The Practical Guide: Freelancing (Part One)

Welcome to our latest mini-series on Freelancing! In this series, we’ll address: Part One: Gaining Experience Part Two: Building and Preparing Your Business Part Three: Finding Work Part Four: Freelancing Fees Part Five: Organizing Your Time If there is anything else you would be interested in learning about with regards to freelancing, please don’t hesitate …

Forms of Rhetoric: Neil Postman on the Written Word

From Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman: People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people – a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the …

Forms of Rhetoric: Wording is Everything (Raw vs. No-bake)

Why is it that offering someone a dessert and calling it “no-bake” will often be seen as more appealing than if you call it “raw”? Is it because the word “raw” is, in fact, raw itself? “No-bake” implies nostalgic childhood memories of making goodies and working with gooey, delicious dough. It makes me think of …

The Practical Guide: Random Rare Word (Supererogation)

Courtesy of my friend Westwood, today’s random rare word is supererogation. She got it from a philosophy class some time ago and held onto it. Hurray for words! Supererogation (noun) The performance of more than duty requires. See also supererogatory (adjective), which comes from the Late Latin supererogatio from supererogare, which means to pay in …

Lifestyle Editing: What does your book club read?

This week, the sistertraveller began a book club compiled of about half a dozen of us. We’re meeting every week and we’ll be reading about one book every two weeks. I’ve never joined a book club before, so I’m incredibly excited to be a part of a group of women who are equally passionate about …

Analyzing Everyday Rhetoric: Misuse of the word “literally”

I feel sorry for the word “literally”. It is overused and misused to a horrifying extent in our society, to the point that I’ve started cringing every time I hear someone use the word. As seen in the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary, literal means to take words in their usual or primary sense without metaphor …

(Not so) Random Rare Word: Rhetoric

For anyone who still wonders what exactly “rhetoric” means… Rhetoric (noun) 1. The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. 2. Language designed to persuade or impress (often with an implication of insincerity or exaggeration etc.) I’d like to point out here that rhetoric is the art of effective speaking and writing – while …

Forms of Rhetoric: Food Packages

It is with great pleasure that I announce the unveiling of The Food Label Movement, which you can check out at: www.thefoodlabelmovement.org With my nutritionist friend, I have co-founded this organization to appeal to the Canadian government to improve food labelling regulations. I especially feel passionate about this project because it combines my two loves: …

Analyzing Everyday Rhetoric: Your/You’re Welcome

I have written before about how, as a child, I never knew what the real words to the Lord’s Prayer were. I just mumbled it along with everyone else and strung sounds together without knowing what the words were. It was years later that I discovered that the word “howl” does not enter into the Lord’s …

Forms of Rhetoric: First Impressions

First impressions are essential in our relationships with others. After all, we are social creatures that live in a society in which the people that you know can either help you get “to the top” or crush you, depending on their impression of you. Because of this, much in our lives depends on the positive …

In the Media: A Few Great Novels

Roy reminded me in my last blog post (about enjoyable ways to increase vocabulary) that reading non-fiction is a wonderful way to improve our understanding of language. I entirely agree! But I also find that it’s good to have some kind of literature to read on the side; whole other worlds to explore besides our …

Lifestyle Editing: Fun Ways to Increase Your Vocabulary

We can all benefit from taking the time to get to know our language better, increase our vocabularies, and improve the art of communication. Playing with words in games is a great way to do this. Here are a few ways that you can increase your vocabulary in social settings: 1) Scrabble: I have talked …