When I need a lively phrase I am rescued by the Diction Fairy, who klonks me on the nape with a backscratcher and suggests something odd but memorable.
—James Joyce
We’re joking, of course, in representing this as a quotation …
For a story to have what we consider a proper ending, it is not enough for the “real-life” events to come to an end. Instead, some form of coherence has to be brought to the reader’s attention again. The most …
This last essay was sent to us by the well-known author Aloysius Krumpelwitz, who writes under the pen-name “Anon.” We meant to turn him down, for the rest of us disagree strongly with his obvious anti-intellectualism, but we had misplaced …
To see imagery as mere ornament in a story is like seeing a man’s head as just a pedestal for his bonnet.
—William Shakespeare
Hey, I said that.
—Francis Bacon
So when did men start wearing bonnets?
—Emmeline Pankhurst
…What
…Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this
First of all, it happened in another universe, and on the outer fringes of another galaxy, and on another planet, and in another time zone. You could hardly expect those people to be the same as the people you know.…
Mr Salter’s side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said, ‘Definitely, Lord Copper’; when he was wrong, ‘Up to a point.’
—Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
We were reminded of this rule—and you …
The first thing to consider is the difference between the diction of writers and civilians. Writers use one set of words, civilians another. Most of us use words from what linguists refer to as “basic level.” We say, “I’m going …
Before the Internet, we had to go to political rallies or beer parlors to collect half-truths and bizarre opinions, but now we simply thumb through collections of them on the Internet. One of these is the notion that writers should …
Our next example is related to the word-parsimony fallacy but even stupider. This is the notion that there are some parts of speech that writers should avoid, namely adjectives and adverbs. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem an …
The Princess Llesllie—who was Welsh, and therefore had an abundance of voiceless lateral spirants in her name—was trying to sleep; but we will get to that in a moment. Llesllie lived in one of the finest castles of all, and …
…The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than
Torkulweef say:
We offered to introduce Tiresias, but he refused, for no better reason than that he thought we would lie and say rude things about him. But people from our clan—and we’re from another dementia than the reader—are all …
What is truth? Who wants to know!?
Al Capone
…Some day there won’t be any need for books on usage. People will all be connected by a giant electronic network, and when they want to know something about usage or
Torkulweef say:
We offered to introduce Tiresias, but he refused, for no better reason than that he thought we would lie and say rude things about him. But people from our clan—and we’re from another dementia than the reader—are all …
