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If someone asked you to keep schtum, it would mean that they didn’t want you to say anything as it might get you into trouble. According to Phrases.org.uk schtum possibly comes from the German word stumm meaning silent. Oxforddictionaries.com state that the German word stumm is of Yiddish origin (1950s). They also explain that schtum (or shtum) can be an adjective … Continue reading
When you first start out as a freelance writer and set up your first blog or website, you hope that people not only read what your post, but also like it enough to give you positive feedback. Once you get a few subscribers and followers, you try and think of ways to get their continued support by providing rich … Continue reading
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) may sounds scary and technical and but if you learn the basics, you can attempt to get the google ranking that you desire. If you want people to read your blogs or visit your website, you have to know what it is that they will be looking for. There are three keys to ensuring that … Continue reading
Both autobiographies and memoirs are forms of non-fiction writing. An autobiography is a story of a person’s life from when they were born up to a point in time. It includes where they grew up, what they liked doing, what they did for work, who their family were and so on – it doesn’t usually leave much out. Putting all this … Continue reading
Over five thousand years ago, writing and recording information was very different to how it is today. According to the website Mesopotamia.co.uk, the people of Mesopotamia developed a form of writing in order to communicate with each other about things such as taxes and crops. Pictograms were the first recorded method of writing and these were in the … Continue reading
I posted a question on the WordPress Forum today but as I haven’t had a response yet, I thought I would throw the question to a wider audience. The situation is that I used to be able to copy a post that I had already published, thus saving me time each day. At the moment I … Continue reading
Although I’ve been tweeting in Twitter for nearly a year now, I’ve never really got the whole hashtag (#) thing, so I’ve decided to search for answers on hashtags in the Twitter Help function. According to Twitter: You can use hashtags (‘#’ symbol) to categorise your tweets, but the symbol needs to be used before a key word e.g. #writing or #punctuation. This … Continue reading
I’ve recently been reading about setting up a writing portfolio. After a bit of a brainstorming session, I’ve put together a check list of things to think about before creating one: Where to put the portfolio. How often to up update it. What to put in the portfolio. Whether to create a word document with them all in … Continue reading
You appear to be able to use the word secular in many contexts, but its main use is when referring to something ‘non-religious’ or ‘worldly’. It is also means “occurring or observed once in an age or century” according to The Free Dictionary. The use of the adjective secular in sentences: The rules applied to both secular and religious buildings. … Continue reading
Whilst writing Note 215 – A little bit of history about British and American English the other day, I came across the name Noah Webster and the company name G&C Merriam Company and realised that there must be some connection so I’ve been researching over the last few days. The history of how Merriam-Webster was formed is quite interesting – … Continue reading
My Writing Notebook 