A Writer's Tale

However, it can’t be achieved easily or quickly. It has to be developed over a span of several years. The key to P.O.E. is the number of books you write and get published.

It doesn’t work very well if you’ve only sold two or three books. But by the time you’ve sold ten or fifteen, it will almost surely be generating plenty of money.

You need to keep a nonwriting source of income to sustain you until you’ve produced enough material for P.O.E. to kick in.

When is it safe to quit the job and write full time?

As soon as you see that the Pile-On Effect is producing a steady, large income. How large? That’s up to you and your spouse.

Generally, by the time you see significant results from P.O.E., you should be able to earn more money from writing than from your “real job.” At that point, any job other than writing becomes a waste of time and money.

It’s quitting time.

My 22 Favorite Poets

1. William Ashbless

2. Rupert Brooke

3. Robert Burns

4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

5. e.e. cummings

6. Allan Edward DePrey

7. Emily Dickinson

8. Lawrence Ferlinghetti

9. Robert Frost

10. A.E. Houseman

11. Randall Jarrell

12. John Masefield

13. Rod McKuen

14. Kenneth Patchen

15. Edgar Allan Poe

16. Carl Sandberg

17. Robert Service

18. William Shakespeare

19. Robert Lewis Stevenson

20. R.S. Stewart

21. Dylan Thomas

22. William Butler Yeats

My 10 Favorite Playwrights

1. Agatha Christie

2. Sean O’Casey 3. Ira Levin

4. Arthur Miller

5. William Shakespeare

6. George Bernard Shaw

7. Neil Simon

8. John Synge

9. Tennessee Williams

10. William Butler Yeats

Garbage Language

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT LITERALLY EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK, people are abusing the language?

I just did.

Since when did “literally” come to mean “figuratively”?

That is almost the only way you find it used, these days.

“Literally” has stopped meaning literally altogether. It has become a term of exaggeration.

And it has, thereby, become literally useless.

It has been turned into a garbage word.

The funny thing about “literally” is that, even when used properly, it is almost always a garbage word. What does it mean, anyway?

It literally means nothing.

Which is a wordy way to express, “It means nothing.”

Wordy, but oh so impressive. A person sounds so very intelligent when it’s “literally” this and “literally” that and “literally” everything under the sun “literally” including the kitchen sink.

And there we have the secret behind the current use and abuse of the poor word.

Saying it makes you sound smart.

At least if your audience isn’t.

Writers use and abuse the poor word, but the worst offenders are public speakers: attorneys, politicians, educators, news commentators and reporters, “community leaders” and activists promoting their questionable causes. Such people are often on the air, molding minds, influencing the public’s perception of our language.

These same impressive, supposedly highly educated folks (after all, most of them have passed the “bar” examination), not only toss around “literally” as if they’re being paid ten bucks every time it pops out of their mouths, but they seem to linger under the impression that the “t” in often is not supposed to be silent. It should be pronounced “off-‘n,” not “off-ton.” And they labor under the impression that “irregardless” is a word. It isn’t.

The word is “regardless.” No ir. The ir appears to be borrowed from the real word, “irrespective.” Apparently, the two words have similar meanings and get tangled in the heads of these highly intelligent people.

On the subject of the errant ir how often do you hear supposedly well-educated people say, “To err is human”? Only it sounds like, “To air is human.” As if they’re talking about farts. Properly pronounced, err rhymes with “fur,” not “fair.” I happen to know that because my old college roommate, Fred Castro, lost a public speaking contest when he erred in the pronunciation of err. (Plus, the dictionary provides corroborating evidence.) Bad enough that we are constantly being battered by poor language coming from people who ought to know better, but the mistakes are pretentious. Showoffy.

At the very moment that a person is trying to impress us with his erudition by flourishing his “literally,” his “often” and his “irregardless,” he’s erring in front of everyone who knows better.

The person is arguably a pretentious moron.

Arguably?

What’s that?

Another precious garbage word. Literally, it means that a person might conceivably argue in favor of the point that is being made.

But basically it means nothing.

I’ve just hit you with two more garbage words.

Conceivably. Basically.

They are most often used in such a way that they have little or no meaning at all. They are “smart-sounding” filler.

Garbage.

Arguably, conceivably, basically.

Such words mean virtually nothing.

Virtually!

More garbage. In current usage, it seems to be a synonym of literally.

But is there a viable alternative to the use of such language?