Thoughts about words tend to needle me quite often. While traveling a while back, I saw a woman toting a sewing machine as her carry-on luggage. No one stopped her. What is the matter with the Transportation Security Administration? Don’t they realize the dangers inherent in sewing machines? Consider the terminology. A needle is a…
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Ever wonder what’s the difference between lethal, fatal, or deadly? Or does the fact that I wonder make you nervous? As a writer of mysteries, some may believe that I think too often about death. Actually, I’m more into killing extraneous words, or at least into using the right ones. So I wondered… Are lethal…
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I cannot make my days longer, so I strive to make them better. Henry David Thoreau I’m afraid some writers have twisted these great words into, “I cannot make my words better, so I strive to make them longer.” As George Orwell brilliantly put it: “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there…
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While researching the art of the long con for a new novel, I came across an article from Australia and was introduced to two delightful words: rorter and spruiking. Exploring them led me farther astray. What a great way to procrastinate. A rorter is generally considered Australian slang, and is a noun meaning a swindler,…
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What is in a word? You’ve heard it before. They don’t speak American in Scotland. A Scot would say that we Americans may have a few wee errors in our language. Some fun ways with words I noticed during a visit to Scotland: “Wee” is thrown in everywhere. “Have a seat at that wee table.”…
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There’s so much news about the impact of climate change and global warming on our world and its ecosystems, much of it negative. In April, I joined a panel of writers of environmental mysteries–ecomysteries–at the Left Coast Crime 2022 mystery convention. Our books address serious issues, so much so that one audience member asked, “Is…
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Friends are generally surprised when I tell them I used to be a bird hunter. Using a .410 (small gauge) shotgun, I’d often limit out on doves before grown men using 12 gauge (larger pellets) shotguns. My parents were avid bird hunters. After they died, I gave up hunting. Now, especially recently, I’m a word…
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People are often confused about the use of which or that. I hope to clear that up in today’s post. That or Which? That introduces restrictive or essential clauses. Which generally introduces non-restrictive or non-essential clauses. A restrictive clause is part of the sentence that describes a noun. Without it, the meaning of the sentence…
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You might wonder about the relationship between squash pie, hope, and gratitude. I saw the movie “This Changes Everything” last week. Narrated by the author of the eponymous book, Naomi Klein, it painted a powerful and disturbing overview of climate change caused by our pursuit of growth and its resultant pollution. Klein’s ultimately hopeful premise…
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