What's the Word Now?

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm swamped with reading Hugo nominees, so I'm too busy to write original material right now. Instead, I...

I had a wonderful, although short, vacation with my family last week. Now I am snowed under again. This time the duty is reading for pleasur...

I was telling my sister about Kings in Disguise , a fine graphic novel that follows a boy as he rides the rails during the Great Depression,...

"Tie a string around your finger." This is an old-fashioned memory prompt from before when memos started arriving via PDAs, compu...

I was in a meeting Tuesday and the guy next to me stumbled over his words, saying something would "compale -- I mean, pale in compariso...

Now that "Iron Man 3" is out, I can finally admit that I was an extra! They made us sign fierce nondisclosure agreements, s...

As promised, here is Part 2 of my description of working as an extra for the untitled medical drama pilot produced by John Wells in 2010. I ...

So many ideas, so little time to write them up. I'm still working on balancing my job and everything else. Meanwhile, I'm resurrect...

A recent newspaper had a one-panel cartoon, with one woman talking to another over drinks. She was saying, "My ex and I were incompatib...

I just went to a discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" at my local library. This was part of a year of events...

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. I need to remind myself that not every message here has to be a long essay. In that spir...

It's always an education to play word games with my friends and relatives. Words are a big part of my job, but I often lose Scrabble to ...

There was a design/copy editor so sharp, hardly anything fretted her. Her demeanor was placid, but her wit could be acid, and she pounce...

I discovered today that "salient" and "desultory" come from the same root word , the Latin "salire," meaning t...

Recently I listened to a lengthy interview by "The Skiffy and Fanty Show" of my friend and former co-worker, Sabrina Vourvoulias ...

"What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women....

I've been working to learn Audacity, an audiofile editor, so here is my first podcast! Because I was recently reminded of the beauty of ...

A new acquaintance was cut short today (the budding relationship, not the person), when I mentioned having started this blog recently. He sa...

No, I don't know anything about obscure jargon used by tollbooth personnel, or anything like that. (Sorry, Georgette Heyer fans.) I...

Recently, I smirked at a headline in my local newspaper's business section: "Frosty interview may signal trouble." Is there r...