Semantics

SUPPLY AND DEMAND -- Words don't always come on demand. Writers struggle for the best word -- the most effective word -- to convey a meaning, an image, or a message. But much also depends on the recipient -- the reader or the listener -- who brings a set of experiences, a history of beliefs and practices, which attach to a word or phrase new meanings, alternate meanings, or meanings that the writer did not intend to send or may not have thought of when framing the sentence. This is why so many domestic arguments are really about semantics, not issues.
Or, as comedian Dave Gardner put it, "What do it look like to both of us? Now we gettin' someplace."

PUNCHY -- Consider why style manuals often recommend Anglo-Saxon short verbs over polysyllabic Latin-based verbs. Multiple sounds in a single word tend to overwhelm the thought or idea the writer is trying to convey. Also, some words are construed to be more active than others. But what makes them more active? Is it that Anglo-Saxon verbs are shorter, and therefore more lithe? In sports, smaller, lighter athletes are often faster and with quicker reflexes than larger, lumbering competitors. The same may be true with words. Or it could be that on a linguistic DNA level, Latin is still a foreign language.

BASE LINES -- I went to an ophthalmologist recently, who was surprised when I pointed out that the medical term "presbyopia" was derived from the Greek for "old eyes." And years ago, I asked a dermatologist, "What do you call this indentation, or pit, on the inside of the elbow." He harrumphed a few doctor noises, and replied: "It's the antecubital fossa." After I got home, curiosity drove me to a dictionary, because I remembered that the element "ante-" meant "in front of," as in "anteroom," and that the word "cubit" was an ancient unit of measurement calculated as the distance from the wrist to the elbow. It turns out that "fossa" means "pit." So "antecubital fossa" is medical jargon for "pit in front of the elbow." Two good examples of the use of jargon, or a way to communicate with fellow members of a select group, and keep outsiders ignorant.

CLICHE CORNER -- Arctic blast, polar plunge and icy grip should all be banished from the lexicon of weather reports. Once is clever, twice is noticeable and three or more usages mean the writer has no imagination.

SHAKESPEAREAN DISSING -- Old Will was a master of the insult. Try using that fact when teaching Elizabethan drama to teenagers.

OVERHEARD -- "You're a Druid, aren't you? That's funny, you don't look Druish."

OVERHEARD, PART TWO -- "I'm going to plant pansies, but I'll do it in a manly fashion."

TRADE SECRET -- The secret of good writing is not in knowing what to put in, but in knowing what to leave out.