No matter what it is that I'm up to, words are my stock in trade. This is true whether I'm on the clock or on my own, tapping away at a draft while trying to ignore the siren songs of video games or the internet. As a result words are usually on my mind, and when they're in the air it's easy to hear them screech and whine like rusty hinges if they're the wrong word for the wrong place.
Sometimes, though, it's the inappropriate word instead, and that's a lot more personal. When it comes to the wrong word, generally speaking it's objectively wrong - see Mark Twain's comment on the right word vs. the almost right word, lightning vs. the lightning bug. Whether or not something's appropriate for the situation is far more subjective, which means someone like me who is annoyed by certain words will encounter that just as often, if not more so, than incorrect usages because no one ever told the writer "this is not the way you write" - because, really, when it comes to words that are merely matters of opinion there's no organization that has the authority to say that but the writer.
Case in point, the word that started me down this road: "delighted." Objectively there's nothing wrong with this word, but subjectively it seems a bit outdated and antediluvian to me. Certainly it's a word that I feel like should be used in relatively limited contexts. When I think of the appropriate context for "delight," the first thing to come to mind is the attitude of a child tearing open gifts on Christmas morning. In my mind it's got too much weight, too much traditional freight to apply accurately to things like customer interactions; in those circumstances, my thinking is that "our customers will be pleased with X" does the job. To say that "our customers will be delighted with X" suggests, to me, that the customers have far too much of their sense of self-worth bound up with what they're buying.
Some of this is just down to linguistic evolution. That, I think, is the case with "silly" - a word that rises my hackles now whenever I come across it and I don't consciously know why, it just looks and sounds deeply, deeply immature to me. I come across it in older stories all the time, written up until the 1970s or thereabouts, used in contexts where a modern author would probably just use "stupid" instead. ("Don't be silly, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from this dis--") Today the word just grinds, feels childish and jarring when used outside of a specifically childish medium, the same way that it would be jarring if Captain Kirk complained to Dr. McCoy of a "tummyache." Unlike the example of "delight," though, it seems that "silly" keeps to a far smaller sphere of use today than it did fifty years ago.
When it comes to older works, this is something that can't really be avoided - I've got no way of knowing what words will change and shift in definition as the years go on, no one does. Likewise, people are not going to stop using words like "delight" until they gradually get pigeonholed. It's all part of the evolution of language... I just never thought about how evolution in action could be so annoying at times.
Showing posts with label words about words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words about words. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Words About Words: The Hidden Precedent
While my computer is valiantly failing to install Vista Service Pack 1 so that I can play Starcraft II, a game for which I've been waiting twelve years, I thought I'd reflect some more on the art of writing.
Pictured: A very early draft from one of my stories. Art it ain't.
When someone says something is "unprecedented," that should be a big thing. Society is structured on the basis of the known, the understood, the easily comprehensible, and something coming in out of the cold without any justification to its name besides itself will always be of concern to some people. It shows up primarily in law, but it's just as important to consider in the field of writing as well. Unprecedented appearances in written works are one of the easiest things for newcomers to misuse, and one of the most direct ways to compromise the quality of a story.
The other day I pulled such a story out of the slush pile - this is where unsolicited submissions to magazines and publishers go, generally to be sifted through by a low editor on the totem pople in the hope of finding a speck of gold amid the dross - and it does happen, though it is difficult. Some of these magazines get hundreds upon hundreds of submissions vying to fill the space of a single issue. As to whose pile it was, or whose story, I will not say because really, there's no point, but it gives me a worthwhile perspective on the creation process. The key issue is that the story involved a change brought onto a character, without his knowledge, due to his association with a particular object.
There's nothing wrong with this idea on the face of it - indeed, it's the sort of one that's been used since time immemorial, with the "particular object" usually being something of magical significance. Today, it's easy to imagine technology capable of doing the same thing. What's wrong with this idea is doing it in such a way that the revelation of why everything happened as it did comes as a complete surprise to the reader, and not in a good sense. While this story had a second character explain the source of the first's troubles, it rested on another piece of technology that had not been mentioned once before that point. I did a search of the document when I got to that point to see if I'd missed something, but no, this had not come up before.
I can understand why the author might have not established that detail - with that specific technology established earlier in the story, many readers would quickly be able to guess what the character's problem was well before the climax. That, to me, is an example of a plot that's not been thought all the way through. If a plot is so unsteady that knowledge of one aspect of the world that should be common for everyone living in it is enough to make it transparent, it should be reconsidered and rewritten. You can't expect to make a good work by hiding key details from the reader, and then at the end going "HAH! Fooled you! Bet you didn't see that!"
Readers like stories that make them think, that let them stretch their minds forward and give them an opportunity to solve the protagonist's problem before the protagonist does. That engagement with the reader is one of the things that keeps the written word vital. What they don't appreciate is getting dicked around by an author who doesn't lay all the cards on the table.
Earlier Words About Words:
Pictured: A very early draft from one of my stories. Art it ain't.When someone says something is "unprecedented," that should be a big thing. Society is structured on the basis of the known, the understood, the easily comprehensible, and something coming in out of the cold without any justification to its name besides itself will always be of concern to some people. It shows up primarily in law, but it's just as important to consider in the field of writing as well. Unprecedented appearances in written works are one of the easiest things for newcomers to misuse, and one of the most direct ways to compromise the quality of a story.
The other day I pulled such a story out of the slush pile - this is where unsolicited submissions to magazines and publishers go, generally to be sifted through by a low editor on the totem pople in the hope of finding a speck of gold amid the dross - and it does happen, though it is difficult. Some of these magazines get hundreds upon hundreds of submissions vying to fill the space of a single issue. As to whose pile it was, or whose story, I will not say because really, there's no point, but it gives me a worthwhile perspective on the creation process. The key issue is that the story involved a change brought onto a character, without his knowledge, due to his association with a particular object.
There's nothing wrong with this idea on the face of it - indeed, it's the sort of one that's been used since time immemorial, with the "particular object" usually being something of magical significance. Today, it's easy to imagine technology capable of doing the same thing. What's wrong with this idea is doing it in such a way that the revelation of why everything happened as it did comes as a complete surprise to the reader, and not in a good sense. While this story had a second character explain the source of the first's troubles, it rested on another piece of technology that had not been mentioned once before that point. I did a search of the document when I got to that point to see if I'd missed something, but no, this had not come up before.
I can understand why the author might have not established that detail - with that specific technology established earlier in the story, many readers would quickly be able to guess what the character's problem was well before the climax. That, to me, is an example of a plot that's not been thought all the way through. If a plot is so unsteady that knowledge of one aspect of the world that should be common for everyone living in it is enough to make it transparent, it should be reconsidered and rewritten. You can't expect to make a good work by hiding key details from the reader, and then at the end going "HAH! Fooled you! Bet you didn't see that!"
Readers like stories that make them think, that let them stretch their minds forward and give them an opportunity to solve the protagonist's problem before the protagonist does. That engagement with the reader is one of the things that keeps the written word vital. What they don't appreciate is getting dicked around by an author who doesn't lay all the cards on the table.
Earlier Words About Words:
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Words About Words: Naming Yesterday and Tomorrow
"Commander Lyons!" a red-faced, portly man boomed, grabbing his limp hand. "I am Abner Connaught, elected President of the World-State, in your absence. In the name of the peoples of Earth, I welcome you."
- H.L. Gold, "Hero" (1939)
People have known throughout history that names have power. The right name can inspire confidence, open doors to success, and clear the pathways to a charmed life. While names have become another method of personal or individual expression in the West today - witness the obsession some people have with coming up with "unique" or "original" names for their children - that doesn't mean they're any less important, or any less worth of careful consideration. This holds true for authors just as much as it does for prospective parents.
Character naming is an important step in the world-building process, and I think it should be done carefully - rather than just jam together the first personal name and surname that come to mind, I find it's worthwhile to take the extra time to figure out a name that works. I like names that have a resonance to my ear, carrying subtle meanings if I feel like putting down another layer, and which are either common or nonexistent on a web search. It's a reward of its own, putting together a name that no one else has.
Not all names are created equal, though. While some, such as John, Sarah, Andrew, or Mary, have been relatively popular and fashionable for centuries, there are others that are deeply associated with a particular time period. Take, for example, the quote leading off this post. The concept of a World-State is something that's always been a hallmark of an enlightened futuristic setting, but there it's set off by its leader being named Abner - a name which was prominent in the late nineteenth century, but unheard of today. The same is true of names like Horace and Mabel, Percy or Mildred - names which suffered a precipitous decline in popularity around the turn of the century, to the extent that they're almost entirely associated with the elderly segment of society. In 1939 it was a different story, sure, but seventy years later it's just another datum that dates the work.
Science fiction tends to be forward-looking and preoccupied with the future. That is, after all, one of its prime goals. It follows, then, that the names of people who inhabit these futures are important in setting the stage, and authors who want to avoid tying their future to a particular era overly tightly would do well to look at history, and the nature of how the popularity of names waxes and wanes. After all, what name sounds more believable for the square-jawed 21st- or 22nd-century science fiction hero, Peter or Cuthbert?
Of course, societies change. By 2100, "Peter" and "Cuthbert" could be equally out of fashion. If you're dealing with characters coming from a Western background, however, one potential source of names that have an "otherworldly" flair without historical baggage is the ultimate source for Peter and Abner both - the Bible. Though many popular names in Western cultures have Biblical roots, not all Biblical names are currently popular. Nehemiah, for instance, seems to have been at least somewhat obscure when Robert A. Heinlein chose it for President Nehemiah Scudder, the architect of a 21st-century American theocracy, in 1940's If This Goes On—. Rizpah, a feminine Biblical name, doesn't yet seem to have gained much popularity, but is one that could plausibly come into greater use in the future.
Names have been known to rebound, as well. Phoebe, for example, steadily declined in popularity over the course of the 20th century, only to spike with a vengeance in the 1990s, presumably due to the success of Friends. In a few more decades, many "old peoples' names" may have lost their current connotations and find newfound popularity - all it takes, after all, is one sufficiently high-profile character or celebrity baby to kick-start a name's rise or renaissance.
Ultimately, it comes down to how the author wants the audience of the day to react to the world. If the story's set in, say, 2095, and the author wants it to come across as conservative and past-oriented in mindset, a good way to cement that feeling might be to populate it with Horaces and Ednas, Berthas and Wilburs.
Name popularity curve information in this post was derived from NameVoyager at the Baby Name Wizard, a tool which graphically represents the highs and lows of name popularity from the 1880s to 2008, presumably within the United States. It's pretty cool; you should totally check it out.
Earlier Words About Words:
- H.L. Gold, "Hero" (1939)
People have known throughout history that names have power. The right name can inspire confidence, open doors to success, and clear the pathways to a charmed life. While names have become another method of personal or individual expression in the West today - witness the obsession some people have with coming up with "unique" or "original" names for their children - that doesn't mean they're any less important, or any less worth of careful consideration. This holds true for authors just as much as it does for prospective parents.
Character naming is an important step in the world-building process, and I think it should be done carefully - rather than just jam together the first personal name and surname that come to mind, I find it's worthwhile to take the extra time to figure out a name that works. I like names that have a resonance to my ear, carrying subtle meanings if I feel like putting down another layer, and which are either common or nonexistent on a web search. It's a reward of its own, putting together a name that no one else has.
Not all names are created equal, though. While some, such as John, Sarah, Andrew, or Mary, have been relatively popular and fashionable for centuries, there are others that are deeply associated with a particular time period. Take, for example, the quote leading off this post. The concept of a World-State is something that's always been a hallmark of an enlightened futuristic setting, but there it's set off by its leader being named Abner - a name which was prominent in the late nineteenth century, but unheard of today. The same is true of names like Horace and Mabel, Percy or Mildred - names which suffered a precipitous decline in popularity around the turn of the century, to the extent that they're almost entirely associated with the elderly segment of society. In 1939 it was a different story, sure, but seventy years later it's just another datum that dates the work.
Science fiction tends to be forward-looking and preoccupied with the future. That is, after all, one of its prime goals. It follows, then, that the names of people who inhabit these futures are important in setting the stage, and authors who want to avoid tying their future to a particular era overly tightly would do well to look at history, and the nature of how the popularity of names waxes and wanes. After all, what name sounds more believable for the square-jawed 21st- or 22nd-century science fiction hero, Peter or Cuthbert?
Of course, societies change. By 2100, "Peter" and "Cuthbert" could be equally out of fashion. If you're dealing with characters coming from a Western background, however, one potential source of names that have an "otherworldly" flair without historical baggage is the ultimate source for Peter and Abner both - the Bible. Though many popular names in Western cultures have Biblical roots, not all Biblical names are currently popular. Nehemiah, for instance, seems to have been at least somewhat obscure when Robert A. Heinlein chose it for President Nehemiah Scudder, the architect of a 21st-century American theocracy, in 1940's If This Goes On—. Rizpah, a feminine Biblical name, doesn't yet seem to have gained much popularity, but is one that could plausibly come into greater use in the future.
Names have been known to rebound, as well. Phoebe, for example, steadily declined in popularity over the course of the 20th century, only to spike with a vengeance in the 1990s, presumably due to the success of Friends. In a few more decades, many "old peoples' names" may have lost their current connotations and find newfound popularity - all it takes, after all, is one sufficiently high-profile character or celebrity baby to kick-start a name's rise or renaissance.
Ultimately, it comes down to how the author wants the audience of the day to react to the world. If the story's set in, say, 2095, and the author wants it to come across as conservative and past-oriented in mindset, a good way to cement that feeling might be to populate it with Horaces and Ednas, Berthas and Wilburs.
Name popularity curve information in this post was derived from NameVoyager at the Baby Name Wizard, a tool which graphically represents the highs and lows of name popularity from the 1880s to 2008, presumably within the United States. It's pretty cool; you should totally check it out.
Earlier Words About Words:
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