The magic of reading
Can you make sense of those lines in the image to the right? Of course not. They’re deconstructed from the letters of a simple, one-syllable word and randomly re-arranged. It’s…
language
Thoughts on reading Ulysses
Onomatopoeia. Odd, sometimes, entertaining too. Like speed bumps that make you slow down and silently mouth the letters. A slow smile at the sound it makes in your head. Alliteration.…
How to Have Better Conversations
Talking with others about certain issues can be challenging for you or the other person. You may leave such conversations feeling awkward or worse, but it doesn’t have to be…
The House on the Borderland
“But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality would be a classic of the first water.” So said H. P. Lovecraft of the 1908 novel, The House on the Borderland,…
He Who Controls Language, Controls Thought
“A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing…
Free Speech, When The “Debate” is You (and You’re Not Invited)
Shout: “Help, I’m being silenced!” There’s a duplicitous game of sleight-of-hand that is taking place in discussions about freedom of speech in academia and the public square. Here’s how it…
I Swear This is Good for You
An explicative can do way more than just add spice to your sentence, it can improve your life. Emma Byrne argues in her new book that swearing is a social…
Cultural appropriation is the new gluten free
Like food fads, political fads wax and wane as the gnat-like attention span of their followers gets diverted by the Next Big Thing. Political Correctness has of late given birth…
Square words
Writing has been described as the most significant human invention. We tend to think of inventions as mechanical things, like the wheel, or fire, or the printing press, the airplane,…
What the “Walk on the Wild Side” controversy says about trans* awareness and a changing social movement
A little over a week ago, a University of Guelph student union drew international ire for condemning Lou Reed’s 1972 song “Walk on the Wild Side” as transphobic. This occurred…
The Return of Stuff Happens, week 5: Horror hits home; Trudeau breaks a promise; Stupor Bowl ads
Events on Sunday in Quebec City served as a reminder, if we needed one, that Canada is not immune to madness. Last Sunday, a sad loser walked into a Quebec…
Eheu fugaces, Postume…
Alas, Postumus, the swift years slip away. Those words are one translation of the opening line of the 14th Ode in the second book of Horace’s carminas, or songs: Eheu…
Horace and him. And maybe me, too.
Horace and Me, subtitled Life lessons from an Ancient Poet, is a recent book by Harry Eyres (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2013) about his efforts to connect the dots of…
Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect
In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first…
Fowler for the 21st Century
On the desk of every writer, every reporter, every editor, every PR director and every communications officer is a small library of reference books. A good dictionary (Oxford, American Heritage,…
Type Crimes and Taxes
Type crime is the term author Ellen Lupton uses in her book, Thinking With Type, to describe egregiously bad typography. That description came to mind as I perused the latest…
Confronting Evil: Not with a bang, but a whimper? Neither, I say
Yes, it is best to be cordial, courteous, friendly and respectful, and to avoid harsh words and harsh speech, generally speaking. But when it comes to confronting power, when it…
Teas or Tisanes?
I suppose it’s crotchety of me, but whenever I hear the term “herbal tea” used to refer to an infusion of leaves or fruits that contains no actual tea, I…
Myth and Meaning
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of…