Transparent words. - Writers Forum

suzakugaiden · 10-05-2006, 03:37 AM

Okay, uh, took four years of german in highschool, and right now, I'm reading through the student edition of Der Richter und Sein Henker. I think I've already stated that everything I know about english grammar I learned in german, but here's something that's JUST dawning on me.

A LOT of words are really transparent. Things that are function words that give the sentence actual meaning? Prepositions, words like "sometimes," and the like? Just as much as the words exist, the context and syntax of the sentence seems to... give it meaning.

I'm thinking of it like this. When I read an english sentence, I don't have to manually parse through every word and examine every verb ending. This is what I USED to do in German. Oddly, analysis seems to destroy meaning in this case (Other point: analysing literature seems to make it pointless, to me. This is another point I take with American highschool English classes). In examining meaning, you sort of get so caught up in the details that you lose the whole Gestalt, and you get a lot of words, instead of words that mean anything.

I don't think I'm really articulating properly what I want to say here. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to think this means. I think I'm just trying to figure out why some writing seems cluttered and some doesn't.

I think that it's an over-abundance of these "read-through" words that's doing it, maybe. You parse through so much of the sentence, chewing on function words, but not actually getting enough verbs and nouns, you know? Stuff is being done to and of, and doing something in the direction of blank, but the actual CONTENT of the sentence gets so cluttered in the... overly-specific meaning that context becomes nonexistant and meaning is lost. This is a different way of destroying meaning from just being convoluted or prolix. It's the equivalent of covering all of the words in splunge and expecting meaning to float out of it. You're not losing meaning because you're forced to analyze the sentence because it's so full of these invisible-words, but because these invisible-words so heavily force... meaning, when used so heavily. The sentence reads like it's analyzing itself.

This is the really amusing part, though. When you're doing it write, the various little function words... what it feels like they're doing is more implying or suggesting a certain meaning than solidly EXPLAINING it.

And in another sense, for conlangs, precision of meaning is often heavily emphasized, and I get the feeling that over-precision is just contrary to how people think.

Mike C · 10-05-2006, 05:44 AM

Language - I think, particularly the English language - is a really ephemeral thing. For one thing, we rely heavily on metaphor, double-meanings, words with multiple meanings, that no word in isolation really means anything beyond a dictionary definition.

One of my favourite lines from Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est'

"An ecstasy of fumbling"

This is used to describe cold, tired soldiers with wet, muddy, slippery hands trying desperately to put their gas masks on during a gas attack with shells bursting around them.

Ecstasy?

a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion; "listening to sweet music in a perfect rapture"- Charles Dickens
a state of elated bliss

On the surface, in no way can the panic of facing imminent and horrible death be described as ecstasy, but in context I honestly don't think there's another word in the English language that would convey the same feeling in the same way - it's genius.

This is what I love about writing. This is why, on another thread, I ranted somewhat about sloppy writing. Every single word you write counts, and your word choice can make you look anything from stupid to mundane to visionary.

mammamaia · 10-05-2006, 10:01 AM

what you seem to be trying to describe about writing, suz, was said in just 3 sublime words long, long ago by i know not who: "Less is more!"

or, as the old army axiom puts it [much less delicately]: "K.I.S.S.!"

suzakugaiden · 10-06-2006, 02:47 AM

"Every single word you write counts, and your word choice can make you look anything from stupid to mundane to visionary."

So it's less what the writer's writing, and more whether or not the writer is writing what he/she/shi's trying to write, I guess. Maybe there are little subtextual clues that let you pick up on confidence and assuredness in what the writer's writing. Maybe not. But you can tell when someone is fumbling, and when someone is intentionally writing a character that thinks and talks in a very fumbly way.

Mike C · 10-06-2006, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suzakugaiden

But you can tell when someone is fumbling, and when someone is intentionally writing a character that thinks and talks in a very fumbly way.

Absolutely. I think it's about confidence and fluency. It's not about the size of your vocabulary as such (but it helps), but on how fluidly you use it. You can always tell when someone uses a word or combination of words for effect, because they think it'll look cool or clever, and when someone uses them because they're just the right words for the job.