Editor's Corner

Good morning! Last week, I shared words coined by novelist Charles Dickens. This week I want to share words coined by another English writer, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Tale of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan are two of his most famous works). Along with Walt Whitman, Coleridge founded the Romantic Movement in England in the 19th century.

I compiled this list from a Daily Writing Tips article.

· Actualize: Refers to realizing a goal

· Bisexual: Originally used to refer to androgyny

· Impact: Refers to the act of collision in a figurative sense of “the effect of one thing on another”
[dbb – Notice that this word is meant to be used to refer to a collision. If you want to discuss “producing an effect upon” or “acting on and causing a change,” the preferred term is
affect, as in “The credit union will not be affected by this change.”]

· Intensify: To make more intense or intensive; Coleridge coined this term because “render intense” did not fit the meter of a poem he was writing

· Psychosomatic: Refers to imagined maladies
[dbb – Psst! Don’t tell my sister that her symptoms could be psychosomatic. Something about that word gives her superhuman anger and extreme potty mouth…I was just trying to be helpful.]

· Relativity: Refers to the concept of one thing having a relation to another

· Selfless: Unselfish

· Soulmate: Refers to someone with whom one has a profound emotional connection (originally hyphenated)

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Extension: 765432

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