In this lesson,
you'll learn that the words we choose have an immense impact on the
tone we produce when we write. You'll also get some specific suggestions
for words to choose and avoid.
In English
Prose Style, Herbert Read says, "The art of Prose must begin with
a close attention to the quality [of words]." Read suggests that words
that still "retain in their sound some echo…of the thing they connote"
are of the highest possible quality. His examples-murmur, clatter,
cuckoo, grunt, and hiss-reveal that there are many words
in English that do sound like the things and actions they represent.
Although such words will rarely serve all your purposes, Read's point
can remind us that all words are sound-symbols, or abstractions representing
actions and thoughts. Even snow, which is a much more concrete
word than freedom, is not snow, but the sibilant "s"
sound combined with the dental "n" sound, combined with the long "o"
vowel sound. These sounds come to mean the thing snow, but
are not themselves snow.
This leads us
to understand what teachers mean when they suggest we write concretely
as possible. Because all writing is abstract, the more concrete we
can be, the better understood we will be.
Concrete and
Abstract Words
The way we use
the words and the words we use have a major effect on the tone we
produce. This returns to the level of style we are interested in,
which is determined, once again, by our purpose and audience. A personal
essay using a verbose or overly wordy tone will put the reader off,
while an informal tone for a formal purpose will be considered inappropriate
and undermine your credibility.
Concrete words
are words that you can almost see, touch, smell, taste or hear.
Some nouns are concrete, as this list-lamp, shoe, turtle, guerrilla,
leaf-shows us. Concept nouns expressing ideas and feelings, on
the other hand, are abstract. Love, hate, freedom, justice, liberation,
and democracy are just some examples.
Verbs describing
actions still retain the active power of their original meanings,
and are thus concrete, or tangible because they will be easier to
"see." Saunter, run, leap, jump, leap, fly are just some examples.
Verbs that express action (jump, run, climb) are more concrete
than verbs of being (think, become, know, feel, seem), but
even verbs of being are more active than helping verbs. Helping
verbs, or modals, (can, may, should) are verbs that help other verbs
do their work-most can never function on their own: I can sing,
I should call him, I may make a pie this afternoon. Other helping
or to be verbs can work alone, however-these are to have
(have, has, had), to do (do, does, did), and to be (be,
is, am, are, was, were, been, being). For a more detailed discussion
of the use of to be as a helping verb, see the ESL lesson,
The Verb Be.
Although it is
impossible to write for very long without using the to be, being,
or helping verbs, they often dilute your style, and for a variety
of reasons. In the case of helping verbs that require other verbs
to express an action, these verbs produce verbal phrases. In many
cases, verbal phrases require too many words for the meaning being
conveyed. They sometimes produce a tone of understatement or of evasion.
I feel certain
I can sing well enough.
I must do something about my hair.
For the purposes
of a sentence's rhythm or for the sake of clarity, it may be helpful
to revise the sentences to contain more active verbs.
I sing well.
I'll cut my hair this week.
As you can see,
because these sentences contain clear verbs-sing, cut, dust, and vacuum-the
writer's tone has changed. The writer has now gained more authority,
and invigorated her prose with action.
Pronouns, prepositions,
and conjunctions are abstract words; adjectives and adverbs are more
concrete than these parts of speech, but are not as concrete as nouns
and action verbs.
Exercise
In
general, the more concrete our language, the more immediate and vibrant
our prose will be. Ask yourself if the following sentences are, in
general, concrete or abstract, and check your answers against ours:
The man jumped
on the trampoline until he thought his heart would stop.
Freedom is an essential ingredient of the American dream.
The children put on their hats and gloves; they wrapped heavy wool
scarves around their necks.
When we speak of Being, we speak of the indisputable self.
Short Words
English is a
language made up of words from many other languages and countries
and thus contains a vocabulary of many hundreds of thousands of words.
While checking a Thesaurus may in some cases help you find the exact
word you're looking for, try to avoid using the Thesaurus to help
you find a more complex word, since the short, common words of everyday
experience and life will often be the most direct and clear. Consider
the differences between "help," "aid," and "assist." The first is
of an Anglo-Saxon origin, the second of French, and the third of Latin/Greek.
Some students believe that the best word is always the more complex
word-that using a word like "trepidation" (from the Latin/Greek) will
make them sound more intelligent than a word like "fear" (from the
Anglo-Saxon). But because reading is an abstract activity from the
start (because words are sound symbols for things, thoughts, and feelings
rather than things, thoughts, and feelings themselves) and because
all contemporary writers compete with many other less abstract and
complicated activities (watching TV, eating dinner, and so on), anything
we can do to make our writing as concrete and specific as possible
will help our readers understand and stay interested in what we're
saying.
Evaluate these
two sentences:
The mountain
ascended into the moonlight.
The mountain rose into the moonlight.
How would you
evaluate the tone of the first sentence? Does it sound somewhat pretentious,
as though the writer were hiding behind the word "ascended"? Many
experts on style have suggested that a true mark of a good style is
the ability and willingness to use the shortest word that will suit
your writing purpose. Author George Orwell has said "never use a long
word where a short one will do." In a famous essay called "Politics
and the English Language," he re-writes a passage from Ecclesiastes
into what he calls "modern English."
Here's the original:
I returned
and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches
to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time
and chance happeneth to them all.
And here's Orwell's
translation:
Objective consideration
of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or
failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate
with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable
must invariably be taken into account.
Notice that the
original is made up of a whole series of monosyllabic words-saw,
sun, race, swift, strong, bread, and men are some of the
more concrete ones-while the revision is polysyllabic. As this example
should show you, too often we confuse the complex with the
intelligent. Because we don't have to translate the word "sun"
into something that makes sense (as compared to a very abstract "thing"
like "objective consideration"), we instantly understand and feel
what it means.
When you revise,
count the number of your polysyllabic words. If you're using too many,
consider cutting them, or replacing them with one- or two-syllable
words. You'll be amazed at how doing this will clarify your meaning,
and thus your style.
Jargon
Since English,
like any live language, is in the constant process of evolving to
fit the changing needs of its users, new words are constantly being
coined. Any new technology will come with its own new vocabulary,
as a run-down of computer words-online, email, emoticon, Internet-will
show us. Your use of jargon words will depend, again, on your audience
and purpose. If you are writing about computers to a group of computer
experts, you will probably not need to define any jargon words you
use, since they will be understood. If, however, you are trying to
explain some aspect of computers to an audience unfamiliar with computer
terminology, you will need to define your words, for the obvious reason
that you will otherwise confuse and bewilder your readers.
Archaic Words
Archaic words
are words that have for the most part outlived their usefulness. Albeit,
anon, perchance, and withal, just to use a few examples,
will produce a"snooty," or affected, tone, unless they're used ironically
or in a context, such as a legal document, in which they are considered
appropriate. An affected tone is one that seems to wish to stay at
a great distance from the reader. Many words that contribute to an
affected tone are of Latin or Greek origin, as are abbreviations like
etc., e.g., et al, and so on. Your use of such words and/or abbreviations
will depend on your audience, but they are often best avoided unless
there is a general, commonly understood expectation for their use.
Slang
Slang words are
code words for commonly understood feelings and ideas. Like all language,
they make pronouncements about their speakers, and sometimes are quite
appropriate. You might be alarmed if you heard someone your age call
an attractive person "quite physically pleasing," since the slang
term for attractive (as far as we know) is "hot." Would this first
term not make you question that person's sanity? Or would you feel
that the person was putting on airs? Certainly George Washington would
be confused if he heard us say that a certain car was cool. He might
even touch the car to see if it felt like ice! And what if we told
him he was a "cool cat"? Would he look behind him to see if he'd grown
a tail?
We all use some
slang in speech, and each group will have its own set of acceptable
slang words, but in general slang is considered inappropriate for
an essay with an academic purpose. Slang terms in personal essays
with a general audience should also be avoided, since you cannot be
certain that they'll be understood.
Slang Syntax
Often, we use
metaphors and other figures of speech to communicate,
such as when we say that a good band is "sweet," comparing the quality
of certain music to a sugary taste. Other times, we create slang
words when we change a word's function. The process of using verbs
and adjectives as nouns is discussed in Lesson
5 Nominalization and Passive Voice, but remember, too, that
we sometimes turn nouns into verbs. We might say that we need to "winterize"
our house, or that we should organize ourselves by "prioritizing,"
or that when we talk to others, we "interface" with them. We've even
heard college students walking to their cafeterias say that they were
going to "food." In our first two examples, we hope you notice the
embedded nouns-"winter" and "priority." In our second, we hope you
notice that the nouns themselves--"interface" and "food," have not
even changed forms; it's just their role that has been changed. While
the urge behind all comparative thinking is generally worthwhile,
in some occasions it is best to avoid changing a word's original function,
since it typically produces a very informal (though creative and often
original) tone.
Euphemisms
Euphemisms are
a lot like clichés: they are commonly used expressions that have been
composed by others, generally in order to moderate statements that
could offend certain audiences. For example, in order to dilute the
pain of death, we might say that people who have died have "passed
away" or "gone on to their Maker." In order to make light of death,
we might even say that a person has "kicked the bucket." We also say
that freshmen are "first year students" and the poor are "underprivileged."
In some cases, again depending on your purpose and audience, a euphemistic
expression might be preferable the word or expression it has replaced-as
in the example of changing "crippled" to "those with disabilities"
or "the handicapped." Yet euphemisms can also be very dangerous, since
in some cases their intentions are to cover up some potentially
important truth. Government agencies are famous for using euphemisms,
and are thus famously unclear or misleading. Our military uses the
phrase "inoperative military personnel" for enlisted men who have
been killed in battle. Such a phrase dilutes the seriousness of the
statement and masks the reality that someone has died. In a sense,
it's lying. Generally, it's best to avoid euphemisms for the sake
of both your clarity and style.
Excercise
Rewrite
the following passage by evaluating the words the writer has decided
to use, and then compare your revision to ours.
His feedback
about my ISP was just so annoying! He just thinks he's the cat's
meow. I was throwing URLs at him left and right, and he just kept
on talking like I didn't know day from night. Why did he have to
think he was so hot and undermine everything I had to say so from
tip to toe?
Summary
Because words
are symbols for ideas, feelings, and objects, they always have an
abstract quality to them. For this reason, using concrete words is
an important step toward refining your style. Since word choice controls
tone, it is also important to avoid words that may either confuse
your readers or keep them at a distance from you and your text.
