The Many Meanings of “Groom” and “Grooming”
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A formerly useful and innocuous set of words–groom, groomed, and grooming—has become a trope used primarily to stir anxiety and dread in parents. People who use words professionally may want to give some thought to taming some of the hysteria that has come to reside around these words. The noun groom Until recently, the noun groom denoted a person who looks after horses. They met at her stable when the groom took his niece, Claire, to riding lessons. The word probably began as a word for boy or man. The use of groom to denote a man on his wedding day is a shortening of the word bridegroom ..read more
Visit website
To Be a Writer
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
There’s a saying that “everyone has a book in him.” Since self-publishing has become so easy, quite a few people seem to be trying to expel it. During the month of November, hundreds of thousands of people signed up to write a novel during NaNoWriMo. The annual ritual of National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 with 21 participants, six of whom finished the challenge of writing a manuscript of 50,000 words. In 2018 (the last year I’ve found stats for), 450,000 people signed up; 53,000 of them completed the challenge. How many of those produced a publishable novel is another question. As the ..read more
Visit website
4 Perennially Misused Words
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
Some word pairs will probably always continue to be confused. Here are five such, all of which have been mentioned on this site in the past. The examples in this post date from recent months. pore: (verb) to examine closely Confused with pour: (verb) to transfer water or some other substance from a container. [Agents continue] to pour through the roughly 11,000 documents the FBI had obtained in its search. —CNN In fact, the agents continued to pore through the documents. rite: (noun) A prescribed act or observance in a religious or other solemn ceremony; a custom, habit, or communal practic ..read more
Visit website
Beginning an Email with Dear?
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A recent request for linguistic advice ends with a plea that makes me feel like Obi Wan Kenobi: O Maeve, … I hope you can help because the silent scream starts every time I send an email. You’re my only hope. The required advice concerns the appropriate salutation for an email. Struggling to avoid rudeness The DWT reader, who says, “for decades I’ve simply addressed emails with the name of the recipient,” has had his confidence shaken by a recent comment by Miss Manners in the Washington Post. This column convinced me that I’m the only person in the world who does this, and that people wil ..read more
Visit website
A Plumb Interesting Set of Words
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
When I saw the following passage on the Simon Schuster site, I was plumb surprised: When twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter’s brother joins the Army and is sent to Vietnam, Jamie is plum thrilled. I expect one of the last major publishers to get their spellings right. The words plum and plumb are homophones, but not synonyms. Admittedly, in the Middle Ages, the spellings hadn’t quite settled down, but for the past couple of centuries, the different spellings have become established and denote different meanings. Plum Literally, the word plum refers to the fruit of Prunus domestica. From the fruit ..read more
Visit website
Urgency, Exigency, and Moonshots
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A reader asks: Can you explain clearly the difference between urgency and exigency? Thank you. Also, any thoughts on the concept or process of “moonshoot”? Heard the term when President Biden was talking about cancer. The nouns urgency and exigency are not synonyms, but they are related in thought. Exigency An exigency is an urgent need or unforeseen calamity. Anything, ranging from a wildfire to a car breakdown is an exigency: a situation that calls for immediate action to set things to rights. Exigencies can be chronic. People living in poverty have daily exigencies relating to food and s ..read more
Visit website
Pronunciation Guides
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A reader, wondering about the pronunciation of caricature, asks if I would consider including the phonetic pronunciation of words I discuss. Many years ago, when I first began writing for DWT, I provided phonetic transcriptions and talked rather a lot about pronunciation. Two considerations led to my dropping the transcriptions and treading carefully on matters of pronunciation. The first was the fact that I had difficulty deciding on what phonetic transcription to use. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was my first choice, but many non-specialist readers do not like to deal with it ..read more
Visit website
A Lie Is a Lie Is a Lie
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A web search for the term “crisis of truth” brings up more than a million hits. Public figures have always lied in order to advance their careers, but in former times, they had the grace to be embarrassed when caught in their lies. Nowadays, political candidates and their lawyers caught up in lies are quick to point out that there’s no law against lying. Merchants are bound by “truth in advertising” laws, but politicians are not. Nor, apparently are lawyers, at least not when they are not in court. Attorney Sidney Powell—sued for her lies about voting machines—asked the court to disregard her ..read more
Visit website
Seep and Steep
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
The writer of an article in the Washington Post about the funeral arrangements for the late Queen Elizabeth II remarked that the events were “seeped in tradition.” It may have been an inadvertent typo, but it may have been the result of not looking up the word to check its meaning. An event may be steeped in tradition, but not “seeped” in it. In The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and how to avoid them), Jack M. Bickham warns, “Don’t assume you know; look it up.” His remarks are directed at fiction writers, but the rule applies to journalists as well. Both verbs—seep and steep—have s ..read more
Visit website
Does “Raze” Need “to the Ground”?
Daily Writing Tips
by Maeve Maddox
1y ago
A reader asks about the sentence: “Vikings razed many monasteries to the ground.” Is not “to the ground” in this statement superfluous? Where else could it be razed to? The question puts me in mind of Lear’s response when his daughter proposed to reduce some of his amenities because he didn’t need them: Reason not the need! The poorest beggar in some rag is superfluous. Strictly speaking, “to the ground” is not needed after the word razed. The fraze.it site shows plenty of current examples that do without the phrase. Here are three: Neighbors say a garage there will be razed to make way ..read more
Visit website

Follow Daily Writing Tips on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR