Getting creative ideas for speeches and writing from a book on How to Be Weird by Eric G. Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the new books shelf at my friendly, local public library I found and greatly enjoyed reading Eric G. Wilson’s 2022 book, How to Be Weird – which is subtitled An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life. Eric is an English professor at Wake Forest University. He teaches Creative Writing and British Romantic Poetry. This book has 99 exercises. Their length averages just a couple of pages. At the back there is a section of further notes, labeled Resources. Ten examples are:

 

Arrange a Wunderkammer (#7), reprinted at Better Humans

Haunt Your Haunts (#18), reprinted at Residence 11

Fabricate a Story That Has Never Existed before (#28)

Review Books That Do Not Exist (#29)

Conceive a Curse Word (#33)

Hatch an Aphorism (#34)

Cop a Deadpan (#46)

Watch Strangers Watch You (#47)

Glance Askance (#92)

Author Your Own Lexicon (#98)

 

Author Your Own Lexicon begins:

 

“Shakespeare invented some 1,700 words. He reveled in anthimeria (turning nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives), portmanteaus (pressing two words into one, like ‘glare and ‘gaze’ into ‘glaze’), attaching prefixes and suffixes, and neologisms (made-up words), such as ‘lonely and ‘elbow.’

 

One source of this fecundity was Shakespeare’s historical moment. The poet lived when English dictionaries and grammars were scarce, and the lack of rules invited innovation. The poet also composed in iambic pentameter, and so needed five stresses and ten syllables for each line; if an existing word didn’t flow into the music, why not conjure a new one?

 

Historical context aside, Shakespeare did what all original writers do: make words for feelings not yet named. This can be a political act. The rules of language support cultural hierarchies: those in power dictate what one can say or can’t. Writers fighting oppression articulate the silenced emotions. Expressing the unsaid sometimes requires new words.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 27, 2014 I blogged about how you could Have fun making up new words!, and had a cartoon image for my acronym YAKWIRM.

 

An xkcd comic strip had once mentioned:

 

“…odds of getting shot by a swimming dog carrying a handgun in its mouth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 30, 2013 I did a post on Uncommon Fears where I assembled a bogus, Greek compound  -phobia word to describe the fear of it: hoplocynohydrophobia. So far no one else has used it.