|
|
|
|
Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
|
| |||||||||||
|
The Write Way 9 July 2004 What's Your Name? Greetings, I've mentioned to you that our daughter is living in Melbourne these days, and last week she finally caught up with some friends of ours who moved down when all our kids were preschoolers. (You've met these friends before ... http://www.write101.com/W.Tips180.htm) While we "oldies" have managed to see each other, albeit infrequently, over the years, our kids have usually been off leading their own lives and so the last time our friends and daughter met, she was still in primary (grade) school ... She's changed in the intervening years, even if we all like to pretend we haven't! This is part of an email I received from my friend the day after the visit, "I had a wish last week that I could see my friends as they were thirty years ago and this wish was granted. Last Thursday I opened my front door and there you were, as you were. Unfortunately I didn't instantly lose thirty years as well. "Once we had exclaimed over the likeness (something I felt [your daughter] had heard before) we had a great time piecing together all our past news of each other." That email started me reminiscing about the days of yore ... what our kids used to refer to as "the olden days," you know, when we were young! I won't bore you with those memories, but one thing led to another, as it invariably does, and the next thing I knew, I was thinking about names and how important they are to us. And how carefully we should think before we bestow them on defenceless children.
When she was at preschool, my daughter was friends with a little girl called "Willow." Now this particular Willow was a beautiful child from a lovely family, and her name suited her perfectly. But it's a bit risky, isn't it, giving a child a name like that? I mean, what happens if such a child grows up to be a large couch potato adult or is genetically programmed to be short and stocky? The name, by definition, implies someone who is, well, "willowy." This was one of those sort of New Age names that were popular back in the late 70s - there were more Storms, Skyes and Starrs than you could poke a stick at, although a check on this great Social Security site (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/) shows that these names are now on the way out ... as opposed to just being Way Out: Did you know that between 1880 and 1925, the most popular names for babies were John and Mary (except for one, brief shining moment in 1896, when William toppled John)? Then, from 1926 till 1934, Robert replaced John, until James kept the spot warm for one year before handing back to Robert. But it wasn't until 1947 that Mary handed over her crown to Linda. So, what's the moral of the story, boys and girls? It's this: if you're out socialising with people born between 1880 and 1947 and you forget someone's name, just call the blokes "John" and the women "Mary" and someone's sure to answer! This site is an excellent resource if you're writing fiction - there's nothing worse than those period pieces set in the 1700s that have heroines called Kylie and heroes called Scott and Brett (or Rip and Torn)! Here's another site that has names from several European countries as well as the US: http://www.behindthename.com/top.html Some names just give extra value for your money, don't they? I'm thinking here of Elizabeth ... for one name you get several useful diminutives to suit just about every personality. There's practical Betty, ethereal Beth, upwardly mobile Libby, fun-loving Liz, virtuous Bess and axe-murderer Lizzie! Bargain! My dad always said you should give children names that can be shortened, and this apparently led to some Silent Moments with his mother when I was born, because he insisted on calling me Jenny rather than Jennifer. My grandma was born into a well-to-do family around Edinburgh (Scotland) where the cows were called jennies ... This week's quiz: Some more words derived from the names of people ... eponyms to their friends! pompadour, maudlin, gadzookery, bloomers, antaean, dobro, coulomb, derrick, vernier, algorithm 1. a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem 2. the use of archaisms (as in a historical novel) 3. a small movable scale that slides along a main scale; the small scale is calibrated to indicate fractional divisions of the main scale 4. a unit of electrical charge equal to the amount of charge transferred by a current of 1 ampere in 1 second 5. underpants worn by women 6. very large and/or strong 7. type of steel guitar with a metal resonator set into the body 8. effusively or insincerely emotional 9. a hair style in which the front hair is swept up from the forehead 10.a simple crane having lifting tackle slung from a boom Further to our earlier discussion about names ... I came across a site that really appealed to my sense of humour while ... ahem "researching" this topic. It's INCH - the Institute for Naming Children Humanely and it has names organised under a number of fascinating categories: The "Scrabble Draw" category The "Found It on This Here Map" category The "Multicultural Mish-Mash" category The "Let Me Spell That fir You" category and the "Named Him after My Favorite ..." category Then there's the "Funny the First Time" category that cites Chanda Lear as a wondrous example of what not to do to your children. Read all about it here: http://inch.stormpages.com/index.html Last week's quiz: eldritch, urtext, eclogue, heterodox ,ersatz, tenebrous, epilogue, prologue, mordant, faineant 1. dark; gloomy - TENEBROUS 2. a short poem or speech spoken directly to the audience following the conclusion of a play - EPILOGUE 3. biting; caustic; sarcastic - MORDANT 4. the original text (as of a musical score or literary work) - URTEXT 5. being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one - ERSATZ 6. a short descriptive poem of rural or pastoral life - ECLOGUE 7. strange; unearthly; weird; eerie - ELDRITCH 8. doing nothing or given to doing nothing; idle; lazy - FAINEANT 9. an introductory act, event, or period; introduction or chapter - PROLOGUE 10.holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines - HETERODOX Our Map of the World has some fascinating glimpses into the places our Merry Band call home. Drop by if you haven't been back for some time: http://pub37.bravenet.com/guestmap/view.php?usernum=3170114826 A Little Something Extra In my other life as a teacher, I used to feel great sympathy for students who were forced to write creative essays under examination conditions, and yet the majority of them always managed to produce something that was readable and entertaining (after a fashion). But set them an assignment where they had weeks to work on a piece and many of them would agonise about how to start and what to write. The reason for this strange behaviour is that the most difficult part of any writing is getting started, so this week's Little Something Extra may be just what we all need at times. Paula LaRocque is a professional writer and she's written a great book on writing called ... The Book on Writing. Her first chapters are devoted to her Guidelines to Good Writing, and these cover many of the things you know you should do ... such as using simple words instead of long ones, avoiding jargon, cutting out qualifiers and so on. Then there's a set of chapters that show you how to develop your plot, create real characters and involve your readers. But my favourite is the chapter where Paula advises "write fast, but edit slow." She explains why you should "(stifle) the impulse to edit as you write. You'll lose momentum if you do. Can't think of the right word? Use the almost right word - or just a couple of X's - and move on. Not sure of a fact? Check it out later. Suspicious of this structure or grammar or punctuation? Mark it for later consideration and leave it. In short, you want to give full rein to your inner artist, to your creative right brain. Save rules and details for the editing process ..." And this is something I wish I'd had up on the board for my classes, "Knowing your destination and having a roadmap before you set out gets you there faster because you ignore the alternate routes. That's why, before laying hand to keyboard, you write a sentence that captures the essence of the whole piece or section or chapter ... The purpose ... is to refine your message into one nugget of pure meaning. That meaning is your destination. Then you make a brief, informal outline that includes a beginning middle, and end. That's your roadmap." Simple when you know how, isn't it? To get your own copy of The Book on Writing with all the other tips from this experienced writer, click now. Word of the week: Lipogram (n) a writing composed of words not having a certain letter or letters. dictionary.com explains, " -- as in the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus there was no A in the first book, no B in the second, and so on." Now there's a fun way to fill in those odd spare moments when you're sitting on a bus ... or get the ankle-biters to exercise their little grey cells instead of their voice boxes when you're travelling, and see if they can come up with sentences, paragraphs or whole stories (depending on their age). I'm glad I was able to introduce a little more frustration to your life last week with the lipogram! Yes, you were right, the paragraph Dianne found was sans Es ... not one of the little beggars to be seen. If you received this newsletter from a friend and you'd like to have your very own copy delivered to you on Friday, just click here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and why not spread the word? Send your friends a copy and invite
them to join our merry band - we number over 9,000 now. Please forward the
newsletter in its entirety and note that no portion of this is to be circulated
for profit. And here's a great definition to warm the cockles of your heart at this trying time: "The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly' meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'." This week's Latin phrase may come in handy since it's 50 years since you-know-who released his first hit ... Credo Elvem ipsum etiam vivere! (I think Elvis is still alive!) Regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Here's how: 1. Pay by PayPal:
2. Click here to subscribe for a full year OR 3. Use your credit card on my secure order form: http://www.write101.com/fund.htm (You can also access the PayPal subscription link from this page if the link above didn't work for you. With PayPal, you can use your credit card, PayPal account or pay online using your own cheque account.) OR 4. Send a cheque (made payable to Jennifer Stewart): http://www.write101.com/fund.htm To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: mailto:WritingTips-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com or go to the web site, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WritingTips This menu will also let you change your subscription between digest and normal mode. Copyright 2004 Jennifer Stewart Individual articles copyrighted by
their authors.
|
|
Home
| Contact
| Order
| Site
Map |Subscribe
Copyright 200 |
