cj Sez: An invitation from the Mad Catters of the Familiar
Legacy cat detective mystery series:
“We are going to have a whole lot of fun on Familiar
Legacy cat detective mystery series Facebook page - a weekend filled with
prizes, interviews, and contests.
Hosted by Jaden
Terrell with help from all of the #MadCatters as
well as other authors you can meet and greet! October 5-7. 12-7 p.m. CST. Drop
by the page and you're bound to see some shenanigans going on. MARK YOUR
CALENDAR!
///
Since I’m recovering from knee surgery and can’t spend a lot
of time sitting with my leg hanging down, here’s reminder of how fluid and
difficult the English language is (from a 2014 post):
This quote came from fellow blogger, Sol Sanders a few years
ago: “Perhaps the glory of the English language
is that it so expressive. Its remarkable heterogeneous origins have given it an
almost limitless vocabulary. And American English, particularly, has used that
tool with an enormous flexibility to make it the international means of
communication. One is able with a minimum of linguistic dexterity to capture
every meaning, or almost every nuance.”
Mr. Sanders’s comments were part of an introduction to his
essay on what today’s journalism and media do with the English language. The
gist of his blog was that journalism and media people overcomplicate their
sentences with words that muddy their meanings—changing nouns into verbs and,
perhaps, calling a shovel a “hand-held, earth-moving tool.” My take is that
media and journalists employ an old trick of confusing the issue to persuade
readers to their (the writer/editor’s) points of view
The fact is, the English language is a living language. It’s
constantly evolving as we create new words and new definitions in response to
new technology. The rather sad result is that the generations cease to
understand each other at an almost exponential pace. Many times I need an
interpreter to understand teen-talk, and I can’t text (a noun turned into a
verb because of technology) like my family does for fear I’ll forget how to really spell.
Still, for me as a genre writer, the gloriously expressive
English language is what makes my craft so fascinating. I adore language and
anyone who accurately uses a large vocabulary with familiar ease.
Yes, I use nouns as verbs. Yes, I deliberately obfuscate . .
. and add the disclaimer that it’s for the sake of mystery. I am drawn to the
syntax, symbolism, and syncopation of a well-drafted sentence that is the
hallmark of successful mystery/thriller/suspense novelists. It’s using that
“minimum of linguistic dexterity to capture every meaning, or almost every
nuance” that appeals to me, and, I think, to readers of those genres. They want
to try to decipher the code, find the clues, and solve the crime. Mystery
writers like trying to confuse the issue.
I’m still working on my craft. How are you doing with your
genre?
By the by, as the masthead of Lyrical Pens says, if you have
a book you want to promote, let me know. We can arrange a blog date…the only
caveat is that this site is PG 13.
That’s it for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping
on, and I’ll try to do the same. See you next week?
cj
CHOOSING CARTER and DEADLY STAR are quick reads chock full
of adventure with a touch of sassy banter and sweet romance. Get your Kindle copy
on Amazon…visit my Amazon Central Author Page
= https://amzn.to/2v6SrAj for more
information about my stories.
TO ORDER an autographed paperback copy of CHOOSING CARTER, DEADLY STAR,
HOMETOWN HEROES, and/or THE POSSE, contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and a RITA
Award-winning author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy
to ship you the book(s) of your choice.
Visit me on Facebook at:
cjpetterson/author
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