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LEGERDEMAIN (Noun, English) Skilled, dexterous use of the hands when performing magical tricks. Has also taken on a pejorative meaning of deceit or trickery. Note: Cited originally in English during the 16th century. From the French phrase 'léger de main' (light of hand).-
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Author Archives: achouston
More Linguistic Asymmetries
The English prefix un- comes directly from Old English (and shares a common Indo-European root with Latin in- and Greek a-) Prefixed to an adjective A, the resulting new word means ‘not A’ and can convey either positive or negative … Continue reading
Vamp 21: Old Friends
Fatigued and hungry for blood, Sam opens the door to her Somerville apartment and switches on a light. The others, Rina, Gil and Sandor, follow her in. “The suspense is killing me, Sam! What’s going on?” Rina cuts to the … Continue reading
Posted in ebooks, fiction, writing
Tagged cyberhacking, geek fiction, Vamp, vampires
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Vamp 20: Black Running Shoes
Rina, Sandor and Sam are jammed together at a small table in a loud Cambridge pub. They’d left work a few minutes early today with glum, defiant faces. Leaving early was their symbolic protest against Evan’s treatment of Gil. A … Continue reading
Posted in ebooks, fiction, storytelling, writing
Tagged serial story, Vamp, vampires
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Teenage, Middle-age, New Age
English can form adjectives from the past participles of verbs. Consider: break:broken the vase was broken -> the broken vase fall:fallen his popularity has fallen recently -> his fallen popularity bake:baked the bread was baked in a brick oven -> … Continue reading
Vamp 19: Mission Accomplished?
Dean Divers finishes the bad cup of coffee made in the small coffee maker in his motel room. He glances at the alarm clock next to the bed. The guy at the front desk said the mail usually arrives by … Continue reading
Word Purge
There is an online post at the British newspaper Guardian reporting on words to be excluded from new editions of dictionaries. The post invites readers to list their own choices for words they’d like removed from the English language. My … Continue reading
Posted in Semantics, social context of language, Word Usage
Tagged deleting words, dictionaries, word usage
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VAMP 18: Delayed Pastries
The morning air is bracing as Sam dashes across the street where Lila’s Bakery is. She walks past the shop and down the block and turns into the branch office of a local bank. Good thing I brought the checkbook … Continue reading
Posted in fiction, Word Usage, writing
Tagged serialized fiction, tech, Vamp, vampires
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We’re All Verbs Now
Maybe, maybe not. Are there any English speakers today who don’t accept text as a verb? It was an easy move to permit text as a verb, follownig the paradigm of other communication channel noun-verb pairs in English — the … Continue reading
Posted in language change, Word Formation, Word Usage
Tagged acronyms, English verbs, language change, word formation
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Linguistic Asymmetries
Have you ever noticed that, while some words which take a prefix seem to form nice pairings with opposite meaning polarity (tie/untie, compliance/noncompliance, tasteful/distasteful), other pairs don’t work this way? For example, there is nonplussed, but not plussed, insipid, but … Continue reading
Posted in etymology, language change, Semantics, Word Formation, Word Usage
Tagged back-formation, language change, recombobulation area, semantic pairs
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Blind Tasting: the Audiobook Edition
Blind Tasting is now available as an audiobook. You can listen to sample chapters for free and you can also buy the entire, unabridged novel as a digital download. Producing this edition in a recording studio — working with a … Continue reading
Posted in audiobooks, ebooks, fiction, storytelling
Tagged audiobook, blind tasting, ebook
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