Tweet Tales Tuesday Week 154
January 6, 2015
15 Minute Tweet TalesHappy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2015 is off to an amazing start! Although I have to admit, I’m still in a bit of denial that another year has zipped by at such an alarming speed. 
 
Now that it’s a new year, I needed a new source of words for the 15 Minute Tweet Tales. In 2012, I used an old Merriam-Webster’s word-a-day calendar. Then in 2013 I pulled the words from the book Rare Words and Ways to Master Their Meanings: 500 Arcane but Useful Words for Language Lovers. For 2014, I once again used an old Merriam-Webster’s word-a-day calendar, but I found there were a fair number of repeated words from the previous two years. I guess there are only so many words that are considered unusual enough for vocabulary building.
 
So for 2015, I’ve decided to try something a little different. I found the book 500 Foreign Words & Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart: Terms to Demonstrate Your Savoir Faire, Chutzpah, and Bravado. Whew, I didn’t think it was possible, but this book’s title is even longer than the one from 2103! Anyway, I put it on my Christmas list, and my siblings were kind enough to get it for me.
 
The words and phrases are divided into alphabetical chapters. So on January 1st, I picked a word from the A chapter, on January 2nd I picked from B, and that’s how I’ll proceed, cycling through the letters of the alphabet.
 
Some of the phrases are really long, so I’m mostly picking the shorter ones. I can’t imagine anyone wants write a tweet tale using the phrase aquila non capit muscas (an eagle doesn’t catch flies – i.e. an important person shouldn’t concern himself with unimportant questions), since it eats up so many characters before the tale even gets started.
 
The book’s words and phrases are heavy on the Latin and French, so I’m trying to keep things interesting by picking from a variety of origins: Spanish, Farsi, German, etc. So even though I’ll be circling through alphabetically, I’ll be jumping around within the chapters to get an interesting assortment of relatively short words/phrases for the tweet tales.
 
The first week seemed to go well, but let me know if these foreign words and phrases aren’t conducive to writing tweet tales because I want this to be fun, with learning as an added bonus. 🙂
 
Also in the new year, I’m getting back to retweeting the tales of people who play along. Months ago, my twitter apps started having problems. The one that showed me all the #15tt tweets for the day would only let me do one retweet per session. And the one that would let me retweet as much as I wanted would only show me one or two #15tt tweets each day. It was a confusing mess, so I stopped retweeting. I guess eventually those bugs got fixed (since they both appear to be working now), but I got out of the retweeting habit. But I think it’s important to share the tweet tales we all work to create, so I’m picking up the habit again. So if you stopped writing tweet tales because I stopped retweeting, now’s the time to rejoin the fold. Come write tweet tales – you know you want to!!
 
Okay, that’s more than enough ‘new year, new announcements’ blather from me. Here are my tales from the past week: 
 
12/31 – She spends hours preparing perfect NYE party for family and friends, but she's so knackered she snores softly in chair during countdown.
 
1/1 – He searched ab aeterno: from amoebas, dinosaurs, monkeys to now, his soul sought hers. He finally holds her in his arms and dies happy.
 
1/2 – The hostess sneers at my outfit. I slip her a large baksheesh and she leads me to a table. Granted it's by the bathroom, but now I'm cool.
 
1/3 – She hands the kids crayons and gives them carte blanche to decorate their house. Her sister shouldn't have tricked her into babysitting.
 
1/4 – After Kim sprouted boobs over the summer, she stopped talking to old, déclassé friends. Although they have her back when the rumors start.
 
1/5 – When she gets drunk, she shows a great élan for karaoke. The other regulars have started bribing the bartender to water down her drinks.
 
1/6 – New students are shocked the gawky nerd is actually the big man on campus. Then they learn he can make a facsimile of any signature.
 
What do you think of this foreign words and phrases plan? Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?
15 Minute Tweet TalesHappy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2015 is off to an amazing start! Although I have to admit, I’m still in a bit of denial that another year has zipped by at such an alarming speed. 
 
Now that it’s a new year, I needed a new source of words for the 15 Minute Tweet Tales. In 2012, I used an old Merriam-Webster’s word-a-day calendar. Then in 2013 I pulled the words from the book Rare Words and Ways to Master Their Meanings: 500 Arcane but Useful Words for Language Lovers. For 2014, I once again used an old Merriam-Webster’s word-a-day calendar, but I found there were a fair number of repeated words from the previous two years. I guess there are only so many words that are considered unusual enough for vocabulary building.
 
So for 2015, I’ve decided to try something a little different. I found the book 500 Foreign Words & Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart: Terms to Demonstrate Your Savoir Faire, Chutzpah, and Bravado. Whew, I didn’t think it was possible, but this book’s title is even longer than the one from 2103! Anyway, I put it on my Christmas list, and my siblings were kind enough to get it for me.
 
The words and phrases are divided into alphabetical chapters. So on January 1st, I picked a word from the A chapter, on January 2nd I picked from B, and that’s how I’ll proceed, cycling through the letters of the alphabet.
 
Some of the phrases are really long, so I’m mostly picking the shorter ones. I can’t imagine anyone wants write a tweet tale using the phrase aquila non capit muscas (an eagle doesn’t catch flies – i.e. an important person shouldn’t concern himself with unimportant questions), since it eats up so many characters before the tale even gets started.
 
The book’s words and phrases are heavy on the Latin and French, so I’m trying to keep things interesting by picking from a variety of origins: Spanish, Farsi, German, etc. So even though I’ll be circling through alphabetically, I’ll be jumping around within the chapters to get an interesting assortment of relatively short words/phrases for the tweet tales.
 
The first week seemed to go well, but let me know if these foreign words and phrases aren’t conducive to writing tweet tales because I want this to be fun, with learning as an added bonus. 🙂
 
Also in the new year, I’m getting back to retweeting the tales of people who play along. Months ago, my twitter apps started having problems. The one that showed me all the #15tt tweets for the day would only let me do one retweet per session. And the one that would let me retweet as much as I wanted would only show me one or two #15tt tweets each day. It was a confusing mess, so I stopped retweeting. I guess eventually those bugs got fixed (since they both appear to be working now), but I got out of the retweeting habit. But I think it’s important to share the tweet tales we all work to create, so I’m picking up the habit again. So if you stopped writing tweet tales because I stopped retweeting, now’s the time to rejoin the fold. Come write tweet tales – you know you want to!!
 
Okay, that’s more than enough ‘new year, new announcements’ blather from me. Here are my tales from the past week: 
 
12/31 – She spends hours preparing perfect NYE party for family and friends, but she's so knackered she snores softly in chair during countdown.
 
1/1 – He searched ab aeterno: from amoebas, dinosaurs, monkeys to now, his soul sought hers. He finally holds her in his arms and dies happy.
 
1/2 – The hostess sneers at my outfit. I slip her a large baksheesh and she leads me to a table. Granted it's by the bathroom, but now I'm cool.
 
1/3 – She hands the kids crayons and gives them carte blanche to decorate their house. Her sister shouldn't have tricked her into babysitting.
 
1/4 – After Kim sprouted boobs over the summer, she stopped talking to old, déclassé friends. Although they have her back when the rumors start.
 
1/5 – When she gets drunk, she shows a great élan for karaoke. The other regulars have started bribing the bartender to water down her drinks.
 
1/6 – New students are shocked the gawky nerd is actually the big man on campus. Then they learn he can make a facsimile of any signature.
 
What do you think of this foreign words and phrases plan? Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

Jocelyn Rish

Jocelyn Rish is a writer and filmmaker who never imagined her cheeky sense of humor would lead to a book about animal butts. When she's not researching fanny facts, she tutors kids to help them discover the magic of reading. Jocelyn has won numerous awards for her short stories, screenplays, short films, and novels and lives in South Carolina with her booty-ful dogs.