K is For Knuckle by Bob Jones

 

Knuckle created a plethora of painful memories for me.

 

Remember those elementary class competitions to see who had the knack of spelling? I was stung more than once at a spelling bee. My stomach knotted up over tricky words starting with a silent K. Even words with Os landed me in jeopardy. And I felt dumb over how subtle a B could be.

 

Silent Letters

 

My father had a dad's sense of humour. He would test our psyches about the silent P in swimming. “Dad! There is no P in swimming.” My younger sister would give him the raspberry every time he repeated that joke.

 

Do you know in the English language more than 60% of the words have silent letters in them? As kids we had to knuckle down to become proficient at spelling. Now, we simply google.

 

Our responsibility as writers is not merely employing English correctly. It is using English to illuminate, inspire, and inform. I’m not suggesting writers shouldn’t care about spelling, especially in published pieces. However, good spellers don’t necessarily make great writers.

 

Gooch

 

Have you heard the story of Gooch? He was a newly hired traveling salesman who sent his first sales report to the home office. The brass in the sales department were stunned because it was obvious that their new salesman was ignorant.

 

He wrote: “I seen this outfit which they ain’t never bot a dim’s worth of nothin from us and I sole them some goods. I’m now goin to Chicawgo.”

 

Before the man could be given his pink slip from the sales manager, along came a letter from Chicago: “I cum hear and sole them haff a millyon.”

 

Fearful if he did, and afraid if he didn’t fire Gooch, the sales manager dumped the problem in the lap of the president. The following morning, posted on the bulletin board above the two letters written by Gooch was a memo from the president:

 

“We ben spendin two much time trying to spel instead of trying to sel. Let’s watch those sails. I want everybody should read these letters from Gooch who is on the rode doin a grate job for us and you should go out and do like he done.”

 

Salespeople sell. Writers right. Write? Don’t knuckle under to shortcomings with silent Ks, Os, or Ps in your writing. Spell check can correct an inspiring piece of writing far better than inspire a piece of writing with good spelling.

 

What words might trip you up with their spelling?

 

“I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”
― Mark Twain

 

Lest we forget that Shakespeare spelled his surname in five different ways. None of them was S H A K E S P E A R E.

 

“A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.”

 

Bob is serious about writing, but doesn't take himself seriously. He works hard at humour and sharing stories at REVWords.com

Behind the Words by Bryan Norford

I’ve always been fascinated by the ability to use language to express an idea in various ways. Before I became interested in writing as an author, I was involved in preparing technical and professional documents. I found language could be used to produce authentic sounding documents (whether or not they were authentic!) by the use of words that had not only a dictionary meaning, but also carried inferences understood by the culture—professional or communal.

A couple of examples come to mind. The expression “that’s unacceptable,” seems to carry authority beyond personal opinion. Also the word “discriminate” has lost its discriminatory ability because advocacy groups for human rights commandeered it to connote their agenda. I’m sure you can think of others.

Obviously, this has implications for both fiction and non-fiction writers. Authentic writing depends not only use of the right word and ruthless deletion of unnecessary words, but also on word order. Strunk and White admirably demonstrate this by rearranging Thomas Paine’s sentence: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Other arrangements they suggest don’t carry the same emotional impact, but the reason is hard to define:

Times like these try men’s’ souls.

How trying it is to live in these times.

These are trying times for men’s souls

Soulwise, these are trying times.

This is where craftsmanship and art combine in the classics that we admire, but which deflate our own confidence. We doubt we will ever reach such sublime heights, yet we are continually constrained to try. Such is the nature of writing. Like life, perfection is seductive; its empty promise will never stop us trying, but always leaves us lamenting our poverty.

But we are fortunate to write in English. English and the other Germanic languages are descendants of Greek (recall the expression: “The Greeks had a word for it”?). So English has a wealth of words few other languages on earth can boast, providing every nuance necessary for effective, accurate writing. Would my passion for writing have been as dynamic without the English language? Possibly not.

However, the biblical languages have certainly enhanced it. A common response to even an elementary knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, is that it opens up the Scriptures afresh. In the Old Testament, for instance, the Hebrew faith formed part of the everyday Hebrew language. Thus, it was not possible to differentiate physical life from the spiritual. The connotations of God’s love and faithfulness were in every expression of love and faithfulness between humans.

In the New Testament, the Greek language had every word necessary to transmit the Christian faith. What is even more remarkable, the Holy Spirit used the “Dick and Jane” Greek of John’s Gospel to communicate sublime truths of the faith as effectively as the classic Greek used by the author of Hebrews. Furthermore, Paul took words from the Greek language and infused them with Christian truth providing “crossover” meanings to aid evangelism in his day.

If I have understood the depth of God’s love and actions for me in procuring salvation, it has been the meaning built in to various words critical to the Christian faith. The Australian theologian, Leon Morris, in his book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, researched the words: redemption, covenant, blood, propitiation, reconciliation and justification from the original languages. His work gave me a depth of understanding that drew me into a clearer and deeper permanency of my relationship to Jesus Christ, and greater assurance of my eternal security in God’s provision.

It is no accident that God has communicated to us by the written word. Not only does it provide a permanent record of God’s care for His people, it does so in a way that is relevant to every generation. His gift of writing for me and those He called into this ministry is simply an extension of His desire to communicate His love beyond ourselves.