Redundancy can kill writing. Who wants to read the same words over and over again. The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. Can't figure out different ways to express that someone has "said" something? There are at least a dozen choices in Roget's Super Thesaurus. Pick one: utter, speak, tell, assert, give, voice, mouth, pronounce, vocalize, remark, phrase, state, articulate.
What reads best? He said he was going to the store; or, He mouthed to his wife as she was intensely conversing with her best friend on the phone, "I'm g-o-i-n-g to the s-t-o-r-e." Which one gives you a clearer picture?
The words are there. Use them. When I edit my writing or the writing of others, I go through it and circle any words I see more than once in the same general area. If you're using the same word on the first page of a report and then again on page 5, no big deal. But if you have the same word in every paragraph - or worse, in sentence after sentence after sentence - please choose something else. Your readers will be grateful - whether they are your parents or a publishing agent.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
LABOR DAY - September 6, 2010
"So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers." 1 Corinthians 3:7-9
Writing is a labor of love for me. Math is not. We all have our gifts. That we recognize those gifts and do them with joy and diligence and (sometimes) passion will only glorify God. It is when we berate ourselves for the gifts we do not have (calculating numbers, for example) that we begin to veer down a negative path away from all that He can and will do with the abilities He has given us.
I encourage those writers who do have a natural gift to cherish it and enjoy it, and those of you who don't to do your very best and realize that God is fine tuning you in other wonderful areas. Let us never LABOR in vain!
TIP FOR THE WEEK:
The New York Public Library recently made available for free its online digital archives containing over 700,000 images - historical maps, postcards, photographs, advertisements, etc. Users can print copies of the images or order prints from the library. Great source for research! Go to www.digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm
Writing is a labor of love for me. Math is not. We all have our gifts. That we recognize those gifts and do them with joy and diligence and (sometimes) passion will only glorify God. It is when we berate ourselves for the gifts we do not have (calculating numbers, for example) that we begin to veer down a negative path away from all that He can and will do with the abilities He has given us.
I encourage those writers who do have a natural gift to cherish it and enjoy it, and those of you who don't to do your very best and realize that God is fine tuning you in other wonderful areas. Let us never LABOR in vain!
TIP FOR THE WEEK:
The New York Public Library recently made available for free its online digital archives containing over 700,000 images - historical maps, postcards, photographs, advertisements, etc. Users can print copies of the images or order prints from the library. Great source for research! Go to www.digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm
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