Word Salad

Stuck for the right word?

I believe it was Robert Southey who said, "It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

"Project Gutenberg has available (free to all) Greenville Kleiser's classic reference book, "15,000 Useful Phrases: A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English."

This is a great tool for aspiring writers, because action lines really are about the mastery of condensed phrases.

To give you a taste, here are some of the phrases under the "A" category.

It's the almost contradictory phrases that excite me, such as, "adorable vanity, adulated stranger, artificial suavity, and agreeable frankness."

abandoned hope

abated pride

abbreviated visit

abhorred thraldom [thraldom = enslaved or in bondage]

abiding romance

abject submission

abjured ambitionable strategist

abnormal talents

abominably perverse

abounding happiness

abridged statement

abrogated law

abrupt transition

absolutely irrevocable

absorbed reverie

abstemious diet [abstemious = eating and drinking in moderation]

abstract character

abstruse reasoning

absurdly dangerous

abundant opportunity

abusive epithet

abysmally apologetic

academic rigor

accelerated progress

accentuated playfulness

accepted littleness

accessible pleasures...

And who does not love 'Accessible Pleasures?'

Snarf.

And now back from procrastination to hammer this synopsis into shape. With a bent spoon, wearing a blindfold, at the moment.