Posts tagged as “writing”

Words my spell-checker refuses to believe are real

γʹ☾ Pyanepsion ψαʹ.αʹ2025 October 19

I’ve been in the process of writing sci-fi furry smut recently. (Don’t ask why — i don’t know either! The brain wants what it wants, and it’s decided it won’t let me get any alternate-history ideas¹ until i push out the idle trivia about marsupial anatomy.)²

You’ll probably not get to read it unless i end up hiding a secret link in a footnote somewhere, but nevertheless, it has been an… edifying experience in learning the limitations of VS Code’s rudimentary spell-checker extension.³ As the title promises: here are some words it refuses to believe exist.

identikit
refinagling (understandable)
crewmate
miscalibration
kevlar (not even capitalised)
medbay (again, understandable)
dingus
bearcat
unmatted
coifed
glutes
voicebox
pitter, but not patter
blacklight
taur (once again, understandable)
hindlegs, but not forelegs
hindpaw, but not forepaw
mitosed

Two wolves

ιηʹ Hecatombæon ψʹ.βʹ2022 July 16

☞ One comment

An image macro of Scotty from Star Trek. Top text: Inside you there are two wolves. Bottom text: Sorry about the transporter malfunction. — Have to say, the “Make a Meme!” watermark really puts the cherry on top.

There are two wolves inside of me. One is a fantasy author who will gladly write thirty-word run on sentences until they’re purple in the face; the other is a copy-editor for the Economist who wants to hack at every sentence until it’s shorter than their last relationship.

I suspect the fantasy author is winning — much as the copy-editor is the one who writes my style guide, they’d probably be mortified by the liberty with which their counterpart peppers texts with em-dashes and semicolons.¹ And anyway — i’m a blogger, not a journalist! I have no requirement to make my writing erudite to the average businessman. (Well, maybe if this site suddenly pivots audiences…)