I have two words for your consideration, today. The first is fog, a mixture of air and water. The second is mud, a mixture of earth and water. Both words track back to Middle English in origins. Mud, they say, probably traces back to the Low German, mudde. Fog's origins are less clear (no pun intended), possibly arising from a second meaning for fog, which is long grass on wet land.

Both, beyond their physical sense, can indicate problems. We can be lost in a fog and mired in mud. We can have mud flung on us by passing wheels or tireless foes. The possible uses for these two words are worth contemplating.  

But just look at what happens when these two simple words are taken up by a master. The following quote is from Bleak House by Charles Dickens: 

Fog everywhere.  Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.  Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights.  Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats.  Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck.  Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy.  Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar.  And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

See what can be done with just two words?

Best wishes,

Anna Drake

I thought since my craft is fiction writing that a few discussions of words might be interesting, now and again. But, please, don't confuse me with my Blog's title. I care deeply about words, but I do not consider myself a wordsmith. And for those protesting the appellation smithy, well, I use it with whatever poetic license you'll grant me.

Actually, the word, smithy, refers to a blacksmith or his shop. Its origin is Middle English, from Old Norse, and it was originally spelled smithja. (See, can't words be fun?) And at this moment, involved as I am in a close, line-by-line edit, hammering out or at words is a bit on my mind. Therefore, the word smithy seems apt, as it has for the past multiple months since I started my current writing journey.

As to the rest of my Blog's title, I have to confess I like old things. Some of my favorite books date back to the 1800s. Recent titles I've read include: Bleak House, Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice. I like their style. But, actually, I'll have more on style later.

So, if you, too, like words, leave me a post. I'd be happy to hear from you. 

Best wishes,

Anna Drake