It’s worth noting that the ‘yams’ several of these cultures cultivate are not the same as the ‘sweet potatoes’ that are commonly called ‘yams’ in the West. Wikipedia) has a wealth of information for the interested.
As a further tangent, I once worked at a grocery store where the sweet potatoes were split up into spaces on opposite sides of the produce department, one labeled ‘yam’ and one labeled ‘sweet potato’. Folks from produce were sometimes called up to the register to verify whether a particular sweet potato should be rung up as a yam or a sweet potato (since they had different codes) and they’d just pick one.
I do my writing in two passes, with the second devoted almost entirely to removing unnecessary words. Sometimes I go a step further, and change tenses to eliminate unnecessary affixes. It makes a big difference, even though readers don’t often recognize what they’re responding to.
It’s worth noting thatthe ‘yams’ several of these cultures cultivate are not the same as the ‘sweet potatoes’ that are commonly called ‘yams’ in the West. Wikipedia) has a wealth of information for the interested.As a further tangent, I once worked at a grocery store where the sweet potatoes were split up into spaces on opposite sides of the produce department, one labeled ‘yam’ and one labeled ‘sweet potato’. Folks from produce were sometimes called up to the register to verify whether a particular sweet potato should be rung up as a yam or a sweet potato (since they had different codes) and they’d just pick one.
Ugh, thanks for pointing out my latest linguistic crutch. I’ll try and eradicate that ASAP.
I do my writing in two passes, with the second devoted almost entirely to removing unnecessary words. Sometimes I go a step further, and change tenses to eliminate unnecessary affixes. It makes a big difference, even though readers don’t often recognize what they’re responding to.