7 December 2007

Milk Carton Bios

Greetings,

As we sat breaking our fast one morning last week, the Love of My Life and I let our collective gazes rest momentarily on the milk container sitting prettily on the bench between us ... No, before you ask, it wasn't a dainty, antique glass jug, nor even a quirky, countrified pottery jug, it was more in the nature of ... Ummm ... a plastic bottle. Well, who has room in the fridge at this festive time of year for a milk jug as well as the original container?

So there we were, perusing the label when the LoML commented that I should do the same ...

Sorry? 

Write a list of ingredients?

Design a logo?

"No," said he. "You should write about milk-carton bios."

It seems that while I'd been gazing glassy-eyed at the back of the carton, he'd been looking at the side view, and the milk we buy (from the sole remaining all-Australian-owned company out here) currently has 75-word bios of Aussie farmers who (we're led to believe) spend their entire lives rearing cute cows to provide milk just for us. 

So, your mission today, Boys and Girls, is to come up with a 75-word bio of your time here on planet Earth. You'll find some tips in this week's Little Something Extra, then you can publish your bio on Write101's Blog:  

This witty ditty is in one of my favourite succinct styles ... the double dactyl:

Piggledy Ydelggip
Emperor Bonaparte
Exiled in infamy
Far from Versailles.

Left this apocryphal
Autobiography:
"Ere I saw Elba, so
Able was I." (Source)   

Here are more double dactyls.  

And here's one I wish I'd used last week when we were chatting about the Romans ...

"Patty cake, patty cake,

Marcus Antonius,

What do you think of the

African queen?"

"Gubernatorial

Duties require my

Presence in Egypt. Ya

Know what I mean?"

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This week's quiz:

Try these words ...

sisyphean, epicurean, gordian, tantalise, augean, pander, procrustean, ambrosia, nemesis, meander

1. something especially delicious to taste or smell; the food of the gods, thought to confer immortality 

2. difficult and unpleasant; exceedingly filthy from long neglect; requiring heroic efforts of cleaning or correction

3. extremely intricate 

4. to proceed by or take a winding or indirect course; to wander aimlessly; ramble 

5. endless and unavailing, as labour or a task; futile 

6. tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means 

7. fond of or adapted to luxury or indulgence in sensual pleasures; having luxurious tastes or habits, esp. in eating and drinking

8. a person who caters to or profits from the weaknesses or vices of others OR to cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses 

9. something that a person cannot conquer, achieve; an agent or act of retribution or punishment 

10. to torment with, or as if with, the sight of something desired but out of reach; tease by arousing expectations that are repeatedly disappointed 

And here's a relevant double dactyl (and a clue to one of the words) ...

Last week's quiz:

congeries, pabulum, galumph, platitudinarian, sansculotte, polyhistor, rident, prink, fatidic, bombinate

1. to buzz, hum or drone; make a buzzing sound - BOMBINATE

2. (in the French Revolution) a revolutionary of the poorer class; originally a term of contempt applied by the aristocrats but later adopted as a popular name by the revolutionaries; any extreme republican or revolutionary - SANSCULOTTE (I always remember this word from my High School Modern History classes ... the image of peasants without breeches and in pantaloons tickled our fancy)

3. something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriment; material for intellectual nourishment - PABULUM

4. laughing; smiling; cheerful - RIDENT

5. collection of items or parts in one mass; assemblage; aggregation; heap - CONGERIES

6. of, relating to, or characterised by prophecy; prophetic - FATIDIC

7. dress very carefully and in a finicky manner; put on special clothes to appear particularly appealing and attractive - PRINK

8. a bore who makes excessive use of trite remarks - PLATITUDINARIAN

9. move around heavily and clumsily; to move with a heavy tread - GALUMPH

10. a person of great and varied learning - POLYHISTOR

A Little Something Extra

If you're going to get your life down on paper in just 75 words, you're going to have to be succinct, that means you have to make every word count, so here are five tips from Maggie Denison ...

Whatever you write, you stand a better chance of people reading it if you keep the writing tight and concise. This is particularly true of your marketing materials. Whether it's a brochure, a sales letter, a postcard, or website content, a lasered message is more compelling than pages of wordiness that dance around the point.

Here are some tips on streamlining your words: 

Then write your own succinct bio and post it on Write101's blog:  

Word of the week:  Succinct (adj)  expressed in few words; concise; terse; characterised by conciseness or verbal brevity; compressed into a small area, scope, or compass

Interestingly, there's another meaning to this word ... it can also refer to things that are "drawn up, as by a girdle; close-fitting"

This older meaning is more closely related to its origins from the Latin succingere meaning 'to gird, gather up' (one's clothes to prepare for action). 

Oxymoron of the week: succinct politician

And a Latin phrase about writing your bio ...

Sic faciunt omnes

[SEEK FAH-kee-oont OHM-nays]

(Everyone is doing it)