Some Good Words

Many “how to become a better writer” books are of dubious quality, but I have been pleased to take direction from The Writer’s Portable Mentor, by Seattle poet Priscilla Long. Rather than focusing on principles of fiction (Conflict! Character arcs! Hero’s Journey!) or inspirational confidence-building, it devotes itself mostly to the tasks of improving the quality of one’s sentences and paragraphs, penetrating to deeper levels of meaning, and honing one’s observational skills.

One of the practices recommended is to keep a notebook to record words — new words, interesting words, words you like:

The writers of deep and beautiful works spend real time gathering words. They learn the names of weeds and tools and types of roof. They work to overcome plant blindness — the tendency to see plants as green background instead of as individual organisms, each with a name. They make lists of color words (ruby, scarlet, cranberry, brick). They savor not only the meanings, but the musicality of words. They are hunting neither big words nor pompous words nor latinate words but mainly words they like. They are not “improving their vocabulary” or studying for the SAT or the GRE. They are not trying to be fancy or decorative. This is a different kind of thing.

I’m not sure that all “deep and beautiful” pieces of writing hinge on good words in this way, or that all writers of same make a habit of collecting them. But I know that encountering a really good word, whether in musicality or evocation or precision, is always a delight.

I took Long’s advice and started putting down interesting words in a notebook. Below are some of my favorites. Many, but not all of them, were unfamiliar to me before I copied them down. I’ve selected definitions and sentences from the OED, but they’re not exhaustive; I include only the meanings I found most interesting.

FILLIP:

1. A movement made by bending the last joint of a finger against the thumb and suddenly releasing it (so as to propel some small object, or merely as a gesture); a smart stroke or tap given by this means. “Their Bookes be Glasse, giue them but a filip, they run to powder.” (Returne of Pasquill)

2. Something of small importance; a trifle. Also, a short space of time, a moment. “Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip.” (Ld. Byron, Sardanapalus)

3. A smart blow (with the fist, etc.). Now rare. “Suche a fylyppe, as shal fylyppe them downe into the botome of hell fyre.” (T. Becon, Invect. against Swearing)

4. Something that serves to rouse, excite, or animate; a stimulus. “This bon mot gave a fillip to my spirits.” (S. T. Coleridge Biogr. Lit)

MOIL:

1. Turmoil, confusion, tangle; confusion of sound, hubbub. Also: trouble, vexation. “Gently scorns The moil of man's conflicting wants.” (J. Davies, Scourge Folly )

2. Toil, labour, drudgery. Frequently in toil and moil. “Fie, fie, what a toyle, and a moyle it is, For a woman to bee wiser then all her neighbours.” (S. E. Brydges, Odo Count of Lingen)

3. English regional. Mud, mire; a spot or taint; damage caused by touch. Now rare. “A finished generation, dead of plague, Swept outward from their graves into the sun, The moil of death upon them.” (E. B. Browning, Aurora Leigh)

TENEBROUS:

1. a) Full of darkness, dark. b) Obscure, gloomy. “The most tenebrous holes and corners of their author's obscurity.” (New Monthly Mag)

QUIDDITY:

1. a) Chiefly Philosophy. The inherent nature or essence of a person or thing; what makes a thing what it is. “What fascinated Ruskin and later critics was Carpaccio's curious blend of documentation and fantasy; the quiddity of life is there, from gondolas to inkwells.” (Times of London, 12 Oct 1995)

2. A subtlety or nicety in argument; a quibble. In later use also: a witticism; a quip. “We recommend to the Author to dismiss from his dialogue the miserable puns, the wretched attempts at wit and humour, the coarse allusions, and trifling quiddities which are an insult to true taste.” (Times of London, 1804)

AEGIS:

1. Classical Mythology. A shield, piece of defensive armour, or garment carried or worn by Zeus (Jupiter) or Athene (Minerva); (also) a carved or painted representation of this. “She [Pallas] shakes her dreadful Ægis from the Clouds.” (N. Rowe Ulysses)

2. figurative. Originally: a protection or impregnable defence. Subsequently: the backing or support of a person or thing. “Feeling is the ægis of enthusiasts and fools.” (T. Holcroft tr. J. C. Lavater, Ess. Physiognomy)

SALTO MORTALE:

1. [Italian, = fatal jump, somersault] a daring or flying leap (as of a trapeze artist, etc.); also figurative, a step that involves risk; an unjustified inference, a ‘leap of faith’. “He really solved it [sc. the question of altruism] only by a salto mortale.” (W. Caldwell Schopenhauer's Syst.)

ETIOLATE:

1. To cause (a plant) to develop with reduced levels of chlorophyll (esp. by restricting light), causing bleaching of the green tissues, elongated internodes, weakened stems, deficiencies in vascular structure, and abnormally small leaves. “When a gardener wishes to etiolate, that is, blanch, soften, and render juicy a vegetable..he binds the leaves together, so that the light may have as little access as possible to their surfaces.” (J. Johnson, Change of Air)

2. To make (a person, the skin, etc.) pale and wan. Also: to make physically weak; to enfeeble. Now somewhat rare. “If we wish to etiolate men and women, we have only to congregate them in cities,..where they become as white, tender, and watery as the finest celery.” (J. Johnson, Change of Air)

3. To lessen or undermine the strength, vigour, or effectiveness of (a quality, group, movement, etc.); to have a weakening effect upon. “Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, etiolates, and destroys.” (C. Colton, Lacon)

RAVEN (verb):

1. To take away (esp. property) by force; to seize or divide as spoil; to carry off as prey. Also with away. Now rare. “Nor had the Wolf raven'd away so much as one.” (G. Thornley tr. Longus, Daphnis & Chloe)

2. To plunder; to seek after or for spoil or booty; to go about with intent to plunder; (later also more generally) to maraud, rampage. “Wide all around they waste, and ravening seize.” (T. Neville tr. Virgil, Georgics)

3. To eat voraciously; to feed hungrily or greedily; (also) to prey on or upon. Also figurative. “Their Mouths they op'ned wide on me, Upon me gape did they, Like to a Lion ravening And roaring for his prey.” (Psalms of David in Metre)

4. To have a ravenous appetite, craving, or desire for, or to do something. Also with after. “Lunch, Princess? Great. I'm ravening again.” (R. Harris, Summers of Wild Rose)

QUERULOUS:

1. Of a person: complaining, given to complaining, full of complaints; fault-finding; peevish. Also as n.: querulous people as a class. “These are the maners of a querrulous waiward man: That if a friend send him a modicum from a banquet, he will say..This is the reason I was not inuited: you vouchsafe mee not a little pottage and your hedgewine.” (J. Healey tr. Theophrastus Characters 63 in tr. Epictetus Manuall)

ODDMENTS:

1. An odd article or piece; a remnant. Usually in plural: odds and ends, miscellaneous items; esp. (in retailing) articles from broken or incomplete sets offered for sale at a reduced price. Also in extended use. “I've been collecting old glass balls and ornaments—every time I go to a tag sale, I check all the boxes of oddments.” (M. Stewart, Martha Stewart's Christmas)

2. Printing and Publishing. Usually in plural. The parts of a book other than the main text, as the title page, preface, etc. Also: a printed sheet or section of a book with fewer pages than a normal signature, usually containing matter of this sort. “The oddments are placed in the book in the order indicated; the text coming in either after or before the errata.” (J. Southward, Modern Printing)

DEJECTA:

1. Castings, excrements. “Fungi which grow on the dejecta of warm-blooded animals, dung, feathers, etc.” (Garnsey & Balfour, Morphol. & Biol. Fungi)

2. This I add myself from Swann In Love, as Swann laments that Odette wants to go on a trip without him: “To think that she could visit real historic buildings with me. I’ve studied architecture for ten years and I’m forever being implored to take people of the highest standing to Beauvais or Saint-Loup-de-Naud and would do it only for her, and instead she goes with the lowest of simpletons to wax ecstatic over first the dejecta of Louis-Philippe and then over those of Viollet-le-Duc!”