creativity

Another (Ham)brick in the wall

Gabriel wants to be an architect. Admittedly, that brought a smile to my face, not simply because I once wanted to, but because as much as he loves Legos it just makes sense. The boy loves to build. Beyond G’s fascination with bricks, I’ve been thinking ...

Quality by committee

If you work in corporate America, you’ve been subjected to not just the opinions of others, but their weight. Ooph, that’s heavy. Consider your last project. Chances are you didn’t make it to the end without thinking, “What about my manager’s approval? ...

Full Circle of Sorts

With the new job underway, I find myself happily, albeit busily, employed. My new gig is fast-paced and keeps me rocking along about 9 hours a day. Imagine my surprise when a one-off freelance client asked if I could help out again … to the tune of 30-40 ...

The Path

For darn near a year now, I’ve carried around a poem by Antonio Machado. Scribbled by a dear friend who was inspired to share it for some reason or another, it goes like this: Caminante, no hay camino. El camino se hace al andar. Forgive the rough ...

Rage against the machine … er, descriptor

Adjectives and adverbs. There’s a lot of them out there! How many are there in the English language? According to some unscholarly research on the interwebs, “There is no single sensible answer to this question.” According to more unscholarly research on ...

Word wranglin’ … with an apostrophe

From the Gregg Reference Manual, ninth edition: “Rules merely represent an attempt to impose some order and consistency on a language that cheerfully persists in disorder and inconsistency.” Indeed. I suppose that – as editors – our lot in life is to ...

“Elements” never go out of “Style”

Today’s post essentially is another’s words about others’ words…after a few of my words. Congratulations to Strunk and White on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Elements of Style. Pen should not touch paper, nor should fingers touch keyboard, ...