Speed
I look like a real tosser in my first author photo. Only author photo so far, actually. Think I posted it online titled something like “Futurist self-portrait,” ’cos my head was shaking when the picture was taken to emulate speed. A poetry editor once made me cut the last line “Now I understand speed.” from a poem before he would publish it. I explained that it wasn’t a drug reference, but I consented to the change.
The editor said a drug reference wasn’t the problem.
Here’s a millennial Jeff Foxworthy moment for you: if you’ve ever felt the need to point out that speed has other meanings than the drug, you have a speed problem.
Russian uses the English word speed for the drug (spelled phonetically in their alphabet as spid], which is also the acronym for AIDS in Russian. Fun fact.
Sometimes I wonder – primarily about myself – if writers are just people who couldn’t get teaching jobs.