Language

Review: Start with a Word

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Cover image of "Start with a Word" by Marilyn McEntyre

Start with a Word

Start with a Word, Marilyn McEntyre. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883162) 2026.

Summary: A book on writing using the works of other writers and creative writing exercises that help writers find their own voices.

I’ve faced it as has probably every writer. The blank screen or page. Figuring out how to pour onto the page the story or ideas that have lived within. As with other crafts, aspiring writers take classes, workshops, or even enroll in MFA programs in writing to learn their craft. Many of the programs afford the opportunity to learn from accomplished writers. Or, you could read and practice this book. Marilyn McEntyre is a writer who cares deeply about words and how we use them and she is a teacher who has taught writing in a number of classrooms.

This is not a manual of style or an instruction manual. Rather, it combines examples of good writing with exercises that “work all the different muscle groups” involved in good writing. She begins by encouraging writers to read good writing and to become attentive to the ways each writer tells a story or conveys an idea. She also makes a telling observation about good reading. Good reading gives consent, or if we cannot give consent to what we are reading, understands why.

Each chapter begins with an imperative in the title. “Begin Beginning,” “Move the Camera,” Develop and Digress,” and so forth until we get to “Know When to Stop.” Each chapter uses a variety of literary passages to illustrate an aspect of the writing craft. In “Move the Camera,” for example, she cites a passage from the work of Willa Cather of scene changes as the narrator walks with her grandmother to a prairie garden. In “Find Out Who’s There” on character development, she quotes a passage portraying Old Jack from Wendell Berry’s Memory of Old Jack. Likewise, in “Get to Know Your Narrator” she uses the example of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.

Then, each chapter also includes numerous exercises. The first, from which the book gets its title, is “begin with a word.” Specifically she suggests words like ticklish, rocking, gracious, custard or dolphins. The idea is almost any word will do. And go from there and see where it leads. Also, it’s alright to start over seeing how some beginnings work better than others. Throughout the book, there is a sense of playfulness, similar to the “studies” artists do where they try different techniques.

However, I thought one of the most significant chapters was “Do the Word Work.” McEntyre’s care for words comes shining through, and one glimpses her sense of the holy calling of writing. For example, she states:

“I’ve also written about what can happen when you pause over a word or phrase, ponder it, look up its history, pay attention to associations that come from it, reframe it, and share it in lines that make it new. I deeply believe words can be channels of healing and grace. They can have a sacramental character: they can help bring into being the things they name” (p. 45).

She goes on to list some of the ways we do good “word work” including telling the truth, caring about precision, not tolerating lies, and practicing poetry, and many more.

McEntyre also believes we write from the inside out. She explores a range of life experiences we may have and encourages reflection to discern what we may have to say. She asks us to identify “What truths have I come to that need or deserve to be told?” She then follows serious self-exploration with playfulness, particularly holding up the writing of Anne Lamott.

As already noted, she advocates writing poetry even if we focus on prose. Poetry attunes us to rhythm, images, and precision with words. Sometimes, it may be simple as taking a longer sentence and breaking it into phrases, line by line. Then, we notice how we see and hear it differently and become aware of its cadences.

The book concludes with an Afterword on editing. One of the axioms of writing is “there is no good writing, only good rewriting.” McEntyre gives a number of tips of things we might scan for in our work: verbs, time markers, sentence structure, sentence starters and endings, sentence variations, abstractions, images and metaphors, cadence, tonal cues, omissions and more.

This is a useful guide for anyone who writes, whether it is a blog (a form of essay) a podcast script, devotional reflections, sermons, poetry, or longer form fiction or non-fiction. The whole book challenges us to keep company with good writers. In a time when words are used both poorly and with ill intent, she calls us to the good, the true, and the beautiful in writing and offers us examples and prompts to how it is done. She both trains us in the craft and offers us a taste of the adventure. And it all starts with a word.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Other reviews of books of Marilyn McEntyre:

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

Make A List

Where the Eye Alights

Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict

Review: The Limits of My World

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The Limits of My World, Gregory Coles. Loveland, CO: Walking Carnival Books, 2023.

Summary: A small group of people from two races encounter, and in the process, discover the challenge of communicating across two languages and a larger reality beyond their known universe.

Tei and Kanan are Fledglings hoping to be selected as Finals. Only ten from each class are selected, the rest being archived. Kanan is a runner who can complete a circuit of the Universe they inhabit in 17 minutes. Tei delves deeply into the archives. Both expect Kanan to be selected. Instead, neither are. Then something strange happens. They announce a special Final is to be selected, an Interpreter to learn the language of beings that exist in the world above, called Natchers. Tei, of all people, is selected, for his deep delvings into the archives, from which he will learn the language. Tei and Kanan have made a promise to find each other, but Kanan will be archived. Except she uses her speed to elude capture, finding herself in a meat locker among remains without the protective shell-like skin that has already been partially stripped off her.

Suddenly she finds herself in the world above with the “Natchers” except they don’t call themselves. They speak of themselves as humans, what Kanan’s race calls itself. The people she finds herself among call Kanan’s race the Cyborgs because of the shell-like covering called “skin” worn over what the “Natchers” call skin. She discovers why communication between the two peoples is so impossible–almost everything in one language means something else, sometimes just its opposite. “Sorry,” meant genuinely is considered a word of contempt.

Both Tei and Kanan, unaware of each other, learn that the two races depend on each other. Mahlah, a swimmer, leads a raid to obtain medicine desperately needed from the Cyborgs for an ill child, using re-skinned Kanan to gain access. Eventually Mahlah is captured by the Cyborgs and is “allowed” escape with Tei. Meanwhile, Tei has learned how a single group became two races, and that the Nothing beyond, is not nothing but a larger reality and end of a story they no longer comprehend. The contact Tei and Kanan have with the Natchers, and what they learn implicate them as traitors in the eyes of both races and yet point to truth both races desperately need to understand. As Coles writes, “Truth must be a fragile thing if it only survives in one language.”

Gregory Coles has done both some incredible worldmaking and explored how languages shape societies, and how truth is perceived. And as he puts it toward the conclusion of the work:

“The walls of the human world–the boundaries of their worlds–kept them from seeing the one sight that might have opened their eyes” (p. 322).

This is Gregory Coles first work of science fiction. It is the Foreword INDIES Award Finalist for science fiction in 2023, Kirkus Reviews Starred Pick, and a PW Booklife Editor’s Pick. I thoroughly enjoyed the twisty plot, the development of Tei, the descriptions of the Universe they inhabit, and the rich exploration of how language works. I hope I will see more from this writer.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Conscientious Objections

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Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology, and Education, Neil Postman. New York: Vintage, 1992.

Summary: A collection of essays of social criticism, considering our communications media and rhetoric, education and its purpose, and technology and how it shapes society.

It has been some time since I’ve read Neil Postman. Twenty years ago, I appreciated his trenchant critique of television and how it was making us dumb, long before critiques of the internet, and of his concerns about how technology was shaping modern society. This collection of essays, which I’ve finally gotten around to reading, revisits some of the same themes, but what I found different (or perhaps didn’t remember) is the biting wit of these essays–these feels like Neil Postman unfiltered–or at least less filtered. Many were originally spoken presentations, which perhaps accounts for some of the difference.

He opens with a critique of the idea of “social science” and would place himself in the camp of those who deny that this is a science at all, calling it “moral theology.” He includes himself in his critique and argues that “social scientists” are story tellers, reminding us in fresh ways of the nature of the human condition and the character of human society. He then considers the purpose of education. Is it to inculcate our culture or to defend us against it? He would argue for the latter and particularly the importance of teaching an awareness of the nature, uses, and power of language.

At times, he can be tongue-in-cheek, as in his essays “The Naming of Missiles” and “The Parable of the Ring Around the Collar” (some of us remember this and other commercials, to which he alludes). He treats these as modern redemption tales. “Megatons for Anthromegs,” “Future Schlock,” “Safe-Fail,” and “My Graduation Speech” are additional examples.

As in Amusing Ourselves to Death, there are several essays on the influence of television on our habits of discourse. “A Muted Celebration,” on the two hundredth anniversary of The Columbian, discussing the decline of literary magazines with the rise of other media. “The News” explores the problems inherent in trying to cover the news of the day on television in 22 minutes or less (I wonder what he would have thought of 24/7 news outlets). “Remembering the Golden Age” considers the period of 52 minute plays written for television by the likes of Paddy Chayevsky, Rod Serling and Gore Vidal for series such as The Kraft Television Theatre.

Many of the tongue-in-cheek essays discuss the language games we play to deceive or cover despicable things in sanitary language. In one essay, he highlights a thinker, Alfred Korzybski, who he believes deserves more attention, because he “helped to heighten our awareness of the role of language in making us what we are and in preventing us from becoming what we ought to be but are not yet.”

Perhaps worth the price of admission is his essay on “The Disappearance of Childhood.” If you have not read Amusing Ourselves to Death, this essay argues how our new media are contributing to the destruction of the idea of childhood, treating children as little adults, or indiscriminately exposing them to the adult.

This collection is a good introduction to Postman’s longer works, covering in brief many of the themes he develops in greater length in them. Reading him thirty years down the road, I’m struck with how prescient he was in many respects, anticipating how media shapes us (even before social media) and how technology is not neutral but value-laden. He anticipates the decline of print media, and warns us of the dangers of the manipulation of language, so much the greater in our “post truth” generation. While the book is dated, it is a valuable piece of social history, indeed of “moral theology,” that indicates that we had been warned of what was coming.

Review: Seven Brief Lessons on Language

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Seven Brief Lessons on Language, Jonathan Dunne. Sofia, Bulgaria: Small Stations Press, 2023.

Summary: Explores the spiritual significance embedded into the letters, sounds, and structure of our language.

When I was young, the host of a local children’s program took the initials of a child having a birthday that day and turned it into an amusing drawing. I felt there was something of that sort going on with this book, but I could not say that I was amused with the letter play in this book and the supposed spiritual truths the author found in the vowels and consonants and words of our language.

The book is patterned on one by Carlo Rovelli titled Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. The book consists of seven short readings and a postscript. The author believes our language is encoded with spiritual truth for those whose eyes are opened, and through these “lessons,” the author proposes to offer the insights that will open our eyes.

The first chapter is on the alphabet, the vowels and consonants, how they are formed, phonetic pairs of consonants (important to the ideas he develops) and their connection to breath, water, and flesh. A clue to what he would be doing comes early, when through a series of transpositions he connects breath, water, and flesh to “father,” the one who speaks all into existence. Subsequent chapters reflect on the Alpha and Omega, the “I” that is both “I am” and the sinful human ego that needs to go from I to O, the One who is Three, Love, Believe, and Translate.

Here’s a brief example from the chapter on the Trinity of the kind of language play one encounters throughout the book:

“As when we place three Os together, we get G O D, so when we place three Is together we get I l l. We become ill when we are apart from God, when we turn our back on him” (p.53).

All of this seems clever letter and word play in service of a book on spirituality. The method seems to me arbitrary, and one that could be used to say almost anything. Also, much of the book focuses on the English alphabet and words while treating with spiritual concepts that are transcultural.

I assume the sincerity of the writer, and would agree with many of the spiritual insights as a fellow Christian. But the method would have us looking for phonetic clues to reveal spiritual meaning rather than the plain meanings of the words of the scriptures and the creeds, which feels more of “Gnostic” or hidden knowledge than Christian.

The book also felt a bit of a “bait and switch,” at least it’s title, modeled as it is on Rovelli’s book which really is on physics. These really are not, except perhaps for the first, lessons on language but spiritual reflections drawing upon the author’s wordplay.

For those who truly value language and its power to unveil spiritual reality, I would commend the works of Marilyn McEntyre <https://www.marilynmcentyre.com/books>. As for this, I would take a pass.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.

Watch Your $%&*@^# Language!

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Chris James, (No Cursing??) Sign (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr

Have you noticed that language is getting coarser? We were shopping yesterday in a bookstore (during National Book Day!) and I wandered over to the bestseller shelves. Two of the titles that greeted me were, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and You Are a Badass. At least the former title used an asterisk, but we all know which vowel it was replacing.

Book titles are just symptomatic of the proliferation of profanity in our media. It’s common to see either abbreviations or actual profanity on social media and to come across blog posts liberally laden with profanity. More than that, coarse words for defecation, urination, and sex lace everyday conversation. We use a word for excrement for getting our act together. We routinely use a word for urinating to describe the experience of being angered by something. The f-bomb seems to be an all around adjective as well as a favorite expression of anger. I could go on but you know what I’m talking about.

It’s not like I’ve never used these words. Particularly as a teenager hanging out with my buddies in urban Youngstown, our conversations were richly laced with profanity. For a period of my life, I thought it was kind of cool or edgy. I’d argue that it was only “dirty” because some people said it was. I’d argue that we were getting “real.”

My Christian journey started changing that. It wasn’t so much rules against certain words, as principles that spoke to the power of words in a community, and to shape the community around us. The apostle Paul wrote, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29, NIV).

I began to realize words have the power to evoke the best or worst angels of our natures, that our words build up others or undermine them. Words can hurt or heal. Actually, this extends beyond profanity to things like gossip where we feed on the meager fare of tearing someone down when they aren’t present to defend themselves. Cyber-bullying might be an example of the destructive power of our words, amplified by social media.

I won’t say that I completely refrain from these things even to this day. Catch me on a bad day struggling with the plumbing in my house, and it won’t always be pretty. If profanity occurs in a text I am quoting, I won’t delete it. I also realize that in both writing and speaking, there are times that a profanity may be the most apt word, and a euphemism or softer term doesn’t cut it. I can see a case in literature where contexts warrant profanity. The test for me is whether it fits or is gratuitous.  The restrained, but appropriate use of a profanity may actually capture attention that a profanity-laced dialogue does not.

That said, I am troubled by the increasing acceptability of profanity in our social and public discourse. I think it reflects an angrier, coarser, bleaker view of life. People might answer that this is the way they see it. Some, I’ve heard it suggested, use this as a “language of resistance” as in “since______ has been elected, everything is all f-ed up.”

I think I would answer that our words not merely reflect reality but help shape it. By words, Genesis tells us that God made the world. Our words can convince us that we live in a stinking latrine or that we are turning manure into gardens that are fertile and fruitful. Our sexual vocabulary can take one of the most beautiful experiences of human intimacy, and reduce it to a tawdry bodily function that sounds like simply another form of relieving ourselves. Or it can elevate the tender, and sometimes clumsy, coming together of two people who really care for each other into enduring love poetry.

I don’t want to argue for any form of censorship or a new prudery. The First Amendment protects even profane speech except when it is with the specific intent to incite unlawful acts. I happen to like the First Amendment, even when I disagree with the people and ideas it protects. But if you care about pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful, does this not extend to our use of language and choice of words? Should it not be of concern that the use of profanity in private conversation and increasingly in social media and public discourse is increasingly common not only in the general public, but even in faith communities? We may think we are simply describing the world or “telling it like it is” as we used to say. Do we stop and think that we are not merely evoking memories or a sense of things as they were and are, but also invoking a view of reality as it is and could be? What do our word choices reveal about the vision of reality toward which we are living? As a Christ-follower, how do I speak if I believe I have been called into a beloved community and into a life of infinite wonder and purpose and hope?

It’s not so much that I’m against “bad” words. I think I’ve already suggested that all words, even these have a usage or purpose in some contexts. Rather, I constantly find myself wanting for better words, for clearer thinking, for higher aspirations, to set goals for nobler actions, and graceful expression in spoken and written words. Am I out of touch with reality to want that and pursue it? Must I settle for a coarse world when we have so many hints of a world of goodness, truth and beauty? What do you think?

Finding the Right Word

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Every one of us who tries their hand at writing grapples with this. It is the struggle to express with the right word or set of words those thoughts rattling around in your head. Often, it is the frustrating difference between the “right” word and the “almost right” word.

Why does this matter? That was a question that came up in a discussion this morning of a thirty-year old book that included an extended discourse on the use of two different English words to translate a Greek term. In particular, a number of us who have been around a while remembered when this discussion was vigorously contested but now rarely comes up. Is it just because the topic is passe’? Or is it because we are less interested in discussions that involve careful distinctions around the meaning of words? Have we become more inclined to take a “whatever” approach to distinctions in words and ideas where people might differ?

Word Cloud of this Post

Word Cloud of this Post

To be honest, I don’t know the answer to this. I read examples of both lucid writing and poorly constructed sentences and statements every day. Is there more of this than in the past? When one reads journals and letters from the past, I’m not sure. There were plenty of misspellings and grammatical errors and imprecisions of thought in the past.

What I do know is that clarity of expression matters. Have you ever been in a meeting where participants are going around and around about a course of action, and suddenly someone who has been listening carefully speaks up and says, “is this what we are saying should be done?” and proceeds to crystallize the ideas floating around the room or conference call? I’ve often found this makes all the difference between muddle and meaning in a group.

Perhaps this matters now more than ever with our capacity to easily disseminate various forms of verbiage both within our organizations but also around the world (this blog being one example of this!). I wonder whether the ease and rapidity with which we can communicate via tweets, texts, emails or even blogs can erode the clarity of thought and expression that came when you drafted a letter, revised and proofed it, and then typed and sent it out via the postal service.

What is more troubling to me is to witness the deterioration of the public use of words where diatribes and ad hominem attacks substitute for a reasoned argument that marshals evidence to persuade a listener. I am also troubled when I read writing that is jargon-laden, where it appears that the effort is to conceal meaning from those who don’t have the code to the jargon. I find this equally among theologians and academics in other fields of higher education. Often, these scholars are writing about matters that are not merely of scholarly concern. They concern what we will believe, how we will educate our children, how we will pursue medical care, and what public policies our civic and political leaders should pursue.

Perhaps why this matters most to me is that I believe reality is “word-shaped”. My worldview is one that believes that the material universe was spoken into existence, whatever other material causes and effects that set in motion. Our use of language mirrors that of the Maker–our words also have the power to bring things into existence, for good or ill. Similarly, I believe the moral framework of life isn’t something we simply socially constructed but was similarly articulated in formulations like the Ten Commandments. It is not coincidental, I think, that one of the names given “God in human flesh” was logos or Word. It seems that God did not want to leave us to muddle about in our search for meaning.

You might not agree with me in these matters. Many don’t! But I hope we might agree on the power of words. Words can hide the truth. Words can hurt. Words can muddle. Words can inflame. And words can be a vehicle for the thoughtful pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.