by Jamie Chavez | May 7, 2018 | Books You Might Like, Words & Language
Gosh, I love a good word. I love one as much now as I did when I was nine and learned the meaning of the word intercourse. (It means the connection or dealings between persons or groups, or an exchange, a discussion, especially of thoughts or feelings. Of course.) I...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 9, 2018 | Words & Language
Kids, we need to talk. You’ve just got to stop with the locking eyes. They locked eyes. Their eyes locked. It’s cliché, it’s overdone, it’s so stinkin’ melodramatic it makes me want to throw a fit in the middle of your manuscript. So I’m doing it here instead. A...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 12, 2018 | Words & Language
The day the Irishman was born, his mother watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade from her room in the Rotunda Hospital overlooking O’Connell Street and the Parnell monument. I’d love to be in Dublin for this parade, although they say some of the best St. Patrick’s Day...
by Jamie Chavez | Jun 12, 2017 | Words & Language
I love slang as much as the next person. As a frame of reference, slang instantly conveys humor, sarcasm, or solidarity. Just think about the meaning occupy has taken on recently, and the myriad ways it’s been applied. Pop culture (that is, the world we live in) is a...
by Jamie Chavez | Jun 5, 2017 | Words & Language
I am more sensitive than most to how many differences there are in the way native English speakers from different regions or countries wield the language. Some years ago in a lengthy conversation with a European friend—some of which had to do with how differently we...
