Men sweat, women perspire or glow (though the latter I feel surely takes things a bit far); a friend of mine protested that she was merely ‘lamenting’ the fact her husband never brought her flowers, whilst he retorted she should stop ‘whining’ about it; parents will deny they are ‘passing judgment’ and only ‘voicing concern’ (apparently there’s a difference) and I recall that in a recent blog about his ‘bloody bronchitis’, author John Wilcox wittily comments ‘ordinary people spit; authors expectorate’.

And isn’t that the beauty of the English language that there are so many words to essentially describe the same thing yet denoting often slight but crucial differences? Surely this is what every author faces when they write – consciously or unconsciously – deciding which word/s to use to best express what they want to impart to the reader.

I am a fervent lover of the Thesaurus and was often mocked by fellow students during my essay-writing days at University for spending so much time mulling over what word to use in a sentence, in order to get it just right. So on this note, today I find myself thinking about the word AUTHOR and the connotations behind this word.  How else could an author be described?

A quick look at the Thesaurus brings up obvious synonyms such as ‘writer’ (quite bland), ‘creator’ (for a broader term); then there’s ‘scribe’ which carries a certain gravitas, or ‘scribbler’ which seems a bit undermining… Or we could go with something with a mystical nuance: ‘word weaver’ or ‘tale spinner’; or something far less gracious: ‘page-filler’; or we could opt for French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu‘s definition: ‘a fool…who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations’. Alrighty then…

So, I leave you with this task…to come up with your own synonym for AUTHOR.

Enter here by the end of the month and we’ll post our favourite entries on Monday 1 April (to stick with Charles de Montesquieu’s view, April Author’s Day…) and the winner will receive a signed copy of The War of the Dragon Lady, by John Wilcox (seeing as he partly inspired this blog).

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager