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Where have all the words gone?(THE LAST LAUGH)(Essay)
Like shells on a beach, our words lie about, waiting for someone to pick them up, take them home with them and give them the value they deserve.
Back when I had a little closet marketing business in the 1960s or 1970s, I named it Heavy Words, a sign of the times if ever there was one. Its logo was in a typeface called Smoke. I used words to help people solve communications problems with their businesses and clients. In brochures, radio and TV ads, display advertising, I kept the words to a minimum.
Now that I'm editor of this practitioners' news journal, my production of words has escalated. I've calculated that over the course of our 184 monthly issues (including the one you're reading), each contains about 17 pages of articles, each containing about 900 words, for a total of two and a half million words.
When I first started this publication in 1992 and for several years thereafter, I'd imagine a crowd of 2,000 subscribers in the street below, cheering and waving for their new issue. Some days and nights, that was about the only thing that got me to write. That and an old hockey coach's tie, used to restrain me from bolting out of my editor's chair.
Today motivation comes from learning that those millions of words have found a home, and are resonating with others, changing their thinking and behavior. Today my view out the office window is more agricultural, so I have dedicated a wall to prove that my words have made a difference. Here are some of the examples.
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A campus book club
- Heavy Words Lightly Thrown.(Brief article)(Book review)
- Magazine article from: The Bookwatch January 1, 2006 700+ words
Heavy Words Lightly Thrown Chris Roberts Gotham Books...survey of rhyme meaning and origins in Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind The...quirky tales and realities: once you read Heavy Words, you'll never look at Mother Goose...
- Describing Words.(Your Own Pages)(Poem)
- Magazine article from: Highlights for Children DeHaan, Tyler April 1, 2006 700+ words
Describing Words Words are heavy, like big giant rocks. They are light, like a delicate leaf. Light words flow in the air. Big heavy words drop to the ground. Words express yourself. Words help you learn new things. Tyler DeHaan, Age 9 Arizona
- THE PROVOCATIVE ART OF ELLEN ROTHENBERG CAN MAKE YOU SEE RED
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe Christine Temin, Globe Staff March 3, 1989 700+ words
...features provocative words -- emblazoned on...artist burdens with heavy words. "Speak!" is...always been afraid of words," says the artist...on occasion held word-bearing flags in...dictionaries. But no word is completely defined...obscure meanings. Words, for Rothenberg...
- CHILDREN'S NURSERY RHYMES REALLY NOT SUITED FOR KIDS.(Stars)
- Newspaper article from: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) August 28, 2005 700+ words
...innocuous verse in his new book, "Heavy Words Lightly Thrown." "Here We Go...a fascinating exploration of how words can shape mythology and culture...ROBERTS,a librarian, has penned "Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind...
- Three poems.(North Africa: Literary Crossroads)
- The Literary Review Said, Amina Sellin, Eric January 1, 1998 700+ words
...unique fragment a single word a cloud that invents the...the body a pale incest words that caused the lips that...blue phrases welts of words sculpted by old stonings...the glance the talon of words heavy words that become marbled and...
- A conversation with Fr. Albert Alejo: women, power struggles, and the...
- Magazine article from: Women in Action Lopez, Janice August 1, 2007 700+ words
...poetry to get in touch. We need words and metaphors to bridge us, to bridge...heaven in a wild flower. In other words, in all advocacies we are engaged...political ecology means These are heavy words--feminist, political, ecology...
- SuperTarget vandalism in 2002 has the FBI's attention; One agent has called it...
- Newspaper article from: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) Kaszuba, Mike July 5, 2005 700+ words
...of construction equipment with the words "No sprawl" spray-painted across...including the cab of a crane. The words "No more sprawl" were painted on...domestic terrorism' - those are heavy words," she said. "No one I knew was...
- Press Performance: Enough Is Too Little.
- Magazine article from: Nieman Reports PATTERSON, EUGENE C. December 22, 1999 700+ words
Encouraging words on a new and healthy phenomenon--the...examining itself. ... I bring encouraging word of a relatively new and very healthy phenomenon...inexorable crowbar of events." These are heavy words to be loading onto a press that isn...
