• Equilibrium

    EQUILIBRIUM: (noun) balance . symmetry . equality . evenness There’s a lot of excitement associated with the launch of a new book, and I have been enjoying every minute of the launch of Dark Days on the Fairest Isle.  Launch day was January 31 when the book was made available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. I was elated when I received a colorful “Happy Publication Day!” email from the Marketing Department at my publisher. And friends have been very supportive with their telephone calls and congratulations. I know that all of you, my blog readers, will be getting the book. I believe in you.  And when you finish…

  • Rollicking

    ROLLICKING: (adjective) exuberantly lively and amusing . high-spirited . carefree . joyous I bought several books a few days ago. As usual, I started reading as soon as I got home and immediately settled on two, which I am reading alternately. One of them, the British bestseller  Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss, made me think of our word for this week. The book  is in every way rollicking, “exuberantly lively and amusing.” What  is the book all about? Punctuation. Yes, punctuation.  Author  Lynne Truss has placed this much-abused  and greatly neglected aspect of  the English language on an exalted level—albeit to a committed few, whom the author calls…

  • Contentment

    CONTENTMENT: (noun) satisfaction . fulfillment . gratification . gladness . happiness . delight With apologies to  William Shakespeare, I venture to  ask, Is this the summer of our discontent? All about us there seems to be  a highly charged atmosphere inhabited by a host of discontented people.   The good feelings associated with contentment–peace, joy, and satisfaction–are noticeably absent. The synonyms given above for the word contentment leave no doubt that having  it  denotes good feelings. Contentment is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves, and by extension, to  the world around us. Admittedly, we have to struggle against the pressures that tend to rob us of a…

  • Coming in Late July

    It’s a turbulent time on the island. A grandmother has disappeared.  Resisting her parents’ objections to her going back into the violence they had fled to settle in the U.S., Claire Wynter returns to the place of her childhood to help the family members there search for the missing grandmother. Right from the start, Dark Days on the Fairest Isle catapults the reader into a world  of conflict, betrayal, intrigue, and blossoming romance. Sharing the good news, Judith

  • Uncomfortable

    UNCOMFORTABLE: (adjective) causing discomfort or distress . painful . irritating . uneasy . conscious of stress or strain In popular culture, some words spring up like wild mushrooms after rain.  They proliferate with repeated use and  get a lot of air time, but then they fade out.  Remember “firestorm”? It’s use has waned. “Surreal” has also seen a lot of use over the past few years and is still viable, but it’s not as ever-present as it once was.  “Deal” is a word that rose to popularity about  two years ago.  Now governments don’t negotiate agreements or accords. They make deals. This week’s word, uncomfortable,  like “deal,” is  enjoying its…

  • Quotations

    The word this week is quotations, but this post is a bit different from the usual pattern, in that there is no definition or commentary on the word.  Quotations are used on  a variety of occasions, perhaps because they can be inspirational, motivational, affirming, or merely humorous. We can learn a lot from the force of a few words. Over the years, I have collected quotations from a variety of sources–books I’ve read, speeches I’ve  heard, professional conferences I’ve attended, sermons I’ve listened to.  Wherever I go, I listen for a good phrase or  a memorable thought, and I usually write it down to mull over later.   As a result,…

  • Influence

    INFLUENCE: (noun) effect  .  impact  .  power Some people, perhaps in an attempt to be modest, will insist that they have no influence, but everybody, to  a  greater or lesser degree, has influence. One  simple definition of the word influence from the Cambridge Dictionary is “the power to have an effect on people or things.”  Teachers should be the first to admit that they have influence–a lot of it. I forgot to celebrate  Teacher Appreciation Day last month. The event falls on May 7 each year.  When I was a high school principal, I was impressed by the way students and  their  parents showed their appreciation for their favorite teacher,…

  • Apostrophe

    APOSTROPHE:  (noun)  a punctuation mark that shows possession or marks the omission of one or more letters (contraction)  .  a figure of speech I have heard academics—mainly religion scholars  strutting their Greek—complain about the limitations of English  when they want to make a distinction in the meaning  of a word so that their audience will better understand what they’re trying to say. They bemoan the fact that English has only one word for love, whereas the Greek has three or four. Well, with the word apostrophe, English has two totally different meanings for the one word. I hope this is  good enough to mollify those scholars. We  know about the…

  • Cliche

    CLICHE:  (noun) a commonplace or trite expression  .  banality  .  a phrase or opinion that is overused I know you don’t wake up every morning with the word cliche on your mind, and perhaps the closest some of us  have come to thinking about the word may have been that time back in high school when an overzealous English teacher underlined a phrase in one of our essays and wrote “cliche” in the margin, leaving us wondering what a cliche was. Cliches are expressions that were once new and fresh but have been used so often and so extensively that they have lost their impact and are now empty of…

  • Fragrance

    FRAGRANCE: (noun) a pleasant, sweet smell .  scent .  perfume .  aroma .  bouquet This week we have a well-known, easily-recognized word.  Fragrance carries its own aroma;  it appeals to our senses. Some people, both male and female, are perfume aficionados. For them, the perfume counter in department stores is a favorite spot when they go shopping. Even those who aren’t buying anything linger there, attracted by its particular ambiance;  they try out the testers and sample their allure. The perfume industry today is huge, but ancient peoples loved their essences too.  Archaeologists have discovered that Egyptians were big fans of perfume. Hieroglyphics in Egyptian tombs have revealed that people…