Random Rare Word: Litotes

I was cruising through the dictionary when I came across this word. I like it! Hadn’t ever heard it before and wanted to share. Li-to-tes (noun) Ironic understatement, esp. the expressing of an affirmative by the negative of its contrary, e.g. no mean feat for some great accomplishment. [Late Latin from Greek litotes from litos …

Lifestyle Editing: making time to read books

2011 has been a great year so far for me in terms of the books I’ve been reading. As a kid, I’d gobble up books and read pretty much non-stop in my spare time. I got away from it a little bit with university and such, but I’ve really missed it. These days I work …

Analyzing Everyday Rhetoric: “Believing” in holistic medicine

Why is it that we never use the phrase “I believe/don’t believe in Western medicine/pharmaceuticals,” yet it’s the norm to talk about “believing” or “not believing” in holistic medicine/acupuncture/herbal remedies/Chinese medicine? Both are science. It seems odd that we as a society find it so difficult to reconcile that within ourselves.

Lifestyle Editing: Books I read in April 2011

Books I started a month or two ago and finished this month: – Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Great book! It’s completely accessible, even if it seems like it will be daunting. I very much liked this book. – The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This was another good one, although the writing style …

The Practical Guide: Toward vs. Towards

We all have those words that we use regularly but don’t really know how they’re supposed to be used. One of my sets of “problem words” is very ordinary: the toward/towards conundrum. I never know when to use toward and when to use towards. Normally I just use whatever “sounds right” in the sentence. But …

Lifestyle Editing: Books I read in March 2011

I didn’t read nearly as many books in March as I did in February. Somehow I just didn’t make the time for reading last month. Hopefully I’ll be able to read more in April! Books that I began reading in previous months and continued to read in March but have yet to complete: – Crime …

Forms of Rhetoric: Accents and Judgment

Growing up, the mother dear, sistertraveller and I used to always tease the father dear because he didn’t “properly” pronounce the word “tiger.” Whereas the three of us pronounced it “ty” (as in the word “tie”), he pronounced it “tay” (as in the word “take”). We’d go into fits of giggles whenever he said the …

Forms of Rhetoric: Spelling the American vs. Canadian way

I was recently looking through one of my favourite books, The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling 19th Edition (what? I’m a rhetorician. Naturally this would be one of my favourites 😉 And yes I was flipping through it just for fun. Nerd!), and I have to say that there were a few words in there …

Lifestyle Editing: Books I read in February 2011

February was another great month for books! It actually really helps, knowing that I’ll be writing a book list at the end of the month, to make sure that I keep reading. It’s not as though I have tons of time on my hands… it’s more that I am re-prioritizing my time. Instead of cruising …

The Practical Guide: Random Rare Word (Assuage)

Someone – I forget who it was – used this word recently in conversation. I’ve always known the general gist of what context the word can be used in and such, but I’ve never known the exact definition of it. So I looked it up in my trusty Canadian Oxford English Dictionary, and this is …

Lifestyle Editing: Lessons from a vet clinic

“Let’s remember that cancer is a chronic disease,” the mother dear said to a client yesterday. The mother dear is a veterinarian who specializes in acupuncture, chiropractic, and physiotherapy. Many of her patients are ones who need extra help because Western medicine can’t do much for them. Because of this, a lot of the patients …