Making the World More Understandable

Category Archives: Words

My thoughts and comments on the building blocks of the English language.

Provocative Words

Provocative Words

Welcome to my “Ode to the Thesaurus.” One of my favorite Facebook pages is The Writer’s Circle. I always seem to glom onto their lists of Other Words For <fill in the blank>. I’ve several of them clipped into my Blog Ideas notebook in Evernote. One I’ve been looking at a lot lately is for… Continue Reading

Words That Don’t Work: Nonplus

Words That Don’t Work: Nonplus

I believe that a person with a basic understanding of the language ought to be able to understand content published for the general population – even if they encounter a word they haven’t seen before. Obviously, text books, scientific articles, philosophical debates, and the such are likely to contain words that will send the reader… Continue Reading

Properly Pronounce!

Properly Pronounce!

In a blog that I don’t think I’ll publish, I discussed the importance of proper pronunciation. That rant focused on how commonly people drop Rs from words such as “library” and “February.” And while I do find that tendency annoying, the blog itself was just a little too pissy – even for me. That said,… Continue Reading

Going Too Far with Gender Neutrality

When being specific could be wrong, when referring to a person of unknown gender, it is better to be general than specific. And, job positions ought to be neutral. Male or female, someone is a server or a flight attendant. However, I believe people are taking gender neutrality too far. The idea for this blog… Continue Reading

Writing, Editing & Word Smithing

I recently let my sister rant about the term Value Proposition and why it annoys her. And a very good rant it was. I try to allow my sister her opinions (like I have a choice) and yet, I must defend the term “wordsmith.” Jen defined “word-smithing” as editing. There’s actually more to it. Dictionary.com… Continue Reading

Words that Bug Me: Irony

I have previously ranted – and will rant again, I am sure – about words because I feel they are misused or I do not care for their meaning. “Irony,” however, does not fit into either of their categories. Instead, “irony” bugs me because I don’t get it. Occasionally, I know an example of it,… Continue Reading

What is a Paradigm Shift?

Before we can have a shift, we need to know what a paradigm is. Once again, I went to my friend dictionary.com for the official definition. There were several, I’m listing the relevant one here: A framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a scientific… Continue Reading