Word: noun
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Actually, it does not take much special skill to add emotional baggage to a word. Almost any noun can be infused with skepticism and doubt through the use of the word socalled. Thus a friend in disfavor can become a so-called friend, and similarly the nation's leaders can become so-called leaders. Many other words can be handily tilted by shortening, by prefixes and suffixes, by the reduction of formal to familiar forms. The word politician, which may carry enough downbeat connotation for most tastes, can be given additional unsavoriness by truncation: pol. By prefacing liberal...
...example, Wright often places a prose poem's main subject in its title, a technique which allows the first lines to focus on an action rather than a noun. Hence the line "laying the foundations of a community, she labors all alone" carries an immediate impetus in a poem called "Regret for a Spider...
...about as complex as the material gets. (He tries to play mind games with himself sometimes. Luciano tells us, until someone reminds him he's playing with a handicap.) Stylistically, you or I could have written the book. Luciano (or Fisher) could have written something other than simple sentences, Noun, verb, object, there's little embellishment. The stories are meant to give pleasure on their own, and generally they do, but like a diet of Coke and cookies, too much simplicity leaves you craving for more substantial food for thought. But joining the ranks of the literati...
...change verbs to nouns, and thus eliminate the true subject of the sentence. Some common verb-to-noun endings that should be avoided are: ing, -tion, -al. For example, use "we removed" instead of "the removal...
...career devoted to self-effacement, and conducted in Cincinnati, naturally leads to the question, Who is Ken Anderson? All football fans remember that he comes from an unlikely Lutheran institution in Rock Island, Ill., "little-known Augustana College" (in footballese, adjective and noun are welded together, as in "wartorn Middle East"). Also little known is the general opinion that if N.F.L. computers were programmed to construct the ideal quarterback, they would spit out Kenny Anderson. He is strong, quick (4.8 sec. over 40 yds.), with outstanding peripheral vision and, at 6 ft. 3 in., tall enough to throw over...