WET PAINT WE IN PAIN
“I know, I feel the meaning that words hide;
they are anagrams, cryptograms, little boxes
conditioned to hatch butterflies.” —HD
With naming, verbal strategy, or information science projects, I sit way behind the curtains, but if you want to get a sense of who is developing names or frameworks for you, you’ve come to the right place. Here, I write about stuff that falls under these main categories.
common evasions and verbal camouflage similar to what I wrote about in my book; these are statements about statements, thinking in terms of terms
doin’ it off the clock; naming ideas on spec
stories without evidence; lore from a wild and undocumented pre-internet life in NYC as half of production and publishing duo Spekes & Grogan
there are no typos; let it stand and deliver—some close readings, similar to seeing AINT WE IN PAIN in a WET PAINT sign
if i were a billionaire I’d spend it all on payouts to editorial teams to stop saying these things; calling out bad verbal strategy