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The Write Way 7 October 2005 She's Ba-a-ck Greetings, I was right! What was I right about, dear reader? Taylor didn't die! You may remember some time back, in April 2004 in fact, I predicted this. Despite the fact that we'd seen said Taylor, "expire in his [Ridge's] arms and collapse in an attractive heap on the hospital floor after she'd been shot by Mad Sheila ... that doesn't necessarily mean that she's really dead ... we may well see Taylor back in the full bloom of health sometime soon. Stay tuned." (Read all the gory details.) Poor square-jawed Ridge had been seeing visions of his deceased wife, and in the midst of his step-daughter's wedding to his half-brother (remember how I told you this mob like to keep it all in the family? Well here's another example!) ... in the middle of the wedding, Ridge espies Taylor loitering in the shrubbery and goes to investigate. And what does he get for his troubles? A rather nasty bump on the head followed by a quick decision to dig up Taylor just to verify if the vision was real or not. What's that? You can think of far simpler means to ascertain this? Well, yes, maybe ... but hey ... would that make for a gripping six months of Soapie viewing? In a word, no. So up she comes, and she was just as we remembered her, boys and girls, last time we saw her in the box. Well ... almost the same. As Ridge cradled her in his arms (as you do whenever you exhume a corpse), we noticed that her time sailing the River Styx had had an exceptionally nasty effect on her lips ... they were swollen like those fish lips you see on Mick Jagger impersonators.
But did this faze our Ridge? No indeeedy not ... He went right on kissing her, talking to her and hefting her around in the pit for another couple of episodes before it struck him ... This was a wax model! A very realistic wax model as it happens. A very realistic, flexible wax model ... but if this Taylor was a wax model ... that meant that ... She didn't die after all! Yay! But where was the real Taylor if this was a wax model ...? And before the thought rose fully formed from Ridge's tiny brain ... there she was! The real Taylor ... who just happened to be lurking in the shrubbery in the cemetery at the very moment he was casting aside the wax one. Was that a lucky break or what, eh? Sadly, the fish lips accompanied the live Taylor back from the grave, but Ridge is not one to knock back a returned wife over something as petty as that. So two or three episodes later, after much meeting of fish lips and wooden face, we're wondering where Taylor's been all this time when who should leap from the shrubbery but ... (wait for it ...) Omar! Remember him? No? Then I'll wait while you prod your little grey cells: Back so soon? OK ... so, now we have Omar about to reveal all ... I can see you leaning forward in your seat in eager anticipation ... just be careful you don't fall off of your chair. Hmmm ... that brought you back to earth with a thud, didn't it? Of course, you have to be careful not to fall off your chair, not off of your chair. Just as if you're Taylor or Omar, you'd be lurking outside the shrubbery and not outside of it. 'Of' is totally unnecessary in these situations, so leave the poor, wee thing sleeping and make those bigger words earn their keep. This week's quiz: Here are some literary terms (because we need to redress the balance a little after our time spent with the Soapies!) Match up the terms with their meanings: hubris, allegory, doggerel, aside, soliloquy, cacophony, farce, hamartia, ode, prosody 1. relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty emotions in a dignified style; characterised by a serious topic, such as truth, art, freedom, justice or the meaning of life; tone tends to be formal 2. language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce 3. excessive pride or self-confidence that leads a protagonist to disregard a divine warning or to violate an important moral law 4. the overall metrical structure of a poem; the patterns of stress and intonation in a language 5. derogatory term used to describe poetry whose subject is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed 6. narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas. Although the elements may be interesting in themselves, the emphasis tends to be on what they ultimately mean 7. internal weakness in a character (like greed or passion or hubris); however, it may also refer to a mistake that a character makes that is based not on a personal failure, but on circumstances outside the protagonist’s personality and control 8. in drama, a speech directed to the audience that supposedly is not audible to the other characters onstage at the time 9. dramatic convention by means of which a character, alone onstage, utters his or her thoughts aloud 10. form of humor based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities; involves rapid shifts in action and emotion, as well as slapstick comedy and extravagant dialogue And here's a story that shows Shakespeare knew what he was on about when he wrote, "What's in a Name?" The manager of a large office
noticed a new man one day and told him to (Thanks to Joanna's Jokes for that story.) Last week's quiz: mukluk, limpkin, valetudinarian, gnomon, flagitious, sesquipedalian, mundungus, ignipotent, oscitancy, horripilation 1. stinking tobacco - MUNDUNGUS 2. large brownish wading bird of warm, swampy regions of the New World, having long legs, a drooping bill, and a distinctive wailing call - LIMPKIN 3. the act of yawning - OSCITANCY 4. an object, such as the style of a sundial, that projects a shadow used as an indicator - GNOMON 5. goose bumps - HORRIPILATION 6. soft boot made of reindeer skin or sealskin and worn by Eskimos - MUKLUK 7. presiding over fire or fiery - IGNIPOTENT 8. a sickly or weak person, especially one who is constantly and morbidly concerned with his or her health - VALETUDINARIAN 9. a big word - SESQUIPEDALIAN 10.infamous; scandalous - LIGITIOUS Drop by to see what Dr Morgenes is up to now in the Never-Ending Story: http://write101.blogspot.com Just click on the Never-Ending Story and use the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). Have you made your Mark on the World yet? No? Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark: http://pub37.bravenet.com/guestmap/view.php?usernum=3170114826 A Little Something Extra Here's something for all of us who love words and technology ... it's a podcast about words or, as Charles Hodgson (one of our Merry Band) dubs it, a podictionary! I'll let Charles explain ... Podictionary: the podcast for word-lovers. Every day Charles Hodgson pulls out a big fat pile of dictionaries, picks a word that appeals to him, and records a minute or two of monologue about the history of the word and posts it on the internet as a podcast. He has well over a thousand people tuning in every day now—some with iPods, many without. He gives us an example of a word he likes in ‘embarrass’, he says “it’s related to ‘barrier’ and originally meant you couldn’t do something because you had no money. It’s easy to see how poverty could remake the word closer to ashamed”. How does a forty-something dad become a podcaster? Charles explains, “I wanted to send my girls a message about how proud I was of them for their results in school, so I went over the top and bought them each an iPod. That got me thinking—what’s this podcasting thing—then the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) had a labour dispute and I couldn’t listen to my favourite radio shows, so I started tuning in to podcasts from all over the world. It seemed like a natural to share my hobby, a love of words, with others.” Charles
was inspired in part by a discontinued and sadly missed radio spot, Today
in History which tended to range from ancient A case in point is an upcoming episode on “ostracise,” a word that came about because ancient Greeks used broken pottery pieces upon which they wrote their votes as to whether or not to kick someone out of the city or polis. These pottery shards looked like sea shells and so were called by the same word which is also related to our word “oyster”. Because of his listeners’ great reactions to podictionary, and because not everyone can tune in every day, Charles has also opened a second stream of verbiage in weekly version that collects all five daily words into one ten minute episode. You can hear more by visiting www.podictionary.com Isn't that a little ripper of an idea? Word of the week: Shemozzle (n) confusing mess or muddle. This wonderfully useful word comes not from our old mates, the Romans, but from two other languages. It originally meant 'bad luck' and came from the German-Yiddish word schlimm (bad) and the Hebrew mazal. (This was an astronomical term for a constellation of stars, but then was taken over by astrologists and came to mean 'luck.') So when things are in a real shemozzle at your place, you can now blame it on the stars! Oxymoron of the week: live recording And this week's Latin phrase will surely come in handy this weekend ... whether you're watching your favourite team go down in flames, recovering from some foolish encounters with a bottle of cheeky red after work on Friday or recounting a tale of woe about the latest man/woman in your life to your mates: Hinc illae lachrimae (Hence these tears) Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Here's how: 1. Pay by PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/affil/pal=jennifer@write101.com OR 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 2005 Jennifer Stewart Individual articles copyrighted by
their authors.
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