Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Stupid Things People Do #2

Some people like to put their business card in their submission, especially if they bother to submit a whole binder or something. It's not necessary, but it helps us find their email if they forgot the SASE or we actually want to request material.

That said, I would like to put all of the people who have titled themselves "wordsmith" in a spaceship and send it to a planet with no atmosphere. That planet would then be renamed "planet of the dorks."

17 comments:

gabrielle said...

Planet of the dorks... That is excellent.

Stephen Parrish said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Fragments said...

It's a sure sign of a badly bruised ego when people resort to giving themselves non-existant titles on personal business cards.
"Wordsmith" is kinda harmless. Annoing and harmless.
I worked with people who used all sorts of weired titles on business cards when all they did was manage paper. One self-appointed "Advanced Designs Supervisory Engineer" was a bumbling fool incapable of using a screwdriver. He pushed papers and schmoozed money out of people to do research.

Anonymous said...

What about "zany" or "wacky wordsmith"? Surely one of those would be acceptable.

Richard said...

Well, if somebody handed me a card with the title wordsmith, they had better well be damn good at putting words together and not just mostly competent.

Anonymous said...

"Wordsmith" is just plain embarrassing.

LadyBronco said...

People actually refer to themselves as a 'wordsmith'?

wow...

Anonymous said...

Better than "dreamweaver." I've seen that one, too.

Rural Catholic Woman said...

I thought Dreamweaver was a program. I suppose if writers can call themselves wordsmithees, we can call teachers childsmiths. Or go a little German with it and call them kindersmiths.

The Rejecter said...

I thought "Dreamweaver" was a song.

s.w. vaughn said...

Thank you so much. That was funny!

Fortunately, I haven't automatically qualified for shipment to Planet of the Dorks, but I'd love to go for a visit. :-)

Anonymous said...

"Wordsmith" is also a song:

My mind escaped
through the gift of wordplay
I memorized encyclopedias and dictionaries
I wrote anthems from antonyms
Harmonies from homonyms
Created cinema from synonyms
Was livid to eliminate
that illustrious life you're livin' in
Wrote rhetoricals in rhythms
I can paralyze with a parable
Made rhymes out of religion
Use a prefix as a crucifix
Or suffocate you with a suffix
Wrote lectures so infectious
They're known to infect the listeners
Who dissin' us?
Yo punks you wait – I punctuate
My karma's the comma
That put you inside of a coma
Hyphen, dot, dot, semi-colon
Leave you semi-swollen
Question mark: You pregnant?
Oh you're not? I love you, Period
To sum it up, language is my essence

http://www.lyricsdir.com/chino-xl-wordsmith-lyrics.html

...Oh, the things Google teaches us. Warning: The rest of the lyrics are NSFW.

Anonymous said...

I have a friend who, between jobs/careers, used "human being" on her business cards. It was awesome.

Anonymous said...

How about wordwright? Any better? It's better, right?

none said...

One that annoys me is "playwrite". It's "playwright", damnit!

I see a lot of evidence in slush of people using words they've heard but never seen written down--in other words, I'm getting submissions from writers who don't read. If even wannabe writers aren't readers, who are we writing for again?

Anonymous said...

Funny!

I bet those cards have logos of quill pens, too.

Scott said...

Does "Bearded Bagman from Zurich" count as dorky?