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Athelstone posted an update 2 years, 7 months ago
Been watching telly today and I have this to say: NEW CLEAR. that is NEW CLEAR. Two words, new and clear. Not, I should point out, three words: NEW QUEUE LAR.
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly competition – October 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 8 months ago
You have my apologies too. I also had a busy month, but mainly I have to confess that every time I turned to the prompt I hit brick walls. I admit defeat. And it is a fine prompt. One good thing from my point of view though is that I had another look at my short story from the Random’s anthology Stalking Leviathan. I had some critique that the…[Read more]
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Athelstone replied to the topic Influences in the forum Blogs 2 years, 8 months ago
Well, these last few posts sent me off on a chase, which I shall spare you the detail of. I have never read anything by Salter, but probably shall, now. For what it’s worth, I emerged from my chase with a greater respect for George Orwell (though perhaps not his earlier novels) and a suspicion that Will Self may have confused writing literature…[Read more]
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Daedalus replied to the topic Influences in the forum Blogs 2 years, 8 months ago
I think for me Salter stands out because the spareness is also lyrical. I find many ‘less is more’ authors to be a bit dull, but his prose manages to be as poetic as it is simple
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Daedalus replied to the topic Influences in the forum Blogs 2 years, 8 months ago
Salter is very much a writer of men. I was somewhat horrified by his treatment of women in All There Is (although there’s always a detachment to his writing that means it’s never entirely clear who his sympathies lie with). I find his earlier work rather tighter.
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Daedalus replied to the topic Influences in the forum Blogs 2 years, 8 months ago
Sandra, interesting you say that about unconscious influence from books you read years ago. I’m generally reluctant to specify my influences because I’m certain that I don’t know who all of them are. On more than one occasion I’ve reread something I read in my youth but had only the haziest memory of. And, to my horror, encountered somethi…[Read more]
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Athelstone replied to the topic Influences in the forum Blogs 2 years, 8 months ago
I wrote a short story with an MC lacking almost all redeeming qualities. It didn’t go down too well, although I quite enjoyed writing it. Patricia Highsmith’s writing is wonderful. Tom Ripley is a work of genius.
Also, hello stranger. How’s it going?
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Daedalus posted an update 2 years, 9 months ago
And don’t forget people, if you say anything mean about JK Rowling, you’ll get in her bad books. The detective ones.
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I will, of course, be using JGAAP on every entry. No Camilla Läckberg disputes here, thank you very much!
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Japanese Generally Accepted Accounting Principles? Blimey, I knew I had to incorporate arithmetic, but that seems a bit much
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Purely to dispel all doubt: https://evllabs.github.io/JGAAP/
And, no, I won’t really use it-
Well now I’m going to spend the next three days feeding my own work into it to see how much I sound like myself
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Squidge replied to the topic Monthly competition – September 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 9 months ago
Wowser…spoilt for choice! Thank you all for taking my three little words and turning them into lots of great stories. As always, the three objects were used in very different and clever ways. So…
Sandra – there’s something about a pipe-smoking detective, isn’t there? Lovely piece, with the rat almost in the trap until the detective took his…[Read more]
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Thank you for a good challenge, Squidge. Congratulations, Sea, well deserved, though I enjoyed all of the other stories too.
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Squidge posted an update 2 years, 9 months ago
aaargh! Apologies, such a busy day at church yesterday, totally forgot I needed to judge the comp! Am on it now…
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly competition – September 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 9 months ago
A great batch of entries. Sadly, my good idea didn’t finally coalesce until I was dozing off last night.
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Squidge posted an update 2 years, 9 months ago
Only a few days left to get something into the monthly comp… Looking forward to reading the entries!
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Barny replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum
Whodunnit? 2 years, 10 months agoThe feeling is mutual.
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Athelstone replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum
Whodunnit? 2 years, 10 months agoMarvellous to see you here, Barny.
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Barny replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum
Whodunnit? 2 years, 10 months agoThanks for organising this, Ath.
I really really intend to actually submit something this year.
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Barny replied to the topic Choices in the forum
Whodunnit? 2 years, 10 months agoWriting, Pistol, Serious.
See you in the library.
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Squidge started the topic Monthly competition – September 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 10 months ago
Your prompt this month consists of three words:
wheelbarrow, street lamp, and a pipe (smoking)
Use them however you would like, in no more than 300 words. Have fun 😉
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Squidge replied to the topic Monthly competition – August 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 10 months ago
Oh blimey! Did not expect that at all… Wow, thanks, Sandra.
Everyone else’s was fab. Feel a bit of a fraud having popped in here for the first time in ages and getting to set this month’s challenge, but I’ll do my best x
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly competition – August 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 2 years, 10 months ago
Thanks for the prompt, Sandra. Enjoyed it this month. And very well done to Squidge. A worthy winner!
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New Queue has a hint of birdsong about it. A distraction in these ghastly times? :/
It’s one of those words. I hear it mispronounced almost as often as it is pronounced correctly. The curious thing about it is that it really only has two parts, both of which are simple word-sounds in their own right: new and clear. I even hear people who work closely with things nu-cue-ler get it wrong.
There’s a theory that the British, and a…[Read more]
I’d not heard of that one. Do people really say that? Yuck…
I’m always fascinated by the way words change pronunciation and meaning, for example Beaulieu becomes Byoolee but Beauchamp becomes Beecham.
And, speaking of lieutenant, I can see how a word that must have originally meant ‘place holder’ became used like ‘Lord Lieutentant of Wherever,’…[Read more]
Pronunciation is a curious thing. I expect the list is very long and finds a home amongst both the well-heeled and the down-at-heel. So we have Magdalen College Oxford which we are admonished to pronounce in the medieval way “Maudlin”. This pronunciation evolved over time, but at least the middle-English speakers had the sense to spell it…[Read more]
I’ve heard the new-queue-lar version. It does sound odd but I’ve wondered if, unlike me, the speaker isn’t old enough to have grown up with nuclear as a familiar word and a consistent threat.
Hah, that did occur to me. Hardly a day went by from the late 50s to the 80s when somewhere on television, radio, or simply in conversation, the word nuclear didn’t crop up.
Perhaps it’s the same. Place holder for the captain under whose command the lieutenant is acting. Does that make sense?
Re pronunciation, here’s the OED:
The origin of the βtype of forms (which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling represents the αtype) is difficult to explain. The hypothesis of a mere m…[Read more]
Speaking of the nuclear threat, I’m reminded that Aldermaston, where the Canpaign for Nuclear (never new=queue-lar) Disarmament used to march to when Ah were a lad, is in Berkshire. Now I wonder when we started pronouncing that Barkshire, because a certain piece of rhyming slang suggests that Cockneys, at least, used to say it the way Americans still do.