Travel broadens the mind, it’s said. I’m not sure where that leaves commuting, and its potential to stimulate good ideas. But it does allow the linguist space to contemplate why words do different things, and try out a few alternatives, without too much distraction. I was thinking about nouns turning into verbs, as they often do …
Category archives: Writing
Gifts that rule the world
However many shopping days to go, and all that. The weekend papers fill up with more supplements of presents to buy that promise to help you control your kitchen, your bathroom, cats that visit your garden. Meanwhile, Lakeland continues to attempt to take over the universe…or at least, tries to add to the prospect of taming …
Child magnet
Next door bought a large trampoline earlier in the year. Perfect child magnet. (It works quite well as an adult magnet too, but only as long as the adults consent to have their performance critiqued by the kids). We haven’t yet been asked if we want a go, but as long as we keep making …
Reading rats and book worms
Sometimes, a title comes to me, and I know I have to use it. I’ll bung it down in the notebook, waiting for a point at which I can write about it. And following a holiday to a house whose inhabitants love books just as much as Dan and I, it seems a suitable time. …
Deja vu isn’t what it used to be
I grew up in the school of “if it’s a good joke, it’s worth repeating”. I suspect that, separate from this, I am genetically predisposed to like puns, which are a form of repetition in a way, causing you to think about what you’re already familiar with. But the upshot is, I’m all too good at …