on … Read more