December 2015 – Princeton Writes

Best Practices: Avoiding Jargon

Stephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:13:36-05:00

Best Practices: Avoiding Jargon Sometimes, particularly in the business world, we hear a different brand of English. It sounds something like this: “It's time that we became uber-efficient with our integrated reciprocal consulting. I can make a window to discuss your interactive management options. Our upgraded model now offers homogenized incremental programming and knowledge-based modular innovation.” Huh? It’s hard to decipher what the sentences above are actually trying to communicate. They came, by the way, from the “gobbledygook generator.” They are made of jargon, which is proliferating at an alarming rate in the business world, the sports world, the university, and most [...]

Best Practices: Avoiding JargonStephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:13:36-05:00

grimalkin (grĭ-MÔL-kĭn)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-28T12:00:01-05:00

Definition (Noun) A name given to a cat; hence, a cat, especially an old she-cat; contemptuously applied to a jealous or imperious old woman. In Context "Every day he sat on the window ledge, purring in the sun, as happy and contented a grimalkin as ever lived." H. Maria George, "The Old Widow and Her Cat," St. Nicholas, August 1905.

grimalkin (grĭ-MÔL-kĭn)Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-28T12:00:01-05:00

cacophonous (kə-KŎF-ə-nəs)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-21T12:00:27-05:00

Definition (Adjective) Ill-sounding, having a harsh or unpleasant sound. In Context "Initially, you hear a cacophonous mixture of loud rock music, news broadcasts, and noisy static as though you were listening to dozens of radio stations simultaneously." Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, 2007.

cacophonous (kə-KŎF-ə-nəs)Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-21T12:00:27-05:00

deplorable (dĭ-PLÔR-ə-bəl)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-14T12:00:17-05:00

Definition (Adjective) To be deplored or lamented; lamentable, very sad, grievous, miserable, wretched. Now chiefly used of events, conditions, circumstances. In Context "There is a deplorable tendency to refer to others with whom we do not agree as 'reds,' 'communists,' 'fascists,' 'atheists,' 'radicals,' and other choice epithets." "No Time for Racial Hatreds Among American Citizens," The Capital Times, October 19, 1939.

deplorable (dĭ-PLÔR-ə-bəl)Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-14T12:00:17-05:00

amanuensis (ə-măn-yōō-ĔN-sĭs)

Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-07T12:00:08-05:00

Definition (Noun) One who copies or writes from the dictation of another. In Context "Some years ago I noticed that almost none of the manuscripts published about jazz and the lives and experiences of black performers were written by Afro-Americans or by the performers themselves, without a ghostwriter or amanuensis." Preston Love, A Thousand Honey Creeks Later: My Life in Music from Basie to Motown – and Beyond, 1997.

amanuensis (ə-măn-yōō-ĔN-sĭs)Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-07T12:00:08-05:00

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) by Katherine Anne Porter

Stephanie Whetstone2015-12-01T12:00:56-05:00

Critical Assessment "The three short novels that make up Pale Horse, Pale Rider — Old Mortality, Noon Wine, and the title story itself — ask in turn the three questions that, as the critic Mark Schorer put it, humankind has always asked: What were we? What are we? What will we be? . . . "But it is where we find ourselves in this century that makes the title story of Porter's collection one that must be read. . . . "It is 1918, in the midst of both World War I and the influenza epidemic, a concurrence that one character [...]

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) by Katherine Anne PorterStephanie Whetstone2015-12-01T12:00:56-05:00