Archive for category Language

Positively Prosaic

Apr 11

Posted by Tony Burton in Humor, Language | No Comments

Do you ever subject others to your writing?  I mean… excuse me… do you ever share your creativity with others in the form of the written word?

I know I do, in a variety of ways.  I always have my wife read what I’m writing, and solicit her feedback.  She is honest, too, which occasionally makes for some very depressing letdowns.

Sometimes it’s something like, “Honey, I know you put so much of yourself into your writing, but… well, this just doesn’t work for me.”

We do have some differences in taste in reading materials, and that’s OK.  Often I have to ask her, “OK, Lara, now read this from the viewpoint of a person who enjoys crime fiction.  Don’t critique the subject matter, but look at the style, word choices, technique, etc.”  She’s flexible enough to do that, and it really helps.  Luckily we are well-aligned in a lot of other ways, which helps to keep things motoring along smoothly.

I saw this comic recently:

Pearls Before Swine

If you are sometimes called upon to give appraisals of your friends or loved ones’ writing, maybe it’s time to pick up a few new words to use that sound better than they really are.

Like this blog entry: prosaic.

Writerly Resources, Take #1

Feb 27

Posted by Tony Burton in Language, Writing well | 4 Comments

As both a writer and a publisher, I know that sometimes we get stuck in one way or another.  Maybe we need something to inspire us, maybe we need a bit of information that is hard to find, maybe we are trying to establish our character’s place in history… in short, we need help.

So I have decided to share with you some of the things that help me when I need it.  You can call them resources, or tools, or lifelines, or whatever you like.  I won’t put them all in here at one time, but rather I’ll tantalize you with two or three in each entry in an effort to draw you back to my blog.  (Hey, at least I’m honest about it!)

Resource #1: Our Timelines.  Sometimes it is really helpful to get a handle on what was going on in the world at a particular point in your protagonist’s life.  This is especially true if you write historical fiction.  One really helpful resource I found is called Our Timelines.  Our Timelines allows you to enter both the birthdate and death date (if needed) of your character, all the way back to 1,000 CE, and it then will create a timeline with major events for each year in that character’s life.  Now, I’m not saying it lists EVERYTHING that happens every year, but it’s a great start, and a super resource to use when you’re trying to establish the technological or political frame of reference for a particular time in history.

Resource #2: Twists, Slugs and Roscoes-A Dictionary of Hardboiled Slang.  From the site: “If you’ve ever read a hardboiled detective story, you may have come across a sentence like,

“I jammed the roscoe in his button and said, ‘Close your yap, bo, or I squirt metal.’”

Something like that isn’t too hard to decipher. But what if you encounter,

“The flim-flammer jumped in the flivver and faded.”

“You dumb mug, get your mitts off the marbles before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush–and tell your moll to hand over the mazuma.”

“The sucker with the schnozzle poured a slug but before he could scram out two shamuses showed him the shiv and said they could send him over.”

Exactly. Sometimes it’s hard to decode the slang of a past generation… or for that matter of the present generation, but that’s a different story.  If you want your hardboiled dicks, shamuses, and peepers to talk like wise heads, here’s your connection. Go here for the straight dope.

Resource #3: Guide to Grammar and Writing.  No matter how well we may think we write, or how strong a grip we may think we have on the English language, sometimes anyone can make a grammar mistake. It’s not always easy to get things right when you write. So, to help with those little things like grammar, usage, and composition, check out the Guide to Grammar and Writing at Capital Community College.

That’s enough for the moment.  I hope these are helpful for you, but if they aren’t, or if they are and you’d like to see more, drop around again soon.

The Aggravation of Extension-In-Lexis

Oct 6

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, Language, Writing well | 9 Comments

No, it’s not related to the heartbreak of psoriasis. But this condition, extension-in-lexis, can be just as irritating to many confirmed lovers of language. So many of us who work with words want our tools to be well-defined and clear in meaning, but that is not the way it is to be.

Extension-in-lexis is defined as an: “Increase of the range of meanings of a given word, often through increase of figurative use.” And it happens all the time. For example, how many of us use the word blizzard to mean a snowstorm? The truth is, blizzard originally meant violent blows, a volley of words, or even a rifle shot… not a snowstorm. But on March 14, 1870, it was used in a newspaper to denote a violent snowstorm, and since that time constant usage in that context has reversed the preferred meanings. We talk about snow blizzards and assume that people know what we mean, but if we are referring to a boxing match where an person showers his opponent with violent blows, we may say “a blizzard of punches” as though to clarify this usage. Of course, the reality is that this was one of its original definitions.

Many words have their meaning changed over time, and as with blizzard, we modern writers may not even realize that we are contributing to the changing of language. Recently there was some discussion on a list I frequent, about the usage of the word tarmac. One staunch protector of original usage stated, and factually, that actual tarmac, or tar-macadam, is no longer used for runways because modern aircraft weigh too much for tarmac to support them. But because of constant historical usage, the meaning of tarmac has been extended to cover any sort of paving material used to construct runways and their associated taxiways, parking areas, and aircraft handling areas.

My own personally-aggravating word is decimate. Part of the word is “deci,” meaning one-tenth, and originally decimate was a way for the ancient Romans to achieve discipline. If a legion was being fractious and uncooperative, the leader of that legion might walk along the line of the formation and select every tenth legionnaire to be put to death–a strong deterrent to bad discipline. It was also used sometimes in controlling rebellious towns, by putting to death one tenth of the populace, or burning one tenth of the homes, and this meaning persisted into the 16th Century. Now, solemn-faced announcers proclaim that a town was decimated by an earthquake, when they really mean it was destroyed or devastated.

The word silly in the Middle Ages actually meant happy or blessed. Over time, it came to mean innocent or harmless… then to mean weak… and now denotes foolish or weak-minded. (Of course, the opposite side of this coin is the word nice, which in the 13th Century meant foolish or stupid, and now has a much more pleasant definition, though rather soft-edged and vague.)

Of course, it’s not just ancient times that created extensions-in-lexis. How about the word boot? Sure, it’s footwear, but as often as not nowadays we use it to talk about starting a computer, or restarting (rebooting.) And whence came that meaning? It came from bootstrapping older computers, which in turn came from the expression “to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps” or to get oneself started without assistance.

There are also words derived from real words by seemingly logical extension, but which have no root in reality. The word uncouth in Old English originally meant unknown or strange, but over the centuries came to mean not just unknown, but unknown to be used by polite society; in a word, impolite or rude. So, we now have people who say, “He has no couth.” But there never was a word couth that meant anything in the original language, Old English. It’s a new coinage, really.

I suppose what I’m getting to is this: language is a mutable and constantly changing thing, and extension-in-lexis is only one small part of how it grows and develops over time. No matter how much the anal-retentive among us might like to keep a corral around the language, strictly defining how words are used, it can’t be done. Language is a maverick thing, and very much alive, and will not be caged.

Copyright ©2009 Tony Burton

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