Adventures in Editor Land: March 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Kenspeckle

So, this just sounds like a cool word:

\KEN-spek-uh l\

adjective
1. Scot. and North England. conspicuous; easily seen or recognized.

Quotes

I have purposely made the clothing somewhat kenspeckle, that the men may notice it and pay less heed to the face.
-- John Buchan, A Lost Lady of Old Years, 1899

Origin

Kenspeckle is of uncertain origin, though it is comparable to the Norwegian term kjennespak meaning "quick at recognizing, literally, know-clever." It entered English in the early 1700s.

Monday, March 28, 2016

What Kind of Grammar Nerd Are You?

If you happen to like these quizzes, link above.

I got: You know your stuff when it comes to proper English grammar and writing, but you're not overly traditional. Language does evolve, after all! Chances are high that you're fascinated, rather than put off by, the verbing of nouns or the disappearing "whom." You have balanced the standardization of language with the practical usage.

Question 12, I think, when it asked me what error bugs me the most, my spine literally shrank up and and kinked as I shivered. "Could of vs. Could've." I hate that . . . though confusing basic homophones also peeves me.

My English teacher friend got: You may drive your friends and family nuts, but you would make Strunk and White proud. You love enforcing rules just about as much as you love the rules themselves. For you, grammar truly is one of life's greatest joys.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Dictionary.com Word of the Day

WORDMONGER:

\WURD-muhng-ger, -mong-\

noun
1. a writer or speaker who uses words pretentiously or with careless disregard for meaning.

Quotes

Try reading Mr. Gass's essays not as statements but as counterstatements, as in an argument where one of the speakers is solid, a bit dull, relentlessly correct, and the other fellow is, intellectually, a bit of a rake, a rhetorician, a word monger and a joy to behold, a Gass. The price the literary rake pays for his dazzle is that his works stay in the reader's mind not as convincing arguments but as things the reader wishes he had said ...
-- Denis Donoghue, "Counterstatements," New York Times, July 9, 1978

Origin

Wordmonger entered English in the late 1500s. The word monger means "a dealer in or trader of a commodity" or "a person who is involved with something in a petty or contemptible way" and it is frequently used in combination, as in the terms fishmonger and gossipmonger.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Masturbate

The pic got cut off, but it says, "Every so often, I try to masturbate a large word into a conversation, even if I'm not really sure what it means."

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Lucifer

So one of the things that sucks about having an editor personality is that you're constantly going through and correcting things. Makes reading books and watching TV and movies for pleasure kind of difficult. My biggest personal pet peeve is when two parents have blue eyes and the child has brown eyes. And this is all right with everyone . . . Like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That was just a bad movie, but when Karen Allen tells Harrison Ford that Shia LaBeouf is his son, well, I groaned, because two blue-eyed people can't give birth to a brown-eyed child. Adoption or adultry were involved . . .

So no surprise that I take a deep breath every time I see Scarlett Estevez (Trixie on Lucifer), my muscles tighten. I like the actress, it's a continuity issue for me . . . Now Kevin Alejandro is Hispanic, so maybe that's where the producers are confused. But he and Lauren German have pale eyes, both look blue to me. So no, the child with big brown eyes not happening . . . unless there's some genetic mutation I haven't heard of.

That kind of thing happens all the time in movies and TV, the thing that made me cringe while watching Wingman, the latest episode of Lucifer, was when Lucifer (Tom Ellis, a white guy) introduces his brother Amenadiel (D.B. Woodwide, a black guy) as his brother (they're angels, I have no problem with genetics here) and Det. Decker (Lauren German) has a seizure trying not to point out the obvious. OK, so we're supposed to be shocked when two different races are sibs but not when blue-eyed parents have brown-eyed children. Thanks TV, for once again making me face-palm.