Your poetic license has been revoked!

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain
photo (with text added by the author).

For a reason I cannot fathom, some high school students seem to have the hardest time distinguishing between the terms fiction and nonfiction. Not so much in practice. They can often identify whether a book is “true” or not. But the labels “fiction” and “nonfiction” seem to baffle some of them. For example, they will often describe any book as a novel (when a novel, of course, is fictional by definition).

As a new college writer, remember this: You are working solidly in the realm of nonfiction. Unless you are taking a creative writing class (writing fiction, poetry and/or plays), your “poetic license” has been revoked. The word “license” means that someone has been given permission to do something, whether drive a car, cut hair or practice medicine. My dog-eared copy of Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines “poetic license” (under “license”) as: “deviation from fact, form, or rule by an artist or writer for the sake of effect gained.” In this manner, although the playwrights of Inherit the Wind obviously based their play on the real-life Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1920s America, they very specifically pointed out that their play “... does not pretend to be journalism. It is theatre.” Sometimes the lines blur. Frank McCourt’s groundbreaking memoir Angela’s Ashes, although ostensibly nonfiction, abandons quotation marks in dialogue in order to achieve McCourt’s desired effect.

Now facts and truth are two different matters. A great work of fiction (or a classic Greek myth, for that matter) can contain more “human truth” than a fact-based newspaper article or magazine essay. Nonetheless, your college essays need to be grounded in fact. As the late U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously remarked, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Rest assured, in college essay writing, you are seeking the truth. But in doing so, you do not have license to play fast and loose with the facts.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Do you know Bill? William? Willie? Try Shakespeare.

Source: Wikimedia Commons public
domain photo (with text added by
the author).

One perplexing characteristic I see in student writing -- and perhaps it is emblematic of the increasingly relaxed formality of modern life -- is the use of first names to indicate famous people (usually authors) in the papers I grade. Thus, I’ll read a sentence like the following: “Some scholars believe that William wrote Macbeth in 1603 to coincide with the investiture of King James of Scotland.” Wow, my 16-year-old high school student is on a first-name basis with William Shakespeare. Who knew?

This usage of first names is, of course, improper. The right way is to use the full name upon first reference, and then last name only (or pronouns) for subsequent references. Thus: “William Shakespeare … he … Shakespeare … he … he … Shakespeare,” etc. Obviously, in a lengthy essay or a book-length work, the full name will be repeated occasionally.

The only time it’s appropriate to reference first name only would be when describing the author as a child. It would sound too stiff to refer to Shakespeare asleep in his crib or teething. It’s okay to use William or Will (or whatever his parents called him) in that case.

As for me? I’m Mister Dial to my high school students. I tell them that my parents named me “Mister” because they knew I was going to become a teacher…

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Let some air out of those gasbag expressions!

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain
photo (with text added by the author).

The sting from some cutting remarks scribbled on your papers by teachers of yore can last a lifetime. For example, I’ll never forget the venomous response my use of the pompous phrase “So I say” (as a lead-in to one of my conclusions) elicited from my high school English teacher. Needless to say, until this very moment, I had never written “So I say” again in my life.

Likewise, I often cross out “I believe” (as well as "My opinion is that...") in student papers. Though “I believe” is certainly less pretentious-sounding than “So I say,” it is nevertheless redundant. If you are writing a paper and asserting your beliefs, then there is seldom any reason to write “I believe” in it. After all, we know it’s what you believe because you’re the one writing it. Just say it!

Now quick, puncture those gasbag expressions and let the wind out before your prose explodes!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

That qualifier is so very really totally NOT necessary!

One type of word that too frequently springs up like a noxious weed in student writing is the qualifier/intensifier. Intensifiers are words like very, really, actually, and truly. Most of the time, they are either: 1.) not needed at all; or 2.) best eliminated by thinking of a better word (adjective, adverb or verb), thus embedding the “very-ness” into the newer, better word.

Let’s take for example the ever (over) popular intensifier “very,” a word I habitually cross out in student writing. Instead of writing that a building is “very tall” -- yawn, how blandly vague! -- why not describe the building as “monolithic” or “gargantuan,” both words that encapsulate the “very-ness” (and some massiveness too) into the “tallness”?

If “she runs really fast,” the intensifier “really” modifies the adverb “fast,” which in turn modifies the verb “runs.” So why not just replace the intensifier AND the adverb with a stronger verb? “She sprints” or “she dashes.”

Here’s another good example. Frequently, where I work, teachers will receive a message that announces, “Fire drills will be conducted today unless it is actively raining.” This message always leaves me scratching my head. How is “actively raining” different from “raining”?... Anytime you can eliminate an unnecessary word, that’s a great and beautiful revision and you should celebrate accordingly!

Perhaps the worst offenders are “truly” and “actually.” If “she is truly going to do it,” then “she is going to do it.” If “he handed me an actual loaf of bread,” then “he handed me a loaf of bread.” Adding “truly” or “actually” doesn’t make an object or action more real than it already is. In recent years, I’ve seen “physically” used too often as well. “The man physically handed me a dollar bill.” Ooookaaayyy… How about, “The man handed me a dollar bill” instead?

So, in sum, you should truly, really and actually stop using these unnecessary qualifiers and intensifiers!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Size matters … when writing description

Source: Wikimedia Commons
 public domain photo

In my high school classroom, we’ve just finished reading the novella “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin, a fantastic story I had mentioned in an earlier post. One superior characteristic of this story is Martin’s vivid use of description, and one aspect of his descriptions that struck me this year is his use of familiar comparisons to describe size. Yes, size matters.

Rather than describe the dimensions of an object (as in “four feet wide by two feet tall”), which might indeed be appropriate for a mechanical drawing or blueprint, Martin compares the size of unknown, imaginary things to recognizable objects.

“Sandkings” is a science fiction/horror story full of imaginary creatures that grow in size as the story progresses. The “maws” are queen bee-like creatures that control ant-like “mobiles” called sandkings. Both of these fictional creatures grow to match the size of their surrounding environment. Here are some of the descriptions that Martin employs.

Early on, as a salesperson in a “pet” store describes the maw:

“The maw lives in the castle. Maw is my name for her. A pun, if you will; the thing is mother and stomach both. Female, large as your fist, immobile.”

Then, later, when sandkings bearing their maw escape from a larger tank:

“He watched as a column took shape, a living, writhing square of sandkings, bearing something, something slimy and featureless, a piece of raw meat big as a man's head. They began to carry it away from the tank. It pulsed.”

At the beginning of the story, the ant-like sandking mobiles live in a small tank at the “pet” store:

“It still looked like an insect to his eyes. Barely as long as his fingernail, six-limbed, with six tiny eyes set all around its body.”

Later, the sandkings escape from a larger tank in the main character’s house:

“They were larger than he remembered. Some were almost as big as his thumb.”

Later still, an escaped sandking attacks one of the other characters in the story:

“A great white sandking had clamped itself around her wrist. Blood welled through her skinthins where its mandibles had sunk in. It was fully as large as her hand.”

Finally, an escaped sandking menaces the main character:

“Something moved from shadow into light. A pale shape on the seat of his skimmer. It was as long as his forearm. Its mandibles clacked together softly, and it looked up at him from six small eyes set all around its body.”

Fist to head; fingernail to thumb to hand to forearm. With these descriptions, a reader need only consult his or her own body to sense the size of the creatures being described. How much more real and vivid this is than “two inches long,” etc. One way to help readers understand the unfamiliar (as in science fiction) is to relate it to the familiar. Furthermore, the increasing size of the creatures helps to mark the passage of time and to establish the chronological sequence of the story.

As writers of creative nonfiction such as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and many others have recognized for decades, the techniques of fiction can inform nonfiction writing too. Writing an essay for sociology or economics class does not restrict you to boring, bland descriptions. Whenever possible, make them vivid and make them real.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Writing dialogue: show, don’t tell

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain
 photo (with text added by the author).

One of the mantras in a creative writing class is “show, don’t tell.” In other words, in a work of fiction, show the characters doing things (performing actions); don’t talk about them doing things. The distinction can be subtle. For example, instead of “the man became frightened of the approaching train,” rather write that “his face turned pale and his eyes grew wide as he saw the train rush toward him.” The reader will “get it” from the details you provide that this dude is scared of the onrushing locomotive.

Another way to “show” characters doing things is through effective use of dialogue. Dialogue can be used in nonfiction as well as in fiction. For example, you may have conducted an interview with a source and want to insert a portion of the interview directly into your essay or research paper. Or you may be reconstructing dialogue from a past event based on recollections of the participants. Also, nonfiction authors sometimes write hypothetical dialogues to set a scene or illustrate a point.

At any rate, several years ago, as part of a lesson on writing dialogue, I took a passage of dialogue from a published story and reworked it so that it was badly written. So that it “tells, not shows” – the opposite of what a good writer strives to do.

Here is my rewritten passage of dialogue, taken from the short story “The Shelter” by Rod Serling:

      Paul came up from the basement and asked his father what else he should bring downstairs. Paul’s father asked his son if he had brought all the canned goods to the basement. Paul said that he brought all the canned goods to the basement that he could find. Paul’s mother, Grace, asked the boy if he had cleared out the fruit cellar. Paul said that he had.

      Paul’s father told his son to get his bag from the bedroom and to bring that down, too. Paul asked about the books and other things. Grace became angry and shouted at her son, telling him to get his father’s bag.

Clearly, this passage as currently written is wretched. It talks about people talking instead of showing them talking (through dialogue).

Here is the (so much better!) original:

Paul came up from the basement.

“What else, pop?”

“All the canned goods down?”

“All that I could find.”

“How about the fruit cellar?” Grace asked him, keeping her voice steady.

“I put all those in too,” Paul responded.

“Get my bag from the bedroom,” Stockton said. “Put that down there, too.”

“What about books and stuff?” Paul said.

When Grace spoke her voice broke and the words came out tight and loud -- louder than her son could ever remember, and different, too.

“Dammit! Your father told you to get his bag--!”

Show, don’t tell.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Get rid of clutter -- don’t be a word hoarder!

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain photo

You’ve probably seen the reality TV series “Hoarders: Buried Alive,” which shows the unseemly lifestyles of people compulsively unable to part with any of their material possessions. Well, like apartments and houses, sentences and paragraphs and essays can also become cluttered with too much stuff -- in this case, unnecessary words and phrases.

Revision, the process at the heart of all good writing, is largely about deciding to eliminate words and unnecessary material -- the same way a butcher trims fat from a prime cut of beef. Some of these decisions are easy and others difficult. Getting rid of unnecessary words contained in empty expressions and wordy constructions is easy. For example, as a journalism student I was taught never to use the phrase “the fact that,” which can often be replaced with simply “that.” Much worse was “due to the fact that,” a cumbersome phrase that even today makes me break out in hives. “We went to the store due to the fact that we needed some bread” can always be shortened to “We went to the store because we needed some bread.” One word instead of five is always a bargain. Never write “due to the fact that.”

Other cuts can be more painful, however. These are the beautiful, polished little gems (phrases, sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs) that just don’t fit in with the topic or focus of your essay. We love them because they are so clever. Creative writing teachers have a blunt slogan to describe the act of cutting these precious statements. They say you have to “murder your darlings.” Anything that interferes with clarity and communication, no matter how lovely, must go. Those are the tough cuts to swallow, but swallow them we must.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

These are a few of my least favorite things... (5 pet peeves of an English teacher)

Here are five of my pet peeves from student writing in recent years.

1.) Mistakenly writing “defiantly” instead of “definitely.” Bill Gates is partly to blame for this. When you misspell “definitely” and right-click in Microsoft Word to get a list of possible spellings, for some reason the word “defiantly” consistently pops up at the top of the pick-list. This leads to an overabundance of adolescent defiance in student-written sentences. For example, “I will defiantly not make that mistake again!”

2.) Misspelling “lose” as “loose.” To lose is the opposite of to win. Loose, on the other hand, is the opposite of tight. Their spellings are not interchangeable. Just remember -- when you lose something, lose an “o.”

3.) Spelling “all right” as one word: “alright.” What’s wrong with this? It’s “alwrong.”

4.) Using “over” instead of “more than” in terms of number. My opposition to this usage is a remnant from my newspaper days and the guidance of the authoritative Associated Press Stylebook. “Over” indicates a spatial relationship, as in “My hand is over the table,” whereas “more than” indicates number. “We have more than 20 desks in the classroom.” By this guidance, you would never write, “We have over 20 desks in the classroom.” Having worked up my dander about this issue, the latest guidance from the AP Stylebook apparently now allows “over” in such situations (http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/244240/ap-removes-distinction-between-over-and-more-than/). I suppose this just proves the evolutionary nature of language. (Next time we’ll cover “less than” vs. “fewer than”).

5.) The last pet peeve mystifies me. For some unfathomable reason, students consistently use the plural “women” in place of singular “woman.” As in the sentence, “A women put on her dress.” In high school writing assignments, girls seem to make this mistake as often as boys do. But students never reverse “men” and “man.” Alas, I have no rational explanation for this.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Grammar and the engineering mind

Source: photo taken by the author.

Are you a linear thinker? Do you have what I like to call an "engineering mind" accustomed to tracking logical propositions from A to B to C? If so, then that bodes well for you -- both in college and in life. However, one thing I've noticed is that students with highly developed, logical, engineering mindsets sometimes chafe at the "rules" of grammar. This is probably because language (and certainly the English language) was not developed as a system, but instead grew out of usage, from people interacting and communicating with each other. (The "rules" were applied after-the-fact). Thus, language developed (and continues to develop) organically and dynamically like a living organism. As such, it is more akin to biology than physics.

When a young child learns about past tense words that end in the -ed suffix -- talked, walked, borrowed, etc. -- the child will (very logically) follow this system and come up with words like "goed" instead of “went” and "buyed" instead of “bought.” Past tense verbs like “went” and “bought” are the infamous irregular verbs we all memorized as schoolchildren. But why are they irregular? Certainly, no logical (or even sane) person would decide that we should have a few exceptions to the rule "just because." Understanding the history of words will help. The modern word “went,” for example, was originally the past tense of the Middle English word "wenden" and later the archaic-sounding English verb “to wend” (meaning to follow a course or travel or go), but over time it has become the past tense of “go,” and so poor “goed” was left off the trip.

Everyday verbal language (unlike a mathematical or computer language) never springs from an entirely logical system. In fact, years ago some linguists got together and tried to invent an artificial international language from scratch. You can look it up today. It’s called Esperanto. Nobody uses it.

So if you possess an “engineering mind” and always seek logical connections, you need to familiarize yourself with the historical development of the English language. Do that and the irregularities should start to make more sense.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Stuff it in your desk drawer!

Source: photo taken by the author.

How can you tell if something you've written has real staying power and lasting value? Perhaps you've heard writers talk about the fabled “desk drawer.” If given the luxury of time, writers can set aside their early drafts (by, for example, putting them in a desk drawer) and then pull them out months -- maybe even years -- later to look at them with “fresh eyes” for revision. Basically, the extended time away turns you into a different reader than you were while writing the first draft, and you are sure to identify areas for improvement that you overlooked in the heat of first-draft creation. Of course, a daily newspaper writer on deadline does not enjoy this luxury of time (even less today, in the era of 24-hour internet news). Nor, certainly, does a student scratching out an essay within a time limit for a “writing on demand” standardized test.

This “desk drawer” theory applies to reading as well as writing. Spending “time away” from a book and then re-reading it will tell you whether or not it’s a worthy book. Should you find yourself later in life re-reading a book you either loved or hated in school, you will sometimes discover you now hold the opposite of your former opinion about it. That’s not because the book has changed, but because you have. A substantial chunk of life experience has made you a different person … and a different reader. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it, we never step in the same river twice. The current has irrevocably changed the river just as time has altered us.

Sometimes, however, a book holds up and continues to impress us throughout the stages of our life. These books are the keepers. For example, when I was a teenager, my brother-in-law left an old copy of the science magazine Omni at our family home. Bored one day, I picked it up to read and was drawn into the novella “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin (probably due to an accompanying illustration). I recall tearing through the pages of this gripping science fiction/horror tale, completely unable to stop reading. Years later, I stumbled across the same story -- now out of print -- in an anthology of award-winning science fiction tales. Re-reading Martin’s story as an adult, I was still captivated. Today, using a battered photocopy, I teach “Sandkings” at the start of every school year as a “can’t miss” story. Even the most reluctant readers will be swept up by its suspense and startling imagery. “Sandkings” is a little known masterpiece of suspense, pacing, structure, foreshadowing, and establishing mood.

As a young man, I read with keen interest the nonfiction book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer upon its first publication. About ten years later, when I made a mid-career change into teaching, I re-read the book with an eye toward making it a summer-reading assignment, and I thought, “Wow, this is still an awesome book.” Ten years after that, I re-read it yet again as I considered adding it to my regular 11th-grade curriculum, and I thought, “WOW, this is STILL an awesome book!” Across a span of 20 years, from age 30 to 50, Into the Wild has continued to have a profound impact on me. As it does also on the teenagers I teach. Whether they consider Chris McCandless to be a dreamy impractical fool, or a profound transcendental thinker, or something in between, few of my students are apathetic about his portrayal in the book.

So remember, whether you’re writing or reading, if you want to find the really good stuff, give it some time!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Active reading: read with a pen!

Source: photo taken by the author.

You've probably heard the term “‘active listening” before. That’s the process of using body language, asking questions, etc. to engage in meaningful conversation. You have heard of this, yes? (Nod now so I know you've been listening). OK, there is also such a thing as “active reading,” but I prefer to call active reading “reading with a pen.” Active reading involves such strategies as highlighting text and taking notes, writing down questions raised by the text, noting other writers or works of literature the text reminds you of, and sometimes disagreeing with the text.

So if this is a blog about writing, why discuss reading? Because the two are inextricably linked. In order to become a good writer, you must be a curious (and preferably, a voracious) reader. After all, if you are not familiar with what else has already been written, how can you expect to write anything novel? Just as a lawyer must be well versed in the precedents of case law, a writer has to know the body of work that he or she stands upon.

And when you do read, don’t read passively. If you are a college student, one beautiful benefit is that you own the books you purchase for classes. Therefore, you can write in them as much as you like. And do so! I once heard a teacher say that no book has truly been read unless it is marked up, creased and torn, and covered with stains. So go ahead and cover those books with notes, questions, underlined ideas and sentences, you name it. The process of underlining, highlighting and making notes in the margins of a book is called annotating a text. You should get in the habit of making many annotations. As a college student, I used to write notes like “cf. Steinbeck” in the margin of literature anthologies. “Cf.” is the abbreviation for “confer,” and I was reminding myself that a passage in the anthology reminded me of something I had previously read by John Steinbeck and to go and check the applicable Steinbeck passage.

Remember, reading is active, not passive. You are engaged in a conversation with the text. Whether the author of last week’s best seller or the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle from thousands of years ago, writers are talking to you, their reader. So go ahead and talk back to them!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Hey fathead, knock off the ad hominem attacks!

One type of logical fallacy commonly seen, especially in today's political climate, is the ad hominem attack. The strange looking term ad hominem is Latin for "to the man [person]," and an ad hominem attack is one where the character of the person proposing an idea is criticized rather than the idea itself. Most young people I know are intimately familiar with the ad hominem attack from arguments with their siblings. For example, you and your kid brother are debating about who should get the larger bedroom in a new house. Your kid brother points out that he has more material possessions than you do, so logic dictates that he should take the larger bedroom, to which you reply: "Shut up, fathead!" Yes, you've engaged in a (very rudimentary) form of ad hominem attack. Rather than countering kid brother's logic, you have (verbally) assaulted his person. Of course, our current political climate is a hotbed for such personal attacks. Just think back to the last two United States presidents. Bumper stickers about George W. Bush proclaimed cruelly that “Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot.” And today, facebook timelines are rife with vitriol against current president Barack Obama. Seldom do these attacks reveal anything substantial about ideas or policies.

A less obvious, but still pervasive, form of ad hominem attack occurs when, for example, the congressional representative proposing a new military affairs bill is criticized for not being a veteran. Notice that this type of attack does not seriously consider the potential merits or deficiencies of the proposed bill.

So remember, attack the argument and not the man (or woman). Better yet, try listening to the argument. By keeping an open mind, you might even learn something and your own argument could become stronger and more nuanced in the process.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Reading like a writer

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain image.

The ability to read like a writer is one important skill you’ll need to master to become a successful college composition student. I always like to say that “reading like a writer” is analogous to “looking at a building like an architect.” I am not an architect, but I can still look at a building and appreciate its aesthetic beauty. But a trained architect can look at a building, appreciate its aesthetic qualities, and also expertly explain the construction and design techniques that went into making the building beautiful. In a like manner, a writer can read a story or essay and appreciate it aesthetically, but also read to understand how the piece of literature was constructed. A writer may ask, what techniques did the author use to create certain effects, and how can I experiment with those same techniques in my own writing? This is why I’m a big fan of reading a story or essay more than once. Read the first time for basic understanding and aesthetic enjoyment. Then read the second time with the “eye of a writer” to comprehend the design elements that led to your enjoyment (or perhaps the design flaws that led to your consternation!). To this end, most readings in a good composition class will serve as both materials to prompt ideas for writing topics and class discussion and as models of accomplished writing styles that can be imitated. Remember, writers are never “just” reading, but always seeking fresh techniques to hone their craft.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

What do bikinis and marathons have in common?

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain photo.

Well, you certainly wouldn't want to run one in the other, but let’s talk about words...

Where do words come from? This is one of the questions many students (and adults) never really think about. Words don’t appear in mid-air by magic. And thankfully, there is no governmental Ministry of English that issues an approved lexicon. Words develop organically and dynamically through usage, and they also change over time. Sometimes the spelling of a word morphs over time to match its pronunciation, and sometimes the other way around. For example, I've seen the word “lose” (the opposite of win) misspelled as “loose” (the opposite of tight) so frequently that I suppose dictionaries will soon recognize “loose” as an acceptable alternate spelling for “lose.” Sometimes existing words gather new, additional meanings; other times words drop out of usage and are qualified in the dictionary as obsolete or archaic. And sometimes new words are added to English by interaction with other languages and cultures. War, immigration, economic trade and various other cultural interactions and clashes add words to our language all the time. For example, the English word “macho” comes from Spanish, although this word in English has a negative connotation (Chauvinistic behavior) but in Spanish has a positive connotation (describing a strong and wise family patriarch).

Unlike Spanish, French and Italian (all of which descended directly from Latin), English began life as a Germanic language known as Old English. This language differs so much from modern English that today Old English must be studied like a foreign tongue. With the conquest of England by the Norman French (after the Battle of Hastings in 1066), Old English was infused with French (and the Latin contained within French) and softened into Middle English. With a glossary of a few words, Middle English (the medieval language of Geoffrey Chaucer) can be understood by most modern readers. Contrary to popular opinion (and the moans of today’s students), the much later Elizabethan English (the language of Shakespeare) is considered modern English.

One interesting exercise is to scour a good dictionary that contains each word’s etymology, then choose an interesting word, and research a brief “history of a word.” By tracing the roots and derivations of words through history -- whether from ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, French, Old Norse, or other languages -- you can gain great insight into English word meanings and connotations. For example, some words come from places. A bikini, the swimsuit in the title of this post, gained its name from the Pacific ocean atoll of Bikini, which after World War 2 was pulverized by U.S. nuclear bomb tests. The two-piece bathing suit’s designer hoped his invention would have an “explosive” impact on fashion akin to the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll (what a sad analogy). A marathon, the long footrace, comes from the name of a city in ancient Greece. According to the stories of antiquity, a Greek messenger ran from Marathon to Athens (a distance purportedly of 26 miles, roughly the same as a modern-day marathon race) to announce victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. In the story, the messenger shouts “Victory!” and immediately drops dead from exhaustion.

How about this one? Bedlam means the eruption of chaos, anarchy and craziness, as in the sentence, “It was total bedlam in the out-of-control classroom.” This word is derived from Bethlehem, the name of the lunatic asylum in old London that locals with cockney accents pronounced “Bed’lam.” In English, words often shrink and contract. Think of the package delivery business Federal Express becoming FedEx.

Besides places, words can also come from the names of people, such as Chauvinism (mentioned earlier in this post), but perhaps we’ll name some of those in a later post!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.