Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.
—Matthew Arnold
A writer’s style is formed in part by the words he chooses. But how does the writer make those choices? Does he just select the words he likes best? Or are there other considerations?
While it’s certainly true that a writer’s choice of words comes in part from personal preference, writers who want their words to have power need to select, from all the choices available, the words that best convey what they want to say. One of the things that gives words their power is precision of meaning. Skilled writers care about the accuracy of their words. They know, for instance, that even though a thesaurus may group certain words together, those words do not all mean exactly the same thing. They also know that words can be slippery creatures that may mean one thing to one person and another to someone else. And they are aware of the number of words we can collect into our word hoards, or even use in conversation, without knowing exactly what those words mean. Skilled writers are aware that they must know what the words they use mean, not just in a fuzzy I-sort-of-know-that way, but with exactness. Part of our responsibility as writers—our responsibility to ourselves, to our readers, and to the language we use—is to know words well enough to use them with such precision. For being able to use one’s tools and materials carefully and precisely is one of the hallmarks of a good craftsman. A crucial part of the craft of writing is finding the right words for our purposes; and one of the things that makes a word “just right”—one of the things that gives it its power—is its meaning.
What are we talking about when we say a word “means” something? That question has occupied the mind of many a philosopher over the centuries. As writers, fortunately, we don’t need to know the details of their arguments; we can take a practical approach. When we say a word “means” something, we are talking about the word's ability to refer to or represent a thing or an idea.
When we write, we make meaning out of words. We can have in mind something we want to say and search for the right words to communicate that “something” to others; or we can let words lead us to a discovery of what we want to say; or, as we write and revise, we can go back and forth between these two approaches. (We also make meaning by ordering our words; we’ll cover that skill in the section on syntax.)
To make meaning with words is an activity, a doing of a certain kind of work. We can do this work sloppily, without taking the time and care to do a good job. Or we can do it with attention and passion, with relentless desire to make accurate use of all the power words possess.
Finding the exact word, the right word, in every sentence takes time and patience. We may need to spend time mulling over alternative ways of saying something; we may need to consult a dictionary and a thesaurus. We may need to rewrite a sentence many times until we’ve discovered the words that convey our meaning with precision.
But to do this work is to get a chance to play with words—for a writer, the most enjoyable kind of play. And even though, as they play, writers often experience frustration—the perfect word eludes them—they also experience those moments of intense pleasure and satisfaction when that just-right word suddenly appears and slides exquisitely into a sentence, perfectly communicating the writer’s meaning. A writer’s feelings at such moments echo those of a builder who watches a wall lift just as he envisioned it, or those of a batter who knows when his bat connects with a fastball that he’s hit a home run.
There are two aspects of the meaning of words we need to be familiar with: denotation and connotation.
To command the denotations of words is to know their definitions as explained in a good dictionary. The denotation of a word is one of the main sources of its power. That’s why skilled writers take such care to make sure they know the dictionary definitions of the words they use: To misuse a word, or to try to make it mean one thing when your readers know it means something else, is to lose all the power that word can give to your writing. A dictionary—an immense word hoard—provides us with the meanings of words that are public, explicit meanings, the meanings available to everyone.
A dictionary, then, is an indispensable tool for a writer; and most writers own and use more than one. Skilled writers consult a dictionary when they are unsure of the exact definition of a word; just as important, they spend time browsing through their dictionaries, at play in the land of language.
Take a few minutes to unpack your word hoard, then read the words slowly, out loud. Listen as if you were encountering these words for the first time. Mark any words that you feel curious about, that spark the question What does that word mean?
The words you mark don’t have to be words you’ve never used. Sometimes it’s fun to pick a familiar word and look it up. Now select one or more of the words you marked. Look up their meanings in the dictionary. What do you notice? Is this what you thought these words meant? If you own a second dictionary, look up some of your words in that one, too. Are there any differences in the definitions? If you like, write down the definitions in your notebook. Now, with the dictionary meanings of your words in mind, experiment with using some of these words in sentences. What do you notice? Try reading your sentences out loud. You can also make words your own by using them in conversation.
Take some time to browse the pages of your dictionary. When a word catches your attention, write it down in your notebook, along with its definition(s). Now use the word in a sentence. What do you notice in doing this practice?
As you read, take note of words you like whose meanings elude you. Look up those words in a dictionary, then make sentences with them.
English, someone once wrote, is the only language that needs a thesaurus. That's because English has so many synonyms. To spend some time browsing in a thesaurus is to be amazed by the wealth of words in English—more words than any writer, no matter how prolific, could ever use in a lifetime. Like a dictionary, a thesaurus is a wonderful playground for writers who want to exercise their word minds and build their word hoards.
Give yourself some time, when you can, to simply flip the pages of a thesaurus and browse its entries. Take note of the words you like; collect them into your notebook, if you wish. Try using them in sentences.
As you browse in your thesaurus, you may find yourself occasionally feeling overwhelmed by the number of choices available for a particular word. Here, for instance, are the words collected by the editors of Roget’s Thesaurus as synonyms for the word hill:
down, brae, fell, hillock, knob, butte, kopje, kame, monticle, monticule, modadnock, knoll, hummock, hammock, eminence, rise, mound, swell, barrow, tumulus, kop, tel, jebel, dune, sand dune
Suppose that, as you are writing, you want a synonym for the word hill. Faced with these alternatives, how would you make a choice?
The most important thing to know about collections of synonyms for a given word is that their meanings are not identical. So when you are considering making use of a word from a list of synonyms, you will often need to look up all your possible choices in the dictionary to be sure you know their denotations. A hillock, for instance, is a small hill (according to my dictionary), and a hammock is a hillock: So hillock and hammock could substitute for each other, as well as for the word hill—as long as the hill you have in mind is a small one. But a butte is an isolated abrupt flat-topped hill in western U.S.—not an appropriate choice if the hill you’re writing about is located in Maine and is covered with pines and spruce!
So you can’t make effective use of a thesaurus without also having a dictionary nearby. Here’s a way to practice the process of making considered choices from a list of synonyms:
Write a few sentences about a subject or take a paragraph from one of your existing pieces. Look through what you have written using your word mind: Are there any words in this passage about which you wonder, Could I find a better word than this one? Look up one of these words in your thesaurus and consider your choices. Don’t forget to find the denotations of these words in your dictionary. Rewrite your sentences using the new word or words you have chosen, then read the sentences out loud. How do they sound to you now?
While this practice may seem time-consuming, it’s worthwhile for a number of reasons. First, it will give you practice in the essential writing skill of making choices about words. It will also help you build your word hoard. Most of all, it will exercise your word mind so that, like well-trained muscles, it becomes stronger and more flexible. Writing, like hitting a baseball or playing a musical instrument, is an activity that involves making many decisions at once: The more “in shape” your brain is to make choices among words, the more skilled you will become as a writer. So the more you practice, with attention and care, the more easily words will come to you as you write and revise.
While a word’s denotations are its explicit meaning, its connotations are its associations, the ideas or qualities it brings to mind through suggestion. If you imagine that putting a word into the mind of your reader is like casting a stone into a pond, then the denotation of the word is like the splash the stone makes as it hits the water, while the connotations of the word are like the ripples that follow the splash. For instance, if you write that a woman is wearing a “fire engine-red dress,” the term fire engine suggests qualities like urgency and danger. If you write Clouds were sailing across the sky, the word sailing suggests ships and water. Skilled writers have learned to exploit these “ripples” of meaning that words can create in the minds of their readers. Let’s take a look at how connotations work.
Some words have no connotations. These are usually words from science and technology that have very specific single meanings, such as deuteron, which means “a positively charged particle consisting of a proton and a neutron,”1… consisting of a proton and a neutron. The Random House Dictionary (Ballantine, 1980), p. 249. or nitinol, an alloy of nickel and titanium.
But most of our words do have connotations. It’s as if, having been used over and over, they have picked up familiar associations that accompany their dictionary meanings. So, for instance, the words thin, slender, stringy, and svelte are synonyms, having approximately the same denotative meaning. However, their associations are very different. You would not compliment a friend by saying, “How stringy you look today!” Replace the word stringy with the word svelte, and you’d put a smile on her face. Your neighbor’s child might be “the kid next door” when he’s behaving or “that brat” when he’s not. British novelist Emma Darwin explains the importance of connotations: “When you’re talking about effective language, you’re usually talking about connotation: what else (beyond dictionary meaning) that particular word brings to the sentence.”2… brings to the sentence. Emma Darwin at www.thisitchofwriting.com, September 22, 2010.
Pick a word from your thesaurus and write down some of its synonyms, looking them up in a dictionary if you need to. Pick one synonym that has positive connotations (such as svelte) and one that has negative connotations (such as stringy) and write a sentence using each one. Do this exercise again with a different word. Read your sentences out loud, noticing the different effects of the words you’ve chosen. Do the particular connotations of your chosen word influence how you write the rest of the sentence?
Read your favorite writer, keeping an ear open for words chosen for positive or negative connotations. Collect these words in your notebook and experiment with making your own sentences with them.
Read over a passage from your own work, keeping your ear tuned to the connotations of your words. Are there any places where you might choose a different word, exploiting its connotations to enhance the effect of your sentence?
Some words have both positive and negative connotations. We can work with the connotations of this kind of word in another way as well—by placing it in a context that highlights one particular connotation. Take the word fire (as a noun) for instance; its most familiar denotations are “things that are burning” and “flames produced by things that are burning.” But the noun fire also has connotations.
Take a few minutes now, if you like, to bring the denotations of the noun fire to your mind, and then listen for the words or phrases, the ideas or things, that this word suggests to you; write them all down. You may find yourself collecting synonyms for the word. If this happens, try to let your mind move beyond close synonyms and see what other ideas or things the word brings to your mind. You have now collected some of the word’s connotations.
Now look through these connotations. What do you notice?
One thing you might notice is that this single word “fire” has some connotations that are positive (heat, light, warmth, hearth, comfort, cookout) and some that are negative (fear, destruction, ruin) and some that could be positive or negative depending on the context (char, ember, smolder).
Now select some of the positive connotations and write a sentence or two that highlight those connotations. A sentence suggesting positive connotations of the noun fire might read: The cat crept closer to the heat of the fire and curled up contentedly on the hearth. One that highlights the word’s negative connotations might read: The sirens of the fire trucks sounded closer and closer as we stood across the street from the looted store where the fire raged.
One way to “charge” a word with meaning is to exploit its connotations. Training your mind, through practice, to be aware of the connotations of words, will help you write sentences in which your words are full of meaning. So repeat this practice as often as you can: Pick a word and write down all the connotations you can think for it. Now pick one or two of those connotations, and write a few sentences that highlight those particular choices.
Think of the word summer, and write down all the words and phrases that it brings to your mind. Chances are good that your list will contain words like heat, hot, swimming, sailing, lemonade, and vacation. We can call these public connotations, meaning the associations a word will have in most readers’ minds.
Now imagine that a person making that same list had, one July, a serious illness. Then the word summer, in that person's mind, might lead to an association with the word illness or measles. Try rereading the list of public connotations and inserting in it the word measles. Most likely your mind will reject the word, as if it’s saying, That word doesn’t belong here! That’s because measles is not a public connotation for the word summer; it’s a private connotation. It’s a connotation that will mean something only to one person—the writer in whose mind the two words are associated.
Understanding the difference between public and private connotations is crucial to good writing. Private connotations have to be explained; public connotations usually need not be.
One of the key differences between unskilled and skilled writers is that an unskilled writer tends to assume that his readers are inside his head, able to read his mind. Skilled writers know this is not so. Many unskilled writers also believe that readers will be impressed by writing that is vague and difficult to understand. Skilled writers know that readers faced with such writing will be impatient, not impressed; most of the time, they will simply stop reading. To use private connotations without explaining them makes it difficult for people to understand what you mean. So, as you write and revise, take the time to ask yourself, when you have “charged” your words with connotations, Will my readers understand the connotations of this word, or do I need to make myself clearer?
Aside from the danger of confusing (or losing) your readers through unexplained private connotations, the use of connotations in writing is one of its great pleasures, both for writers and for readers; it’s one of our most useful writing tools.
One thing exploring the connotations of words will do for us is to build our word hoards. Even more important, practice with connotations will remind us that humans make meaning through language not only—as we are taught in school—through logic, but also through association. When we take time to practice the deliberate collecting of the connotations of words, we discover that one word can lead us to a whole world of associated words; we may also discover that exploring this particular world of words leads us to things to say about our subject we didn’t know we wanted to say. Most important of all, an understanding of how connotations work gives us a valuable tool for transferring our meaning into the minds of our readers.
Some writers (and writing teachers) believe that writers need be concerned only with “expressing themselves”; that is, they need only cast some words on paper, practically at random, and let their readers make of these words whatever sense they will. I strenuously disagree with this approach, which seems to me akin to a house builder collecting some lumber and nails, and dumping them on his customer’s lawn with a note: Put your house together yourself. It’s the job of the writer, not the reader, to build structures of meaning. To do that job well, she needs to have something to say, and she needs to have the skills to transfer that “something”—her meaning—into the minds of her readers, so that they understand what she is saying and are moved by it as she intends.
Skilled writers have a profound appreciation for the ability of the human mind to associate one word with another. They know that, given the slightest opportunity, their readers’ minds will slip away from what the words on the page are communicating into their own private associations. Skilled writers make use of all the tools of their craft to prevent that from happening. If they are communicating information or ideas, they want their readers to understand them exactly; if they are making verbal pictures, they want their readers to experience the reality those pictures communicate.
While the connotations of words are certainly not the only tool writers use to communicate, they are an essential element of the power of language. When we make careful use of the connotations of our words as we write and revise, we can keep the minds of our readers focused on exactly the meaning we are trying to get across. And so, as we work, we will avoid words with connotations that will send a reader’s mind off on tangents; we will choose words that keep her mind on the track of thought or information or experience that we want it to be on.
What have you noticed in doing the practices in this chapter? What do you need to work on next?
1… consisting of a proton and a neutron. The Random House Dictionary (Ballantine, 1980), p. 249.
2… brings to the sentence. Emma Darwin at www.thisitchofwriting.com, September 22, 2010.