Reading time: Just over 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: minatory. I go to a lot of opera these days. Not because I’m highly cultured (and, in any case, before the 20th century, opera was the music […]
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Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: ochre. Elizabeth Smart lives up to her last name with remarkable aplomb. Kidnapped as a 14-year-old in 2002, the remarkable young woman managed to preserve her life —
Word count: 271 words Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: quixotic. I’ve encountered the adjective quixotic in my reading practically since I started reading, almost 50 years ago. I can even recall looking it up
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Word count: 237 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: potemkin. If you’d asked me about the meaning of the word potemkin, three weeks ago, all I’d have been able to tell you
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Word count: 232 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: buoyant. I’m just guessing, but I probably learned the adjective buoyant when I was in grade 3. (If that sounds too braggy, let me
Word count: 363 words Reading time: About 1.5 minutes A great way to improve your writing is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. Today’s comes from Tobias Wolff. I’ve worshipped the writing of Tobias Wolff (pictured above) ever since I read his memoir This
He thought it when he saw the three women together Read More »
Word count: 269 words Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: picaresque. I don’t typically look at either Time Magazine or Macleans. But there I was, sitting in a doctor’s office, searching for something to read
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Word count: 202 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: bespoke. My husband and I had a dinner party last weekend and the word bespoke came up during conversation. Our daughter asked what
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Word count: 228 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: importunate. I’d never have predicted I’d discover a story on mushrooms — used as a packing material, replacing Styrofoam of all things —
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Word count: 212 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute A great way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. Today’s comes from Sebastian Barry. I’ve gone on a bit of a splurge with Irish literature, lately. First,
A sort of dark, private crying… Read More »
