Steering the Craft - Glossary

Question 1

Affect

Answer 1

A noun, with the accent on the first syllable, it means feeling, emotion. It doesn’t mean effect.

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” is an alliterative sentence. So is “Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts.”

Question 3

Armature

Answer 3

a frame, like the steel frame of a skyscraper

Question 4

Articulated

Answer 4

connected, joined together, as in “an articulated skeleton” and “an articulated bus”

Question 5

Clause

Answer 5

A clause is a group of words that has a subject and a predicate. The first part of that sentence — “A clause is a group of words” - can stand alone and so is called the main clause. It’s subject is the noun “A clause.” Its predicate is the verb “is.” Because it’s the main clause, those are also considered to be the subject and predicate of the sentence as a whole. A subordinate clause can’t stand alone but relates to the main clause. In the sentence above, the subordinate clause is “that has a subject and a predicate.” Its subject is “that” and its predicate is “has.” Clauses can relate to one another in complicated ways when expressing complicated thoughts or situations, and those which turn up inside one another, like Chinese boxes, which you open only to find yet another box inside, are said to be “embedded.” (The embedded clause in that sentence is “which you open only to find yet another box inside.”)

Question 6

Colloquial

Answer 6

Spoken language as contrasted to written language; or, in writing, an easygoing, informal tone that imitates speech. The two Mark Twain pieces in our examples are beautiful pieces of colloquial writing. Most narrative, even if not highly formal, is not fully colloquial.

Question 7

Critiquing

Answer 7

The process of discussing a piece of writing in a Workshop or Peer group. (see Appendix I). This peculiar word replaced “criticising,” maybe because “criticise” and “criticism” have gathered a negative charge, while “critique” and “critiquing” still sound neutral.

Question 8

Dingbat

Answer 8

We all know some dingbats. But dingbats are also decorative elements in type, little figures or devices that typesetters use for various reasons, often to stick in between paragraphs or sections to make a break look nice. Like this: (then there are 3 diamonds, centered, made out of four squares each which look like a section break).

Question 9

Grammar

Answer 9

The fundamental system of a language; the rules for using words so they make sense. People can have good grammatical sense without knowing the rules, but to break the rules wisely, you have to know the rules well. Knowledge is freedom.

Question 10

Metaphor

Answer 10

An implied comparison or description. Instead of saying A is like B, you say A is B, or you use B to refer to A. So, instead of “She’s as mild and docile and lovable as a lamb,” you say, “She’s a lamb.” Instead of “I’m reading bits here and there like a cow eating bits of grass here and there,” you say, “I’m browsing through the book.” A great deal of language usage is metaphorical. Most insults are metaphors: “You dingbat!” “That old fart.” One thing writers have to watch for is the common, “dead” metaphors which when mixed come dreadfully alive: “Everybody in this department is going to have to put on his thinking cap, get down to brass tacks, and kick ass.”

Question 11

Meter

Answer 11

A regular rythm or beat. Lub-dub - lub-dub…ta DUM ta DUM ta DUM…. tiddy-dum, tiddy-dum, tiddy DUM DUM DUM… If prose develops meter for more than a few words in a row, it stops being prose and turns into poetry, whether you want it to or not.

Question 12

Le Mot Juste

Answer 12

French for “the right word.”

Question 13

Onomatopaeia

Answer 13

A word that sounds like what it means, like “sizzle” or “hiss” or “slurp,” is onomatopoeic. As for the word onomatopoeia, it sounds like onna-matta-peeya.

Question 14

Part of Speech

Answer 14

Classes of words, determined by their use in the sentence, such as noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition. Such words may bring back horrid memories of school, but it’s impossible to criticize grammar or understand criticism of grammar without this vocabulary.

Question 15

Pathetic Fallacy

Answer 15

A phrase, too often used condescendingly, to describe a passage of writing in which the landscape, weather, etc., mirror or embody human emotions.

Question 16

Peer Group

Answer 16

A group or writers who meet regularly to read and discuss one another’s writing, forming a leaderless Workshop.

Question 17

Person (of the Verb)

Answer 17

The English verb has six persons, three in the singular number and three in the plural. Here are examples of a regular verb (work) and an irregular verb (be) in the present and past tenses.

• first singular*: I work; I am / I worked; I was
• second singular*: you work; you are / you worked; you were
• third singular*: he, she, it works; he, she, it is / he, she, it worked; he, she, it was
• first plural*: we work; we are / we worked; we were
• second plural*: you work; you are / you worked; you were
• third plural*: they work; they are / they worked; they were

Person and number affect the verb forms only in the third person singular of the present tense, and the singular of the irregular verb to be.

Question 18

Sentence Fragment

Answer 18

A piece of sentence used in place of a whole sentence. A sentence has a subject (a noun or pronoun or person’s name) and a predicate (a verb). (The subject of that sentence is “sentence” and the predicate is “has.”) A fragment lacks either the subject or the predicate or both: No sentence fragments! Going where? Too late, too late. We use them all the time in talking, and in writing too; but in writing, what’s left out must be clearly implied by the context around the fragment. Repeated use of fragments in narrative tends to sound either awkward or affected.

Question 19

Simile

Answer 19

A comparison using “like” or “as”: “She turned as red as a turkey.” “My love is like a red, red rose.” The difference between simile and metaphor is that the comparison or description is open in simile - “I watch like a hawk” while in metaphor the “like” or “as” disappears. “I am a camera.”

Question 20

Stream of Consciousness

Answer 20

A name for the fictional mode or voice developed by the novelists Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce, in which the reader participates in the moment-to-moment experience, reactions, and thoughts of the viewpoint character. Though very constrictive when used throughout a whole novel, passages of stream of consciousness re common and effective in long works, and the mode is well suited to short pieces and present-tense narration.

Question 21

Syntax

Answer 21

“(2.) The arrangement of words (in their appropriate forms) by which their connexion and relation in a sentence are shown.” - The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Recognition of the syntactical constructions used to be taught by the method of diagramming, a useful skill for any writer. If you can find an old grammar book that shows you how to diagram a sentence, have a look; it’s enlightening. It may make you realize that a sentence has a skeleton, just as a horse does; and the sentence, or the horse, moves the way it does because of the way its bones are put together. A keen feeling for that arrangement and the connection and relation of words is essential equipment for a writer of narrative prose. You don’t need to know all the rules of syntax, but you have to train yourself to hear it or feel it - so that you’ll know when a sentence is so tangled up it’s about to fall onto its nose, and when it’s running clear and free.

Question 22

Tenses

Answer 22

The forms of a verb that indicates the times at which the action is supposed to be happening.