Non-words for May

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Ed Battistella
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Here are the non-words for May and today we begin month six! And thanks to Leroy Fulwiler, Kim D C Harper and Wilkins-O’Riley Zinn for their non-word contributions.

As you know—or maybe don’t—I try to curate the non-words by looking up the possible non-words to see if they are already in use as words. One of the surprising benefits of this has been to learn about some words that I didn’t know existed. Among them are tain, swelt, adject, smatter, inutile, acquittance, cessant, and wakelessness (this last one used by Emily Dickinson).

tridecadedication is a long non-word made up to recognize Steve Larvick and doug Kirby on their 30 years (each) of service at Southern Oregon University. I made an effort this month to add some very short non-words and to include an auxiliary verb. And I used thecal even though it exists as a botantical term; the allusion was too good to resist.

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    fetonyms, n. words or meanings joined by folk etymology, such as May Day and mayday (from the French word for “help”). 1 May

    shoedoo, n. the sticky film that gets on your shoes when you recycle cans or bottles ( w/ apologies to Andy Williams). 2 May

    unpalate, v. to cause something to be distasteful, unsavory or unpleasant (backformation from unpalatable). 3 May

    sesquipediment, n. a very long word that you have to stop and look up. 4 May

    fiesta résistance, n. the ultimate Cinco de Mayo celebration [from pièce de résistance, w/ thanks to Leroy Fulwiler]. 5 May

    ish adj. A separated affix meaning about; also, ishness, indicating a state of uncertainty (from Kim D. C. Harper). 6 May

    sult, v. to offer one’s unsolicited, uninformed opinion (a clipping of insult plus consult). 7 May

    humong, v. to make something much much bigger, to supersupersize (clipping of humongous). 8 May

    malastute, adj. lacking shrewdness or perspicaclty about one’s own concerns. 9 May

    intimatum, n. a final statement of demands or conditions made by a partner, spouse or other very close friend. 10 May

    enfact, v. to assert something untrue, illogical or dubious amidst a cloud of real facts. 11 May

    incurate, v. to allow a project to take a life of its own and proceed without acitve tending (from in + curate). 12 May

    matrimatrix, n. the biological substance out of which something is formed and by extension a nurturesome environment. 13 May

    verkle, v. to expel something from one’s throat, such as a hairball or piece of stuck food (from verklempt). 14 May

    nat, v. to begin to natter but catch yourself after the first natterance. 15 May

    fauxobey, v. to pretend to obey a rule or law you disagree with while actually ignoring or subverting it. 16 May

    myriaddled, adj. having a thousand things to do and not knowing where to begin. 17 May

    bafflefog, n. dense cloud of doublespeak, bureaucratese or other incomprehensible language (from Wilkins-O’Riley Zinn). 18 May

    whomligan, n. one who misuses the word “whom” where “who” is required grammatically. 19 May

    explosition, n. a bursting forth of words, without regard for the conventions of rhetoric or composition. 20 May

    deconcile, v. to mutually chill a once amicable relationship. 21 May

    wusta, auxiliary verb [woostuh] should have and would have if I had thought of it (“I wusta offered you a ride”). 22 May

    philantrophy n. the recognition one receives for a large donation to a building project. 23 May

    thecal, adj. of or relating to a master’s thesis. 24 May

    roly, adj. obsessive, proselytizing religiousity (shortening of “rolling holy”). 25 May

    happenstand, v. to be minding one’s own business when something happens in the immediate vicinity. 26 May

    envoguerate, v. to revive a flagging brand; also re-envougerate, meaning to rerebrand. 27 May

    commemory, n. a shared recalling of national or group significance, especially embodying sacrifice. 28 May

    lococo, adj referring to any contemporary low-brow art which mimics the look of the late Baroque period. 29 May

    tridecadedication, n, enduring comitment and dedication to a thirty-year endeavor or enterprise. 30 May

    smot, n. a pattern of mottling or a series of irregular spots on fabric or on one’s skin. May 31

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An Interview with Bill Gholson

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Ed Battistella
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Bill Gholson is a professor in the English and Writing Program at Southern Oregon University, which he joined in 1994.  Dr. Gholson studied English as an undergraduate student at Eureka College. He received an MA in English and a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of Oregon.  Dr. Gholson has edited and published many of his own works through different presses and online journals, including book chapters, personal essays, and poems, and these range in subject from famous 20th century authors to rhetorical pedagogy.  He also gives some “heads-up!” tips on working with small publishing companies, and the meticulous and lengthy process publishing actually takes.

KM: What kinds of things have you gotten published, and if you can, be as specific as possible on details (where/who published them for you, when it got published, how long the process took, etc.)?

BG: I’ve published two book chapters on Kurt Vonnegut.  These were part of a collaboration of Vonnegut scholars who each took a part of Vonnegut’s work to write about.  I was invited to write these chapters based on my dissertation work.

I met other scholars at conferences or in other work and was invited to write.  These were published through Suny Press in New York.  They publish academic titles for the most part, although they also want the work directed a little toward non specialists.  These chapters took between a year and a year and half to go through the process.  This is not including original writing time.  The work had to be submitted and go through a peer review process which means it was read by three anonymous readers.  I then made corrections and additions based on their suggestions.  The main editor of the book also had some suggestions.  That part of the process took awhile.

I published an edited book through the University of Oregon Press.  It was called Componere and was a publication of the graduate school at U of O.  It was my first official publication.  It was a historical book about the history of composition and rhetoric instruction at the U of O in celebration of one of the founders of the program.  It took about a year of research and about three months to go through the editing and formatting process.  I was chosen to write the history while a graduate student.

KM: What do you look for in choosing a publisher?

BG: I have published a number of short works–personal essays and poems in online journals and some small presses.  These have all been submitted according to the thematic topic of the journals and whatever I had written.  I have published about five short essays and maybe 10 poems.  The time on these varies.  Sometimes it might be over a year after I have submitted something.  I think one has to have patience with small presses.

I’ve also published a few essays on pedagogy, focused on rhetorical pedagogy.  These have all gone through the peer editing and review process and have taken between a year to two years for publication.

I think it is a good idea to look for as many possible places as possible to publish.  Online publication makes it possible to have new and broader audiences.

KM: What bit of writing has given you the most satisfaction?

BG: I think what gives me the greatest satisfaction is the feeling of work that comes from putting pen to paper, the physical act of attempting to bring something out of nothing.  I like the routine and I like the feeling that I have really thought about something if I have made a genuine attempt at it.

KM: What advice would you give to students today who want to become professional writers?

BG: I would advise writers to live the life of a writer.  By that, I mean that if students want to be professional writers, they need to understand that it is tough work.  If one wants to write a work of fiction or poetry it requires discipline, the ability to put other things aside while writing.  Endurance.  Fortitude.  I would say go for it.  Give yourself an amount of time to accomplish what you want and then stick to it.  Writing is one of those things that requires lots of dedication and the willingness to live in solitude a great deal of your life.

KM: If you could write about anything at all, what would be it?

BG: What a question.  Of course, I would want to write the great American novel.  My real answer is that I would either like to give up or finish a book I have working on about teaching.  It is tentatively titled Vertigo I can never seem to get it to a place that is satisfactory to me.

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Tell Your Kids They Suck At Writing (So They Can Get Better)

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Ed Battistella
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When I was in high school, writers seemed like the new rock stars, the new superheroes; I wanted to be one, and so did all of my friends. We all thought that our stories would make it big and we’d someday be the next JK Rowling, the next Stephen King. We all took Creative Writing classes from less-than-qualified teachers, who told us endlessly that our work was incredible, technically impeccable, and our ideas wonderfully original. I wrote a good portion of a novel, confident that my work was publishable, and needed no editing.

Then I went to college.

While there, I discovered that I had no idea how sentences worked, what grammar really was, and how incredibly pretentious every paragraph I’d ever written really was. Now, in my final year of college, I’m actually rewriting the novel I wrote in high school, and becoming absolutely terrified about what would have happened had I not learned what I learned in my classes here.

This seems like a huge problem today, this undeserving praise. Kids are being told that they can do whatever they want, and that whatever they do will be amazing, so long as they just try hard. This is great for getting kids to try new things, but there comes a point where meaningless praise becomes harmful. By all means, encourage your kids to do something, and build their confidence when they’re first trying something, but if they’re truly unskilled at something, tell them that. This doesn’t need to be cruel, nor does it mean that they should stop trying to do whatever it is they are bad at, it just means that you need to tell them when they’re doing something wrong and allow them to learn how to better it.

I’d rather have a bunch of kids that get annoyed that something is difficult but still try to excel at it, than a bunch of kids who are told their work is superb and continue thinking that regardless of the actual quality of their productions.

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Blogging

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Ed Battistella
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The truth is that I’ve been thinking more about blogging than actually blogging.  Maybe it’s the word: blog.  Blog is a portmanteau of the words web and log; a combination of morphemes that lacks seriousness in my opinion.  Blogging doesn’t sound like a thing I want to happen to me let alone something I would put my mind to accomplishing.  The consensus is that blogging is an important endeavor for the modern business person.  But blogging sounds a lot like flogging, and I can’t shake the overall sense of punishment that lingers when I hear it.

“Blogs are the new business cards…” is a phrase I keep hearing.  I know where I stand with the classic business card.  I decide between ivory and eggshell; navy blue or black, and move on with my life.  Blogging is far more involved than the traditional self-promotion of handing out business cards.  They even invented verbs to describe new marketing strategies.  Unfortunately for those of us who were born before the internet, words like blog and tweet may sound juvenile.  Tweeting conjures a mental image of doing “The Chicken Dance” with four year olds. How can something called tweeting be crucial to my marketing platform?

After listening to Michael Niemann discuss his own hesitation at joining the world of blogging my interest in figuring out how to overcome my own reluctance got kicked up a notch.  Turns out that blogging and tweeting are almost a job in themselves.  Professional bloggers take the job seriously.  According to Greg Digneo’s blog post titled 5 Lessons Steve Jobs Could Teach You About Creating a Popular Blog, blogs should “make a dent in your niche” with “zippy” but simply presented content. 
Digneo also urges bloggers to follow Jobs’s advice to Stanford graduates to “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”  Basically, a serious blogger will go out on a limb and allow some of the sloppiness that accompanies raw curiosity to be public on the internet.  I don’t agree with Digneo on this.  I think that everything I make public should be my best effort.  I have nothing against curiosity or taking a risk with an idea, but I feel that if I post on a blog or tweet something to the world – I want it to at least be free of spelling errors.

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