Word Stash

Samples of the gems which glitter and await the reader inside Bill Casselman's Word Stash: Ever helpful, I offer readers handy tips not just about words but about living. In a chapter on avoiding tired weather words, I write "Likewise disdained in weather response is understatement. When a small child is blown away down the block towards an operating hay-baling machine, don't say, "Looks like the breeze has freshened." On the contrary, scream and run madly to retrieve the aerial infant. But, during weather commentaries, overstatement may also be scorned. At the onset of a thunder-clap which sends a pet dachshund under grandmother's shawl, do not leap on the barbeque canopy and shout, "Action stations!" What was my aim in writing this collection of short essays about language? In each chapter I tried to select one word not merely rare, but a choice vocable that is in fact le mot recherché, a term uncommon to the point of pretentiousness. Email response reveals that readers of my work want to expand their vocabularies. So why else am I here, if not to foist upon innocent readers the most obscure word-mosses scraped from oblivion's grotto? With that modest caution then, I invite readers to press onward, toward the broad, sunlit uplands of enlightenment, where new words dwell.