I’ve been offering writing services – including talks and workshops, editing and proofreading, manuscript assessment and mentoring – for a few years now. With the changing work landscape I’ve decided to formalise all the different services I can provide in a new business. Narrelle Harris Writing Services Even if you’re not in the market for…
Read moreTag: language
The Weasel-word Edit
When I’m writing a first draft, I use certain words and phrases far too much, trying to capture the image and tone in my head for the page. Some scenes play out like a movie in my mind’s eye and I end up too prone to minute stage directions, to expressions that qualify and prevaricate…
Read moreAdulting like a pro
I know I go on a bit about the correct use of language, but I’m not a complete stick-in-the-mud. Language evolves, I know. New words come in, archaic ones get shown the door and you only need to know them when you’re reading Austen or Conan Doyle or Shakespeare. For all that, I’m very fond…
Read moreThe Secret Life of Dashes
I was explaining the difference between hyphens, en dashes and em dashes the other day, and the recipient of my edited-for-brevity wisdom suggested I should blog it, as it was the first time she’s understood the differences. So here it is. It’s certainly not comprehensive – the hyphen has a number of rules, all of…
Read moreLessons in Language: Fine Toothcombs and Fine-toothed Combs
You know what surprised the merry hell out of me when I googled in preparation for this language rant? There is indeed such a thing as a ‘toothcomb’. A toothcomb refers to a dental feature in some mammals where a row of long, thin teeth mimic the teeth of a comb, and are used by…
Read moreThe Grammar of Song
For Melburnians who love cabaret, the dear old Butterfly Club may have been turfed out of its old home in South Melbourne, but it now has new digs in the city. The shiny new Carson Place venue is tucked down an alleyway, as all the best Melbourne venues and bars are. I was one of…
Read moreEverything old is new again
My father recently gave me a charming anthology called The Family Book of Best Loved Short Stories, a Doubleday edition from 1954, edited by Leland W Lawrence. He said he’d seized upon it long ago because it had Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King in its contents. I took it with me on…
Read moreWords are Shapely
While watching a show about design a few months ago, I learned that the use of mixed upper and lower cases on road signs was a deliberate choice. Research showed that people could read the signs from a distance more easily because people could recognise the shape of the word before they could really even…
Read moreLessons in Language: All above board and ship shape!
I once wrote a feisty rant about the phrase changing tack (meaning to change one’s approach) and how some folks mistakenly write that as change tact, despite the term’s surely obvious nautical origins. It shouldn’t make me foam at the mouth, and yet it does. Okay. So I’m not necessarily a reasonable human being. The…
Read moreLessons in Language: Eponymous
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I would like my name to go down in history as a standard word in the English language, despite the inherent pitfalls in the idea. Several people made entertaining suggestions for what my name might mean, if the circumstances were ever right for it. Alan Baxter suggested:…
Read more