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THE MAGIC ART
A Linguistic Device For Beautiful and Stirring Prose
The oldest trick in the writer’s magic box
Once a week, on my road home from walking with my best friend, I stop at Shak and Jen’s general store and spend £1.30. Once home, I feed Monkeydog, stick the kettle on and settle down with a coffee and my purchase.
Our local newspaper is thin, in both news and paper. However, it has a preoccupying four-page puzzle section. I generally complete the crossword before the last dregs of my cappuccino pass my lips, but the ‘Missing Links’ puzzle can keep me guessing for days.
In a ‘missing links’ puzzle, you are given three words. Each clue has a fourth word in common, and that’s the answer. Thus:
- Frog
- Quantum
- Year
= Leap
Some aren’t so obvious:
- Joint
- Shell
- Wheel
= ?¹
Like answers to missing link puzzles, the English language sets us down a garden path of strings and senses in which certain words are likely to precede or follow others.
Our words form recognisable patterns. As our reading fluency improves, we…
