12.07
Another one for the activity box. Thanks to Paul for pointing it out.
One of the great resources over at Wordsmith.org is a newsletter called A.Word.A.Day. Today’s word is “rhopalic,” which apparently means “having each successive word longer by a letter or syllable.” Along with the word, the site challenges readers to submit “a rhopalic newspaper headline (can be of increasing or decreasing word lengths) for a real or imaginary event.”
I gave it a go:
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09.03
Look! It’s unnecessary quotation mark’s ugly cousin, the unnecessary apostrophe. Usually only spotted preceding an “s,” this is a rare and exciting find.
08.31
I just read Landor’s press release about the identity they created for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. This is one of the more somber identity assignments imaginable, and I think they’ve done a nice job.
And, for the most part, the press release does a good job of explaining the rationale behind the design (although I was surprised it didn’t mention the blue 11’s similarity to a ‘pause’ icon, which is a potentially interesting message). But one word in the press release rubbed me the wrong way. Here’s the line:
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07.02
Scene: Rob and a friend wait for the molasses-powered elevator at the Sheraton San Diego. The emergency exit floor-plan is posted nearby.
Rob: “Egress?”
Jim: “Yeah. It’s the opposite of ‘ingress.’”
Jim was right. “Egress” is the opposite of “ingress.” I was impressed by the demonstration of verbal aptitude. But he’d also failed to see my point.
Jim, realizing why I’d pointed it out: “Oh, yeah…I don’t know why they didn’t just say ‘Exit.’”
This sign reminds me of at least three thoughts to keep in mind for those of us tasked with choosing the right words.
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06.23
Although I’d planned on entering, I narrowly missed the deadline (oops) for 2009 submissions to New Times’ 55 Fiction competition, which calls on readers to submit 55-word fictional stories. So I was excited to hear the announcement of NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction Contest, requiring authors to write stories that can easily be read out loud within three minutes (under 600 words, according to them, but shorter is fine).
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05.14
I posted about this nerdy pet peeve of mine awhile back. Here it is rearing its ugly head again, this time accompanied by its friend, Unnecessary Capitalization.
(I haven’t won yet.) This extraneous punctuation got me thinking about people’s natural tendency to over-complicate things like names and logos, not to mention products and product features. Why is it so difficult to make things simple? And is simplicity really what we want, anyway?
