iUniverse Publishing presents New Words in English –Part 2

In part one of iUniverse Publishing presents New Words in English, iUniverse discussed newly coined terms in English. In this article, we will continue to present new English words along with their definitions.

• Dramedy – a mixture of “drama” and “comedy”
• Earworm – a tune which keeps repeating in our heads
• E-cruitment – online recruitment of employees, including online submission of resumes and online interviews
• Elancer – a person who works from home and provides professional services on the internet
• E-quaintance – a person you know only through the internet
• E-stalking – stalking or following someone through internet searches, email and social media accounts
• E-waste – electronic materials and devices which have been thrown away
• Favicon – a “Favorites” icon, a small graphic which appears when you bookmark a website

Click here to read the full article

Read More

iUniverse Publishing presents New Words in English –Part 1

Languages are always changing. New words and expressions are always being created. This is usually because something new has been invented, partially due to new internet terms, but sometimes it’s just for fun. English is a language that is very quick to adapt to the changing world. New words a re often borrowed from other languages or coined by necessity. In this article, iUniverse presents recently coined words and their meanings.

• Affluenza – a combination of “affluence” and “influenza”, a social disease resulting from excessive materialism and extreme consumerism = earning more money and consuming more
• Agritourism – a type of tourism where tourists stay on farms or in agricultural areas and participate in farming activities
• Alcopop - fruit drinks with alcohol added which are designed for and marketed to young people
• Baggravation – a mixture of “bag” and “aggravation”, annoyance and aggravation ay the airport when your luggage has not arrive, but other passengers’ baggage has
• Blook – a fusion of “book” and “blog”, a book written by a blogger
• Breadcrumbing – an internet navigating technique which helps users by displaying a list of links to web pages they have visited while exploring a website

Click here to read the full article

Read More

iUniverse on the Traits of a Self-Published Author – Part 2

This the second article in our two part series, iUniverse on the Traits of a Self-Published Author – Part 2, brings to lights further personality traits a self-published author should have within his box of tricks. In Part 1, we asked you if you had the passion and a positive outlook, now we see if you have the curiosity, patience and determination to bring it all together.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat

Going down the self-publishing road is for many a new adventure. Whether you undertake everything yourself or have the services of a self-publishing company to help you, make sure you research everything you can about this new venture.

Search and read as much as you can on the internet on subjects like: cover design and layout, how to present your book for e-book formatting, through to marketing and promotion. Writing takes time, but so does research. Learning a little about each part of the process will give you the added tools when it comes along to that procedure. Using a professional organization helps tremendously and with your added knowledge it will make life so much simpler. So be curious, and don’t kill the cat!

Click here to read the full article

Read More

iUniverse on the Traits of a Self-Published Author – Part 1

In this, the first in our two part series, iUniverse on the Traits of a Self-Published Author, we delve into some of the traits we think a writer should have and wants to throw this question out there to would-be authors:

iUniverse publishing asks “Do you have what it takes to be a self-published author?”

That’s probably a question many writers ask themselves once a day or more. Yes, you can write and yes you want to become a self-published author. Your story is fantastic, your editing skills are pretty good and you’ve also decided to have a trained team look it over. But you’re not so good at creative illustration or photography, but no problem here either. It can be designed by the professionals. And lastly, your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and blog pages are already up and running and your pre-fan base is starting to come aboard.

As a writer you are constantly reading items on the newest best selling author and their habits and tips for hitting the high life. I’m sure hoping that you are already emulating them in your own writing sphere. Of course without a program they would have been languishing in the grey area of published but not yet famous. But deep inside you know that only you, and you alone, will make yourself successful (of course with a little help from the professionals).

Self-publishing, like any other creative thing, needs a commitment from you to achieve your goal. The question remains to be answered – “Do I have the personality traits to make that commitment?” Well let’s look at a few of them.

In any activity whether it’s academics, sports or writing, having the passion for something makes it so much easier and things seem to flow more naturally.

But this is just one of the slices of passion that you need. Life creates its own passion and you should grasp it when you can, creating your own success in the smallest of ways and facing challenges that seem unconquerable when it rears its ugly head. If you have these in your pocket then passion for being successful as a writer is within your grasp.

Click here to read the full article

Read More

iUniverse Publishing presents Onomatopoea

Onomatopoeic words are words which sound like the noises they represent. Possibly the best examples are verbs describing the sounds that animals make, e.g., frogs croak, birds chirp and owls hoot. iUniverse will give examples of onomatopoeic words and tell you about a few songs which incorporate onomatopoea.

iUniverse examples of Onomatopoea:

Certain clusters of letters have sound associations in English:

-ash at the end of a word represents something quick and violent, e.g., smash, dash, crash, mash, clash and gash.

-ckle, -ggle, -zzle at the end of a word is the sound of something light and repeated, e.g., trickle crackle, tinkle, giggle, wriggle, sizzle and drizzle.

-cl at the beginning of a work can represent a sharp or metallic sound, e.g., click, clang, clank, clash, clink and clip-clop.

gr- at the beginning of a word, means that something is miserable, or unpleasant, e.g., groan, grumble, grumpy, grunt and growl.

sp- at the beginning is usually associated with water, other liquids or powders, e.g., splat, splash, spit split, splutter, spray, sprinkle and spurt.

wh- at the beginning of a word represents the sound of movement of or through the air, e.g., whistle, whirr, whizz, wheeze and whip.

Click here to read the full article

Read More