I want to go to the toilet: Euphemisms and the euphemism treadmill

One of the wonderful things about language is the vast array of choices you are presented with to convey your message, all of them effectively meaning the same thing, but presenting that meaning in different ways. Even leaving aside intonation (try saying the phrase ‘I did not say he beat his wife’ and emphasising one word in the phrase, you can convey seven different messages with little effort) there are so many ways to convey subtly different messages just in your selection of words.

Wasting Time

One of the lovely things about the interwebs is stumbling across a website that is informative or interesting, but inherently useless. One of my favourites among these fascinating but pointless sites is listverse, a website that specialises in providing “Top Ten” lists of the most gruesome murders, hidden secrets of Egyptian Pharaohs, things you didn’t know about the fast food industry and so on.

The damn thing is a time sink, I just went over there to check some examples of lists and spent 20 minutes looking through “10 Mind-Blowing Things That Happened Last Month”. Number one on that list is that the town of Tisdale in Canada had to drop the town slogan that it had been using since 1958. The slogan, “Tisdale: the land of rape and honey” referred to the main products of the region, rapeseed being an older name for canola.

Spider Dunstan's Teeth - How to Order

Spider Dunstan’s Teeth, the new novella by Shane C Curran, is now available for preorder through Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and Nook. Get in now and order early before they are sold out!

And now also available through Smashwords in just about any format you could want!

Set for Release 9 September!

Due to popular demand, my newest creation, Spider Dunstan's Teeth is available for prepurchase at you favourite ebook retailer. Order early and order often is my advice.

Check out these links;

Amazon
iBooks
Kobo

And of course visit my author page at Smashwords or Goodreads!

And to tantalise you, here is an extract;

Spider Dunstan’s Song Lyrics

After just a weeny amount of encouragement, I’ve finally decided that I will publish my novella “Spider Dunstan’s Teeth” after all. It’s a fairly simple little story about a couple of guys in Melbourne’s western suburbs in the early 1980s. Yes, there is an autobiographical element to it, but I hold the view that all writing is at least partly autobiographical, so there.

The heroes of the story - Micky and Leroy - find themselves in all manner of strife as they steal cars, go partying, do drugs and generally have a good time. The setting is an important element of the story, that period in the early 1980s holds fond memories for me and I’ve tried to convey some of those memories in the story. It seems to me now that life was somehow freer back then. That might be just the passing of time casting a sympathetic glow, but I know for certain that there was less political correctness for example. It was easier to say what’s on your mind without fear of being trampled by social justice warriors.

God III, The Fisking

Faithful Reader, for the last few days I have had quite some feedback on my post God and Spider Dunstan, a whimsical musing on the subject of God resulting from my interaction with believers over the last few weeks.

One among your number even saw fit to pen me a riposte detailing my errors and general waywardness in the form of a fisking. Said correspondent being a little reclusive, I have agreed to allow them to retain their anonymity and shall refer to them only as ‘Withburga’. As I am sure you all know, St Withburga was a virgin Benedictine nun who established a nunnery after her father died in battle. She is not the patron saint of fast food, although she ought to be.

God II - The Sequel

There was much comment on my last post, both on facebook and by email, on the topic of devout atheism and whether or not it might be an oxymoron. Sadly, nobody commented on the blog itself. Yes, that is a hint.

Definitions being important and on the off chance that Boxsell is reading this, I’ll start by explaining that an oxymoron is not a stupid person hyperventilating, but is in fact an apparently self-contradictory statement. It’s often used as a sort of literary device - “cruel to be kind” is a well known example - and the oxymoron is often used for humorous effect - Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” leaps to mind - but the word oxymoron has, in recent times, come to be more often associated with accidental incongruity. The old standby being “Military Intelligence”, but Donald Trump noting that “although the budget was unlimited I exceeded it” also seems to work.

God and Spider Dunstan.

For the last several weeks I have been accommodated at the expense of the Australian government in a setting that has allowed me to have regular conversations with persons of a religious bent. Actual priests, ministers and reverends as well as some well-meaning if somewhat pious chaps who choose to adopt the appellation “lay” as they are without official registration in their respective churches.

I am always fond of chatting with someone that disagrees with me on a topic that interests me. It's always possible that I might be wrong and it's usually the case that even if I am not corrected, I am given something to think about. As a devout atheist, I find religion endlessly fascinating and these conversations, while they have not for some time provided me with any additional existential enlightenment, do often cast additional light on the nature of religions, religiosity and its devotees.

Three Things

Hello Faithful Blog Readers

There are three big news items today. The least important is the shenanigans going on in Europe. The most honest analysis of Brexit that I have seen is James Altucher's article on Linkedin that you can find here. As usual, James is pretty much spot-on in his whimsical, off-hand assessment.

The second piece of news is that Double Time has finally been published on Amazon. This gives everyone a chance to go and buy another copy. Buy early and buy often is my advice. Don't forget to rate it and leave a review.

The third piece of news is that my second book, a novella of about 20,000 words called Spider Dunstan's Teeth, is complete and now with the editorial team at 138 Israeli Chikenz Inc. I expect it will be ready for publication in a few weeks. Stay tuned, I may post a preview next week!

Listed in the Premium Catalog

The big news for today is that my little foray into writerdom has been accepted into the smashwords "Premium Catalog".

Sadly, this is more a reflection of the fact that it is correctly formatted than a commentary on the content of the story, still it is a nice step forward.

And don't forget to get your order in at kobo-rakuten

Or ibooks

Or Barnes and Noble

Or at Smashwords itself