words

Paracosm: Your Own Little World

October 29, 2011

A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Often having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years. via Paracosm – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I [...]

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Don’t Behave with Cold Manners

October 15, 2011

I like Chinese fortune cookie fortunes. I’ve posted those I get a few times here. This is unique among them. What fortune writer wrote this? It’s fabulous. Not the meaning, but the language. I love the phrase ‘cold manners’. So descriptive and yet so simple. Who could fail to understand that meaning? (Yes, no doubt [...]

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Limerence: Love Sickness

October 2, 2011

I found a new word and an interesting idea (medical condition in reality) to write about in Letter Lover. The condition of which I’m speaking is called limerence, which is “defined as an involuntary interpersonal state that involves an acute longing for emotional reciprocation, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and emotional dependence on another person.” [...]

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Words are a Form of Action

October 1, 2011

For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. – Ingrid Bengis

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Hikikomori

September 3, 2011

I enjoy finding a new word. Today I found Hikikomori. It comes from Lawrence Pearce in his post to get votes on which title to use for his book. I know agoraphobia is also a fear of the outside world, people tend to shut themselves in because they don’t want to be out in the [...]

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Descriptive Food Words

August 27, 2011

These are just the words I picked out from the list of words to describe food on World Food Wine. Read down the list yourself and see which words you may not know or may not be sure of. Then try using them, describe eating something you like, then describe eating something you don’t care [...]

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#Define This

July 21, 2011

Use the word of the day in a tweet and include #definethis. Daily winners when 3 or more ppl play. Prize goes to monthly winners. Try this as a writing exercise. Each word is unusual, not well known. Don’t feel less than brilliant if you have to look them up. So many are words I [...]

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Artwiculate

July 19, 2011

Artwiculate is a word of the day game, played on Twitter. Get the new word each day. Use it in a sentence. Post it to Twitter with the hashtag #artwiculate. Check the site for others and vote for those you especially like. Artwiculate on Twitter

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Rewrite Misogynistic History

July 10, 2011

“Men write the history books,” she added neutrally. “So naturally their take on it was that Morgan was this wicked terrible evil witch who destroyed Arthur because she could. But that’s not true at all.” Quote from “Derik’s Bane” by Mary Janice Davidson. I’ve thought about how women are portrayed in history, a history written by men [...]

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Three Word Thursday

July 6, 2011

Quintessentially Quilly ran Three Word Thursday for 56 weeks. The last one was a year ago. Please join us in our weekly romp as we try to rescue lost and forgotten words from the dusty halls of antiquity. If you enjoy reading my story, leave a comment then click on the names of the other [...]

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Butter Moths are Free

May 28, 2011

Pick a word, like butterflies. How did that word come to be? Were there some flying insects around the butter churn one day and forever after flying insects with pretty wings shall be known as butterflies? Or was it some odd story about people throwing butter during an argument and a splat of butter landed [...]

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This Bitter Language

May 13, 2011

This Bitter Language I know your streets, sweet city, I know the demons and angels that flock and roost in your boughs like birds. I know you, river, as if you flowed through my heart. I am your warrior daughter. There are letters made of your body as a fountain is made of water. There [...]

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Crash Blossoms

May 12, 2011

NY Times: Crash Blossoms In news writer’s quest for concision, newspaper headlines can lead to some amusing ambiguities. Funny news headlines which take on a new meaning when written without punctuation. – named Crash Blossoms via Language Log. Submit any Crash Blossoms you find. From Wikipedia: Syntactic ambiguity is a property of sentences which may be [...]

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Liminal Space

May 3, 2011

Around the World “L”! posted about liminal space. I had never heard of the term before. She described it well: A “liminal space” is defined as the threshold between two places, states of being, or eras. The term is derived from the Latin word, “limen,” meaning “lemon.” Just joking– it means “threshold” or doorway: the [...]

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The Most Beautiful Words for Women

April 4, 2011

Quite awhile ago, Anita posted in her iGoddess blog, about the most beautiful words for women. I recently came across a list of the most beautiful words in English. I eagerly devoured the list but was disappointed that not many of them matched my expectation of “beautiful” ~ a beautiful word, to my thinking, is [...]

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Your Name in Letters

March 31, 2011

Made with My Cool Signs.Net Posted just because it’s kind of fun.

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Fiction Language Becomes Fact

March 12, 2011

It’s interesting how science fiction writers are building our future language. I don’t know who started calling the outer security layer of space ships a shield. But that term will stick. When we do have space ships, they will have shields. Later in time, when terms are forgotten for common things we take for granted [...]

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