The Trouble With Words
A Commonplace Book
1st Edition
Published on 1. August 2022
234 pages
978-1-7782249-1-1 (ISBN)
Description
Mixing memoir, scholarship, and social commentary, The Trouble With Words uses the ancient technique of commonplacing to produce a series of essays on why language and learning still matter in a world awash in lies, a world increasingly described, blush-free, as "e,post-truth."e, It seeks to counteract the idea that words no longer matter and, while entertaining and engaging readers, to encourage them to take up the practice of keeping a commonplace book-and maybe even to write their own. The book's final chapter offers tips on how best to keep a commonplace book.
More details
Person
Maxine Ruvinsky is a retired journalist and professor of journalism. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from McGill University in Montreal, and worked for decades in print journalism before moving west to teach journalism at a small BC university's School of Journalism. She is the author of several books published by Oxford University Press: Practical Grammar, Practical Writing, and Investigative Reporting in Canada. In 2015, she came home to Montreal, where she continues to write, mostly for pleasure.
Content
Ch. 1: Discovering the commonplace book
Ch. 2: What's a commonplace book (And some reasons to write your own0
Ch. 3: Language, meaning, and the trouble with words
Ch. 4: Grammar: Sense and nonsense
Ch. 5: Truth in literature: Fiction and nonfiction
Ch. 6: Language origins and evolution
Ch. 7: Literacy and its discontents
Ch. 8: Naming, identity, and crucibles of individuality
Ch. 9: Before words
Ch. 10: How to keep a commonplace book
