Tag: Alphabet soup

Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/27/24: Haughty, Horrible, and Hilarious Hs

H, to me, is a letter with an old-fashioned vibe similar to E — a Victorian feel, honorable as well as haughty, but with touch of horror, like Charles Addams’ old New Yorker series of Addams family cartoons, the creepy family of which obviously came from old money. But H can also be hip and …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/29/24: Garrulous Gs

What is G? Good things, that’s what. G is the most social letter of the alphabet. It’s garrulous,  giggly, generous, gregarious, and full of giddy genius. Hard or soft, it’s full of greatness, a grandiose gadabout of a glamorous guest, garbed in glittering garnets.  The letter G Is pure showbiz. With growing green leaves, it’s …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/11/23: Efficacious Fs

The letter F is full of energy. It’s fiery, furious, florid, fuming fun. It’s also very earthy. Take flora and fauna, fungi, fornication, fucking. It’s the naughtiest of letters and the most disreputable. To name a character with an F is to make the reader look and think twice, like with this list. (To soften …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/28/23: Elegant Es

E is not one of my favorite letters, I’ll admit. True, it can be elegant, extravagant, enticing, enjoyable, and a slew of other en- words. But it’s also enormous as an elephant, with an old-fashioned, outdated, Victorian feel. Sound out the words Elizabeth, euphonious, evangelist, and Euphrates, and you will see what I mean. Though …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/12/22: Those Damned Ds

The letter D is dandy, dignified, dauntless, darling. Though it looks pregnant, I’d say its gender is masculine.  It has a Medieval vibe; J. R. R. Tolkien was fond of using it in the dh combination, meant to be pronounced as a hard th as is found in the word clothing. Dragon starts with D, …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/29/21: Bodacious Bs

I am not as fond of the letter B as I am of the letter A for fictional characters. Oh, sure, it has its uses for manly types, like Byron and Bradford — think the alliterative brawny, brash, beefy. But for female characters, it implies big bosoms, bellies, and behinds in matronly names like Bessie, …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/9/21: Let’s Hear it for the As

Aslan, the lion deity of The Chronicles of Narnia, shows his importance by having A as the first letter of his name. In the English language, it’s the first letter of the alphabet. One language theory posits that modern humans, when they read written characters, use the same parts of the brain once used for …

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