#WordWednesday

In case you don't remember from school what alliteration is, I'll tell you. It is writing in which you string together two or more words that begin with the same sound or letter. They can be right next to each other -- slippery snakes -- or near each other -- Sam sounds like Stanley.

Alliteration is a useful way to add auditory interest to writing, though it can be overdone. However, in this post I'm going to overdo alliteration on purpose by writing complete, fairly coherent sentences that are 100% alliterative. Here goes:

All Amy asks about are angels, asteroids and auras.
Bert bets bigger bucks, but Barney bets better.
Can convicts' currency capers compete convincingly with cash cows? Certainly!

Writing little snippets like these is fun (to me, anyway, word-geek that I am) and good brain exercise. Try too, Tootsie. Fun follows, fortunately.

Writing Quotation

This is how you do it: …sit down at the keyboard & you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, & that hard. -- Neil Gaiman

A Wee Ditty On Writing

Here's a little ditty I wrote on February 6, 2007. Pretty much sums it up for me.

I write about readers and read about writers,
I write and I read every day.
Sometimes it’s shopping lists,
Sometimes a book.
but rarely, so rarely, for pay.

But as it may happen, though you may be shocked,
I write cuz it’s just there to do.
The words just start comin’
with rhyme and with rhythm.
It’s something I simply must do.

It’s work to do writing,
…except when it’s not.
I love it and dread it, and still…
When words start to flow
and I’m right in the groove
there’s no need for coin or for bill.

I love what I’m doing, my work life is fun!
I write something down every day.
But if you’re cash-minded,
and you like my stuff,
I’d gladly write more words for pay.

#WordWednesday

I cannot resist more puns. These are from one of those old circular emails that we all used to get; most of them were a pain, but some were pretty good. This one included a few good puns, which I wanted to share because...wait for it: A good pun is its own reword.

So here you go. I make no claims of authorship on these but wish I could with a few of them:

* My wife really likes to make pottery, but to me it's just kiln time.

* Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.

* Practice safe eating - always use condiments.

* A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative.

* I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.

* I used to be a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.

* If electricity comes from electrons... does that mean that morality comes from morons?

* Corduroy pillows are making headlines.


Okay, I'm done. Know any other good ones?

Writing Quotation

Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.

-- Philip José Farmer

#WordWednesday

Puns -- such great little groaners! Since I love playing around with words, here's a bit of information about this quiet little form of humour.

The word "pun" might possibly come from somebody messing about in the late 1600s with the word pundigrion, which might come from the Italian word puntiglio, which is a trivial objection or an equivocation, which sounds a bit like "punctilio – a very fine point of etiquette – though I don't think the words are related. Got that? I don't, but who cares?!

Laughter is critical...just for the pun of it. The pun also rises. This is the best pun a mother could have.I am so in love with my funny guy; he's the pun for me!

Writing Quotation

The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -- Anaïs Nin

#WordWednesday

Today is my brother Bill's birthday, so in his honour I've investigated the word "birthday." In the late 14th century the Old English word byrddaeg was used to mark the anniversary of a king's or saint's birth. No such celebrations for the lowly peasants until about the 1570s. By the 1620s the term "birthnight" was also in use.

Not to make scandalous suggestions to my celebrating brother, but he (and you) might be mildly interested to learn that the term "birthday suit" showed up in the 1730s, if not before. A similar term in Middle English was "mother naked" – naked as the day one was born, of course. Middle Dutch had moeder naect, while German had mutternacht.

So there you go. Where 's the nearest Trivia Nacht?

Writing Quotation

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

-- Ernest Hemingway