Hermenautic Circle blog

I've been hearing from the editors of other small literary magazines that they have been receiving SANDWICHES as submissions. Which arrive with SASEs, no less!

So I just want to remind you that, here at VERBATIM, we don't publish fiction, journalism, or sandwiches. Sorry!

Another mag got a submission stuffed with that cut-foil confetti. They're still finding scraps of it all over their office. Irritating the editor is NEVER a good idea. Remember: not all attention is GOOD attention.

The very late, much-delayed, highly anticipated (I hope) Spring and Summer issues of VERBATIM are FINALLY at the printer! Here are the contents of these issues, which will be mailed together ...

XXX/1
Journo’s Boffo Lingo: The Slang of Daily Variety David Wilton
Mongo No Like Legging: Family Expressions Deserving Wider Recognition Jessy Randall
Confessions of a Verbivore Richard Lederer
E-Mails to an Etymologist Michael Quinion
Murder! She Ejaculated Edmund Conti
Blurts Aidan Baker
New Yawk Tawk Charles Elster
Who Put the Nick in my Name? Gloria Rosenthal
Subversion by Adverb Orin Hargraves
Such a Stew About Punning A. H. Block
Untitled Larry Tritten
Horribile Dictu Mat Coward
Classical Blather: Death’s Masks Nick Humez
As the Word Turns: Brief Lives, Brief Loves Barry Baldwin
XXX/2
The Simpsons: Embiggening Our Language with Cromulent Words Mark Peters
Brain Injury and Language Catherine P. Businelle
The Corporatization of Verbal Communication Processes Keith Hall
Playing Boggle with My Sister Lauren Rile Smith
Falsest of Friends Fraser Sutherland
Fan Words Marcelo Rinesi
What Do Poets Want? Louis Phillips
A Word or Two in Spanglish C. J. Moore
The Alphabet Is Killing Us John Nixon, Jr.
Ode to a Clodhopper Jerome Betts
One, Two, Three Francis Heaney
Sex and the Single Noun Thora Von Male
High-Scoring Scrabble™ Strings Seeking Definition Dan Pratt
Affiant Saith Further Nought Frank Abate
Horribile Dictu Mat Coward
Classical Blather: Words of Power Nick Humez

anyjazz65 has added a photo to the pool:

anyjazz65 has added a photo to the pool:

A new contributor, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt (look for his work soon in the pages of VERBATIM), sent me this wonderful knock-knock joke today.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Objective case.

Objective case who?

No, objective case *whom*.

Check out Jonathan's other humor writing here.

I got a nice email from dictionary-lover and writer Scott Huler the other day (he actually never sends any other kind -- but don't use this as an excuse to flame him to see if you can get him to send not-nice emails!) asking about words that are their own opposites. To be exact, he was asking about phrases that can be their own opposites, such as "nobody's left", but we haven't talked about phrases of this kind in VERBATIM, only words.

So. Here are links to a column by Philip Howard on the subject (where he discusses the Janus word chuffed at length) and also one by Jon O. Newman, who talks about the words for different words: synonyms, antonyms, and one of the words we're talking about, contronyms.

There have been recent posts about this book on both BoingBoing and Metafilter, so here is the classic 1981 article from VERBATIM on the subject.

I'm taking requests as to what articles should go up online -- email me or leave a comment!