May 2013
15 posts
The Role of a Dictionary →
By DAVID SKINNER, nytimes.com
When it happens I feel as if I have stepped into a Far Side cartoon. I am a magazine editor, and the galley of an article will come back from a proofreader with a low-frequency word circled and this comment in the margin: “Does this wo…
“Williams did all that any decent teacher can do. He opened the book and pointed...”
– http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-lewd-naked-and-revolting-shape-is.html
Bible or Bard? | OxfordWords blog →
http://flip.it/ekRLx →
Mel, blogspot.com
The difference between belongings and possessions. The other day I was reading this interesting article about a project by Dutch photographer Niki Feijen to document abandoned houses. (The Daily Mail’s politics are rotten, but it is…
tinylittlepoems: Today, I learned that a question... →
twitter.com
Today, I learned that a question mark (?) combined with an exclamation mark (!) is called an ‘interrobang’ (‽). Awesome‽ #punctuationiscool
`Mustering the Best Words' →
blogspot.com
Thanks to Dave Lull for passing along an interview with L.E. Sissman published in the Jan. 9, 1972, issue of Book World. The interviewer is Robert Lasson, identified in the tagline as “an ex-a …
JULIAN SMITH - I'm Reading a Book - YouTube →
Monday Poem →
Jim Culleny, 3quarksdaily.com
Lossiness . I come upon a new term, lossiness,which is beautiful the way it slips over lipsand sums a feeling up .To be lossy, to have kissed-off some part of beingto become apophatic in a small senseto define oneself by what’s leftin the…
Diction Airy →
Greg Ross, futilitycloset.com
In 1856 Samuel Hoshour reflected that students might learn new words more easily if they were presented in context rather than in long gray lists of definitions. The result was Letters to Squire Pedant, an imaginary correspondence salted wi…
April 2013
17 posts
Literary canonization →
complete-review.com
In the Daily Nebraskan Jordan Bates argues the rather obvious, that Literary canons exclude works no matter how selective canon makers are. Still, always a useful reminder, that contemporary list-mania etc. is … problematic, to say th…
Talk Like Shakespeare - Home →
talklikeshakespeare.org
Beacons →
Daniel Kramb, thepointmag.com
“It is inevitable,” Stephanie Bernhard wrote in The New Inquiry in January, “that our fictional landscapes will evolve in tandem with our physical landscapes.” A changing climate, she argued, will change the way we write: the ravages of a…
Who invented writing? - Matthew Winkler →
F3llyjish, youtube.com
In a Word →
Greg Ross, futilitycloset.com
brabble v. to quarrel about trifles
`Think Beyond the Home-Thoughts' →
blogspot.com
“I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing.” To do otherwise would be like painting half a room or, more graphically, opening the chest and leaving the valve unfixed. Inha …
AusPoetry: Don't miss out! Nillumbik ... →
twitter.com
Don’t miss out! Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Award -Closes 15th April so enter now! http://www.nillumbik.vic.gov.au/arts . Good luck Love Fee
The Dark Side of Verbs-as-Nouns →
By HENRY HITCHINGS, nytimes.com
In my previous essay, I wrote about nominalization — the deployment as nouns of words we mostly expect to encounter as verbs or adjectives. Aware of many people’s tendency to vilify this kind of usage, I speculated about the…
Philly dialects on All Things Considered →
Mark Liberman, upenn.edu
A feature on Philadelphia dialects that appeared a week ago on the local public radio show Newsworks Tonight (“How the Philly accent is changing”, 3/28/2013), was recast yesterday on the national show All Things Considered, starring…
Yes, Prime Minister - You lied - The Tangled Web →
MadameAdam, youtube.com
The last surviving grouchy grammar nut
www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/joan-gage/correct-grammar-the-last-surviving-grouchy-nut_b_2975727.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
`The Mere Magic of Words' →
blogspot.com
“There is no thinker who is so unmistakably thinking about things and not being misled by the indirect influence of words…Here he differs sharply, for instance, from Saint Augustine, who was, …
“1. Read, read read! Classic poems for children and adults, books about poetry....”
– Advice to aspiring poets from J. Patrick Lewis, the current United States children’s poet laureate.
Pair with H. P. Lovecraft’s advice to aspiring writers and Ezra Pound’s list of don’ts for budding poets. (via explore-blog)
March 2013
31 posts
“If you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost...”
– Virginia Woolf, who took her own life on March 28, 1941, on the art of reading (via explore-blog)
In a Word →
Greg Ross, futilitycloset.com
inwit n. reason, intellect, understandingoutwit n. the faculty of observing the world
Watch
Literature-Map - The tourist map of literature →
`And All Was As It Should Be. I Was Young' →
blogspot.com
“a small boy’s adhesiveness / To competent old age” “Perhaps E.A. Robinson’s definitive poem on friendship is his rather long narrative poem titled `Isaac and Archibald.’ The narrator, we …
Become a slam poet in five steps - Gayle Danley →
Josephhanul, youtube.com
Law and Order →
Greg Ross, futilitycloset.com
My first lesson in the meticulous use of words occurred in connection with a series of burglaries in the neighborhood. Just behind us on Exeter Street lived a well-known Boston spinster, Miss Ella Day by name. One moonlight night, when I was about…
Learning the Foreign Language of Twitter →
Athene Donald, occamstypewriter.org
Any time I go to Europe, as this week, I come back ashamed of my lack of linguistic skills. This time I struggled through a brief conversation in French with a Brussels taxi driver trying to talk about the impact of the snow on Eurostar, my senten…
a sense sublime of something far more deeply... →
Morgan Meis, 3quarksdaily.com
Much of our most famous literature of landscape was produced during the Romantic movement, and that may shed light on the genre’s current popularity. For then, as now, technological changes were convulsing society and creating perceived threats to…
T.S. Eliot – The Waste Land →
rapgenius.com
Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc’d Tereu The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar The barges wash Drifting …
In a Word →
Greg Ross, futilitycloset.com
nudiustertian adj. of the day before yesterdayereyesterday adv. on the day before yesterdayyesternight adv. last nightyestreen n. yesterday eveningyester-afternoon adv. on yesterday afternoonyesternoon n. yesterday at…
Nobody just talks anymore →
Mark Liberman, upenn.edu
Zits for 3/19/2013: Mark Liberman
`I Eternally See Her Figure Eternally Vanishing' →
blogspot.com
“She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu.” Their granddaughter, Cassandra E. Csencsitz of New York City, has sent me photographs of Rog …
On pronouns and loss
