2006-2007 Speakers Bureau Catalog
LINDA WARE
Linda Ware is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County, as well as vice chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board. She is working on a book analyzing the role of paintings and painters in twentieth-century novels by women.
Address: 13 North Hill Rd., Wausau, WI 54403
Phone: 715-842-9398 (home), 715-574-0435 (cell)
E-mail: linda.ware@uwc.edu
From Push to Shove: A Respectful History of the Disrespectable English Language
Even a rapid survey of the etymology of the English language reveals the multitude of sources our language draws from. Contrasting the languages that give English its energy and range, we discover that our vocabulary either limits us or allows us to see the world in a more humorous and vivid light. When are big words bad writing? What troubles us about swearing? How can we ground our expression more intensely in the real? Why is legal writing often redundant, as in one's "last will and testament"? Ware's talk shows how studying roots and enlarging our vocabularies opens up not only poetry but also politics and people.
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