Hockey, journalism & all that rubbish!

This week on Realgoodwords Bryan Gruley is back with his sequel to "Starvation Lake"....it's called "The Hanging Tree". Gus Carpenter is at the center - and this time he is trying to figure out why exactly his cousin Gracie was found hanging in a shoe tree.

I've never SEEN a shoe tree in real life, but I've heard about them. Roadside America calls them the greatest embodiment of the American Spirit you can find on the highway. Hmm. Really?

Gruley's "The Hanging Tree" just begins with this bit of great American spirit.... but what follows is a fascinating look at the passion of a Michigan hockey town and the complexities of journalism in a small town. Bruce DeSilva of the Associated Press says it’s “an exceptionally well-written novel by an author who has mastered the conventions of his genre.”

Also this week I talk with the British bestselling author Harriet Evans. Her new novel is called "I Remember You" and it's what some people might call "chick-lit" but what I call a mini-vacation. In our conversation this week, Harriet and I talked about how books in this genre can be overlooked because of quaint covers or because they aren't written by men. "I Remember You" has been called "A fabulous feel-good love story of friendship lost and love regained’ by Woman and Home.

Speaking of Realgoodwords, a couple of times during our conversation Harriet used the word "rubbish". I think I may have found my new favorite word! It's useful in so many ways!

Don't have time to read? RUBBISH?

What do you have to take out when you get home? RUBBISH!

Can't remember if you renewed your membership to KAXE? RUBBISH!

There's no rubbish this week on Realgoodwords.

Words and more words this week

MN poet Todd Boss is my guest on this week's episode of Realgoodwords... along with the president of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, Martha Brockenbrough.

Though very different, these two conversations have similarities in their respect and fervor for words and communication. Todd Boss's new book "Yellowrocket" that house his poems that have been described as buoyant and elegant, but swift. See here for examples and readings of his poetry.

Martha Brockenbrough's book "Things That Make Us [sic] - The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Holloywood, The White House, and the World" helps us finally learn the difference between lie/lay - how to write polite letters to officials and David Hasselhoff and the top 10 misused words.


Here's a sneak preview of those misused words:

accept/except
illicit/elicit
its/it's
principle/principal

Those @#% words again

I hope you know by now that I am not a word snob. I like words (a whole lot actually) but I would never boast to know all that much about them - or know all that many of them for that matter. I'm getting ready for my interview with Bill Holm right now and reading through the press materials again.

Needless to say, I'm flummoxed by the words I am seeing there. Like:

Sere - (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture; "dried-up grass"; "the desert was edged with sere vegetation"; "shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings"; "withered vines"

Polemicist - a skilled debater in speech or writing

Flummoxed - to puzzle or confuse

More words I don't know...Rumplestiltskin

Remember those words I don't know? The list continues.

Sure I'd heard Rumplestiltskin before... but I couldn't remember if it was the story about the giant and large green stalk or a girl who let her hair down or maybe it's that story of the gnome on stilts.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

Why am I thinking about Rumpelstiltskin? (if I had a nickel for everytime I asked myself that one!)

Here's the thing: in myrecent conversation with author Kathleen Norris she mentioned Rumpelstiltskin.

She talked about first finding out what the term acedia meant... she said that "just knowing the name of something gives you power over it....like Rumplestiltskin."

"Yes, like Rumplestiltskin", I said.

To myself I said, "what does the girl with the long hair in the tower have to do with the word I only recently learned, acedia?"

Turns out Rumplestiltskin is a Grimm little story about a girl weaving gold and a little gnome or manikin (a what?) who makes her promise to give up her first born child. When the mean manikin offers her a plea bargain of finding out HIS name in 3 days time, hilarity ensues. Maybe I'm getting that mixed up with an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show...

But anyway, Kathleen Norris was getting at the idea that if we know our problem, if we can name something, we can deal with it.

In our conversation, Kathleen and I talked about Merton's quote, "It takes real courage to recognize that we ourselves are the cause of our own unhappiness." For Kathleen, realizing that having acedia - or finding oneself in a state of not caring or being unable to care - is as destructive as pride and anger. She described acedia like this:

"spiraling thoughts - one following right after the other of boredom and restlessness and irritation and fear of the future. Depression and acedia share some of the same symptoms, but are different.... Back in the 4th century the monk Evagrius said that none of us can control whether the thoughts come to us - but we might be able to exercise over how we respond to them. "

Kathleen Norris' new book is "Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer's Life". Tune in for my conversation this week - or check the archives!

the amount of words I DON'T know is overwhelming!

I'm getting ready for an upcoming interview with Kathleen Norris about her new book. Wouldn't you know it? Right off the bat, words I don't understand.

Kathleen Norris is described as "a poet, a memoirist and oblate who has written the new book ACEDIA AND ME: MARRIAGE, MONKS AND A WRITER'S LIFE".

Crap, in one sentence I had work to do.

OBLATE: a layman living in a monastery under a modified rule and without vows

ACEDIA: spiritual torpor and apathy; ennui

TORPOR: The dormant, inactive state of a hibernating or estivating animal

ENNUI: Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom

ESTIVATING: Passing the summer in a dormant or torpid state

I'm working on a way to fit these into my everyday conversation.... something like "Did you hear the one about the estivating oblate who walks into a bar? He was torpid and filled with ennui!"

I'm still working on it.

Vocabulary and Free Rice!

Last Saturday on Between You and Me we talked about WORDS. A subject near and dear to my heart of course.....

Barbara from Aitkin called in to talk words and told us about a really interesting website called FREE RICE. Essentially you are quizzed on vocabulary and for each word you get right the U.N. donates 20 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Program to end hunger. It's harder than you'd think - the last one I did and got right was "sagacious" - I picked "wise". So let's all improve our vocabulary and donate some rice to hunger relief! And post your favorite/least favorite words here.

Here are some of the words people called in that they love:

mendacity
ennui
lascivious
initiate, ingenuity, improvise

and words/phrases that drive them nuts:

slacks
same difference
warsh
utilize
Brrmidji
commentator
irregardless
pretty much
gone missing

Another good word

My husband and I were eating out tonight and said in unison the word "kibosh". I think the context was something like "they need to put the kibosh on those loud kids."

It's a nice sounding word. Hearty and strong. Like you have to have some chutzpah to use it!

According to Merriam-Webster it means : something that serves as a check or stop

e.g. put the kibosh on that

Post your good words here!!

Favorite words

Do you have any? I just did a quick google search for favorite words and saw quite a few people's lists....they were filled with words I didn't understand, like Brobdingnagian which originates from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and means immense or enormous.

Brobdingnagian? Yup, I've been known to say "I've got a brobdingnagian headache right now". Brobdingnagian!

For me my favorite words are not necessarily long or complex. Like BUNGALOW.

I don't get why I like this word so much - and I know this may be crazy, but when you say BUNGALOW, it's like the sounds are walking down stairs. Okay, that IS a little crazy.

I first read the word BUNGALOW when I started reading Nancy Drew and found out she lived with her father, Carson Drew, in a bungalow. I had no idea what a bungalow was...but I knew it must be special if an attorney and his detective teenage daughter lived there. Imagine my surprise when years later I found out it was just a style of house that wasn't even that brobdingnagian!

BUNGALOW:

A small house or cottage usually having a single story and sometimes an additional attic story.

A thatched or tiled one-story house in India surrounded by a wide verandah.

Verandah? Oh, I like that one too.... say it with me now, verandah.....

What's your favorite word? Post your favorites here...you could win a free book!