Le Mot Juste

Despite the cacophony of English, it has some excellent words. Highly descriptive words. Words that perfectly assist you in explaining very accurately what you're trying to convey. Take, for example, the word acnestis. Acnestis, n., is the point on the back of an animal, between the shoulders and the lower back, that cannot be reached in order to be scratched. I have yet to find the human equivalent to this word, but what an image! Some words, by their very expressiveness, can paint a vibrant picture for the audience.

Wander is a nice word as it stands, but check out all its synonyms (courtesy of this interesting thesaurus) that we rarely use: perambulate, peregrinate, maunder, dromania, divagate, flâneur. And they all have a connotation that can more accurate describe your characters:

• perambulate and peregrinate mean to wander about, usually on foot;
• maunder is to wander aimlessly;
• dromomania is the compulsion to travel or wander;
• divagate is to wander from the subject;
• and a flâneur is someone who strolls through city streets idly or aimlessly.

The problem with these beautiful words, all differing in their flavors, is that in our common-denominator world where we're trying to reach everybody, not everybody (including us!) will know these words, which makes the reading more difficult to access. And, as I learned when tutoring ESL students back in college, our American culture has a very direct way of communicating; that is, the responsibility to understand the writing is on the author, not the reader. In Asian countries this is not the case; the responsibility to understand lies with the reader.

I have started writing a piece which includes mostly those words which have fallen away from our vocabulary in the attempt to be completely accessible, quickly, to the hurried reader. I suppose it will only attract those who love words and expression, but I hate to let go of these hyponyms. They provide breadth and depth to communication.

To this end, I heartily recommend Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. (It also makes a great gift for people who love words.)

Sign up for a synonym a day! And stay tuned for some more word fun. Experimental lit is all about expanding beyond the types of communication that we currently employ, or perhaps are enslaved by, or domesticated by, or are marshaled by, or take a back seat to, or . . .