July 2015 – Princeton Writes

Writing at Its Best

Stephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:18:05-05:00

Writing at Its Best by Thomas Garcia This is the second installment in our series of reflections on the nature of "good writing." For Thomas Garcia '16, Princeton Writes' Social Media Coordinator, writing at its best inspires, vexes, connects, and destabilizes – the four horsemen of the written word. Good writing inspires. When I picked up a tattered copy of The Sea-Wolf in the 7th grade, I did not expect the one-hundred-year-old words to give me chills. An abiding spirit was imbued in the sentence flow, the foundation of the plot, and the characters’ intricacies. This spirit epitomizes the immortal nature [...]

Writing at Its BestStephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:18:05-05:00

palimpsest (PĂL-ĭmp-sĕst)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-27T12:00:25-04:00

Definition (Noun) A parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another; a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing. In Context "Every visible pen stroke, crease, and blemish of the palimpsest had come under his magnifying glass, until he knew its parchment terrain as intimately as that of his home city." Alan Hirshfeld, Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes, 2009.

palimpsest (PĂL-ĭmp-sĕst)Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-27T12:00:25-04:00

celerity (sə-LĔR-ĭ-tē)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-20T12:00:45-04:00

Definition (Noun) Swiftness, speed. Now chiefly (as distinguished from velocity) with reference to the movements or actions of living beings. In Context "The new arrangements were more masterly, men less obnoxious were nominated to situations of trust, and business was dispatched with greater celerity." Willem Lodewyk Van Ess, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte: Volume 3, 1810.

celerity (sə-LĔR-ĭ-tē)Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-20T12:00:45-04:00

oxymoron (ŏk-sē-MÔR-ŏn)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-13T12:00:59-04:00

Definition (Noun) A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis. In Context "Pianoforte (or sometimes fortepiano) – the original name of the musical instrument now called simply a piano – is also a one-word oxymoron because in music the Italian piano means soft and forte (pronounced FOR-tay) means loud." Charles Harrington Elster, Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps, 2014.

oxymoron (ŏk-sē-MÔR-ŏn)Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-13T12:00:59-04:00

quondam (KWŎN-dəm)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-06T12:00:43-04:00

Definition (Adjective) Of things, qualities, conditions, etc.: that once was or existed; former, erstwhile. In Context "For over a century, the formerly Portuguese colony of Macao has been much overshadowed by its neighbor, the quondam British colony of Hong Kong, always far larger in both area and population." Michael Share, Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao, 2007.

quondam (KWŎN-dəm)Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-06T12:00:43-04:00

Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis

Stephanie Whetstone2015-07-01T12:00:38-04:00

Critical Assessment "Mr. Amis has successfully accomplished at first shot the rare feat of creating a genuinely comic yet credible character. Dixon is a young lecturer at a northern university, determined to stand on his own feet, who finds that in so doing he is unable to avoid treading on the toes of many of the people around him. Mr. Amis shows him off sympathetically as well as humorously, and his account of the various incidents that cause Dixon's academic career to be a short but not glorious one makes most enjoyable reading. . . . "The style of Lucky Jim [...]

Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley AmisStephanie Whetstone2015-07-01T12:00:38-04:00