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Cucumber
Lots of people have cucumbers in their gardens right now. I ate a few, and then I got curious. Why does it take three syllables to talk about an edible plant part that so many of us love? Beans, peas, and grapes are monosyllabic, and as far as I know, we’ve been eating them and…
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I Wish People Wouldn’t Say “Vaccine-Resistant”
Recently, I read something containing the phrase “vaccine-resistant.” In my opinion, this is poor wording. Before I continue with my reasoning, let it be known that I do not hold a medical degree of any kind, and therefore I am speaking purely from my own personal understanding of how viruses, vaccines, and the human body…
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Happiness – Haiku
Happiness can be, Found easily and yet we, Never stop searching.
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Gray – Haiku
Gray is in the clouds, And old buildings standing near, My hair feels their age.
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Red – Haiku
In the color red, Danger courage warnings blood, And delicious fruit.
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Blue – Haiku
With the color blue, Draw the sky and water too, Why should blue mean sad?
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Sound – Haiku
Voices of loved ones, And a body of water, Good useful advice.
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A Word about Word Count in Fiction
I seem to be obsessed with word count. I don’t mean that I worry about my stories having specific word counts, but I keep wondering how many words long a story is. “How many words?” is the first question I have when people talk about their writing. Many years ago, when I first started trying…
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Haiku about Fire
Flames crackle and burn, Keeping us warm in winter, Yet they can kill us.
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Brain
Every Thursday, I like to use a writing prompt. Today, I’m using the word “brain,” which popped into my head, so I started thinking about it! I don’t remember who said this or where I read it, but I found it surprising that people used to wonder where our thoughts were. Didn’t we have them…
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Tomb – Revisited
On July 23, I wrote this post about the word “tomb.” At the end of it, I used the phrase “rest in peace,” which reminded me of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe story — The Cask of Amontillado.
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Dungeon
I’ve been rereading Harry Potter recently, and the word “dungeon” occurs rather frequently. They’re dark and fearsome, but what is a dungeon, exactly? I mean, I’ve never actually been in one. I’m working on a book called “Written in Stone,” a fantasy romance, which involves a dungeon or two, so the word’s going to come…
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Category
“Predictables?” Oh, no, it was “predicables,” but I’m none the wiser. Affirmable attributes leave me baffled, so I’m just going to accept the meaning of “category” that I know: a group of things that share something. (That’s not quite what the dictionary said, but close enough.) To clear my head a little, I think I’ll…
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Second – Haiku
The one-word prompt was “second.” I am not the first, I do not live long at all, I get the last word.
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Air – Haiku
Prompt: Air. Take in a deep breath, The people who’ve lived before, Have shared it with you.
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Tomb
I was working on a book and wrote the word “tombstone.” Then I started to wonder why “tomb” rhymes with “gloom” and doesn’t sound like “Tom.” According to Wiktionary, “tomb” was borrowed from Old French into Middle English, and since I understand neither Middle English spelling nor pronunciation, I don’t know why the o, but…
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Tiny
Somebody used the word “tiny” in a tweet, and it sparked this post. Interestingly, the word “tiny” may relate to the tines of a fork. They are quite small, although I personally wouldn’t call them tiny. I read the definition of “tine,” and discovered, to my surprise, that it can be used as an adjective,…
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The Penny, the Dollar, and the Pound
I’m having some book covers created by David Collins of DC Cover Creations, and I pay in British pounds. I started thinking about the names of various currencies, and what they mean. The penny. Well, pennies are old, and I don’t mean just sort of old. The word has a Proto-Germanic origin and there are…
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Lousy
It’s interesting how the meaning of words changes over time, but even more so that we don’t often think about the words we use, and where they come from. A remarkably good (or bad) example of this is the word “lousy.” The dictionary definition, or at least the first one, is “remarkably bad,” “poor quality,”…
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Sober
It’s almost Friday, so I’m thinking about the opposite of sober. I had no idea where the word “sober” came from, so I looked it up; it’s pretty much Latin for not drunk (“without intoxication.”) Well great! I like to learn something I didn’t already know when I research words for these posts. Maybe I…