An occasional celebration of words and writing worth reading. Or best avoided.
Word love – Words to savour
Lugubrious. I mean, what’s not to love? Rolls around the mouth, sounds decadent, dangerous, even. But actually it just means gloomy. Thanks to my ten-year-old son for this one. Who knew Just William would offer up so much more than jolly japes and scrapes.
Agitprop. I should probably have known this one, but that goes for many things. Not an easy one to sneak into conversation, but I’ll give it a go. In case you’re wondering: political propaganda often in art or literature.
Asmr. Did you know there’s a word for the tingly feeling that fills your brain and body when you hear repeated soft, calming sounds like whispering or crinkling? (Susurration is a brilliantly onomatopoeic word for the sounds themselves.) More an acronym masquerading as a word, but even so. It’s got its own branch of marketing too.
Acme. Not a misspelling of teenage misery, but a pinnacle, an apex, a zenith. Surely one I can weave into work.
Word less – Words we could do without
Transformational. Writing about new technologies involves a lot of transformation. And almost as much revolution, power harnessing and unlocking. The potential for artificial intelligence and the like to do boring, time-consuming things better is pretty amazing, but the challenge of boiling down what makes your version of it special without resorting to the same words as everyone else is a tough one.
Space. Neither stellar nor scenic, in the world of corporate jargon, this one occupies more of itself than it should. A bugbear I can’t fully explain but nonetheless always, always makes me shudder.
Words in context – Words worth a read or listen
Robert Macfarlane’s Underworld is taking my breath away. How does he write so lyrically, so evocatively that I’m hooked on dirt, caves and fungus? So many sentences I have to re-read to admire their mastery.
The poetry pharmacy. Poetry is not a form I usually find easy to engage with, but William Sieghart’s The Poetry Pharmacy feeds my soul. Prescribing poems as medicine for a particular ailment gives my reading of them context and focus. He’s good at sticking to excerpts and short ones too.
Lincoln in the Bardo. Utterly unique style of writing. Initially I baulked. Hard work to keep track, no flow, so many voices. But days later I’m still there at the graveyard with sweary Betsy and Eddie and the eternally damned Reverend.
Long-form ads. An idle rifle through D&AD’s The Copy Book offers many examples of long-form story-based advertising I rarely see in the world at large – Jack Daniels London Underground ads are the only ones that come to mind. Has the form disappeared along with attention spans? This recent piece in The Creative Review made me laugh in recognition at what has replaced it. But as the author points out, perhaps the new oldest ad agency in London is here to shake things up.
other stories
An occasional celebration of words and writing worth reading. Or best avoided.
Word love: Ennui. The word of lockdown 3. Is anyone not feeling a bit of it?
I recently found myself rolling my eyes at yet another headline written in the same style by a B2B corporate brand I follow. I know why they’re doing it; the style fits with their
Word love: Anythingarian. Every time I listen to Something Rhymes with Purple I come away with a nugget of word love that makes me happy.
Being your own client can be a tough gig. I learnt that lesson rebranding my own business and launching a new website last year. Now I’m the other side,
