Anu Garg Did Me a Solid
Forgot to mention this earlier, but a few weeks back, I noticed that my site, which averages about a hundred hits a day, had suddenly had 3,000 visitors. The hell? Then I noticed that all the new comments were on a single entry: my poem on the word jentacular.
I contacted one of the commenters and found out the deal: Anu Garg (his real name, apparently) runs a Word-A-Day feature that you can sign up for via email. You get five new words every week, usually on some theme or other (toponyms, Arabic words, words about the ocean, etc.), and then on the weekend he compiles a sort of "best of comments" emailing where people say things like, "I always had trouble spelling supersede, and then I came up with this mnemonic..." or "That word reminds me of a soda bottle I once saw on vacation in Belize..." At any rate, on this particular week, the theme was "words about food," and one of the days (I want to say Thursday) was "jentacular" (pertaining to breakfast). And one of the commenters said, "Speaking of jentacular, here's a cool poem"--and linked to my site.
So I adjusted the jentacular poem accordingly (I essentially added a welcome mat), and then promptly stopped updating my site (computer woes), so I imagine that anyone who started reading my blog because of Word-A-Day lost interest pretty quickly. Still--it was nice, and I'd just like to thank Anu Garg publicly, as well as the person who sent the link. If you ever want a bunch of silly vocabulary poems...well, I think I'm actually the only game in town.
I contacted one of the commenters and found out the deal: Anu Garg (his real name, apparently) runs a Word-A-Day feature that you can sign up for via email. You get five new words every week, usually on some theme or other (toponyms, Arabic words, words about the ocean, etc.), and then on the weekend he compiles a sort of "best of comments" emailing where people say things like, "I always had trouble spelling supersede, and then I came up with this mnemonic..." or "That word reminds me of a soda bottle I once saw on vacation in Belize..." At any rate, on this particular week, the theme was "words about food," and one of the days (I want to say Thursday) was "jentacular" (pertaining to breakfast). And one of the commenters said, "Speaking of jentacular, here's a cool poem"--and linked to my site.
So I adjusted the jentacular poem accordingly (I essentially added a welcome mat), and then promptly stopped updating my site (computer woes), so I imagine that anyone who started reading my blog because of Word-A-Day lost interest pretty quickly. Still--it was nice, and I'd just like to thank Anu Garg publicly, as well as the person who sent the link. If you ever want a bunch of silly vocabulary poems...well, I think I'm actually the only game in town.
Labels: Dave Update, poems
posted by Cowboy Dave Dickerson | 1:07 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Dave. Anu Garg is a well-known Seattle wordsmith who has just oublished his third book, "The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or two." Highly recommended.
For more details about his free newsletter, which is read by 620,000 wordlovers in 200 countries, see his website, http://wordsmith.org/awad/
Thanks! He must be doing well, since he seems to have at least one employee.
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