The term wordsmith is formed by analogy with older words such as blacksmith, goldsmith, silversmith, and locksmith — all denoting skill and expertise with a particular medium. This is part of a complete episode.
Leave a comment
1 comment
More from this show
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
I often hear wordsmithing used in the specific context of group writing. While preparing a formal document as a group, we will come to a point where we have generally agreed upon what we want a sentence or section to say, but don’t want to take the time to work out the exact wording as a group. In these situations, someone will often suggest “we leave the wordsmithing” to one of the team to do after the meeting.