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Word Stash
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Samples of the gems which glitter and await the reader inside Bill Casselmans Word Stash:
Ever helpful, I offer readers handy tips not just about words but about living. In a chapter on avoiding tired weather words, I write Likewise disdained in weather response is understatement. When a small child is blown away down the block towards an operating hay-baling machine, dont say, Looks like the breeze has freshened. On the contrary, scream and run madly to retrieve the aerial infant.
But, during weather commentaries, overstatement may also be scorned. At the onset of a thunder-clap which sends a pet dachshund under grandmothers shawl, do not leap on the barbeque canopy and shout, Action stations!
What was my aim in writing this collection of short essays about language? In each chapter I tried to select one word not merely rare, but a choice vocable that is in fact le mot recherch, a term uncommon to the point of pretentiousness. Email response reveals that readers of my work want to expand their vocabularies. So why else am I here, if not to foist upon innocent readers the most obscure word-mosses scraped from oblivions grotto?
With that modest caution then, I invite readers to press onward, toward the broad, sunlit uplands of enlightenment, where new words dwell.
Ever helpful, I offer readers handy tips not just about words but about living. In a chapter on avoiding tired weather words, I write Likewise disdained in weather response is understatement. When a small child is blown away down the block towards an operating hay-baling machine, dont say, Looks like the breeze has freshened. On the contrary, scream and run madly to retrieve the aerial infant.
But, during weather commentaries, overstatement may also be scorned. At the onset of a thunder-clap which sends a pet dachshund under grandmothers shawl, do not leap on the barbeque canopy and shout, Action stations!
What was my aim in writing this collection of short essays about language? In each chapter I tried to select one word not merely rare, but a choice vocable that is in fact le mot recherch, a term uncommon to the point of pretentiousness. Email response reveals that readers of my work want to expand their vocabularies. So why else am I here, if not to foist upon innocent readers the most obscure word-mosses scraped from oblivions grotto?
With that modest caution then, I invite readers to press onward, toward the broad, sunlit uplands of enlightenment, where new words dwell.
Author
Bill Casselman
Bill Casselman has written fourteen books about words and one medical dictionary. He was a columnist for Maclean’s magazine and Canadian Geographic, and a producer at CBC Radio and CBC TV for many years. His books include the bestselling Canadian Sayings in three volumes, As the Canoe Tips: Comic Scenes from Canadian Life and Canadian Garden Words. His current popular studies of world-wide words continue on his website: www.wordingroom.com
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Word Stash - Bill Casselman
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