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Sic is an adverb first seen in English in the mid 19th century, translating to ‘intentionally so written’ according to Wikipedia. It comes from the Latin adverb sīc meaning ‘thus’, ‘as such’ or ‘in such a manner’ and is pronounced as sick, although Wikipedia suggests that “its Latin ancestor is pronounced more like the English word seek“. The word sic usually … Continue reading
I didn’t realise how magical the art of folding paper was until I opened the book that I bought my daughters for Christmas – it’s called Origami for Children by Mari and Roshin Ono. The book contains 35 projects and a pack of very pretty paper for making the objects. We made a box this … Continue reading
Before writing this today, I checked the Google AdWords tool to see what the competition and frequency was for the word yuletide. Did you know that almost as many people search for yule tide or yule-tide (33,100 global monthly searches) as they do the combined word yuletide (40,500 glogal monthly searches). The word jul had an even bigger monthly search … Continue reading
It’s Christmas Day and I want to spend time with my family, but staying true to my writing challenge, I will still provide a blog for you today – but it will be a short one. I thought I would find out a little bit about the term Bah Humbug. This is the character Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous … Continue reading
Writers love people reading what they have poured their time into, and revel in the constructive comments and praise. All of this keeps a writer going and encourages the creation of another piece of work; however, there is something else important. This is the hope that something great will come of all this writing and that it will generate enough income to be able to spend more time … Continue reading
I often have to think about this one before I write it. Does a person lay on the settee or do they lie on it? The answer is, you lie on it. Richard Lamb in his book The Queen’s English, says “I object when told to lay on the chiropractor’s couch. Lay what?”. Before I continue, none of this relates to … Continue reading
I came across an excellent tip today from Copyblogger.com in their article The Art of Wrting Great Twitter Headlines. They advise you to think of your headline as a promise to the reader – what it is you are going to deliver to them and how you are going to ensure it fulfils their needs. When … Continue reading
If you read yesterday’s post Have you converted your WordPress blog to your own domain?, you will know that I was considering making some changes to my WordPress domain name. Everytime I logged into WordPress, I was seeing the message ‘Be the master of your own domain….’ and I’ve been tempted for a while now. All … Continue reading
I’ve been thinking of being the ‘master of my own domain’ on this blog rather than having ‘WordPress’ in the URL but I am hesitant because of a few things such as the cost and a lack of understanding of how it works. Is it automatic that everyone who is already following me will know the new URL? Maybe this is a … Continue reading
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
My Writing Notebook 