Words of the Month - Everyday Words Are Misused Every Day

         Okay, this post might be more of a pet peeve than a scholarly article, but I am noticing an every-increasing inability among writers of English to understand when certain words are compounds, and when they remain separate.  Perhaps the most common and obtrusive of all is seen in posters and advertisements like the ones shown here.  In both these cases, Every Day should be written as two separate words, otherwise the motivational poster is actually urging you to present yourself as ordinary.

        Every day he wore his everyday suit.

        If you want to stand out, try these standout promotion ideas.

        Please sign up on the signup sheet.

        Make up your face with the best makeup.

        I just can’t catch up, so I’m always playing catch-up.

        He runs on and on, but the worst is that without punctuation, it’s all one big run-on sentence.

        It's fine to show off your skills, but don't be a show-off.

        I’d let the water out, but I can’t find an outlet.

        The rain still hasn’t let up.  It’s been raining for days without letup.

        Is it better to drop the ball or toss it up?  I don’t know; it’s really a toss-up.

        Any way you want to do it is fine, unless you’re just going to refuse to do it anyway.

        If you look at these examples, you can see a pattern.  Nouns with an adjective become adjectives or adverbs when they are compounds.  Any way is a noun but anyway is an adverb.  (Every day is usually used as an adverbial phrase, but it retains its noun.  It refers to frequency because it tells on what days something happens: every day.  Once smushed together into everyday, on the other hand, it is an adjective describing the ordinary quality of a thing or activity.)  Meanwhile, verbs with a preposition become nouns or adjectives when they are compounds.  Some of these compounds seem to be only a noun (letup, toss-up), and possibly some are used only as adjectives (although I can’t think of any off the top of my head), but many can be either: she’s a standout musician or that musician is a real standout; put on your makeup or don’t miss the makeup session for the missed class, or let's examine the make-up of the compound).

        So why does this matter?  Well, it probably doesn’t.  People seem to have no difficulty understanding each other, even when they use the incorrect forms of these words.  Moreover, language changes, and before much longer these forms may not even be “incorrect.”  This will not destroy civilization.  However, I enjoy noting the distinction because it sheds light on the English’s language’s versatility: how people can fool around with words and their function.  The spelling conventions that show some words written separately while others are written as compounds makes it clear how phrases got smushed together into single words so that they could be applied in new ways.  So I continue to be pedantic in my spelling, and I continue to be mildly irritated when I see these distinctions misunderstood or ignored.  As for the rest of you, write them any way you want.  Even if you do it wrong, people will understand you anyway.

[Pictures: Motivational poster found on Amazon;

Advertisement for Nora Dental Associates (and to make matters, worse, while pushing "every day" together, they've broken "coffee-stained" apart.  Sigh.]

Wood Blocks by Balán

         Américo Abraham Balán (Ukraine/Argentina, 1915-1986) worked in a broad diversity of media, from painting to writing, from set design to caricature.  Of course it’s his wood block prints that I have for you today.  His images seem to carry heavy symbolism, although I don’t know of what!  Some seem downright surrealist, as the last piece shown here.  But in other cases it’s simply the odd juxtapositions of people, or their distorted positions or expressions that seem like they must have some deep significance.

        In the first piece here, the crowd of human figures fit into the space in all directions, some crouched or distorted in order to fit, while others are cropped and show only in part.  Some look more like abstract sculptures than people.  Why are these people arranged is this way?  I don’t know, but it’s definitely an interesting choice for composition.

        These two men share a few interesting features.  First, their faces look as if they’re carved from blocks of wood.  They are carved into wood, of course, but I mean that the block prints look like portraits of wooden sculptures rather than portraits of living humans.  Secondly, the anatomy is extremely stylized, with odd and awkward proportions and positions.  Thirdly, they share with many of Balán’s pieces the characteristic of going right up to the edges of the block, and even being cropped and constrained by the block’s dimensions.  This is another unusual and interesting choice for composition.

        The fourth piece shares with the third another characteristic.  While all of Balán’s pieces have very roughly carved out backgrounds, these two include seemingly random chunks of the backgrounds that simply aren’t carved out at all.  I am curious about how much this was a deliberately planned choice and how much this is the result of Balán being spontaneous and expressionistic with his carving.  This is my favorite of today’s pieces, with the enormous man leaning over to pet the tiny dog.  This man, like some of the women in the first piece above, has a huge crouched body with disproportionately tiny head and feet.  They look as if they would burst right out of their blocks if they tried to stand up straight.

        I haven’t been able to find much information about the individual pieces.  Many seem to be untitled, and most are posted on the internet without dates or any other specifics.  They all seem to be from the mid-twentieth century, and more than that I can’t say.  On the whole I don’t love these - they’re a little too distorted for my taste - but they are definitely interesting, and I do enjoy that they’re a little unusual.  Do you like them?

[Pictures: Untitled, wood block print by Américo Abraham Balán, 1964;

3 wood block prints of men by Balán, unknown date;

Untitled, wood block print by Balán, 1964;

alarm clock woman, wood block print by Balán, unknown date;

(Images from RISD and Taringa).]

Singing on the Moon

         Today’s poem comes from Ted Hughes (UK, 1930-1998), one of the most famous, lauded, and controversial poets of the twentieth century.  In addition to all his critically-acclaimed and serious work about nature red in tooth and claw, however, he wrote quite a bit for children, including a whole series of poems inspired by the moon.

Singing on the moon seems precarious.

Hum the slightest air

And some moon-monster sails up and perches to stare.

These monsters are moonily various.

If you sing in your bath

Risks are one of these monster entities

Will come crash through the wall and with dusty eyes

Perch on the taps to stare, as if in wrath.

The tenor who practices on a volcano side

Sees eyes rising over the crater rim

To fix their incredulity on him—

There is no place on the moon where a singer can hide

And not raise some such being face to face.

But do not be alarmed — their seeming fury

Comes from their passion for music being so fiery.

So if you just sing from your heart, and stay in your place,

At your song’s end the monster will cry out madly

And fling down money, probably far more than you can spend,

And kiss your shoe with his horrific front-end,

Then shudder away with cries of rapture diminishing sadly.

        This poem illustrates the odd fact that even though it rhymes, its lack of rhythm obscures the rhymes so that it sounds like plain free verse.  I don’t like that!  However, I do very much like the idea of moon-monsters so passionate about music that you can’t sing a note without having them appear.  This would be a fun one to illustrate, with its moonily various monsters, all enraptured by song.  (The book in which the poem was originally published was illustrated by Leonard Baskin, but I can’t find an illustration of this particular poem.)

        Apparently in space someone can hear you sing.  What would you sing to the moon-monsters?

[Pictures: Two illustrations by uncredited artists from The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells, 1901 (Image from Library of Congress);

Lunar Animals, illustration for the New York Sun article on the Great Moon Hoax, by Benjamin Henry Day, 1835 (Image from Library of Congress).]

Manual of Landscape Painting

         Jiezi yuan hua zhuan, Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden, is a manual for traditional landscape painting published in China in 1679.  It had five parts, covering general principles, trees, hills and stones, people and houses, and selected examples of great works.  Okay, so why am I telling you about a painting manual when this is a blog about printmaking?  Well, because the book itself was printed, of course, and is an early example of color printing in China.  

        Like most early wood block prints from both Asia and Europe, printmaking is being used here as a method of reproducing another medium, rather than as a medium in its own right.  The washes of transparent ink are printed so as to look as if they were painted on with a brush, and the varying widths of the black lines are also imitating the effect of brushwork.  However, despite my muttered prejudices about not taking advantage of the unique and beautiful characteristics of relief printing, this is a lovely little piece.  The rocks are dramatic, yet shaded in soothing tones, the little buildings give scale, but don’t detract from the sense of nature, and the trees show a pleasing variety of trunks and leaves.

        Would you like to be able to paint trees like this yourself?  Simply study part two of this handy painting manual, and you will soon master the necessary skills.  Here’s a page from that second section, with several different representative styles of leaves and branches.  This is a much later edition, and this page, at least, doesn’t have the polychrome inking of the lavish painting reproduction.Since I can’t read the instructions that go along with the illustrations, I don’t know what the authors are saying about how to make these happy little trees, but I do like the different patterns, as well as the suggestion of scale in the three clumps of trees on the right: different levels of detail for differences in distance.  I’m sure I could do worse than to study this myself, next time I need some inspiration for a block print including elements of landscape.

[Pictures: A page from the Jie Zi Yuan, polychrome woodblock print of the original painting by Qing Ji, 1679 (Image from The Met Museum);

Pages of leaves and trees from Mustard Seed Garden, woodblock printed book, 1782 (Image from Brooklyn Museum).]

Wooden Trolls

         Here’s another cool thing I recently learned about from a friend.  These are huge wooden sculptures of trolls by Thomas Dambo (Denmark, b. 1979).  Made entirely of scrap and reclaimed wood, and built by teams of volunteers along with Dambo, the sculptures are placed so that they interact with their environments, as this one holding onto the tree trunk.  The sculptures are given names and little back stories, and often come in sets that go together in a theme.  The group I heard about from my friend is “The Guardians of the Seeds,” and consists of six trolls each representing a part of a tree.  Here is Roskva, who stands for the tree trunks.  These are at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.

        Sometimes the trolls are hidden away so that people have to search for them or come upon them unexpectedly, while other times they’re placed in more public areas.  Either way, people are encouraged to interact with them, from walking around to climbing on them.  You can see how this fierce troll is built so that people simply can’t resist the photo opportunity of being seized.  Unlike this one, though, the majority of Dambo’s trolls are friendly.  Another example holds a swing for children in a city in Denmark.  Although Dambo has built sculptures all over the world, not surprisingly the most trolls are in Dambo’s native Denmark.

          These trolls are basically humanoid, but occasionally have tails or other monstrous features.  They are often furred with shingles, or given crazy hair and beards with natural twigs and branches.  Their faces are wonderfully expressive, with faceted features built up out of 

hundreds of planes of wood.  Their hands and feet, too, are carefully built up like elaborate boxes complete with soles and finger- and toenails.  Like the stereotypical idea of trolls in English literature, they are often squat, with big noses, dragging arms, and big hands and feet — but not always.  Some of Dambo’s trolls are more gracefully-limbed or pert-nosed instead.  I really like this fishing troll, who has long legs, and ears more like an animal.  Still, I confess to a general preference for the more “traditional” trolls.

        Of course, how traditional is a troll made of wood, anyway?  Although they are denizens of forests, they are generally held to be creatures of stone rather than wood.  But Dambo has recast his trolls with a distinctly tree-hugging message!  With their recycled construction, they’re reminding us that we can salvage and reuse what we already have, rather than continually using up new resources.  With their placements in nature, they draw attention to the trees and parks around them.  And with their names and back-stories they often have an explicit environmental message, as well.  Some of Dambo’s trolls are quite angry at humans for their environmental destruction.  Still, I like the ones that are more willing to extend a hand to us humans, such as these two.  The first holds out cupped hands into which people can climb, and the second stretches out his arm to make a bridge over a little stream.

        I’m sorry I won’t be going up to Maine to see some of these trolls in person, but perhaps someday I will encounter one in the wild!

[Pictures: Roskva (Guardians of the Seeds), recycled wood sculpture by Thomas Dambo, 2021 (Image from Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens)

Snorra of Suwannee, sculpture by Dambo, 2015 (Image from Thomas Dambo);

Troels the Troll, sculpture by Dambo, 2015 (Image from Thomas Dambo);

Runde Rie (Den Kæmpestore Troldefolkefest), sculpture by Dambo, c. 2020;

Bjarka Cirkelsten (Den Kæmpestore Troldefolkefest), sculpture by Dambo, c. 2020 (Images from Thomas Dambo);

Teddy Friendly (The Six Forgotten Giants), sculpture by Dambo, 2016 (Image from Thomas Dambo).]

Baldwin's Woods and Creek

        Here’s some art a friend put me on to after she saw it at a gallery in South Carolina.  I love it when people send me new artists!  Aaron Baldwin lives in McClellanville, SC, and seems to be primarily a painter, although he made a number of linoleum block prints for the recent show.  The show, entitled “Woods and Creek,” focussed on the natural areas surrounding McClellanville, showing some landscapes as well as some animals, and a few boats and other manmade things.  My friend sent me the link to a short video “virtual opening” of the show, and I liked what I saw.  Unfortunately, my great frustration is that I couldn’t find any other decent pictures of Baldwin’s block prints, so the images I have for you today are unfortunately a bit dark and blurry, being screen shots from the video.

        First is my favorite, presumably “the creek.”  I love the interplay of trunks and branches and water, each with their patterns of black and white.  It gives a wonderful impression of dappled light.

        Next up is a wood duck, portrayed in a style inspired by vintage postage stamps.  The arrangement of borders and filler designs is attractive, and I like the whimsical splash at the bottom.  The shading of the background behind the duck is interesting, as well.

        And finally I have a view of “the woods,” again showing a very nice array of different textures.  The pattern of straight vertical lines that makes up the trunks in the distance is so amazing, because it looks so unstudied and imprecise, yet it works exactly right to look just as it should.  My favorite part is the leaves and twigs against the sky, though.

        I’m sorry not to be able to see these pieces in person - or at least in better reproductions - but I still enjoy seeing a block print artist at work today.  If you want to see the “virtual opening” and more of Baldwin's show, go ahead and watch the video yourself (link below).

[Pictures: Three linoleum block prints by Aaron Baldwin, c 2020 (Images from McClellanville Arts Council).]

Words of the Month - Collective Monsters

        Collective nouns - the “official” words used for groups of animals - range from the everyday, such as a herd of elephants or a flock of geese, to the distinctly unusual, such as a nye of pheasants or a clowder of cats.  You can see my previous post on these terms of venery for a little background and a number of other examples.  But what about when the animals themselves are… unusual?  Perhaps the argument might be made that it’s rare enough to see one unicorn, so that we hardly need a word for a large number of them together.  Nevertheless, writers of fantasy routinely imagine herds, flocks, nyes, and clowders of mythical magical monsters, and we clearly need words for them.
        When devising new nouns of assembly, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the sources of our old ones.  Generally speaking these words are based on characteristics of the animal they describe: sound, appearance, behavior, or habitat.  Or they may include a comment or moral judgement on the perceived worth of the creature.  And finally, there are terms that have come about through errors which have stuck, which we can ignore for purposes of devising our own terms!  (But if you want a couple of examples, check out the school of fish and the feamyng of ferrets.)
        My list today includes the suggestions of a number of other wordsmiths as well as my own, and I’ve indicated authors in the footnotes.  That’s how scholarly I am.  (If there's no listed author that means it’s my version.)  Also, although I mostly included on this list only the terms I like, sometimes I’ve included proposals from several people for comparison.  Throughout the list I’ve put my favorites in bold.
   a threatening of dragons - I can’t remember where I saw this given (heck, is it possible I made it up myself?), but I liked it enough to use it as the title of one of my books!  Jacqueline K. Ogburn suggests a dignity of dragons, while Karl Shuker would have a conflagration of dragons.  I’ve also seen a flight of dragons in various fantasy works.
   a hoard of griffins (KS), but I suggest that this, too, would work for dragons
   a flurry of yetis (JO) or an avalanche of yetis (KS)
   a grace of unicorns (JO) or a marvel of unicorns (from An Exaltation of Larks)
   a splash of mermaids (JO)
   a chord of sirens (JO) or a somnolence of sirens (KS) or a medley of sirens
   a menace of manticores (KS)
   a shock of Mongolian death worms (KS)
   a shriek of mandrakes (KS)
   a squadron of rocs (KS)
   a storm of thunderbirds (Curt Gleason)
   a flutter of Mothmen (Ian James Kidd)
   an awakening of kraken (KS) or an unleashing of kraken
   a foliation of Green Men (KS) or a thicket of Green Men
   a furnace of salamanders (KS) or a kindling of salamanders

   an assembly of chimaeras
   a corps of zombies
   a club of ogres
   a slew of vampires
   a riddle of sphinx (JO)
        Give it a try.  What collective terms can you devise?  What creatures do you think especially need them?  Let’s hear your ideas!

Sources: A Dignity of Dragons: Collective Nouns for Magical Beasts by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, 2010;

An Undulation of Sea Serpents, blog post by Karl Shuker, and including terms by Gleason and Kidd, 2021.

[Pictures: A menace of manticores, assorted illuminations from 9 bestiaries, first quarter of 13th century through 1566;

An assembly of chimaeras, photoshop fun with Chimaera of Arezzo, woodcut depicting the famous Etruscan bronze sculpture, from Monstrorum historia by Ulisse Aldrovandi, 1642 (original image from AMS Historica of the University of Bologna).]

Periodic Table of Aliens

         Do you like my depictions of fantastical creatures?  Do you like weird and wild space aliens?  The properties of the elements of the periodic table?  Light verse?  Cute and quirky books?  If you replied “Yes” to any of those questions, you should zip straight over to Kickstarter to check out Miguel Mitchell’s new Kickstarter campaign!

        Miguel has written a poem with a humorous verse for each of the 86 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, describing a property of the element and an imaginary space alien associated with it.  With a PhD in chemistry and plenty of speculative fiction cred, he knows whereof he rhymes.  I’m involved because he commissioned me to illustrate his verses.  Exactly how many of the illustrations I will do depends on how much backing the project gets — the more people pledge, the more illustrations I’ll do!  The remaining illustrations will be done by Miguel himself.

        Today I’m sharing with you the illustration for sodium and its associated alien, the oodleplop.  (You can read the verse as the sample shown on the Kickstarter page.  I’d share it here, but I want to make you go to Kickstarter — that’s what a marketing mastermind I am.  Bwaahaha!)  This is one of the first illustrations I’ve done because it really caught at my imagination, and the whole scene of the slime-monster tending a dark old-time apothecary came to me in a glorious flash.  In fact, the idea tickled me so much that I even wrote a short story inspired by it (although in my story the creature is on Earth).

        I’ll share one more illustration with you today.  This one is a faux block print, done digitally rather than actually carved and printed.  It illustrates a long-legged iverstahl, who is associated with strontium.  The other little alien doesn’t have a name.  Maybe it’s actually a larval iverstahl before it undergoes metamorphosis…  But I tend to think that it is indeed another species, receiving assistance from the tall iverstahl.  I know what it’s like to need help reaching high things.

        Anyway, I signed on to be an illustrator on Miguel’s project because I thought it was a fun combination of science and fiction, and because I thought it would be an interesting challenge to imagine all these crazy creatures.  If you, too, think this sounds like a fun project, please consider supporting the Kickstarter campaign to make it possible.  And forward this along to all your most wonderfully nerdy friends, so that they, too, can enjoy and support this delightful undertaking.

[Pictures: Na is for sodium, aka Love Potion, rubber block print by AEGN, 2021;

Sr is for strontium, illustration by AEGN, 2021, both for Periodic Table of Alien Species by Miguel O. Mitchell.]

Travels with Covacevich

        Sue Jean Covacevich (USA, 1905-1998) spent some formative years in Mexico before settling in Kansas, but clearly she travelled widely and used the monuments she saw on those travels as subjects for block prints.  In general, Covacevich’s work is solid, workmanlike mid-century style, and while her style and technique don’t seem particularly distinctive, it is a style I always like.  What makes her work especially interesting, though, is the subject matter: fascinating buildings, both famous and less-so, with all their wonderful shadows, angles, and architectural details.
        Covacevich has the largest preponderance of images of Mexico, which is not surprising as she lived there for ten years.  I’ve included two today, both dating from 1941, but with very different lighting.  The first is brightly lit with strong 

outlines to all its edges.  I especially like the clouds, and the contrast of the flat white arch against the heavy clouds.  Looking through gateways is always a motif that appeals to me, and here I like the steps heading up to the hill, although I am curious about the view.  Are we looking out of the gate away from a large church or other complex, or in at the gate toward a destination that is far enough to be out of sight?  By contrast, the second piece shows not an open gate, but closed walls.  We can see the buildings but can’t get in.  Instead of bright light on flat surfaces, we see dark shadows on textured surfaces.  Once again, though, there are lots of interesting architectural details suggested through relatively rough carving.

        Next we travel to Spain to see a street corner in Malaga.  Unlike today’s other pieces, this is presumably not a landmark or particularly famous spot, but simply an interesting snippet of the city.  It is also the only piece today that doesn’t depict a religious building.  I like the blacks and whites of the walls and the texture of the roofs.  The sky is interestingly angular, with its sharp lines instead of trying to look like puffy clouds.  The over-all roughness of the carving gives texture to the walls and street that suggest a rustic feel.  Combined with the irregular architecture, it makes the street corner look organic rather than the result of modern city planning.

        I’ve always wanted to go to Mont-Saint-Michel, and Covacevich’s depiction of the famous abbey and town just adds to my desire.  This piece is more detailed than some of the others, with its many small outcroppings of architecture and rock.  She’s done a really masterful job with the shapes and textures of the rock, and all the little windows, arches, and turrets.  I also like the sweep of the sky and the hint of reflection in the bay at the bottom.
        And finally, the famous St. Basil’s cathedral in Moscow, another celebrated architectural extravaganza.  Although the black and white of the block print doesn’t show the wild exuberance of color for which the church is famous, it does make a great medium for pattern.  Once again, Covacevich has used her relatively rough carving style to suggest a great delicacy of detail.  Interestingly, the outline edges of the domes are not uniformly smooth, but are rather jiggly in several places.  Whether this was a deliberate choice or a by-product of the way Covacevich carved the sky, I don’t know.

        Covacevich was another of those artists for whom I had picked about twice as many images I wanted to share, and then had to cull them down to fit in a manageable post.  But if you’re curious, you can scroll through the link below to see more (plus random other paintings and sketches).  She obviously loved travel and ornate architecture, plus, of course, block printing — all things that I enjoy, too.

[Pictures: Gateway to El Calvario, block print by Sue Jean Covacevich, 1941;

Del Carmen Convent, block print by Covacevich, 1941;

Street Corner, Malaga, Spain, linoleum cut by Covacevich, c 1955;

Mont-Saint-Michel, block print by Covacevich, undated;

St. Basil, linoleum cut by Covacevich, undated, (All images from Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art).]