BookWords Blogg

This is a continuation from the previous post . There will be no "fun for werd nerds" this time around, though there will be two book reviews. Warnings 1. ) This post will get very dark, very fast. I have hesitated posting this because of the horror involved, but I've decided that the message is necessary. Both the "woke" and "anti-woke" mobs might want to skip this because I'm presenting a third path, which may be antagonistic to both. 2. ) Because of the subject matter, and the fact that I may need to state the "opposing view"; there is the possibility that what I'm going to say here can be misunderstood (intentionally or not) to support what I am in fact denoucing. Some of the statements I'm going to make may be seen as egregious or inflammatory (or both) if taken out of context (in the same way that politicians frequently do to each other's statements). Readers: Please read this post to the end before forming an opinio...

This month’s words: Merry Christmas! Japanese has Meri Kurisumasu ; these are loanwords and sound closer to the original English than they look — the U’s all but disappear in quick speech (though they reappear in song). Hawaiian supposedly has Mele Kalikimaka : I don’t know if this is “real” or a later invention (and a song), but again it’s obviously derived from English. If you think K doesn’t really sound like S, think about the letter C and a cat in a city. (That form of palatalization is common in the world’s languages.) Italian has Buon Natale , the cognates of which are two women’s names: Bonnie Natalie. Actually the first comes from the same root as “bonny” (=”good” or “pleasant”, as sung in in folk songs) and the second is related to “Nativity” with a different suffix (the word “natal” is not entirely foreign to English). So: Good (or pleasant) Nativity. In my Fyorian conlang (for my Tond books ), one could either wish someone Méri Krísmas (obviously English loanwords agai...

Book consist of words, obviously. But what about books about words? Or books about books? This blog post will take a look at two of them (book reviews!); then it’ll focus on two nonsense words, one of which is related to the title of one of the books (fun for “werd nerds”!) This will be a long blog post, but at least there will be mondegreens. Some business first. My short story "Silkod of the Drenn" is available in Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Writing . A stand-alone “Tond” story, it is also a (possibly unsolved) call to adventure. Scroll down to find Volume 1, Number 2. Also, continuing the story of Tond, there's Grendul Rising ; here's an interview about it. Also, check out this blog's sister, The SoundScroll . It's about music. Okay, now that that's out of the way, here's the actual blog post. The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston This is a history of the printed page, told with a...

First, a shameless self-promo: the short story "Silkod of the Drenn" has been published in Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Writing . A stand-alone “Tond” story, it is also a (possibly unsolved) call to adventure. Scroll down to find Volume 1, Number 2. Also, nobody's reviewed Grendul Rising yet, though here's an interview about it. Also, check out this blog's sister, The SoundScroll . It's about music. Okay, now that that's out of the way, here's the actual blog post. Discussion Part One So this time I’m going to look at a psychological/sensory phenomenon that occurs in one (possibly two?) of my own novels, even though I have never actually experienced it. Or have I? As usual, this blog will review a couple of books, and the point of one of them is that maybe I actually have experienced the phenomenon in question. Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet It’s refreshing to read a novel of high fantasy that does not draw its concepts of good and...

Okay, I haven't blogged here for a while and there's a lot to cover. First, I have a new "Tond" novel and a short story coming out soon, the latter in an anthology. More on that later. Second, I'm going to propose a (new?) political theory; and of course, post about a book. Third, I'll see how all of those things relate to each other. Lets get started. The Political Theory: Interpretations of Symbols So here’s my idea. Liberal (“libtard”) and Conservative (“conservatard”) are not only political; they represent entirely different ways of thinking and even perceiving the world. That they are different ways of thinking is maybe not news, but that they are different ways of perceiving the world may be. I don’t know the origin of these different ways of thinking. It doesn’t seem to be from different forms of education: I’ve seen roughly 50/50 splits in classes where I teach, where everybody supposedly has been educated in the same way. It seems to stem from earli...

This time I review a collection of unrelated stories by the same author, an anthology of stories by various authors, and an unconventional novel that is actually a collection of stories in itself. But first, a shameless self-promo (concerning another anthology) and some neologisms. The Self-Promo: My story “The Scapekite” drops this week in a book called “ Iron Walls: A Burning Embers Dystopian Anthology ”. It’s a fantastical tale about a totalitarian corporation, camouflaged robots, and a (not?) chance encounter between the narrator and an old man with a kite and an imagination. I’ve done a couple of interviews about the story, here and here . Portmanteau Words The idea of a “scapekite” is of course something I made up, as is the word itself, from the words “scapegoat” and “kite”; a portmanteau word, like “smog” and “bridezilla”, packed with more than one meaning. A GAME WITH PORTMANTEAU WORDS: Which word doesn’t belong in this list, and why? a. absinthminded b. mimsy c....