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You are here: Home / Archives for words

The power of new words and why we need more

March 15, 2019 By Ellen 1 Comment

Without Shakespeare, there would be no managers, no swagger, no addiction, nothing bedazzling, new-fangled or gloomy. And these are just a few of the words he invented. There’s nothing new about neologisms. We’re always coming up with a word for something we need to talk about. Freakshakes, fat-bergs, manspaining, covfefe, floordrobes and hygge, for example. […]

Filed Under: other things I have learned, review Tagged With: advice, desire paths, humour, in my life, in the world, linguistics, neologism, words, writing

Periods. Period. What should we call it?

January 28, 2018 By Ellen Leave a Comment

It’s a terrible cringe of a word – period. If a word ever wore a tight bun and kept its books in alphabetical order, it’s a period. This is the word that goes with the twee trickles of dyed blue water poured in gleaming ad-land laboratories. Period. Flow, stop. Period. We need something better. Humanity […]

Filed Under: family Tagged With: feminism, humour, in my life, menopause, menstruate, period, women, words

Don’t put a g in my sandwich

March 31, 2017 By Ellen 1 Comment

OK, I listen to a lot of radio and if the radio’s not on, I’m probably eavesdropping. So I hear a lot of words. Perhaps that qualifies me to make the following observations. You don’t need to say ‘impact upon’ when you really mean ‘affect’. Changing tack means you are trying a different direction. Changing […]

Filed Under: other things I have learned, wordy wonders Tagged With: language, words

What’s on my mind this week (the really not very exciting version)

February 11, 2017 By Ellen 2 Comments

Have you ever had so much to write about that you didn’t know where to start? And as a result didn’t start at all? That’s me this week. Not, of course, that any of it is very exciting. Nothing in the realm of ‘you’ll never believe this’ or even ‘wow’, just ordinary stuff, only lots […]

Filed Under: family, other things I have learned Tagged With: 30% Club, Bechdel Test, boys, creative writing, Cumbria, family, feminism, Helena Morrissey, language, Penrith, Something happened in my life, women, words, writing

Pulling together to move forward with transparency…

November 22, 2016 By Ellen Leave a Comment

And other equally irritating phrases. I was directed, the other day, to John Rentoul’s round up of banned expressions. A splendid celebration of the cliche, the slackardly sayings and the downright nasty newspeak – the kind of phrases that induce indigestion. His streaming heap includes “scalable”, “baby steps” and “scientifically proven”. To his linguistic gravy […]

Filed Under: other things I have learned, rant, The World, words Tagged With: cliches, humour, in the world, language, on my mind, women, words

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