Posts Tagged ‘Words’

An excerpt from the introduction of William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well:

“Two opposite things happened. The word processor made good writers better and bad writers worse. Good writers know that very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time or the fifth time. For them the word processor was a rare gift, enabling them to fuss endlessly with their sentences–cutting and revising and reshaping–without the drudgery of retyping. Bad writers became even more verbose because writing was suddenly so easy and their sentences looked so pretty on the screen. How could such beautiful sentences not be perfect?”

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…widow’s peak (WID-oz peek) noun (from wordsmith.org)

Definition: A V-shaped hairline at the center top of the forehead.

[From the former belief that this feature in a woman was an omen that she'd outlive her husband, as in those days a widow wore a mourning hood with a pointed crest.]

Earlier, this feature in a man was known as a widower’s peak, though today widow’s peak is a unisex term. It’s not known what the superstition said when two people with widow’s peak married each other. Examples of people with widow’s peaks: John Travolta, Count Dracula.

I just think it’s funny that the only two examples the writer cites are John Travolta and the fictional Count Dracula.

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