by Jamie Chavez | Mar 21, 2011 | Guest Posts, Words & Language
Speaking of the Celtic music/Boston Celtics conundrum, it should be noted that we’re all just a word away from a pronunciation disaster. Here’s a great post from my guest, Billie Brownell … The Cotoneaster Disaster, or Me Talk Latin One Day When others in my high...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 7, 2011 | Authors & Other Writers, Books You Might Like
You might well ask. I stumbled across a little news blurb last week about a lawsuit filed against Kathryn Stockett, author of a truly fabulous first novel, The Help. (If you haven’t read it yet, run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore and buy this book. It’s that...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 1, 2011 | Miscellany, Words & Language
We use words to describe our world, and sometimes … well, we get a little sloppy. Why do people say “I’m Irish” when what they really mean is “I am an American of Irish descent”? Goodness, some seven generations have flown by since those ancestors left the Ould Sod in...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 31, 2011 | Guest Posts, Miscellany, Words & Language
Since we’ve been talking about names, now’s a good time to introduce another post from guest blogger* Billie Brownell … Are Nicknames a Dying Art Form? When I was in college, I became friends with a girl whose nickname, I thought, was “Duck.” It turned out that her...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 24, 2011 | The Writing Craft
I have been giggling over the character names used in a book I’m working on. (Actually, I worked on it several weeks ago, but am just now getting around to writing about it, so no extrapolations may be made. And the examples that follow are my own Frankensteinian...
