by Margot Lester | Blogs & Blogging, Writing/How to Write
Word choice is a simple way to bring more energy, clarity and you to your writing. Here's a new-to-me term that got my attention because of the way it sounds. Admittedly, it's unlikely you or I will have cause to deploy this word outside of word-nerd conversations,...
by Margot Lester | Writing/How to Write
I love discovering new terms. Here's a good one: metonym: a figure of speech in which a thing/idea is called by the name of something closely associated with it, like "suits" for business executives. These folks aren't actual articles of clothing, of course, but the...
by Margot Lester | Writing/How to Write
One of the best books about the increase in wildfires is John Vaillant's 'Fire Weather'. Every writer should read it for the craft alone. John Vaillant's excellent Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World is one of the best-written books I've read in the last...
by Margot Lester | What-Not
So often school made words and even word games tedious and joyless. I'm on a mission to put some of the fun back into word study. When you make your living by the word, you pay attention to cool little factoids about vocabulary. My latest fun find is "kangaroo words"...
by Margot Lester | Writing/How to Write
Remember how excited I got when I discovered contronyms?! That ebullience is back, baby! Last night, I learned another cool term: retronym*. (Hat tip to Kory Stamper's excellent Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries.) *“retronym,” Merriam-Webster.com...
