Do you use unusual words? Do you like to read unusual words?

[AG31]

Today it dawned on me, as I was reading a British-like detective story, that the author/narrator was taking delight in using unusual words. I was taking delight in it too. I've read a lot of stories with this tone or voice (thanks @XerXesXu) but hadn't identified the cause until now.

If I'd been asked, out of the blue, whether an author ought to gravitate to unusual words, I'd have said no. Certainly in my own writing I try to stay clear and accessible, even while spending a lot of energy trying to find the right word. But some authors do use them, to good effect. I'm reminded of a character in another book, an aging (not too appealing) author who repeatedly mourned his cognitive decline by moaning "My words! My words!"

By "unusual" I don't mean you have to look them up in the dictionary, just that they are not common in ordinary discourse.

So here are my questions.

Do you use unusual words in your Lit stories? If so, in all of them? Do they constitute your "voice?" If only sometimes, what makes you choose that style?

Have you seen stories on Lit that use unusual words? References? Do you like it?

Am I correct that the use of unusual words, either in Lit or the mainstream, often gives a story an old-fashioned feel?

Edit:

The consensus seems to be that less is more. I'm wondering how many of you responders are fans of classic British mysteries, from, say, Dorothy Sayers through P.D. James. I think they all take delight in their words.

Here are the sentences that got me thinking about this.

"He knew the source. Murder--its atavistic nature and ineffable consequences--was a hydra.
And...
"Lynley wondered why the man was being deliberately repugnant, wondered what was motivating him to go to such great lengths to develop and then display a side of his character so ugly as to be intolerable."
A Great Deliverance
Elizabeth George

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Those aren't unusual words.

To me.

-Annie

 

[vanmyers86]

I try to use the precise word to convey my meaning. I grew up readying Heinlein and McCaffrey, so it never occurred to me that I shouldn't write that way! That said, I was also a journalist for years, so I see the wisdom of keeping the vocabulary within reach of most folks.
Upon reflection, I do my best to walk the tightrope between the two.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I use words that are in my vocabulary, so they're not unusual to me.

I've had readers say, "I didn't know what that word meant, now I do. Thank you for teaching me a new word." Both discombobulated and susurrus are now known to one or two more people. There are others, but I can't recall what they are.

 

[THBGato]

I'll use them if required. In Desire and Duende I used lots of technical terms related to flamenco music (abanico, falseta, etc). The narrator was an expert player and I felt it added authenticity.

Usually though, I prefer to play with more ordinary words. e.g. I could feel sweat seeping through my sleepshirt. (from new story out today: I have touched love.) Nothing unusual there I would say, but I went for "sleepshirt" rather than "pyjamas" to catch an echo of the word "seeping".

 

[SimonDoom]

As vanmyers86 says, I think the key is that it should be the RIGHT word. The right word in a particular circumstance may be an unusual or seldom-spoken word because you're trying to convey something an ordinary word will not. I'd say the point at which it seems like you're not striving for the right word but are trying to impress the reader with your vocabulary is the point at which you've gone too far.

 

[AG31]

Those aren't unusual words.

To me.

-Annie

By "unusual" I don't mean you have to look them up in the dictionary, just that they are not common in ordinary discourse.

Were you taking this into account?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

A broad vocabulary is a complement to the reader.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Were you taking this into account?

I have some pretty intellectual "discourse" sometimes. So, yes.

-Annie

 

[Rollinbones]

Many years ago when i worked as a journo i was criticised by my editor frequently for pitching to the wrong reading age. Media writes for a reading age of twelve. Nowadays when I use 'big' words I tend automatically to explain them for the twelve year olds.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Do you use unusual words in your Lit stories? If so, in all of them? Do they constitute your "voice?"

Truthfully, I can’t tell if I use unusual words. They’re not unusual to me. I’ve been told I have a very large vocabulary, and I use technical terms freely because I write a lot of near-future sci-fi. I guess that’s my voice.

This is not something I worry about. We’re all reading these stories on a connected device of some kind, after all, and a word's definition is just a click or two away. But I don’t deliberately choose words because I don’t think other people will know them. Except . . .

I’m in the process of releasing a long story, in chapters, about a very nerdy young woman who is deeply involved in software, artificial intelligence, mathematics, and related technical disciplines. She is also an aficionado of manga, anime, and video games. I let her use her specialized vocabulary extensively because that’s who she is and how she thinks, and that's the world she lives in. However, by the release of the third chapter I was getting comments and requests from readers regarding this aspect of the story, so with Chapter 4 I released a glossary:

https://literotica.com/s/ai-era-a-nerd-girls-glossary

The glossary must have been a good idea, because it currently has a rating of 5.0. Here’s the first chapter if you’re interested:

https://literotica.com/s/ai-era-a-nerd-girls-story-ch-01

Bonus humorous anecdote on a very unusual word that your question reminds me of:

I used to travel to China a lot on business. One day a group of us were traveling through Shanghai suburbs (mostly factories and tech parks) to our supplier and drove past a company that proclaimed itself, in a large sign, all caps, in English, to be the:

AUTOCHTHONOUS VEGETABLE COMPANY

Everyone else in my group was mystified by that first word. I used to read a lot of anthropology research, and thought I was one of the few people in world who still knew it. It relates to an old and obsolete theory that claimed certain aboriginal groups sprang from their own native soil (autochthones) independently of other human evolution.

So why did a Chinese vegetable company use it? We figured they meant that they supplied locally grown vegetables and the translation got mangled by Baidu or whatever.

So even the most unusual words can turn up in the most surprising places.

 

[TheRedChamber]

"Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do."
- George Orwell

As others have said, mostly, if I know a word, I don't think of it as unusual. That said, I don't go out of my way to include complicated words and generally get annoyed at writers who do, unless that word is 'just so' for the sentence. Mostly, I view writing as saying what happened clearly and cleanly* and unusual words don't always help with that mission.

 

[GeTee]

"Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do."
- George Orwell

As others have said, mostly, if I know a word, I don't think of it as unusual. That said, I don't go out of my way to include complicated words and generally get annoyed at writers who do, unless that word is 'just so' for the sentence. Mostly, I view writing as saying what happened clearly and cleanly* and unusual words don't always help with that mission.

I agree fully with this take when writing or reading.

It honestly throws me off reading some of the different words used for penis, vagina, and breasts in some stories. When a weird word is used for those things, unless it really makes sense for the context, it takes me out of the story and feels less realistic.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I like unusual words, but I also firmly believe that almost anything can be described with simple words. Unusual words for the sake of it is not an indulgence I can get behind. I think it's more fun to craft unusual phrasing or originality in macro-level prose (structure, pacing, rhythm, etc) than it is on a word-to-word vocabulary basis.

Words convey meaning. Sometimes complex words (I hesitate to say unusual, because words like "repugnant" aren't particularly unusual; more so just slightly uncommon) can convey things more efficiently than simple words, but not always. I'm not fond of complex words when they're used as synonyms for simple words, rather than as words in their own right. The words should serve the story, not the other way around.

 

[Flybynite1892]

Today it dawned on me, as I was reading a British-like detective story, that the author/narrator was taking delight in using unusual words. I was taking delight in it too. I've read a lot of stories with this tone or voice (thanks @XerXesXu) but hadn't identified the cause until now.

If I'd been asked, out of the blue, whether an author ought to gravitate to unusual words, I'd have said no. Certainly in my own writing I try to stay clear and accessible, even while spending a lot of energy trying to find the right word. But some authors do use them, to good effect. I'm reminded of a character in another book, an aging (not too appealing) author who repeatedly mourned his cognitive decline by moaning "My words! My words!"

By "unusual" I don't mean you have to look them up in the dictionary, just that they are not common in ordinary discourse.

So here are my questions.

Do you use unusual words in your Lit stories? If so, in all of them? Do they constitute your "voice?" If only sometimes, what makes you choose that style?

Have you seen stories on Lit that use unusual words? References? Do you like it?

Am I correct that the use of unusual words, either in Lit or the mainstream, often gives a story an old-fashioned feel?

Here are the sentences that got me thinking about this.

"He knew the source. Murder--its atavistic nature and ineffable consequences--was a hydra.
And...
"Lynley wondered why the man was being deliberately repugnant, wondered what was motivating him to go to such great lengths to develop and then display a side of his character so ugly as to be intolerable."
A Great Deliverance
Elizabeth George

Well, this is a fun question. I recently described a cruel dominant in a Lit story as having an "avaricious" gleam in her eye, in reference to a certain greed for sadistic pleasure, and I really liked that word and that image a lot. I felt like it worked. But maybe avaricious isn't *that* weird.

Other than rare situations like that, though, I generally try to use small and simple words as much as I can. I think there are two reasons for that: the first is that I've always been trained to write that way in my professional life, just because it's easier for readers from all walks of life to interact with your work; and the second is that two of the best writers I personally have read (in terms of language use and putting sentences together) would be Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway, and they both were pretty plain in terms of the actual language they used. I felt like it made the writing resonate in a really unique way.

Of course...my third pick for favorite writer (stylistically) would be Oscar Wilde, and that man dealt exclusively in wild words and sentence structures, so I can see both sides of this lol. But in terms of how I write - unless I'm trying to do a bit or something - I try to keep it as simple as I can. I think it's easier for the reader to forget they're reading that way.

 

[AG31]

The consensus seems to be that less is more. I'm wondering how many of you responders are fans of classic British mysteries, from, say, Dorothy Sayers through P.D. James. I think they all take delight in their words.

 

[StillStunned]

There are loads of British writers who delight in their words. Or at least took care to find the right word for the right sentence. Try AA Milne, for instance. This poem is from the collection "Now We Are Six", intended for children age 6 and up: https://allpoetry.com/The-Knight-Whose-Armour-Didn't-Squeak

(...)

No other Knight in all the land
Could do the things which he could do.
Not only did he understand
The way to polish swords, but knew
What remedy a Knight should seek
Whose armour had begun to squeak.

And, if he didn't fight too much,
It wasn't that he didn't care
For blips and buffetings and such,
But felt that it was hardly fair
To risk, by frequent injuries,
A brain as delicate as his.

(...)

Sir Thomas raised a cautious ear
And listened as Sir Hugh went by,
And suddenly he seemed to hear
(Or not to hear) the reason why
This stranger made a nicer sound
Than other Knights who lived around.

(...)

Then said the good Sir Thomas Tom,
Dismounting with a friendly air,
"Allow me to extract you from
The heavy armour that you wear.
At times like these the bravest Knight
May find his armour much too tight."

(...)

 

[yowser]

I enjoy a well-placed word. The word itself doesn't need to be 'unusual' but maybe the unique way it is applied can generate a smile.

I don't mind looking up the occasional word, especially if it piques my interest (and potentially adds another arrow to my vocabulary quiver), but I don't want to be doing that continually throughout a story. To me the big line is when the writer appears to be touting their intellect as opposed to telling a good tale (and talking down to me, the reader.)

But I also make exceptions for the truly exceptional: Wallace, Pynchon and Nabokov can make my head spin with their word choices but I am happy for them to do so, all part of the fun.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I have some pretty intellectual "discourse" sometimes. So, yes.

-Annie

I was looking at the WIWAW I published, and I noticed that I use the words "ostentatiously", "parodic", "repulsed", "vapid", "cannonade", and "guise".

I don't write fiction like that, but apparently I feel free to use my vocabulary in a work of literary criticism.

(Which is to say, I didn't know I was doing it until just now.)

(Yes, "which is to say" is a very unusual phrase in modern casual English.)

-Annie

 

[Britva415]

an "avaricious" gleam in her eye, in reference to a certain greed for sadistic pleasure

I like repurposing words to convey a meaning they don't actually have. Avarice is greed, yeah, but, greed for something intangible/immaterial like sadistic pleasure is stretching that word beyond its utility. I mean, it's normally used pretty specifically for money itself, and for material valuables at a stretch.

I don't object to the concept of doing that, but, it doesn't work for me if there isn't enough context to make clear what's being done to noveltize the word and exceed its ordinary usage.

"Avaricious" isn't weird, but you used it in a weird way. Was it delightful? I don't know, I only have the small synopsis you posted here and didn't see it in the piece you wrote. The limited context you gave didn't make me think it would have given me that frisson of tickle which comes when I read a really effective and witty deliberate bastardization.

 

[MrHereWriting]

Do you use unusual words? Do you like to read unusual words?​

It's about syntax, tone, and speech patterns. Unusual words can make a normal sentence ugly or strange if the word doesn't fit with a story's or character's overall vocabulary.

 

[ishtat]

Churchill had an interesting take on this: When making a speech he strongly advocated sticking to the simple words and preferably those of Anglo Saxon origin, but when writing, he advocated being more adventurous and liked to invent 'new' words, or use words in a new context which emphasized a particular meaning.

 

[MillieDynamite]

There are two types of unique words. One type of unique word is a word used only once in a story. The other types of unique words are words that aren't commonly used by individuals, such as Anachronism, Collywobbles, Hodgepodge, Derecho, Flabbergasted, Doldrums, or Gossamer. I like both types, and I suppose either type can be an unusual word.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Gee, and I use gossamer a lot! And both flabbergasted and hodgepodge, but less often since I retired.

In any case, a broad vocabulary is, I think, a compliment to the reader.

 

[MetaBob]

A few thoughts:

* I was introduced to this concept when reading an SF writer, I believe it was Isaac Asimov, relating how the editor of everyone's favorite SF magazine, John W. Campbell, had a rule: only one unusual word per story. "Unusual" meaning it would be likely to cause the reader to get a dictionary. By that time I was already noticing that many of the stories I was reading as a teenager (I read exclusively SF & Fantasy then) did, in fact, contain no more than one unusual word. I actually thought it was pretty cool. Good prep for the SAT.
* Elmore Leonard had something to say about it, as a side note to a larger topic in his 10 Rules of Writing (bold emphasis mine):

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

* Some of my writing is technical and naturally contains unusual words. I also tend to use a larger number of words in conversation, much less writing, than usual -- I'm not writing for 8th graders. But I'm not averse to using the occasional word just because I think it's really neato, like numinous or soughing (thank you Ursula K. Le Guin for the inspo), because there's really no other word that would serve as well. I also love the worlds of possibility they suggest (to me, at least).

Edit: in re-reading the chapter I just linked, I didn't even consider that words I used like tumescence, interminable, prolapsed, euphonious, fugue, sibilant, felicity, and tryst might be thought of as "unusual" by some.