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Wunderkind
High School Linguaphile
Wed Jul 19 00:00:00 EDT 2006
When we ran a post called "Short Words Are Best" a few weeks ago, subscribers jammed our Inbox with comments. One in particular caught our attention:
"Sure, short words are more readable, but what about the joy that comes from solving the innermost puzzle of a long word? For a linguaphile like me, the purest ecstasy arises from finding the Latin or Greek roots in a word, putting them together, and discovering the story of a word. For example, the word "peninsula" comes from "paene" and "insula," which mean "almost" and "island," respectively. So the word peninsula literally means "almost island." Sure, it's a long word, and some students may not like to read it, but the pleasure of the shape of the word and the story of its creation makes reading it worth the while."
We appreciated this spirited defense of long words, plus we noticed the word "students" in the comment. So we emailed this person, a teacher obviously, to find out more about how she teaches language. Well, maybe not so obvious. Here was the reply:
"You just made my day! I'm no English teacher -- I'm a high school freshman!"
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Blog Du Jour
School Me
Mon Jul 17 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Los Angeles teacher Linda Slater wrote us to say, "Did you know that Bob Sipchen, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at the LA Times now has a powerful blog all about the public school system in Los Angeles?" Thanks for the heads up, Linda, we didn't know. But when we checked out School Me, we thought it would be useful to any teacher, in Los Angeles, or beyond. We encourage you to check it out, too: School Me
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Word Count
"Food writing." Or writing, about food.
Sun Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2006
As the executive editor of the award-winning magazine Saveur and author of the soon-to-be-released W. W. Norton book Cradle of Flavor , on the cooking of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, James Oseland is celebrated for his writing about food -- just don't call him a "food writer." We caught up with James to ask him to parse this distinction, and tell us what makes for compelling writing on the subject of food:
VT: Is there such a thing as "food writing?"
James: We have a tendency to categorize in our culture, so we think of "food writing" as a thing, "science writing" as a thing, the work of a novelist as a thing. But good writing is good writing. It's essentially all the same thing, you know what I'm saying?
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Department of Word Lists
Spelling Bee Words
Sat Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2006
When spell-check can't help you: The Scripps National Spelling Bee publishes a consolidated list of 23,413 unique words. Here are a few, ahem, vexing examples. Okay, spellers -- on your mark, get set, go:
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Blog Excerpts
A Case for Web Storytelling
Sat Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2006
A List Apart, a terrific site that "explores the design, development and meaning of web content" argued the case for web storytelling last August. Author Curtis Cloninger writes, "Much ink has been spilt lately bemoaning the lack of quality content on the web. 'Sure the site flashes and whizzes and startles, but what does it have to say?'" Read the entire entry here.
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Candlepower
Writing Sizzling Ad Copy
Wed Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Steve Hall is the force behind Adrants, the opinionated, must-read blog for the advertising industry that dishes up a daily helping of news, trends, research and gossip, all seasoned with a heaping tablespoon of attitude. An industry veteran, Steve has a sharp eye for what works -- and what belly flops. We asked him for his thoughts on copywriting.
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Blog Du Jour
Copywriting Blogs
Wed Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
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"Bad Language"
Surveys: uses and abuses
Mon Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Surveys are an old standby for PR companies on slow news days. But they stink of dubious statistics and questionable objectivity. No wonder the public is increasingly cynical.
You've seen the phenomenon already. Every Christmas and Easter, someone will publish a survey claiming that chocolate is good for you. The media lap it up -- it's a good story. But who benefits? Needless to say, the people behind these surveys are chocolate manufacturers and their PR firms.
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Dog Eared
"Bad Language" Books
Mon Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2006
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Backstory
Larry Baker, author of "Athens, America"
Sat Jul 08 00:00:00 EDT 2006
In the middle of my second term on the City Council of Iowa City, I got a call from the City Manager informing me about a police shooting the night before. Investigating an open door at a business in an area that had had dozens of burglaries in the previous months, a cop had pushed open the door and was suddenly confronted by a man with a small object in his hand. The cop, his own gun already drawn, reflexively fired at the man in front of him. That man was the owner. The object in his hand was a phone. The owner was dead in seconds, his chest ripped open by a single bullet.
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by Donald M. Murray (
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by William Strunk, Jr. ("The obvious choice," says Matthew. But timeless -- and small enough to fit in your pocket. 
