Words Used Wrongly

It's Day W in the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge. (Or should I write that "W?" Or 'W?' W?) Anyway, I had trouble coming up with a topic to write about. I finally settled on writing about where I live. (Where I Live. Get it? Except I was going to title the piece "The Wonders of My World.") But I Woke up With a Whole new idea even before the cat Worried me aWake, Which he often does by playing With the picture hanging over my bedside table.

Who knew there Were so many W Words in my life?

Just before I woke I was dreaming. In the dream my friend Lou was writing the word "periodontal" and I was reading over her shoulder. I know. I know. It's rude to read over someone's shoulder.

I remember thinking her hand-writing was not what I expected. It was big and bold. Rounded like a high school girl who's practiced her letters over and over to develop her style. In the waking world, I've never seen her handwriting. Her written communications with me have all been via email.

For some reason, she was dissatisfied with the word and she looked it up in a dictionary. Yes, a hard-bound book. That didn't surprise me. She's a retired librarian and of course she would turn to a book rather than look it up on her phone. Thinking back on it, that was my husband's American Heritage Dictionary. I recognize the tattered dust jacket.

When I woke, I knew my W-Day had to be "Words Used Wrongly." I can use all those photos some other day.

Everyone has pet peeves -- drivers who change lanes without signalling, people who squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, husbands who hang clothes willy-nilly. Thinking people hang like shirts with like shirts, pants with pants, suits with suits. And dirty clothes should be dropped into the dirty-clothes basket not beside it. I leave lights on, get up early and don't start the coffee, and don't take the most efficient route to my destination. (You've probably noticed that last one about me.)

Anyway, using words wrongly is altogether too common. Television reporters are most likely to get me to shout the word they should have used. I'm a bit more restrained with friends, acquaintances, and strangers on the train. If I'm not tired or stressed. Or if they haven't just done it one too many times.

Canada Geese! Not Canadian. These geese were hatched right here in Colorado. They've probably never been to Canada.

No one has a "long road to hoe." Think about this. Why on earth would someone hoe a road? What does one do with a hoe? Haven't they ever seen a cotton field? Well, maybe not. But a garden, then? With rows of spinach and green beans and carrots. That's what people may have a long one of to hoe. A row of plants!

Unless I misunderstand and they're saying 'ho, talking about street walkers who actually walk a long street rather than standing on the corner.

And, No! An airplane crash does not make you feel badly unless you were in the crash and now your sense of touch is impaired. Would you feel sadly about a plane crash? No. You'd say you felt sad. Then say you feel bad about the plane crash. Adding -ly doesn't make you sound educated.

Folks, -ly makes a word an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. So we can want something really badly. Here, badly modifies want and really modifies badly. Now, you're educated, at least about adverbs.

And the word fewer is NOT the same as less. If a quantity can be counted and one hasn't as many, then he has fewer. Minutes can be counted so fewer is proper. Time cannot be counted so less is proper.

And don't get me started on defensed instead of defended or impacted instead of affected.

I could go on for hours. And you could, too. But I'm hungry so I'm going to go make my breakfast. Or is that fix my breakfast? Prepare my breakfast!

E is for Expository Writing

 

E is for Expository Writing

            At which I am very good. Expository is the adjectival form of the word exposition, which is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as a statement or rhetorical discourse intended to give information about or an explanation of  . . . . The very definition of the word can send you to the cereal box in search of something interesting to read.

As a fiction writer expository writing is the bane of my existence. Well, that and clichés. I am not alone in this. Robert Jordan, author of the fantasy series Wheel of Time, writes an exciting story filled with heroes and heroines who must battle against terrifying beasts and stupefyingly evil villains to save the world from the Dark Lord. So exciting that I stay up too late to see what happens next. And this is my second time through these fourteen books. So actually I know what happens next. And I love it.

BUT, it makes me crazy when he describes in detail the manner of dress peculiar to each country in the world every time one of those citizens appears in the story. Or describes in detail the varied forms trollocs come in, and that Ogeir have eyes “the size of tea cups.”

I understand the need to tell readers everything the author knows about his world or his characters or their back stories. But does the reader have the same need. Indeed, do they have the same interest and enthusiasm in all the things the author has researched, imagined, and invented? Even more importantly, is this information necessary for the reader to understand the story?

For example, my character must travel from Oklahoma City to Denver. Nothing in particular happens on the trip to affect the story. The only thing that is important is that three chapters into the story he be in Denver instead of Oklahoma City.

In my research I can discover that he could drive north on I-35 to Salina, Kansas, turn west onto I-70, pass through open prairie, pass by several wind farms, and see a herd of antelope. But I don’t have to share all that with my reader.

I can just say, Exhausted from his eleven hour drive from Oklahoma City, Brad fell asleep at the wheel and ran head-on into a semi.

Done and dusted.