Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Words and editing

Word games: On Monday Night Football, announcer Steve Young was talking about the Washington Redskins' miseries, and he used the word concatenation. Naturally, I looked it up.
concatenation [kɒnˌkætɪˈneɪʃən]
n
1. a series of interconnected events, concepts, etc.
2. the act of linking together or the state of being joined
3. (Philosophy / Logic) Logic a function that forms a single string of symbols from two given strings by placing the second after the first
Apparently, this concatenation features the linking of a lot of bad things.

Another word: I was reading a Washington Post story about the Monday Night Football game and came across this sentence/paragraph -- In the schadenfreude spirit of any good reality show, the main characters are so pitiful and pathetic that even the most depressed and downtrodden viewers begin to feel good about their own lives. Naturally, I had to look up schadenfreude.
scha·den·freu·de
Pronunciation: \ˈshä-dən-ˌfrȯi-də\
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
Date: 1895

: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

I can see that; it fits with the Redskins.

Oh, if you're wondering, I'm not a Redskins fan; I love football.

Book 'em, Dano: I came across this article on a book about self-editing. I can't recommend it, since I haven't read it. If you're into self-help books, you might look into it. Me? I probably won't. I edit, therefore I am.


Contact: Reach me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

No comments:

Post a Comment