Wordsworth: Purveyors of Fine Phrases LLC

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Pick up a book!

If you needed a reason to read a book tonight, here it is!

For those who, like me, cannot get through the day without a haiku.

Don't Take Away My Bad Poetry I’m not sure when the addiction took hold, but I knew I had a problem the moment I realized that I was taking snippets of overheard conversations and reshaping them into 5/7/5 syllable formations. Like this one, composed one summer evening while I was walking behind a couple along 8th Avenue:

Where is it written that drafting your has to be torture?

Brainstorm Your Way to Your Best College Essay The sky’s the limit when it comes to choosing the topic for your college essay. For many students, this makes it that much harder to decide. But don’t settle. Brainstorm. This is your chance to tell your story, to stand out from the crowd. You don’t want to choose a topic that doesn’t allow ...

What's in your history?

“The contents of someone’s bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.“
— Umberto Eco

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Did it take me 24 hours to figure out who sent me that 4-kopek postcard? Yes. Yes it did.

Four-Kopek Stamp Ignites a Mailbox Mystery Some years ago, when my son received a handwritten birthday card from his grandmother, I watched, cringing, as he tried to read her perfectly legible handwriting aloud. There were several stops and starts before my husband stepped in to help him decipher the few lines of his mother’s cursive. That...

Hey lovers, it's National Card and Letter-writing month! Let's and do our part to . Because those chocolate Easter bunnies are not going to mail themselves.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered, the Post Office is Ours Dear Mr. President, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but could you spare a moment for the U.S. Postal Service? That engine of social and economic cohesion since before the Revolutionary War? The current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by your predecessor last June, is doin...

Celebrating women and the power of secrets on International Women's Day.

Three Cheers for the Secret Keepers on International Women's Day In the beginning, motherhood was a secret. For one whole day after that second blue line appeared on the pregnancy test, I carried that secret around like a treasure. I had every intention of telling my not-quite husband, but he was an eight-hour time zone away. With such news, I could have justifie...

Abandon punctuation at your own peril. Happy !

A Flurry of Punctuation to Celebrate Grammar Day Sorry Just can’t make it work What would you think if you received a text like this? Okay, it’s a fictional text, sent by a fictional character. But this text – and the chain of events it unleashed over the course of a 22-minute TV episode – sums up my feelings about texting and grammar. Or ...

A curious and cockamamie journey of a word -- through the Bronx.

My Dad's Cockamamie Tale from the Bronx It occurs to me that after my father passes, I may never hear the word “cockamamie” again. Other words, too. Like hullabaloo, hanky-panky, life of Riley. But among all of the words embedded in my father’s vocabulary, cockamamie is my favorite. The sheer force of its syllables, its whimsical na...

Sometimes, a saucepan is not just a saucepan. Finding comfort in my little red saucepan.

The Little Red Saucepan The red saucepan sits in the garden, battered and broken. How many years has it been since it first hosted a roux as it bubbled and browned? Tickled by the milk whisked in? How long has it been since it passed from its original owner to his upstairs neighbor?

Are semicolons pretentious (no)? Ugly (no)? Misunderstood (yes)? Kudos to Lauren Oyler for this brilliant piece on my favorite punctuation mark. A period on top of a comma, that works like both.
"There are so many things to fear in life, but punctuation is not one of them. That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied."

The Case for Semicolons There are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downside.