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  1. Word Count

     How to Overcome Fear of Writing
    Mon May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    Here's the most dangerous thing I've ever done: When I was about 25, I went on a spur-of-the-moment hiking trip with an athletic friend who was back in Vancouver, where I live, for a visit. I didn't know where we were going, so I just threw on my hiking boots and grabbed a pack and the food I was asked to bring.

  2. Word Count

     Great Expectations: How a Novel's First Line Draws in the Reader
    Fri May 09 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    The first line of a novel has to accomplish many things at once. It has to grab the reader in some way with its immediacy, but also effectively introduce the rest of the book. A great opening line isn't a tweet, and it can withstand all the spoilers in the world, because literature is something thought through, and the pleasures are deeper than the next immediate payoff.

  3. Blog Excerpts

     A Quotation Hunter Finds Serenity
    Thu May 08 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    Six years ago, Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, stirred up some controversy over the origins of the famous Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Shapiro cast doubt on the popular attribution of the saying to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. But now Shapiro has gained some serenity of his own by concluding that Niebuhr really did originate the prayer.

  4. Word Count

     Murray's Mission: My Greatest Elementary School Memory
    Wed May 07 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    In Miss MacDonald's fourth-grade classroom in P.S. 206, in Brooklyn, New York, I had my tracing paper in front of me, unzipped my pencil case, picked up my sharply pointed #2 pencil, and I placed the transparent paper on top of the picture of the paperback bird guide drawing of the owl.

  5. Word Count

     The Power of Point of View
    Mon May 05 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    When beginning a story, a writer must decide, not only who will be in the story, what they'll do, and where and when they'll do it, but the point of view from which the story's people, places, and actions will be seen and described. Many options are available, and each one will make a big difference to how readers experience the story.

  6. Language Lounge

     Meme and Variation
    Fri May 02 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    Many popular Internet memes rely on a usually predictable manipulation of language as a part of their humor. Examining a number of popular memes suggests that they all in fact rely on theme and variation in order to proliferate, and the linguistic aspect of the meme is integral to its ability to spawn siblings and offspring.

  7. Blog Excerpts

     Bubble Vocabulary: Words You Ought to Know But Don't
    Thu May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    A great challenge for anyone looking to improve their vocabulary is identifying the words they don't know. Yesterday, Slate contributor Seth Stevenson gave the phenomenon a name in "Bubble vocabulary: the words you almost know, sometimes use, but are secretly unsure of."

  8. Behind the Dictionary

     Don't Suffix Me, Bro: Rise of the Dudebro
    Wed Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    Once upon a time, fellas, gentleman, and guys roamed the land. Eventually, we become dudes. Unfortunately, many of us became bros. Bro is also a staple of word-making. Based on sheer prolificness, bro may be the affix of the decade.

  9. Word Count

     Word Tasting Note: "Victuals"
    Mon Apr 28 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    Victuals is one of those words that many people know by sound and sight but have not put sound and sight together. It's sort of like knowing someone by name and knowing someone by face, but not realizing the two are the same person. Until you accidentally find out, and it's usually embarrassing.

  10. Behind the Dictionary

     What Turns Up When You Look Into "Turn Up"
    Fri Apr 25 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    As I was searching Twitter while writing last month's column on bae, I occasionally found tweets saying things like, "Gonna turn up tonight with my bae!" Now why would someone find it newsworthy to announce that they were simply going to appear somewhere? Of course, not everything people tweet is newsworthy, but still, why such excitement over simply showing up?
58 59 60 61 62 Displaying 591-600 of 3488 Results