Word Stash

<p>Samples of the gems which glitter and await the reader inside Bill Casselman’s Word Stash:<br />     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.<br />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!”<br />     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?<br />     With that modest caution then I invite readers to press onward toward the broad sunlit uplands of enlightenment where new words dwell.</p>