language – Professional Copywriter | Wyalusing, PA Bradford County

A Different Take on Guns and Shooting

This is no shooter, but when I’m done you’ll be shot. There are few issues more divisive than gun control, which is itself a term devoid of a simple meaning. The generally accepted definition is “restricting or limiting the sale or possession of firearms.” A firearm is usually a rifle or pistol, but guns include everything that shoots some kind of projectile, including cannons and missile launchers. They are the big guns. Guns can also shoot water [...]

By Wes Skillings|2023-05-30T16:54:31+00:00May 30, 2023|Definitions, English, Gun Control, Language, Phrases, Shooting, Vocabulary, Words|

Yukking It Up with Artificial Intelligence

Will artificial intelligence mimic a human's sense of humor? It seems that, all of a sudden, artificial intelligence is about to change life and humanity as we know it. Who is going to need writers, poets, artists, musicians, composers, philosophers, and even preachers when artificial intelligence is about to mine the best we have within us, including any thoughts and theories ever recorded or visuals created on canvasses and movie screens since the first stick figures were [...]

By Wes Skillings|2023-03-05T14:09:41+00:00March 5, 2023|Artificial Intelligence, Humor, Language, Learning, Minds, Politics, Social Issues, Social Media|

Reaching Back in Time for Some Random Observations

I often look through past commentaries to make sure I’m not repeating myself— not just the topics but the wording as well. I’ll write something and it seems too familiar. Am I repeating myself? Lots of people repeat themselves in conversations— telling the same jokes, making the same points— so it’s logical that writers occasionally do the same thing. This time I thought I might purposely repeat myself, with random observations from columns and blogs written over the span [...]

By Wes Skillings|2023-02-02T13:52:14+00:00February 2, 2023|Aging, Opinions, Phrases, Respect, Social Issues, Words|

A Strange Little Word with So Many Issues

Chowing down while the dogs fight over a bone of contention. I’ve spent of good deal of my life dealing with words. We all use them. At least all of us who speak or write, but even illiterate people, who may not know how to spell them, use them, and people who are unable to speak or hear must think them. I think about words and how they came to mean what they do. You use them [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-06-14T01:16:00+00:00June 14, 2022|Language, Synonyms, Vocabulary, Words, Writing|

Playing around with the Three “Homos”

Making it to the end of this essay is enough to wipe the smile off any face. I think I missed a week of blogging. I recently found a publisher for my book, and I’ve been going back and forth with a consultant, establishing a portal so we can start the editing process. That means carefully proofing two dozen chapters containing some 93,000 words and rounding up photos to illustrate the true crime manuscript. That’s my excuse [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-26T04:14:50+00:00January 26, 2022|Homonyms, Homophones, Humor, Language, Vocabulary, Words|

Communication Thrives on the Words We Use

The origins of the words we use are often primitive, but we shouldn’t abandon them too quickly. Every once in a while, I run into a language purist who likes to take issue with stuff I have written as being wrong-headed or just plain wrong. These are people who think you shouldn’t use words like “stuff,” as I just did, because it is lazy. Find the definitive word, they’ll lecture, because stuff means unspecified things. Still, there [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:32+00:00December 3, 2021|Language, Uncategorized, Vocabulary, Words|

Trying to Stay Relevant with an Aging Mind

Words and phrases that show your age. Uncool or rich in history and meaning? Now I’m too old to worry about whether I’m cool or not. Or is that too cool to worry about how old I am? I do know that it is still cool to use cool to mean something is, well, cool. It is one of the long-standing tidbits of slang that has lasted through multiple generations. Then again, that may not be true [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:40+00:00September 15, 2021|English, Humor, Language, Phrases, Sayings, Words, Writing|

Nothing You Needed to Know about Minds and Brains

Don’t mind me if I pick my brain. The potential of the human mind is limitless. That’s a no-brainer. Well, without a brain, you couldn’t have a… Never mind. Anyway, I’m not talking about people who don’t have brains. Their potential for having a mind is severely limited. It has been demonstrated after years of pseudo-psychometric research and exhaustive testing of people (who don’t seem to mind) that if you still don’t have a mind once you [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:47+00:00July 22, 2021|Brain, Human Mind, Humor, Memory|

Remembering Words We Seldom Use Anymore

Words come and go as the years go by. One of the great things about being young— as in late adolescence and well into the vague parameters of young adulthood— is you get to make up your own language and toss words and expressions your parents and grandparents are fond of onto the scrapheap. Words like scrapheap, for instance. I explored that subject a few years back in a newspaper column entitled: “Outliving a Big Chunk of [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:49+00:00June 17, 2021|Pop Culture, Vocabulary, Words, Writing|

Making Our Points with Exclamations!

Exclamations should be used sparingly for impact. Get the point? I’m not big on exclamation points. I have to be exceedingly excited, angry or enthused to use them in my writing. You use such things sparingly for effect. And yet, as someone who edited many articles, commentaries and letters to the editor over the years, I’ve seen exclamations used so liberally it’s like the written form of shouting. You have undoubtedly seen correspondence, email and social media [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:52+00:00April 7, 2021|Exclamations, Language, Punctuation, Sayings, Words|

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