Loneliness and the crying heart

Quotable phrase: “You heart feel like it crying blood.” [sic]
Citation: Imagine, blog entry on Sat., Feb. 18, 2006 for Guyana by Guyana-Gal.
Usage: Describing personal loneliness.
Comment: Some very moving, descriptive prose. I also like the rhythm of the writing. It's a very interesting style, almost lyrical, perhaps from living in Guyana.

Looking for words in all the right places

If the Internet is anything, it’s a marketplace for knowledge, including as a researcher’s dream for looking up words. That includes resources for word gamers. Here’s a so-far short list of places to go for answers while you’re playing crosswords, Scrabble, and other word games.

Online Game Dictionaries:

• Dictionary.com – various languages, crosswords, legal, medical, acronyms, jargon
• Merriam-Webster OnLine – Free, searchable online dictionary and thesaurus, word games, a word of the day, and many other English language and vocabulary reference tools and resources.
• Strange and Unusual Dictionaries – “Resources for Scrabble games, bar bets, and other trivial pursuits.”

Moore accomplishes much in his narrative

Quotable phrase 1: “..her brow furrowed into moguls of earnest contemplation…”
Citation: Fluke by Christopher Moore, page 40
Usage: Describing a woman in thought: “Amy assumed the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker on her stool, her chin teed up on her hand…”
Comment: One of Moore’s great strengths is the quality of his narrative and his vivid descriptions. This is one example. A second one from the same book follows. In this one, I can see the moguls or ridges on the forhead as serious thought takes place.

Quotable phrase 2: “…let the facts roll around the rim of the mind’s roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feel pulled to.”
Citation: Fluke by Christopher Moore, page 200
Usage: Describing the notion of “pondering.” He says, “Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind’s roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feel pulled to.”
Comment: I can just imagine the wheel in someone’s mind, the idea being the ball that runs round and round until it settles in a slot and the person sitting upright, his eyes fully open with a look that says “Aha!” In some instances, a mind works like a pinball machine with thoughts bouncing and bounding around synapses and finally landing in the hole where ideas take root.

Look for a review of some of Christopher Moore’s works in an upcoming issue of Booksville, my book-centered weblog.