✍ Writing & Words
✍️ Seven Minute Drill (5/27/2026) // bradley-andrews.com
✏️ New Word Learned:
Encomium: a formal expression of high praise or a glowing tribute
✍️ Recognized that I have not been believing the best in others recently. Wrote this post as a reminder for why I should be more open-hearted // bradley-andrews.com
And while its true that our culture undervalues simplicity, we have more than a few examples in fiction that embody, and even exaggerate, this virtue. Inspector Clouseau, Mr. Magoo, and Mr. Bean, are great examples of what is essentially the same character. They are simpletons in every sense of the word, always out of step with the rhythms and conventions of modernity, yet still one step ahead of the deceivers, thieves, and robbers who try to take advantage of them. The satisfaction we receive from watching these individuals expose hypocrites is the same triumph we feel when the Road Runner escapes Wile E. Coyote. It is the victory of austerity over cleverness, simplicity over scheming, and humility over genius. A person who chooses to be simple, surrendered, and accepting is choosing a path that is both incomprehensible and intractable to the hypocrite, because the hypocrite has optimized for complexity, power, and force rather than simple, unassuming honesty.
Would love if you took the time to read and let me know your thoughts! I am quite fond of the closing paragraphs (not included above), if I am allowed to say so. ❤️
✏️ New word learned:
Hypnagogic: of, relating to, or occurring in the period of drowsiness immediately preceding sleep
🃏 Recently, a friend of mine who has been single for a long time showed up to a party dressed as a USPS worker. I said, ‘What’s with the costume?’
She said, ‘What do you mean? Everyone keeps telling me that I should be appealing to the mail gaze.'
✏️ New Word Learned:
Bituminous: a dull black, intermediate-rank coal
✍️ Decoding Jay-Z’s Quadruple Entendre // bradley-andrews.com
There are very few pursuits that are more creative than hip-hop music, but it’s endlessly overlooked as an art form because of it’s urban roots. I just did a brief breakdown of one of my favorite rap verses (not even a full verse, actually, just four lines) to help prove my point. Let me know if you agree.
I father, I Brooklyn Dodger them.
I jack. I rob. I sin.
Aww man — I’m Jackie Robinson.
‘cept when I run base, I dodge the pen.
— Jay-Z, Brooklyn Go Hard
✍ Social Note: There Is Nothing To Be Sorry About // bradley-andrews.com
Wrote about some of the encounters I have been having with strangers and the underlying meaning behind a verbal tic I’ve noticed. Does anyone else make big meanings out of small interactions like this? Or is it just me?
✍️ Degrees of Deception: An Index of Dishonesty // bradley-andrews.com
✏️ New Word Learned:
Caterwaul: to make a harsh cry; protest or complain noisily
✏️ New Word Learned:
Gravid: distended with or full of eggs; pregnant
✏️ New Word Learned:
Crepitant: having or making a crackling sound
✏️ New Word Learned:
Ferreous: of, like, or containing iron
✍️ First They Came (Grammar Edition):
First they came for the em dash
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the em dash
Then they came for the Oxford comma
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the Oxford Comma
Then they came for the serial semicolon
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the serial semicolon
Then they came for iambic
And I did not speak out
Because I did not write in iambic
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
That knew how to write a defense for me
How I feel when people tell me not to use em dashes in my writing anymore because of AI. 😆 Click here for the original poem I based this parody on.
✏ New Word Learned:
Kvetch: a person who complains a great deal
✏️ New Word Learned:
Revanchism: a political doctrine aimed at the reversal of the losses incurred in previous political or military defeats, most commonly, incurred territorial losses.
✏️ New Word Learned:
Chronophagic: (derived from Greek chronos “time” and phagein “to eat”) means “time-eating” or time-consuming. It refers to anything that wastes time, or is used to describe the “Chronophage,” a series of mechanical,, “time-eating” grasshopper clocks created by Dr. John Taylor that dramatically depict the passage of time.
Not just a new word, but a new favorite word. Can’t wait to drop this one in a sentence (probably when discussing social media).
✍️ Back in October, I wrote a dark fiction fable that included a brief rant from an unhinged tech CEO about the connection between war and business. Yesterday morning, Alex Karp of Palantir was on CNBC making the exact same arguments:
On the battlefield, on the commercial battlefield, too, at large companies… our ability to target and take out adversaries and enemies in a way no one else can. I mean, from a not moral perspective, they’re exactly the same; what makes you lethal on the battlefield, and what makes you commercially viable?”
I’m not prescient—this is just how these guys think. They are terribly misguided, even if commercially successful.
✍️ I can smell your aura, a new blog post from yours truly is out now.
As far as I can tell, these are sense-words; adjectives meant to describe an effect that we feel but can’t necessarily link to a specific visual trait. It’s like supercalifragilisticexpealidocious, but for attentional faculties. It’s what we say when we don’t know what to say.
I pull on everything from Ivan Illich to Frank Sinatra to Gandalf to explain pop culture’s misunderstanding of “aura.” These thoughts are half-baked, but hopefully teach something about language, media ecology, and perception.
✏️ New Word Learned:
Encomiast: a person who publicly praises or flatters someone else