Word of the Day - "Tchotchke"

Today's Dictionary.com word is tchotchke: 

\CHOCH-kuh\, noun:

1) A trinket; a knickknack

Tchotchke. I've never heard the word before, but it brought all kinds of memories of favorite trinkets to mind. My earliest recollection is of a charm bracelet I had as a child. It had silver charms from places I had visited-- Disneyland, the San Francisco Aquarium, the Grand Canyon--as well as places around the world that my father had visited as a pilot. Sadly, that charm bracelet was lost in one of many moves we made as a family while my father was in the Air Force.

One of my very favorite knickknacks was a simple little present my sister, Tami, gave me when for my 16th birthday. She took a little pebble and wrapped it in a piece of toilet paper, and called it "Rock Hudson." It still remember how impressed I was at her cleverness, and I still have that little knickknack today.

When my children were young, my shelves were full of favorite trinkets--like this turtle dish that Adam made in second grade:

Or this flower ornament that Andrea made when she was in her hungry years in college:

One of my favorites is the first thing Stephen ever gave to me:

It's funny, the things we treasure. For me, it's usually something associated with a memory. A piece of jewelry, a framed photo, or something as simple as a sentimental note written on the back of a business card. Whether I still have these tchotchkes or not, I will always have the memories associated with them.

Do you have a favorite tchotchke?

Purple Pleonasm

I love the Dictionary.com "Word of the Day." Very often, the word is new to me, and I like to try to put it to use in a thought or a sentence.

Today's word is pleonasm:

\PLEE-uh-naz-uhm\, noun;
1) The use of more words than are necessary to express an idea.
2) A superfluous word or expression.


Synonyms: copiousness, garrulity, loquaciousness, verbosity


I've been accused of purple prose before, but after today's word, I've decided purple pleonasm is so much more descriptive of the writing style into which I sometimes drift.

Allow me to "expose" myself. Here's an excerpt of a story I wrote several years ago:

The rising sun bade goodbye to the night’s moon glow with a kiss of violet, pink, orange and finally golden yellow.  Earth accepted Sun’s kiss and blushed with color.

And here is the critique given to me by a prominent college professor/editor:

"Oh. . . my . . . God."


I smiled. I knew she'd love it. Then, I saw her pulling her hair out.


"No. No. No!!" she continued. "This is so purple. Purple, I say. Purple!"

As you might imagine, I went pale and queasy all at once. She'd torn it to pieces. My masterpiece! My child!

I think. . . I hope . . . my writing has come a long way. At least when I read that passage now, I feel the same kind of yucky sickness one might feel after eating eight servings of tiramisu.

So, I've grown as a writer, and though a critique can often feel like standing by and watching someone beat your child, it has helped - a lot. I've come a long way in dropping the purple. Now, if I can let go of the pleonasm.

Still, it does have a distinctive ring to it.