This week – the prompt is D is for Dear.
There’s dear as in close to your heart; beloved. ‘He is very dear to me.’
Dear also means expensive – the opposite of cheap. And allied to that, it means costly in terms of the effect something can have on someone’s life. ‘He paid a dear price for his foolishness.’
We start letters and emails with Dear so-and-so. And it used to be used a lot more as a way of formally addressing a woman – ‘My dear lady, I never thought of such a thing!’
It’s an affectionate form of address, sometimes comical – ‘Yes dear, no dear, three bags full, dear.’
When things have gone wrong, it’s a mild way of expressing disappointment, regret or surprise – ‘Oh dear… dear oh dear… dearie me!’
So there’s plenty of scope for writing, and it’s the usual stuff – who, what, where, when, how and why?
Remember this is just a prompt for you. If you’re writing anything else, why not let us have a look at that?
Send your piece to louise.hulland@bbc.co.uk and we’ll review them when we next meet on the radio.