Charles Harrington Elster

If you are someone who has people of a certain age — under 21 or so — hanging around your house or in your life for whatever reason, you may have noticed something unusual about their speech habits. (more…)

I’ve always been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, that master of mystery and the macabre, so when WriteOutLoud asked me to participate in this year’s Big Read (see the Events page), how could I say “nevermore”? (more…)

Remember the old rule: “A good writer never ends a sentence with a preposition”? Well, it’s too bad it was ever taught, because it is wrong, wrong, wrong. If you think I don’t know what I'm talking about, then I dare you to say, “You don’t know about what you’re talking.” (more…)

Welcome to TwainFest — WriteOutLoud's annual celebration of Mark Twain's life and words.

Let me begin by saying that it is a wonderful thing, a miraculous and heartwarming thing, in this digitally throttled age of computers and cellphones and iPods and iPads and Kindles and all manner of portable hand-held devices, to address an audience that has gathered for the sole purpose of being read to.

Mark Twain could appreciate that.

Does anyone know where Twain took his future wife, Olivia Langdon, on their first date? (more…)

Like many who make the mistake of getting published instead of getting a real job, I often find myself in the unenviable position of trying to answer a question all professional wordslingers dread: "What advice do you have for aspiring writers?" (more…)

About ten years ago my colleague in verbivoracity, Richard Lederer, and I were invited to speak together at the annual convention of the California Teachers of English (CATE), held that year in Ontario, CA. Because I fancy myself something of an occasional poet, for the occasion I took the liberty of composing the following bit of doggerel, which Richard and I delivered as a kind of panegyrical pep talk to the tired and underpaid masses of English teachers who were huddled in attendance, yearning for a few freebies for their swag bags. (more…)

I love when people ask me to coin a word for them because I love to make up words. The satisfaction of fashioning something that aptly fills a gaping hole in the language is akin, I imagine, to what a sculptor feels creating harmonious form out of earth or stone. And, unlike nearly all nonverbal artistic creations, a well-made word can elicit a chuckle or even, if it's especially clever, a guffaw. (more…)

One of my high school teachers once said, “When you’re all grown up, you’re going to remember only ten minutes of what you learned in high school.”

I think that assertion holds true for most of us. You may remember quite well the trials and tribulations of your life in high school—your extracurricular triumphs and failures, your angst-ridden struggle to establish an authentic self—but how much of what you were supposed to learn from your classes and textbooks and assignments do you recall? I can’t remember a single thing I wrote in my term paper on E. M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India, but to this day I carry with me a few precious words of advice from my English teacher that junior year. (more…)

Had a look at a menu lately? No doubt you have and, no doubt, you cringed. It’s tough for writers, copyeditors, and English teachers to dine out, for two reasons: a paucity of disposable income and the rampant shoddiness of menu writing. (more…)

Recently I received a breathless emissive from a reader of Verbal Advantage named Norma. She was in pronunciation distress, and she needed expert assistance. Here is what she wrote: (more…)