Gumboot
lorcutus.tolere
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2012
- Messages
- 948
I was thinking recently about the use of unusual words, and that odd hate when a writer seemingly discovered some new obscure word and litters their entire manuscript with it.
It got me thinking about my own work, and my own use of words. I can't say I've ever been guilty of that particular crime (okay, maybe once or twice) but I did realise I have several word choices or phrasings that I prefer, that aren't perhaps the "standard" or "default" option.
Sometimes when I find myself putting in these unusual words I contemplate whether I should swap them out for a more "normal" one (as I did recently with the word "inconstant"), ever conscious of the crime cited above. Mostly, I leave them as is, as the "normal" options never seem to capture quite the same feeling, and I tend to go with instinct.
One of my most common examples is the use of "before" to mean "in front of". I find it much more succinct, and less disruptive to the flow of words than any of the more common options.
I can trace my tendency for this word back to high school though, and a single incident I retain a fond bitterness for. It was a photography test, and for one question we had to define "depth of field". Anyone who is familiar with photography will know that the definition of "depth of field" is that part of the image either side of the focus point, which is acceptably in focus.
For my answer I used "the part of the image before and behind the focus point". My teached marked me wrong on this question because it should have been "in front of and behind", and they were deaf to my claims that "before" was not limited to a temporal meaning.
I think perhaps, ever since I have used "before" to spite her!
It got me thinking about my own work, and my own use of words. I can't say I've ever been guilty of that particular crime (okay, maybe once or twice) but I did realise I have several word choices or phrasings that I prefer, that aren't perhaps the "standard" or "default" option.
Sometimes when I find myself putting in these unusual words I contemplate whether I should swap them out for a more "normal" one (as I did recently with the word "inconstant"), ever conscious of the crime cited above. Mostly, I leave them as is, as the "normal" options never seem to capture quite the same feeling, and I tend to go with instinct.
One of my most common examples is the use of "before" to mean "in front of". I find it much more succinct, and less disruptive to the flow of words than any of the more common options.
I can trace my tendency for this word back to high school though, and a single incident I retain a fond bitterness for. It was a photography test, and for one question we had to define "depth of field". Anyone who is familiar with photography will know that the definition of "depth of field" is that part of the image either side of the focus point, which is acceptably in focus.
For my answer I used "the part of the image before and behind the focus point". My teached marked me wrong on this question because it should have been "in front of and behind", and they were deaf to my claims that "before" was not limited to a temporal meaning.
I think perhaps, ever since I have used "before" to spite her!
