Toluu

Daily Writing Tips

The Changing Pronunciation of “Leisure”Today

When I was about ten years old, my aunt gave me a subscription to a Disney comic. I remember one issue in which Donald Duck and his nephews had a treasure map.

Overheard saying that he was “in search of buried treasure,” Donald tried to deceive the villain who’d heard him by claiming that what he’d really said was “in search of hurried leisure.”

That was in the Fifties.

By the time the “leisure suit” craze struck in the Seventies, not many Americans were pronouncing “leisure” to rhyme with “measure.”

Come to think of it, I don’t know of anyone who pronounces “buried” to rhyme with “hurried.”

Here are the current American pronunciations of these words:

buried [bĕr'ēd]
hurried [hûr'ē]
treasure [trĕzh'ər]
leisure [lē'zhər] –although some folks still say [lĕzh'ər]

What pronunciation changes have you noticed since your were a child?

---

The Changing Pronunciation of “Leisure”

Don’t Be Too Eager to PublishToday

My son gave me a mystery the other day. He’d encountered the author at Barnes and Nobles and, having chatted with the man, he felt bound to buy a copy of his book. We’ll call the writer Author X.

Under the attractive dust jacket, the sturdy binding is stamped with the title and author’s name in gilt letters. The book could have been produced by a major publisher.

As soon as I read the first paragraph, however, I knew that the book had been self-published.

With a bit of disguise, here’s the first paragraph:

The phone jingled on Butch Grand’s desk and jolted him out of his daydream. He had been thinking about how hot and dry the last two years had been and was hoping this year would be better. As Police Chief of Philadelphia, Mississippi, things just went better for him when it was cooler and they got some rain. The phone rang again and he took the receiver off the hook.

What’s the first clue that Author X is not a professional?

He tells the reader that the character is having a daydream, and then he tells what the daydream was about. An experienced writer would have placed the reader in the daydream with sensory details, and then jolted him out of it to answer the phone.

An experienced writer would probably have had him “answer” or “pick up” or perhaps just start talking, and not have told us that the man “took the receiver off the hook.”

See if you can identify a

Word of the Day: KarmaNovember 29

Karma [kär'mə], according to the Buddhism, is the overall effect that the actions of a person will have on his or her own future existence. It is also used generally in the western world to indicate one’s destiny or fate.

According to the mysticism, karma is considered to be non-physical emanations that each person releases, and which may affect the environment around him or her.

Sharon Stone’s films are facing a boycott in China after the actress suggested that the massive earthquake there earlier this month, which is estimated to have killed some 65,000 people, was the result of bad “karma” stemming from the country’s mistreatment of Tibet. (The Economist Blogs)

I don’t want to get into a “My Name Is Earl” thing, but Roethlisberger is the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. And he made that fabulous game-saving tackle (and maybe Super Bowl-making tackle) in the playoffs against the Colts after Jerome Bettis had fumbled. I sit here and ask myself, did his karma turn bad? (Washington Post)

---

Word of the Day: Karma

Words to Describe Fearful RecoilNovember 27

Writers are constantly reminded “Show, don’t tell!”

One way to be more descriptive in our writing is to use verbs that convey movement.

Here are some words that describe movement prompted by fear, cowardice, or pain.

flinch [flĭnch] to draw away in anticipation of pain.
The prisoner flinched when the guard raised the whip.
The nobleman did not flinch as he mounted the steps to the guillotine.
The soldier marched unflinchingly through the hail of arrows.

shrink [shrĭngk] - to draw back as if trying to make one’s body smaller. One might shrink into the shadows in an attempt to become invisible. Figuratively it has the sense of avoiding danger, often used with a negative: He did not shrink from battle. By the way, the principal parts of this verb are shrink, shrank, (have) shrunk.

wince [wĭns] - One might wince from pain, real or anticipated.
The patient winced as the dentist probed the painful molar.
She winced when he called her “fat.”

Flinch, shrink, and wince all derive from words meaning “bend,” turn, or “turn aside”

blench [blĕnch] - I used to think blench included the idea of turning pale along with recoiling. However, it is not related to blanch. It just means “move suddenly, wince, or dodge.”

cower [kou'ər] - Although the word looks as though it might have a connection with coward, it probably comes from a German word meaning “to lie in wait.”

English Words Spelled with 3-letter /ī/November 26

Among several ways to spell the “long i” sound in English is the 3-letter combination -igh- as in sight [sīt].

The spelling reflects an earlier pronunciation in which the gh represented a sound made with the soft palate, rather like the ch heard in German ich.

The -igh- spelling has persisted in English because it occurs in a small group of high frequency one-syllable words. It’s easy to tolerate an apparently difficult spelling when one sees it frequently.

Most of the -igh- words end with the /t/ sound and spelling. Exceptions are high, nigh, and sigh, in which -igh represents the final sound.

The other most common -igh- words are:

bright from O.E. beorht, byrht
fight from O.E. feohtan
flight from O.E. flyht
knight from OE cniht, cneoht
light from O.E. leoht
might from O.E. meahte, mihte
night from O.E. niht
right from O.E. riht
sight from O.E. sihth

The word delight has come to be grouped with the -igh- words because of association with the word light. Etymologically speaking, delight belongs with sprite and spite. All three words come from the French.

delight - from Old French delit, deleit, from delitier, deleitier

sprite - from Old French esprit

spite - shortened from despite which comes from Old French despit

In the 16th century, sprite was often spelled spright and spite was spelled spright. Since then, they’ve reverted to spellngs closer