My work as a writer and editor means that I regularly interact with talented graphic designers. It’s so nice to be able to phone-a-designer-friend for advice on important matters, such as which font to use and which fonts play nice together. If it weren’t for my designer friends, I wouldn’t…
I’ve eaten more sweet potatoes in October than I’ve eaten in all of 2012. That’s because a friend and I are working through the spiritual fasting exercises in Jen Hatmaker’s book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. The first exercise focused on food; I committed to three weeks of a…
Today’s Which Word Wednesday word quandary is an evenly matched duel brought to you by my Wednesday running buddy (and fellow editor), Becky. She has seen our contestants, moot and mute, get misused and confused a time or two. So let’s see how these two words can be kept in…
OK, I’ll admit it—I’ve been avoiding this Which Word Wednesday match up. Affect vs. effect? It’s not that I don’t know how to use them, because I do. But it’s more of a gut feel rather than a mental assent to the rules. But someone on FB requested coverage, so…
Not all homonyms are created equal. Sometimes one of them is more popular than the other, so we forget how to use the words properly. This week’s Which Word Wednesday considers the use of pore and pour. And I think pore’s homonym status causes pour to be used improperly, as…
Which Word Wednesday is on a reading roll—this is the second entry in a row spurred on by a book I’m reading. I came across this week’s WWW duel while reading You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity by Robert Lane Greene. Here’s…
As I wrote this week’s Mixed Signals article for Christ and Pop Culture, I got stuck on a word quandary of the difference between pitiable and pitiful. I turned them over in my brain, trying to determine the correct word for the context. I had to look it up (I…
Being a word nerd can be lonely. That’s why it’s so exciting when I get a submission from someone for Which Word Wednesday. It tells me others are somewhat amused and tracking with my wordiness! This week’s submission of disburse vs. disperse is from dear friend Angel. (Thanks, Angel!) Let’s…
Happy Which Word Wednesday, folks! Today’s edition I’ve titled the Superfluous Redundancies Edition to highlight a little-noticed practice in our speaking that makes for some needless repetitive phrases. Take a look at these phrases, for example: raging inferno sudden impulse respond back fuse together These are commonly used, both in…
Some dear friends of ours have twin girls. They look alike, for sure—they are twins, siblings—but because I know them well, I see the differences, however slight. I can tell them apart, and I know which name goes with which girl. Words twins are the same. They look alike, with…
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