Word of the Week – scintilla
When is the last time someone called you a scintillating conversationalist?
603 Reasons I’m an Editor
That’s the number of footnotes in the academic paper I finished editing over the weekend.
A Peek at a Troublesome Threesome
Homonyms trip up many a writer. You know, those pairs of words that sound alike but have different spellings and often vastly different meanings. Occasionally they come in threes—like to, two, and too.
When You Need a Prompt
Because coming up with ideas is the hardest part of writing...for some of us. Thanks, Bryan Hutchinson.
When Details Make a Difference
No one disputes the value of product expiration dates. Whether or not you observe them is another matter. But knowing a product’s freshness and longevity can be vital to your health and wellbeing.
More Dishing on Dis
Continuing my dissertation on dis words whose roots are no longer part of our vocabulary, consider...
Head toward the Hills
It doesn’t seem like it should be such a big deal whether you use toward or towards in a sentence like this:
Dishing on Dis
Ever since I discovered that ruth, meaning compassionate or merciful, was an antonym for ruthless as well as a woman’s name I’ve been on the lookout for other words with little-known or rarely-used roots. As it turns out, there are quite a number of words with the prefix dis that have little or an obsolete relationship to their roots. To use the current slang version of the prefix, they have been dissed.