“You Could Read by the Light of Her Smile”—Use of Visual, Evocative Expression to Emphasize One’s Point

Last week, while helping a public speaking coaching client develop some stirring language to describe someone’s smile, I was reminded of CBS’s John Dickerson using a fresh and extremely evocative expression to compliment the late Gwen Ifill.  Dickerson’s words: “Gwen’s smile. It was so strong it greeted you before you met her. You could read by the light of her smile.”

Note that the words “You could read by the light of her smile” are not originally by Dickerson. A single Google search reveals that they first appeared in Patti Austin’s 1989 song “The Girl Who Used to be Me.” [...Oh, the girl who used to be me, she could fly, she was free
You could read by the light of her smile...]

© Copyright 2019  V.J. Singal

“It’s Like a Motorcycle Gang of Queen Butterflies”—Use of Visual, Evocative Expression to Emphasize One’s Point

Being rewritten. Will be completed by the weekend of Dec. 14-15.

“Trump Has Broken Out of the Orbit of Jupiter, But He Still Has to Go Through the Asteroid Belt”—Use of Visual, Evocative Expression to Emphasize One’s Point

Here’s another brilliant analogy by Jonathan Turley, the renowned professor of law at The George Washington University. [For my previous post featuring a similarly indelible utterance by this communicator extraordinaire, click here.]

• Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” a couple of weeks ago (Sunday, March 24, just a few hours before Attorney General Barr released a four-page “synopsis” of Special Counsel Mueller’s report to a breathlessly waiting nation), Prof. Turley remarked: “The problem for Donald Trump is that even if he is cleared of (both) collusion and obstruction, that’s (only) breaking out of the orbit of Jupiter—he still has to go through the asteroid belt! [Immediate laughter around the table.] There are now a hundred different investigations that are going to hit (him)—they are smaller, but there are more of them, and (he has) to be more nimble, and that means he has to have greater self-restraint.”

To be able to analogize Trump's legal problems to the complexities (and marvels) of our solar system...there's no question that Prof. Turley has an encyclopedic mind.

© Copyright 2019  V.J. Singal

Strengthening Your Command of the Language: New Edition of “Words of the Month”

Have you checked out the latest edition (January/February 2019) of “Words of the Month,” my free vocabulary enrichment feature, which has been online for about a month? Here are the six featured words, all of which lie within the conversational vocabulary of America’s most articulate (as is the case with all of the words featured in my book, “The Articulate Professional-3^rd Edition”):

1. cri de coeur

2. fiendish

3. rapprochement

4. subversive

5. aplomb

6. penurious

Answer to “Quick Quiz” in the Previous Post

To make sense of this post, you need to first read the previous one, which lays out the context in which actress Glenn Close used sublimated during her Golden Globes speech when she meant a somewhat-similar-sounding but completely different word.

I submit that the word she had in mind was either subordinated or subjugated. So her sentence would have been: “I’m thinking of my mom who really subordinated (or subjugated) herself to my father her whole life and who, in her 80’s, said to me ‘I feel I haven’t accomplished anything.’...”  Both words fit in perfectly!

© Copyright 2019  V. J. Singal

Quick Quiz: Which Word Did Actress Glenn Close Have in Mind When She Misspoke and Uttered “Sublimated” During Her Golden Globes Speech? A Case of "Synaptic Malfunction"

Recall that at last month’s Golden Globes, when Glenn Close won best actress for her performance in “The Wife,” her rousing speech went viral, especially the following lament which she uttered tearfully and with indignation: “I’m thinking of my mom who really sublimated herself to my father her whole life and who, in her 80’s, said to me ‘I feel I haven’t accomplished anything.’ It was not right!”

Clearly, the word “sublimated” does not work in the above context—it’s the wrong word and you can see why by clicking here.

Question for you: What somewhat-similar-sounding word did Glenn Close have in mind when she misspoke?  Answer in the next post.

Incidentally, the above is a case of what I call “synaptic misfire,” just as happened to the uncommonly articulate Senator Cruz some time ago (click here for that quick quiz) and to President Obama during a “60 Minutes” interview when he mistakenly uttered denigrate in place of a similar sounding word. [See the “QuickQuiz” post of May 15, 2011.]

© Copyright 2019  V.J. Singal

 

Strengthening Your Command of the Language: New Edition of “Words of the Month”

Have you checked out the latest edition (November/ December 2018) of “Words of the Month,” my free vocabulary enrichment feature, which has been online for about a month? Here are the six featured words, all of which lie within the conversational vocabulary of America’s most articulate (as is the case with all of the words featured in my book, “The Articulate Professional-3rd Edition”):

1. rhapsodize

2. guileless

3. tenable

4. cantankerous

5. hegemon

6. elephantine