Last week in WWN66 : But the greatest of these is clarity? we started to dive into the thorny topic of clarity in writing.

And I ended with this:

Which we shall now do.

With the exception that we’re not talking real words, but…

The topic of real words is one that I want to save for next week, because it’s going to go deep. And the use of real words flows naturally on from last week’s discussion of clarity and its limitations.

The CAW-CAW obsession with “Clarity” not only leads to a flat and boring writing style, but it also leads them to make the wrong choices of words as well.

Browse the average guru X-Twitter feed and they’ll be yelling at you to “simplify” and to “use short words”.

There’s a virtue to that, as we’ll discover last week. But not in the way that the gurus teach it, as some arbitrary rule that simpler and shorter words are always the better ones.

That’s wrong.

And it’s wrong because it impairs clarity instead of increasing it.

Often, the shorter word is less clear, not more.

As one brief example, “terminate” is a long word that gurus would love to replace with “stop”.

And they’d often be right.

Take the classic announcement on British trains. “The train will shortly be arriving at London King’s Cross, where this train will terminate.”

Unnecessarily obtuse, crieth the CAW-CAW guru!

Why not just say “where this train will stop” or “where this train will end”?

Not at all, dear reader.

Not at all.

The word “stop” in the context of travel means “a) A halt in a journey; a standstill, a cessation of progress or forward movement. b) A stay of considerable duration.”

…both of which imply onward movement.

The word “end” works a little better, but it could also refer to the physical end of the train (from one end to another) and to use it in the sense of “the journey’s end” is incorrect because most people still have travelling to do, and the train itself hasn’t “ended” because it’s still there.

Meanwhile, terminate means to come to the terminus, the station at the end of the railway line.

In one word, it tells you that the train will stop at that point and go no further.

That’s clarity.

So no, you can’t just “use the short word”.

To insist on using the “short word” as always better, as so many who call themselves writers on X-Twitter do, is like looking through the wrong prescription of glasses.

Everything gets out of focus.

Correct words are clear.

None of this is a reverse-guru card where I’m demanding you go all sesquipedalian.

(A word meaning “of many syllables” or, “given to using long words.”)

I don’t believe in extraneous sesquipedality. Never use a long word when a diminutive one would suffice and all that. (More on short words next week.)

Instead, it’s a plea to use the right word. Long or short, use the word that has the right definition and mouthfeel for the precise effect you’re looking to achieve. Don’t be afraid to crack out a polysyllabic beast if it’s the right word to use.

You need to expand your vocabulary.

Dear reader, if you want to write well

And yes, that stands for Big Dic......................

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.................................................tionary energy 

I used to have a concise little "Oxford Essential Dictionary". It's cute.

But after using it two or three times I realised having a little dictionary just wasn't good enough.

It never satisfied anyone.

The problem, of course, is that The Oxford Essential Dictionary only has the most common words in it. It’s a perfect guru approved book, with only the essentials, no fun and no flair. Full of the simple words you're supposed to use and Hemingway app approved.

Unlike the little dictionary gurus however, my vocabulary is pretty good already, so I quickly realised that if I ever need to look up a word...

...it's not going to be in the essential dictionary.

I know all those words already, and I can use them pretty good.

What I need is a dictionary with the obscure words, the old words, the fun words.

Words I would never know until I start flicking through it.

Words that my web browser's spellchecker sees and replies:

Words like shonicker, which apparently is derogatory US Slang for a Jew; supellectile, which means pertaining to household furniture; warrigal, which could be a dingo, wild horse, or an adjective meaning savage; zareba, a fence made of thorn trees used for defence; primipilar, belonging to a primipilus, which is a body of pikemen; and so on and so forth.

(Zareba is the only bolded word in that paragraph that Brave isn’t underlining red as I type this.)

Those are the words I want to be learning.

So I decided it was time to get a bigger dictionary.

And I found the New Shorter English Dictionary in two volumes, from which all those words come from. (Shorter means that they took out the words that haven't been used since the 1700s. Which is an acceptable limit.) So yes, it's been called short, but it's thick.

You could spend all day with this dictionary and still not be done.

Of course, the gurus will tell you that their little dictionary is good enough. They like to wave their little dictionaries around on social media and pretend like it's actually better to have a small...

But if you're a real writer, and not a little-dictionaried guru, you need something a bit more impressive.

Am I likely to use the word supellectile in a tweet? Probably not.

But as I've said before, words are your tools. You need to have 'em all at your disposal.

If the only tool you've got is a hammer little dictionary every problem starts to look like a nail time for simple words.

But sometimes you want to add a bit of flair.

Some pizzaz.

Some vim, verve and vehemence.

Sometimes the obscure word is actually the one that fits just right.

And sometimes you want to know all the complicated words and then choose the simple ones after all. Which I’ll be persuading you of next week.

But the point I’m making right now is that you'll never know if you never learn. You'll never get a feel for it if you never experiment a little.

So do that. Push the boat out. Stretch your readers with your big dictionary.

Try and weave in some obscure and difficult words. Learn your language properly.

Get a dictionary that's big enough to satisfy.

And develop some Big Dictionary Energy in your writing.

Until next week, may your pipe and your words be large and satisfyingly filled,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

fin

P.s. there is a lot more to be said about word choice, and I cover a lot of it in Effective Editing for those who want to dive deeper. Click there to get it today and learn how to edit effectively without removing all the flair and verve in your voice.