All Things Writing

The Craft of Writing

Tag Archives: OED


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Google Ngram

Click on any word to link to a post about Google Ngram from the blog of my friend and fellow writer, Joyce Moyer Hostetter:

My work-in-progress takes place in 1917 so I want to write authentically for the time period. Which means I don’t want to use words that weren’t in use then.

Like, you know – Facebook. Ha! Okay so that’s an easy one. But there are other words that I really do have questions about.

And oh thank heaven for Google’s Ngram. Until 2 days ago I didn’t know such a thing existed but now, thanks to Facebook and my friend Eileen Heyes, I’m all over it! Ngram is a site where I can look up a word, give a time period, and search for this word in books. When I do, I’ll get a graph showing the results. 


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In the Weeds

This post is coming to you from in the weeds…

I’ve wondered for a while now what it means to be in the weeds.  I think it’s kind of like pornography – you know it when you’re there – but still, I went through my public library access to look it up in the OED.  They had nothing so I tried The Urban Dictionary.  The better bet, they defined being in the weeds as “when someone or something, usually in the food or beverage industry, becomes overwhelmed and falls behind.”

Why this interest in in the weeds?  Because I’ve spent the entire day trying to get my WordPress blog template to work with things that would be a snap with widgets.  Why you ask?  Because while my template looks great on laptops and iPads, it doesn’t work with widgets.  Who knew that was possible in 2011?

I could switch templates but I really like this one.  And I’m thick-headed.

Plus, it gives me a chance to use the term, in the weeds, which I absolutely love.