Category Archives: Language

Thought-Skipping

Posted on April 2, 2020 by John Swinburn

Today’s post is evidence of thought-skipping, that experience in which one’s thoughts skip across many subjects in a short period of time. It’s like a smooth, flat stone thrown across the surface of a body of still water, the forward … Continue reading →

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Forgiveness and Food

Posted on March 5, 2020 by John Swinburn

I spilled red wine on a grey and white carpet last night. I did my best to clean it; my best was inadequate, as ample evidence of the spill remains. My faux pas bothered me, but it didn’t send me … Continue reading →

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The Upper Edge of Anything Hollow

Posted on February 18, 2020 by John Swinburn

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to document something I wrote for another post I subsequently discarded. I liked this little snippet from that post, but didn’t like the rest. Maybe I’ll use this sometime … Continue reading →

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Chiselers

Posted on February 17, 2020 by John Swinburn

I don’t remember where I came across the word “chiseler” in the past day or so, but the word stuck with me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone speak the word since I heard my father use it many, … Continue reading →

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Implied Promise

Posted on September 1, 2019 by John Swinburn

What is an implied promise? Is a strong suggestion an implied promise? (You’ll have to assume an implicit action is associated with the strong suggestion.) Is a statement of future fact an implied promise? And what, by the way, is … Continue reading →

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Sesquipedalian

Posted on July 17, 2019 by John Swinburn

Sesquipedalian; 1) given to using long words; 2) containing many syllables. I first encountered the word nine years ago on Facebook. Really. The word was included in a post on the Smith College Facebook page. Ah! That explains it. I … Continue reading →

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The Effects of Attention Deficit Bureaucracy on Linguistic Inquiry

Posted on July 15, 2019 by John Swinburn

This morning, for breakfast, we had toasted thin bagels topped with cream cheese, purple onion, capers, and smoked salmon. I had mine open-faced;  as in an open-faced sandwich. While I was eating my breakfast, I wondered aloud where the term … Continue reading →

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Language Crimes

Posted on July 4, 2019 by John Swinburn

Go ahead, call me a Grammar Nazi. But, actually, t’s not grammar. It’s vocabulary. Here’s a heading for a story I read recently on CNN.com: “Man breaks in to rob a Florida Wendy’s but stops to make himself dinner first.” … Continue reading →

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Time is Money

Posted on June 19, 2019 by John Swinburn

Time is money. That apothegm means, to most of us, that time is a valuable resource and, as such, it is better to do things as quickly as possible. But I also see it from another perspective. That is, one … Continue reading →

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Authenticity in Appetite

Posted on June 11, 2019 by John Swinburn

I find it interesting that definitions of passion conflict with one another. For instance, on one hand passion can mean ardent affection or strong sexual desire but, on the other, it can mean an outbreak of anger, as in a … Continue reading →

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Phrases

Posted on June 9, 2019 by John Swinburn

Not long ago, I wrote a somewhat depressing philosophical screed that included concepts and phrases I’ve never used before. Phrases like “tetanus fog” and “smothering with a cellophane pillow.” I didn’t post the discourse on my blog, but I kept … Continue reading →

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Opening Death’s Door

Posted on April 6, 2019 by John Swinburn

Several days ago, I received a promotional/informational email from Liquor.com. The message contained a list of gins that, according to the sender, represent the best of the beverage. My wife, a gin aficionado who rarely drinks any alcohol, found the … Continue reading →

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Fourthgraders

Posted on October 25, 2018 by John Swinburn

On occasion, I slog through writing I’ve posted here or stored in directories on my hard drive. I’m looking for words that have merit, writing of which I might one day be proud. I’m afraid I rarely find those gems … Continue reading →

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Of Words and Weather and Automotive Maturation

Posted on August 1, 2018 by John Swinburn

Uncharacteristically cool temperatures for late July and early August give me hope. Soul-crushing hot weather tends to sear despair into my brain, but the scar heals quickly when evening and early morning temperatures dip into the sixties. Were it not … Continue reading →

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Psycholinguistic Musings

Posted on April 27, 2017 by John Swinburn

Sinew. That word can evoke, for me, images of sturdy steel bands, thick in the middle but narrowing almost to points on the ends; ribbons of metallic lies constrained at either end by truth. It’s as if truth confines the streamer of … Continue reading →

Posted in Language, Philosophy, Ruminations, Writing | 1 Comment

A Roundabout Tribute to Maggie Roche

Posted on January 24, 2017 by John Swinburn

I’m a fervent admirer of a handful of musicians. People who know me may understand the depth of my admiration for Leonard Cohen, whose deeply meaningful poetry set to music moves me beyond anyone else’s art. Yet, even in the … Continue reading →

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Linguafile

Posted on December 30, 2016 by John Swinburn

An idea for a story came to me during a conversation with my wife yesterday. The story would have been a whimsical one in which a young boy dreams of becoming fluent in every human language and, by working hard, … Continue reading →

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A Turn of Phrase

Posted on December 22, 2016 by John Swinburn

I suspect this is the sixth or seventh time I’ve written about the French phrase, Le jeu n’en vaut pas la chandelle, translated into English as “the game is not worth the candle.” The phrase sums up feelings of depression … Continue reading →

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Ensteubulous Thursday

Posted on December 1, 2016 by John Swinburn

Soft, early morning light filtered through the windows when I woke up this morning, a highly unusual circumstance for someone who’s up well before dawn almost every day. Why I slept in is beyond me. But sleep in I did. … Continue reading →

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Negative Space

Posted on November 3, 2016 by John Swinburn

Negative space. That’s an interesting concept. The term refers to the space around and between one or more subjects of a visual image; it’s the space that surrounds an image. To an artist—and others who understand the concept in an … Continue reading →

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The Cleansing

Posted on September 23, 2016 by John Swinburn

Certain words convey meanings that dictionary definitions do not adequately express. One such word , in my humble opinion, is “boisterous.” A group of pre-school children might be called boisterous. But the word is inappropriate to describe a gang of violent … Continue reading →

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Blood

Posted on July 11, 2016 by John Swinburn

Some words occupy spaces only they can fill.  Those words are like surviving twins; they are incomplete pairs that cannot be repaired, no matter how much energy is expended to that end. One such word is blood. Oh, one might … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Thinking, Language | 1 Comment

Letters and Numbers

Posted on May 18, 2016 by John Swinburn

What gives me reason to think I can stitch together a small sample of all the available words in the English language to create something new? Any word I might choose to use has been used before, very probably in concert … Continue reading →

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Petrichor

Posted on April 29, 2016 by John Swinburn

There’s a word for the smell of fresh rain, an aroma that evokes memories of my childhood better than any other. The word is petrichor, derived from the Greek words petra (stone) and ichor (the blood of the gods), coined … Continue reading →

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A Single Word Can Change Everything

Posted on April 10, 2016 by John Swinburn

I stumbled upon an interesting bit of wordplay this morning, courtesy of a writer-directed Facebook post. Here it is: She told him that she loved him. The post went on to say that by inserting the word ‘only’ in various places, … Continue reading →

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