Well Worded: Year Two

A half-assed change for 2024.

There is nothing permanent
except change.
–Heraclitus (b 540 BCE)

I have always wondered about that beloved quote, a one-size-fits-all bit of advice because it is helpful in horrible times and a solid reality-check in giddy ones. So now I know, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, that it was offered up by a Greek guy more than 2500 years ago. Talk about time-tested.

Well Worded enters its second year with a half-assed bit of change, which is appropriate because it began its life during a workshop titled “The Perfectionist’s Half-Assed Writing Challenge” taught by the inimitable actor-turned-writer Amber Petty.

You should check her out even if you don’t think you want to write, because she will make you giggle and these days we need giggles more than air.

A few of you responded to my query late last year about what kinds of changes you might like to see. Most gave some variation of “I like it fine, thanks,” which boosted my ego but wasn’t terribly constructive. (Then again, why should you do the work of figuring out what I want?)

The consequence of this half-hearted navel-gazing is this: In 2024, I will experiment with tweaks rather than all-out changes and we’ll see how it goes. The downside is that Well Worded will be even less likely than it has been to fit into any of the algorithms that the marketing people say are crucial to building readership. The upside is that Well Worded, sans algorithms, will, I hope, continue to reach a quality, troll-free group of pals, however cozy in numbers we remain.

Here’s what I’m thinking. The first issue of the month, dropping the second week, will continue to offer advice on the writing we do in our everyday lives. A broader range of topics will include tips on grammar, editing, and giving feedback. The lagniappe will deliver an interesting or unusual word.

The second monthly issue, dropping the fourth week, will bend to my self-indulgent tendencies. Well Worded: Rabbit Holes will explore stupid stuff that doesn’t matter. Such as the fact that spiders can live for one to two months without food or water. I learned this after apprising the spider who had been holed up in my bathtub for three days while I waited for either the weather to warm up enough for me to put her outside or for one of the cats to eat her—preferably the former. I started to worry. Just how long could she…? Now I know. And so do you.

The title, besides its obvious reference to the thing that too much information drops us into, denotes the male I have loved above all others since I was six, because he is the world’s sexiest and hippest individual: Bugs Bunny. I like his confidence, his masculine self-assurance while singing opera in drag, his perverse ability to destroy those who would destroy him without raising a finger or hurting a fly, and especially his ability to crack me up. I had always been curious, so down that rabbit hole I went, and friends, I am here to tell you that there is a whole website devoted to academic dissertations and papers that have been written about this Warner Brothers star.

But really? Twenty-six issues about the trickster who shoulda turned left at Albuquerque? Perhaps no. So ... Rabbit Holes will serve up useless information about not only Bugs Bunny, but also bugs (aka all insects) and bunnies (aka all non-human animals).

If you just want the advice, well, you’ll have a monthly newsletter instead of a twice-monthly one. And the nice thing about this undertaking is that there’s nothing to lose, so if we decide we don’t like it, we will move along. Please do let me know. Seriously.

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Lagniappe: Aesculapian is anything related to medicine or physicians. Why this word? The Greeks. (Of course.) One of their gods was Asclepius, who dealt with healing and medicinal arts and carried that staff with the snake around it that you still see as a symbol of the medical industry today.

By the way, Aesculapian is always capitalized because it is an eponym. Wait, what’s an eponym? Glad you asked: It’s something whose name refers to somebody else.

Here’s an example, which offers a nice segue into the overall focus of our next issue: Toadfishes burp the songs of their eponyms; one sort of toadfish is called the singing midshipman. (John Hersey, Harper’s, May 1987.)