Leslie Lofton

I have a distinct memory of my first unit, and an extremely crusty SFC remarking on the ring on my brow left by the headband of my kevlar. "Hey, does your headband hurt when you wear your kevlar?" "Yes, sergeant." "Good!" and he walked away. That guy was a jerk.

In 1919, Sergeant Darcy Adams, a hardened Great War veteran, confronts his demons to pursue of the perfect man and preserve his military career.

First call sounded in the early gloaming, but a kerosene lamp was already burning in the non-commissioned officers tent. Sergeant Darcy Adams sat on his cot wrapping his puttees, covering his calves from his pristine breeches to his mirror-like brown boots. Like most of the other half dozen men under the canvas, he was dressed in all but his summer service jacket, which lay on his foot locker. The Georgia air flowing through the tent was mercifully cool and dry, a hint that the summer heat would

@CincyKris I am rewriting the story. It's grown by about 1,500 words and is mechanically superior, but I also thought about your thoughts on regret. I rewrote the climax a little, and desired your comment. It slides into the previous narrative where indicated

So those in fugacious mood might anxiously eye the abzugszeit on their ticket. Edit: looks like I made that up. Abflug is departure for airplanes, abfahrt is departure for trains, abzug is departure for migratory birds, who do not have tickets.

Since I haven't been around this week, I'll leave the heavy hitting etymology to someone else, suffice to say that I recognized the word zug from navigating the German railway system in my youth. Zugzwänge are a regular feature of my own childish chess-play, but figuratively? In the army I pushed a subordinate to gather evidence and personally walked his paperwork through for a "compassionate stabilization" - guarantee not to move for personal considerations -- that he clearly deserved. A few weeks after we succeeded, I was in the First Sergeants office, learning that due to Sgt Smith's (we'll call him) stabilization, and Sgt Jones' earlier stabilization, we're over strength, and you, Staff Sgt Lofton, and your family have to leave a year early. Not quite a zugzwang, but it still rankles me.

Hold on to your mumpsimus. Here come the answers. Hocus Pocus is a derogatory corruption of Hoc est corpus A paternoster is a magic spell, amulet or charm. To patter is to make a soft rhythmic noise, such as mindless praying. patter patter patter... So was I, but being Catholic, continuously broke, cousinless, half-northerner, and an NPR listener, I was an outsider. We were always running up against our grandparents' mumpsimuses because Mother (I call my mother Mother, like Norman Bates) didn't learn us proper.

As a Catholic myself, I know all about adhering to outdated beliefs and mindless repetition, but I love 'em anyway. I just try to remember it's 2024, not 1324 Because I can't leave this kind of thing alone, and I'm sitting in church right now, I had to run to the old MW unabridged. The corrupted word is sumpsimus: "we take", as in talking communion. Edit: apologies to @drpaladin He already said it 😳. If it helps, the cognate in English is "consume" Two other Latin Mass phrases are corrupted to expressions that evoke magical nonsense: Hoc est corpus: this is the body, which is the culmination of the Eucharistic rite Pater noster qui erit in coeli: Our Father who art in heaven. Do you know what the magic words are?

Ceorl and villein are English and French terms, respectively, for free, rent-paying peasant farmers. In medieval social rank, they stood above serfs, but below the least nobleman. They weren't very popular among the literate classes. The terms are the ancestors of modern English's churlish and villainous.

Nefariously. Melodramatic adverb for Snidely Whiplash

The Latin root is osculum, the diminutive of mouth. Os is mouth. If you see "P.O." on your prescription bottle, it stands for per os "take by mouth." If your surgery order says NPO after midnight, it is for nil per os -- nothing by mouth, i.e. don't eat anything.

Probably good that middle school math only deals in intersections. Teachers could never get through it.

Merriam-Webster does not list a verb "to gloam" in English, but notes that there is one in Scots, from which the English nouns "gloam" and "gloaming" are derived, ultimately from the same Germanic root as "glow". So, you can say "Hey get a load of of that gloaming," but not "Ladies be gloaming."

Not much to add. Merriam-Webster says it's from the same root as glow. It is a good indication that a writer has has half exhausted his vocabulary for describing his crepuscular creations. It's a very woody word. Not tinny at all.

Shot in the dark here, but my guess is that it refers to the appearance of the flesh of any fowl after it's been plucked. To the dictionary!

Related word: I just now sat through Narcan training at work, wherein they said a side effect of the narcotic rescue miracle drug was "piloerection" -- goosebumps. Not a pillow erection.

Bryce has surprising equanimity for having woken up in a spaceship. Perhaps he is the habit of treating everyone with contempt, no matter how much corned beef they feed him? He seems a little entitled. His parents are back in the caravan saying "Crikey, it worked! Can you believe he actually thought the Land Rover was for him?"

Long or short o? I think I sound classier when I say Jah-cund like tomatoes with my pot of yoghurt "Well chase my Aunt Fanny up a gum tree" was used by Wodehouse once or twice for expressing surprise, like cor blimey, Lord love a duck, or "Well I'll be dipped in s*** and rolled in peanuts"

Again, an interesting idea that I hadn't considered. Rachel simply reverted to the lowest point in her life for no particular reason, but to think that it was due to doubts that lingered over her many years? What concept, one that could pull the story away from the pack! In my conception, Rachel reached a venerable age without regrets. I'm my 40s, I have a number of regrets, but they are tempered with the perspective that my decisions, my flaws, my gross errors, are a tapestry that made my family, children, and everything I've touched. (Yes, that's probably why that Star Trek episode was titled "Tapestry") Regrets evaporate the further you get from them. The same old person said, "You can't end a short story like that! The ghost has to find peace!" So she gets to have some, a la "The Witches" by Ronald Dahl.

Well, it's not science fiction, so I didn't want to dive into too much world-building or metaphisical folderol. It is a neat idea (which I admit to copping, though I hope with a more sinister edge than the source) and I shared it with an old person I know, minus the gay stuff. "Imagine losing all of your perspective, and going back to your 20s" said the 70-something lady. "We were all so stupid!"

Thank you for being such a good reader! Everything I've put on here so far is a rolling rough draft, and I love reading reactions and ideas. You are the best co-authors!

Susan opened her eyes. Still alone, still in the same bed. Damn! It didn’t work, she thought. That’s dumb, though; why would I actually want to meet a ghost? Susan climbed out of bed, and made for the door, nightgown fluttering around her ankles -- what? Nightgown? Where were the t-shirt and jeans she went to bed in? Other signs appeared: Black windows shedding sunlight on the floor; books on shelves with garbled gibberish in the spines; a door that never got farther away the more she stepp

Oh. I hadn't thought about that. What a cool thought. In the next edition I'll have to lean into that. But there is only one ghost in this story.

The volunteer rescue squad was at the house in around twenty minutes. Swirling red lights illuminated the village, alerting all to trouble at the old Sanders house. Though there were no sirens, every neighborhood dog filled the void, surely leaving no one in the dark about Susan’s interesting night. The two EMTs were an amiable husband and wife, Bobby and Linda, a couple of early retirees living out their childfree fifties. They were relieved when Makayla stumbled out onto the back porch u