Strange Brew by John Deering for November 05, 2022

Under the spreading chestnut tree?

Well, don’t that just jargogle you?

Is that where new words come from?

“Or do you say ‘Wordsmythe”?

I consider myself to be a decent writer. I’ve even made a living at it as a tech writer while looking for work in my primary job as an engineer.

There really isn’t a lot of difference between engineering and writing. As an electrical engineer, I took resisters, capacitors, inductors, power sources and wires and put them together in various ways to make different kinds of circuits.

As a writer, I took nouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions and other parts of speech to make different kinds of sentences.

As an engineer, I drew schematic diagrams to show how the circuits were put together. As a child in grade school, I drew schematic diagrams to show how sentences were put together.

I wonder if diagraming sentences has gone the way of cursive writing.

Is “cattywampus” similar to coddiwample?

This was just amazeballs.

DOGGONEIT!

This scene would be familiar in a linotype shop but the method differs.

He’s in cahoots with every wrangler that knows not to squat on their spurs.

These days, wordsmiths are under a weeping willow.

I need a pair of Knickerbockers.

One of my duties when I used to work for USDA was to edit manuscripts which research scientists would write. Invariably, they would write in passive voice. It used to drive me nuts, but I was told not to correct it so I just gritted my teeth and let it go.