The power of fiction, the beauty of words, and the God who made us to wield them for His glory.

Word Nerd Wednesday – Full stop or period?

Welcome to the middle of the week, Word Nerds! I started out today on an innocent quest to discover why American-English has named that little dot at the end of a sentence a period, while British- (and Australian-) English prefers the term full stop. Turns out I should have packed a lunch! One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was knee-deep in the history of punctuation itself. Talk about a grammarian’s heaven! There’s far too much for me to share here, but if you’re interested, the BBC article The Mysterious Origins of Punctuation is a great place to

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20 September 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – Pants or Trousers?

I have a Britallachian-themed edition of Word Nerd Wednesday today. And no, Britallachian isn’t the word we’re discussing. Britallachian is the term coined by author Pepper Basham to describe the British-meets-Appalachian nature of her upcoming release Just The Way You Are. It’s a great read, particularly if you’re into swoony British heroes, and it releases on 6 April—which is TOMORROW!!! Here’s a little bit about it:

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5 April 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – What Do You Call It?

I thought it might be time for another round of “What do you call it?” this week, because I’ve been curious about the different terms people have for the meals of the day. I was pondering this recently because I’m pretty sure I grew up calling the evening meal tea, but somewhere along the way I obviously transitioned to dinner, because that’s what my kids have grown up calling it. Incidentally, this confuses my grandmother, who calls the midday meal dinner, while we refer to that meal as lunch! Of course, my insatiable curiosity led to me do a little exploring

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22 February 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – What Do You Call It?

Here’s something new for 2017!  I’ve dubbed Wednesday ‘Word Nerd Wednesday’, which is hopefully fairly self-explanatory.  If not, don’t worry.  You’ll get the hang of it 🙂  Hopefully I’ll also get the hang of actually posting them by Wednesday… 🙄 This week’s Word Nerd post is weather inspired.  You see, while I have been sitting here roasting in the Australian summer heat, many of my northern hemisphere friends have been posting their winter wonderland pictures.  One comment led to another (as it often does on Facebook), and had me asking one friend, “What do you call them?”  Meaning: I call

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12 January 2017