Dear writerly friends,

[eliyes]

If ever you are composing fiction -- or non-fiction! -- for the consumption of others, and you use a word you suspect may not be quite right... but spellcheck says it's a word... look it up in a dictionary. Hell, this is the computer age -- stick in in a search engine and see what pops up. Just in case you don't know what it means. Even if you think it's probably what you mean.

Getting people you know to have solid and extensive vocabularies to proofread for you is also a good idea.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to compose an email to an author who seems like a nice gal and writes really good stories, but has a couple of words used entirely incorrectly throughout the 50+ of her stories I've read so far. I think I'll start with the obvious Princess Bride quote...