Mark Tredinnick - The Little Red Writing Book-University of New South Wales Press (2006)

2 Laurie’s Place provides a safe daytime drop-in centre for
women and women with children who are in crisis,
homeless, lonely, feeling isolated or in need of basic
support. Services provided include meals, showers,
laundry, medical, legal, and counselling services also a
variety of activities.
3 Born amid the violent volcanic explosions millions of years
ago, these mountainous islands are capped by an exotic mix
of rainforest, tropical bush, sweeping pine forests and
grassy hills.
The genius of the tongue
We’re talking English, here. Things might be different in another
tongue. English as a genus has almost as many species as the genus
Eucalyptus (which has nearly eight hundred). All of them are alike;
none of them is the same. There is Australian English, American
English, Indian English, New Zealand English, Yorkshire English,
Dublin English,Wyoming English, Pidgin English, Outback and Veldt
English,Thai English and the rest. And each of them is beautiful.
But still, English is English. Like all tongues, it has its own genius,
its own character. Like all language, it comes from somewhere and
works after its own fashion. Something about the ground and the
culture that gave rise to English loves short, grounded words best.
English, wherever we want to use it, works most powerfully, poetically
and clearly when it uses words like ‘old’ and ‘short’, like ‘man’
and ‘woman’, like ‘now’ and ‘ground’, like ‘buy’ and ‘trade’ and ‘miss’
and ‘sell’, like ‘word’ and ‘world’ and ‘drink’ and ‘child’ and ‘time’.
This is so even though English is the world’s most generous language,
accepting into its dictionaries more words from other languages,
more invented words, than any other language. It is large; it contains
multitudes. It has let in words like ‘minimisation’, ‘contemplate’,
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