water essay contest

CSWEA 2024 Water’s Worth It Essay Contest

april, 2025

2025 tue 01 apr 11:59 pm 2024 Water's Worth It Essay Contest

Event Details

The Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin sections of the Central States Water Environment Association invites you to join the WATER'S WORTH IT campaign by writing a short essay about

The Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin sections of the Central States Water Environment Association invites you to join the WATER’S WORTH IT campaign by writing a short essay about your local watershed.

ILLINOIS: Info | Register

MINNESOTA: Info | Register

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Mission Statement

To provide a Water Environment Federation (WEF) organization (Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin) offering multiple opportunities for the exchange of water quality knowledge and experiences among its members and the public and to foster a greater awareness of water quality achievements and challenges.

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Iowa Water Center’s “Spirit of Water” Essay Contest Winners

Aidan Quinlan’s “When Water Makes You Blue” photo submission.

The Iowa Water Center held their annual high school essay writing competition across Iowa for the 2021- 2022 school year. The title of the competition, “Spirit of Water,” invoked a fond memory in the competition winner, homeschooled 12th grader Samantha Roth from Earlham, Iowa. Each contestant was required to use either an old photo or take a new one of a water feature that meant something to them and write a creative work or research piece based around this single snapshot, focusing on resource management and habitat activity. Samantha chose the creative writing path with a work titled “Not Just Water,” a story about a grandfather and his grandchild spending a day cleaning a creek. The picture Samantha chose depicted a creek nestled into an overgrown forest. Following begrudgingly behind her grandpa, the main character waded through the water, picking up trash and slowly learning to appreciate the beauty of water and the need to protect it. The piece ends as the main character decides to take action in stopping pollution and creating a better Earth.  

Each submitted piece was encouraged to include conservation practices, a geographic location, habitats, wildlife, human-ecology interactions, and other similar topics. The contest received ten submissions— each between 500-1000 words— for the creative writing track, and 3 winners were chosen. Homeschooled 9th grader Karli Roth from Earhlam, Iowa won second place with a creative work titled “Small Creatures of the Water,” which was based on a picture of a quaint section of a stream, the rippling water lined with fallen leaves. The story focused on a character named Sadie and her Aunt Becky as they stood by the stream and discussed the ways in which to identify healthy ecosystems versus sick ones. The main character learned from her aunt the importance of insects for water health and their impact on the food chain.   

The third place winner, Aidan Quinlan, an 11th grader at Iowa Valley High School in Marengo, Iowa, wrote a creative piece titled “When Water Makes You Blue” for a Creative Writing class in the Fall of 2021. The piece utilized a close-up picture of clear water, bubbles forming on the rocks lining the shore. Aidan’s story began with the death of an infant due to too much nitrate in his blood, which stopped his breathing. The infant’s mother, Emily, was then hospitalized due to the same issue. The story jumps to a year later as the mother fights for justice in court and to raise awareness of the potential impacts of water pollution on human health.  

These three students will be recognized for their achievements during the 2022 Iowa Water Conference and their works will be published online by the Iowa Water Center. Samantha Roth, the first place winner, won $500 and a scholarship for a college course— 4 credits— at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, worth a total of $1,700. Karli Roth won $300 and a 2 credit scholarship at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory for winning second place. And for third place, Aidan Quinlan won $300. The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory in West Okoboji Lake provides science classes and research opportunities for university students by outreach programs and services through state universities. The first and second place winners get to choose any summer course at the laboratory to further their water journey.   

Read Samantha’s piece here .

Read Karli’s piece here .

Read Aidan’s piece here .

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WATER Essay Contest

Essay contest, in the style of rosemary ganley, “feminists change the world, 650 words at a time”.

 Feminist work in religion and social change is accomplished in many ways, not least of which is through writing. Enter WATER’s Essay Contest to see how it is done.

Rosemary Ganley is a Peterborough, Ontario feminist activist and writer whose weekly columns in The Peterborough Examiner reach a wide audience and make waves. WATER commits to following her lead by encouraging this kind of writing for a broad audience.

The WATER Essay Contest is an invitation to writers at all stages to submit 650 well-chosen words on a topic related to feminist work for social change that springs from spiritual commitments. Politics and the arts, sports and theology, local and global happenings are all fair game. Your imagination and activist priorities are the only limits. Write boldly and clearly à la Rosemary.

For wonderful examples, see Rosemary’s blog: https://yellowdragonflypress.weebly.com/columns

She advises:

• Make it accessible to a general reader
• Research carefully and make a clear argument
• Convey a sense of calm and hope
• Wit welcome

Graduate programs in religion do not teach this kind of writing. But WATER finds it a great way to share the wealth of progressive scholarship. Short pieces that readers are eager to post on social media, use in teaching and discussion groups, and expand in deeper dives are the order of the day. The goal is to get the best of feminist studies in religion into the hands of local people who create conscious communities and vote.

We are grateful to a generous donor who believes that Rosemary Ganley is changing the world 650 words at a time. WATER agrees with our donor and seeks to encourage many to join her in this work.

Archive of WATER Essay Contests

The essays of the 2024 Essay Contest are available for you to enjoy.

In Whom We Find Shelter: Choosing Communities of Care Over Cultures of Surveillance

Your Cause, Your Joy, Your Team

Hoe to Harvest: Connecting Soil, Soul and Society

The essays of the 2023 Essay Contest are available for you to enjoy.

Serving unincorporated Henry County and more and part of the cities of Hampton, Locust Grove, McDonough and Stockbridge, GA .

Metro Water District Hosts Essay Contest

The Henry County Water Authority (HCWA) recently recognized Zoe Tillman, a middle school student at Strong Rock Christian School, as the local winner of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District’s annual Essay Contest. 

Tillman and the 14 other county winners from across North Georgia received a $100 prize from the Metro Water District, as well as an additional gift card and HCWA swag from the Authority.

Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in Bartow, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Paulding and Rockdale Counties are invited each year to participate in this annual event.

Over the course of the 20 years that the Metro Water District has sponsored its essay contest, this outreach activity has challenged thousands of middle school students to think critically about the importance of conservation and protection of water resources in the region, says Glenn Page, Metro Water District Chairman.

“We are so proud of this year’s essay contest participants,” says Page. “Their essays highlight the critical role that water infrastructure and water professionals play within our society, while reiterating the importance of our collective efforts to protect this vital resource.”

“We are excited to recognize the Henry County students who took part in this year’s Metro Water District Essay Contest, especially Zoe, as this year’s winner from Henry County,” says Lindsey Sanders, HCWA Environmental Compliance Coordinator. “These are critically important topics for our youth to become familiar with, because they are our future water professionals and they are the ones who are going to have to oversee the preservation and protection of our water resources, especially in the Metro Atlanta Region and here in Henry County.”

HCWA General Manager Tony V. Carnell, who is a product of Henry County Schools, can testify to the career opportunities the water profession can provide local students, as he has advanced from Henry County High School graduate to General Manager of the Authority. He says events like the Metro Water District Essay Contest are ideal for increasing awareness among local students of the job opportunities at the HCWA and the career paths of future water professionals.

“This Essay Contest educates students about our role in the community as a water utility and reminds them of the importance of environmental stewardship,” says Carnell. “It’s also advantageous for us to cultivate the next generation of informed and engaged water customers and water professionals.”  

Top Photo :

Strong Rock Christian Middle School student Zoe Tillman is the Henry County Winner of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District’s annual Essay Contest.

Bottom Photo :

Strong Rock Christian Middle School student Zoe Tillman (center) was encouraged to enter the Metro Water District's Essay Contest by her teacher Cindy Runion (left). Presenting Zoe with her award as the winner from Henry County is Lindsey Sanders (right), HCWA Environmental Compliance Coordinator.

Media contact:            Chris Wood, Ph.D.

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IWSH Scholarship Essay Contest

About the scholarship.

IWSH Scholarship Essay Contest recognizes and rewards, with college scholarships, students who submit outstanding essays related to the International Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Foundation (IWSH) or the plumbing industry.

• Essay Required : Yes
• Need-Based : No
• Merit-Based : No
• This competition is open to high school seniors and full-time students at accredited technical schools, community colleges, 4-year colleges and universities, and apprenticeship programs.
• Applicants must submit an essay, of 800 to 1,600 words on a topic that changes annually but relates to the IWSH and/or the plumbing industry.
• Country : US

• “Spirit of the Water” Essay Contest

Spirit of the Water Essay Contest 2024 

The Spirit of the Water Essay Contest was established and is funded through a generous gift from Betty and Dennis Keeney, formerly of Ames, Iowa, and now living in Madison, Wisconsin. Dennis was the first director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and former director of the Iowa Water Center (IWC).

In 2016, the Iowa Water Center hosted the first Spirit of the Water Essay Contest for high school students across the state of Iowa. Since then, the essay contest has been hosted by IWC on an annual basis. The Spirit of the Water Essay Contest’s purpose is to inspire Iowa youth to explore, reflect, and communicate the importance of water in our lives and communities.

We challenge Iowa high school students to write an essay that relates to the following theme: 

Life Depends on Water. Water Depends on You. 

An emphasis should be placed on water resource management within the essay.  The deadline to enter is April 12, 2024 @ 5pm.

Learn more here!

Questions can be directed to Zita Quade  [email protected]

21st Annual Metro Water District Middle School Essay Contest Winners Announced

The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (Metro Water District) announced the District-wide winner for the 21 st annual middle school essay contest, Riley Bowman of Austin Middle School, as well as 15 other regional winners. This year’s contest focused on impacts to water quality and quantity in the metro Atlanta region in the face of more intense cycles of droughts and floods.

The winning essay  explains that there are many ways to help our region’s water be resilient to climate change, whether by encouraging local governments to improve infrastructure, or conserving water at home.

“Not only should you encourage your local city to improve infrastructure, but you can follow steps at home to help,” Bowman said in her essay. “Water is the most essential element for the preservation of life.”

Bowman received a $500 prize for winning the contest, which asked entrants to write a 300-500 word essay addressing their choice of two topics. Students had the option of 1) researching the last major drought or flooding event in metro Atlanta and describe how local communities and businesses adapted to the conditions; or 2) describe how more extreme drought and flooding events affect our access to clean, safe water, and how the region can be more water resilient in the face of a changing climate.

Ahaan Dev, a student at Fulton Science Academy in Fulton County, was named the District-wide runner-up. His essay focuses on the aftermath of floods and droughts, and how we can learn to be more resilient in recovering from these natural disasters while addressing the root causes.

“In the U.S. we assume we will have clean drinking water, but it should not be taken for granted. It is actually a precious resource,” Dev said.

In the 21 years that the Metro Water District has hosted the annual essay contest, this outreach activity has challenged thousands of middle school students to think critically about the conservation and the protection of water resources in the region. This year, more than 600 students from across the 15-county region participated.

“We are really impressed with this year’s selection of essays,” said Metro Water District Chairman Glenn Page. “The participants’ essays highlight the importance of resiliency in our water system, so we can continue to ensure everyone has access to clean, safe water.”

The annual essay contest is one of many educational outreach initiatives conducted by the Metro Water District to raise awareness about conservation efforts and the importance of water quality preservation in the Atlanta region. Visit  My Drop Counts  for tips on how you can conserve water and the  Clean Water Campaign  to learn how you can help prevent stormwater pollution.

About the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (Metro Water District) The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District is dedicated to developing a comprehensive regional and watershed-specific Water Resources Management Plan to be implemented by local governments in the 15-county metro Atlanta region, which includes Bartow, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Paulding and Rockdale counties. The Plan conserves public water supplies, protects water quality and recreational value of the waters and minimizes potential adverse impacts of development on waters in and downstream of the region. Learn more at  www.northgeorgiawater.org .

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Home » All » The Citizen Recommends: Water—An Essay Contest

Do Something

Enter Your Student in the Essay Contest

If you have a student in mind who might want to explore this issue encourage them to apply!

With a deadline of February 25, students have plenty of time to craft their essay and get a chance to meet the Philadelphia Zoo’s Amphibian Conservation Biologist, Dr. Carlos Martinez Rivera! Oh, and win a $10,000 scholarship…

Read the contest requirements carefully and apply! More info here .

Connect WITH OUR SOCIAL ACTION TEAM

About Last Year's Contest

About The Zoo’s Conservation Efforts

The Zoo is working hard to save species like the Panamanian golden frog and other amphibian populations, but they can’t do it alone.

Click here to find out ways you can support the conservation efforts, like cleaning up local wetlands or managing your yard without using pesticides, fertilizers and weed killers.

The Citizen Recommends: Water—An Essay Contest

The pamela & ajay raju foundation, along with the zoo, offers $15,000 to a student who can help solve our water crisis.

BY Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

Jan. 23, 2018

If you want to understand the state of a water ecosystem, look to the frogs.

What you’ll find, sadly, is not good news. The world as we know it is undergoing what Kim Lengel, the Philadelphia Zoo’s vice president for Education and Conservation, calls a “global amphibious crisis.”

“Amphibians are disappearing at a faster rate than any other animal on the earth,“ Lengel says. “And when they start blinking out, eventually the whole system is going to break down.”

Our water, in other words, is failing us. It’s polluted; rising in some places; disappearing from others; creating havoc with not only human habitation, but also the animal world we depend upon. It is a problem of our creation—and it will continue unless we do something about it.

That’s the issue several hundred area high schoolers will consider this year, as part of the Pamela & Ajay Raju Foundation Essay Contest, in partnership with the Zoo. In their essay, due by midnight on February 25th, students are asked to identify a water challenge facing our region, with a specific focus on amphibians; and then to articulate a “realistic and innovative solution” that can be implemented. The winner of the contest will receive a $10,000 scholarship courtesy of the Foundation, and another $5,000 from the Zoo to put towards their winning idea.

“Students in this region are incredibly innovative in coming up with solutions to problems here,” says Lengel. “We hope that the amazingly-engaged youth in the region take that spirit of innovation and run with it.”

This is the second year of the Foundation’s essay contest, launched to challenge students to think about an issue of our time, both locally and globally. In 2017, the contest centered around Jitish Kallat’s Covering Letter , an art installation exhibited last year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that features a letter Mahatma Gandhi sent to Adolf Hitler in 1939. (The Raju Foundation also donated the piece to the PMA.) That contest asked students to use Gandhi’s words as the basis for an exploration of how to seek common ground with our enemies.

Ajay Raju, a Citizen founder and philanthropist, says the idea of partnering with the Zoo this year came out of conversations he had as co-chair of the organization’s Global Conservation Gala last fall. For this year’s contest, Raju says he wanted students to go beyond thinking—into action. “We want the students to think about how their day to day local issues are connected to larger geopolitical issues, and how they can be the solution to the problems out there,” says Raju, who is chairman and CEO of Dilworth Paxson. “If you encourage and engage our students to think about these topics, they can create solutions with fresh eyes.”

With the $5,000 project money, the winning student will be asked to enact their idea, whether in school, a local creek, their neighborhood, or their town. The essays, then, should present both a clear conception of the problem and a practical way to solve it. “We’ll be putting them to work going from abstraction to execution,” Raju notes.

But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be creative and ambitious. In fact, a big idea—even on a small scale—may be the only way to keep our frogs, and ourselves, from disappearing all together.

“We want people to understand there is no difference between what impacts them and impacts wildlife,” says Lengel. “Water is a visible vehicle that links us.”

The Pamela & Ajay Raju Foundation Essay Contest is open to any student under age 20 in grades 9 through 12, in the tri-state area. Essays are due February 25th, and the winner will be announced in the spring. See here for more information.

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Realizing the benefits of human genetics and genomics research for people everywhere.

2024 DNA Day Essay Contest Winners

Congratulations to our winners and thank you to all who participated. Happy DNA Day!

2024 question.

Many human diseases have a genetic component. Some diseases result from a change in a single gene or even multiple genes. Yet, many diseases are complex and stem from an interaction between genes and the environment. Environmental factors may include chemicals in the air or water, nutrition, microbes, ultraviolet radiation from the sun and social context. Provide an example of how the interplay of genetics and environment can shape human health.

2024 Winners

1st Place: Megan Xie , Grade 12 Teacher: Mrs. Margot Bram School: Lower Moreland High School Location: Huntingdon Vy, Pennsylvania

2 nd  Place: Macey Hunter , Grade 12 Teacher:  Ms. Cameron Simpkins School:  Fayetteville High School Location:  Fayetteville, Arkansas

3 rd  Place: Justin Lin , Grade 11 Teacher:  Ms. Kailin Duan School:  San Marino High School Location:  San Marino, California

Honorable Mentions

Where in the world our submissions come from:.

About the Contest

The contest aims to challenge students to examine, question, and reflect on important ideas and issues related to human genetics. Competitive essays are expected to convey substantive, well-reasoned, and evidence-based arguments that demonstrate deep understanding.

Essays are evaluated through three rounds of judging, and every essay is read by a minimum of three judges. Top-scoring essays have typically been scored by a dozen or more judges.

Read the 2024 DNA Day Essay Contest Announcement  Press Release .

Questions/Comments: Contact  [email protected]

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Rube Goldberg’s Greatest Machine Is His Legacy

Decades after Mr. Goldberg, a cartoonist, died, artists and engineers have found creative inspiration in his outlandish inventions.

By Sam Corbin

What’s the simplest way to open a can? Faced with this question, most would suggest a can opener. The artist Rube Goldberg, however, believed the task could be better accomplished using a golf club, waltzing mice and a disgruntled pet dragon whose fire-breathing would light a welding torch positioned in front of the closed can. Simple.

This approach to everyday tasks was summarized in the introduction to “The Art of Rube Goldberg,” a collection of Mr. Goldberg’s work that was published in 2013. “These are things that need doing,” the introduction, written by Adam Gopnik, reads, “but they don’t need this much doing.”

Mr. Goldberg was half-kidding with such inventions, or “satirical representations of progressive nothing,” as he once called them. Even so, it is uncanny to observe how his legacy seems to function like one of them, setting off precisely engineered chaos in every direction.

This month, young engineers from around the country gathered at Purdue University in Indiana for the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest and demonstrated contraptions that could put toothpaste on a toothbrush; notable efforts featured evil wizards, volcanoes, miniature Jeeps and a clever “Rubenheimer” assembly, inspired by last year’s “ Barbenheimer ” phenomenon. In Norway, a performance artist was busy crafting another Rubelike contraption to break dry pasta over his head for his TikTok following. And every few years, the inventor’s influence shines through in a board game, or a music video . Rube has, in effect, become a rubric.

In an essay for Popular Science in 1923 titled “Why I Am an Inventor (Do I Hear a Laugh?),” Mr. Goldberg expressed a belief that his drawings, fantastic as they might seem, could inspire something of real use. “Perhaps I may yet come across my big idea in working out some of my foolish cartoons,” Mr. Goldberg wrote. “The field is wide and strange things happen.”

One could hardly mistake a drawing of a Rube Goldberg machine for the blueprints of a self-serious inventor, as each was attributed to a fictional Professor Butts. Whenever Mr. Goldberg played on untraditional uses for household objects, he anthropomorphized them and consigned them in pairs to “Boob McNutt’s Ark.” And lest readers begin to take these pokes at the industrial age too much to heart, the cartoonist created a meta-forum to answer for his drawings, in a comic strip called “Foolish Questions.”

Zach Umperovitch, who is the national contest director for the Rube Goldberg Institute, which organizes the event at Purdue, described this tongue-in-cheek attitude as essential to distinguishing a Rube Goldberg machine from simpler chain reactions such as domino topples.

“What really makes something a Rube Goldberg, what sets it apart and above, is that humor or that ridiculous nature,” said Mr. Umperovitch, who also hosts “Contraption Masters,” a series on the Discovery Channel.

Mr. Umperovitch himself had for a long time held the Guinness World Record for the largest Rube Goldberg machine — using 300 steps to inflate and pop a balloon — and regularly used a Goldberg contraption to hand out his business cards. “It’s six simple machines, all to open a box, which then spits out my card.”

There is a timeless appeal to this mechanized subversion of expectations. It will always be funny to see a complex machine whiz and whir just to accomplish what is essentially a wry wink about having wasted your time. But artists have found ways to capitalize on this exercise in futility, using Mr. Goldberg’s machines as creative fodder for meaningful explorations of their crafts.

Andy Biskin, a New York-based clarinetist and composer who created an evening of jazz set to animated illustrations of Rube Goldberg — called “Goldberg’s Variations,” in a nod to Johann Sebastian Bach — saw a meaningful parallel between music and machine.

“A piece of composition is an invention for sure,” Mr. Biskin said. “It is a machine.”

Mr. Biskin noted that he found it challenging at times to stretch his compositions to match the Goldberg inventions’ circuitous accomplishment of their designated tasks. But, in reflecting on how “music is just a way of filling up time sometimes,” he said he also discovered a new compositional process: He composed “Interludes,” a set of shorter conceptual pieces inspired by wheels, clocks and other ephemera from the Goldberg cartoons.

“The physical cartoons are just like training wheels,” Mr. Biskin said. “And then you can write machines without the machines.”

Students competing in the machine contest, which scores contraptions based on creativity, complexity and the completion of the designated task, seemed instead to benefit from an inverse correlation with the inanity of their creations. In email interviews, they wrote about having developed lasting skills and passions that far outshone the brief excitement of watching their inventions run.

Tim Giannini, a senior at Purdue whose team’s machine won in the college category, said that he loved spending hours “messing with little mechanisms and random objects” in the hopes of finding “a unique combination that no one else has thought of before.”

He and his cohort were certainly successful in that respect: Their machine’s toothbrush was styled as an evil wizard, perched at the top of a tower, who triggered a small missile that eventually knocked him into the path of a volcano. The tower’s fall triggered a weight, which released a compressed-air piston that dumped a flask of hydrogen peroxide into a mixture of water, yeast, dish soap and dye to create colorful elephant toothpaste . This mixture foamed and overflowed from the volcano onto the toothbrush wizard, completing the task.

Having grown up playing with engineering-focused toys such as Lego and K’nex, Mr. Giannini found that “this club and what we do sparked that same spark that I found playing with those toys as a child.”

“It’s more than just agreeing with someone to avoid arguing,” said Sophia Arleo Thompson, a sophomore at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York and co-captain of the “Rubenheimer” team, which won the People’s Choice Award. “It’s confronting each other and having meaningful conversations about how we can combine ideas to create the best solution possible.”

Ms. Thompson hopes to pursue mechanical engineering on a pre-med track in college. Beyond the more profound outcomes of her team’s collaboration, she said, the Rube Goldberg club at her school was just plain fun. “I get to use power tools and hot glue for hours on end every weekend.”

In revisiting the cartoons of Mr. Goldberg that inspired the competition, it becomes difficult to ignore the wartime context that looms over them. Indeed, although Mr. Goldberg, who died in 1970, has become synonymous with mechanized tomfoolery, the cartoon that eventually earned him a Pulitzer Prize was pure political commentary. He won in 1948 for a single panel titled “Peace Today,” which featured a family perched on the top of an atomic bomb teetering perilously at the edge of a cliff labeled “World destruction.”

If Mr. Goldberg’s original drawings served as satire for a heavily industrialized society, their contemporary analogues nearly a century later might be seen as responses to the detritus of that society, which suffered the economic and social effects of emphasizing efficiency above the human spirit. Jan Hakon Erichsen, a performance artist based in Norway whose destructive chain-reaction contraptions receive millions of views on social media , has even begun to see himself as part of the joke.

Mr. Erichsen’s performances often feature the deft use of his body in the accomplishment of utterly nonsensical tasks: He engineers a suspended hacksaw to slice dried spaghetti off his head; swings his knife-covered legs over a row of balloons to pop them; creates a life vest out of loaves of bread, then jumps into a freezing lake. These exercises may lack in complexity, but they nevertheless transfix the audiences who follow them to their predictable conclusions (the bread-loaf life vest, for instance, was immediately waterlogged).

The completion of these absurd tasks was hardly the point for Mr. Erichsen; nor did he hope to protest the dangers of an overcomplicated future. His Goldbergian ambition was rather to encourage audiences to find new ways of seeing inventions already in existence.

“You have all these mundane objects around you which you don’t really even think about anymore,” he said. “Because you’ve seen them so many times that you kind of go blind.”

Sam Corbin writes about language, wordplay and the daily crossword for The Times. More about Sam Corbin

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