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.

><

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE

MORE EDITOR@WORK BLOG ENTRIES

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

BLOG ENTRIES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

ANECDOTES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer OUTTA there!

ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

Be done in a jiffy

Short time: According to something I just read, a 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Not as short as a nanosecond (one billionth of a second), though. I just love learning new stuff.

Word play: Abstemious and facetious are the only words in the English language that have all five vowels in the order of AEIOU. Try it. I know facetious -- I use it constantly -- but I had to look up abstemious. Turns out that abstemious comes from abstention or abstinence. It means sparing or moderate in eating and drinking; temperate in diet.

Error alert! I was just watching TV, and the local news channel was boosting a story called Mustang makeover, with a cowboy riding a horse. But they had Mustand Makeover on the screen. Later, the TV station wrote Farwell instead of Farewell for a story on a funeral. Oops!

Media maven: If you're into media news, you might check out Romenesko.

><

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE

MORE EDITOR@WORK BLOG ENTRIES

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

BLOG ENTRIES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

ANECDOTES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer OUTTA there!

ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing