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Word Count
My Favorite Writer: Anthony Trollope
Fri Sep 02 12:00:00 EDT 2016
All avid readers have their own favorite writers. Yours may be Daniel Defoe or Charles Dickens, Vladimir Nabokov or Ogden Nash, Agatha Christie or Anton Chekhov, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, P. G. Wodehouse or A. A. Milne, Philip Roth or Stephen King; whom you love matters little. What does matter is that something in the style, the subject, or the subtleties of one or another writer so matches your own passions and quirks that you fall in love with that writer, and year after year you keep returning to enjoy his or her cordial company.
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Language Lounge
The Perversity of Past Participles
Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016
Zero derivation—that is, the ability of a word to perform different grammatical functions without a change in form—is a celebrated feature of English. A sideshow of zero derivation is the fact that English has no barrier to using a principal verb form—the past participle—as an adjective. What's not to love, you may think, about the simplicity of using a single form to do so many jobs? I have no argument with this fantastic and flexible feature of English, only with the license it gives speakers and writers to use it in a weaselly way.
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Candlepower
When Words Collide
Mon Aug 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016
I learned a new word this summer: glotion. The word is meant to convey two concepts – glowing and lotion – in a single blended neologism. That is to say, it's a portmanteau word, a strategy for word and name creation that goes back almost 150 years.
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Word Count
How to Write More Concisely
Wed Aug 10 00:00:00 EDT 2016
When I started writing, 35 years ago, I always wrote short. If a client or boss wanted 750 words, by instinct I produced 625. If the total was supposed to be 350, I sweated out 215. Usually, I had difficulty getting enough words, not too many. For many people, however, the problem is the reverse.
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Evasive Maneuvers
Pivoting Toward Neutral-colored Nesting Enclosures
Wed Aug 03 00:00:00 EDT 2016
Have you pivoted lately? Pivot is the euphemism du jour of this election season. Unless each candidate is secretly pursuing a career as a circus contortionist, one can assume these uses don't refer to a physical twist or turn. So what do they mean?
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Language Lounge
Elements of Surprise
Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016
The periodic table of elements is an iconic image familiar to anyone with even the rudiments of education and it is perhaps one of the most successful visual representations of information ever conceived: it brings a high level of order to a field of knowledge that is too complex to organize in memory and it rewards study at every level.
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Word Count
The Struggle of Songwriting
Wed Jul 20 16:00:00 EDT 2016
A couple of years ago I wrote a Visual Thesaurus column about writing song lyrics, focusing on basics: finding a storyline and a mood that many people can relate to, telling the story with simple words and painting the mood with vivid images, plus, without being vague, leaving plenty of room for romantic mystery.
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Word Count
Getting the Low-down on Up-classify
Thu Jul 14 08:00:00 EDT 2016
Reporting on his investigation of Hillary Clinton's email use, F.B.I. Director James B. Comey mentioned several times that the F.B.I. engaged in up-classifying emails.
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Word Count
How to Overcome Negative Feelings When Writing
Wed Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2016
Do you find writing interesting and pleasant — a time filled with self-discovery? Or is it stressful and unpleasant — sort of like a root canal crossed with doing your income taxes?
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Evasive Maneuvers
Massive Capital Infusions That Don't Need a Description
Wed Jul 06 00:00:00 EDT 2016
Political comedy Veep is a show blessed with writers capable of concocting obscenities that are novel and visceral. It's the filthiest show on TV. But it's also a show that cranks out terms on the opposite end of the offensiveness spectrum: euphemisms.
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