Did you know that the color orange was named for the fruit, and not the other way around? That historical quirk can make it difficult to find other words for orange. Languages other than English also use the same word to describe both the fruit and the color, and many orange pigments, such as gamboge, vary in intensity from yellow to brown.
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With autumn come cold and dreary days, which grow steadily shorter as the season progresses into winter. Because this lack of sunlight contributes to generally depressed attitudes throughout the cooler months, this week’s Words on Wednesdays is dedicated to finding the writers in the audience eight excellent words to describe darkness. For the gothic lit fans in the audience: a full half of these words are literary terms, so fill up your inkwells and prepare! Continue reading
I’m beginning to notice a theme this week: philosophy, religion, and sevens. Not that I mind themes; they can make things so much more interesting. This week’s Words on Wednesdays post will be of particular interest to fantasy writers in all genres, as well as anyone writing in the field of comparative religion. Regardless of whether you fit this bill or not, I hope you will enjoy reading through this list as much as I enjoyed compiling it. Continue reading
We don’t think of fall as a time for beginnings, except perhaps as the beginning of the end. It’s a mild season set between two harsh ones, the last of which is winter: the cold, dark sleep. But this year, as summer ends and we all gear up to face another season, another semester, another year, I encourage you to think of autumn, or any season, as an opportunity for a new start. And then, while we wait for NaNoWriMo to come along, take your newfound outlook and these very fitting words and do something with them. Continue reading
I think everyone has a word or two that reads differently silently from aloud. Sometimes it’s done out of ignorance, or habit, or even for fun. Mine is Eleanor. In my head, it has four syllables and the last two rhyme with “manor.” I know that it isn’t correct, and I wouldn’t dream of purposefully mispronouncing someone’s name, but somehow that diphthong in the middle has never set well with me. Continue reading