LL-L "Lexicon" 2007.11.23 (07) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  23 November 2007 - Volume 07
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2007.11.23 (06) [E]

> From: Jorge Potter <jorgepot at gmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2007.11.23 (05) [E]
>
> Dear Sandy Fleming and rest of Lowlanders,
>
> And I agree with your saying:
>
>         Yes, but as soon as you overreact, you lose. They drop "dig"
>         from the
>         language, you drop "excavate". Either way, the language is
>         impoverished.
>
> I would just like to add another dimension to the discussion, mainly
> the esthetic. When writing a poem, or anything else, anyone would
> prefer to use a word like "zip" rather than "enthusiasm", "many"
> instead of "multitudinous", "good" for "beneficent", etc.

But surely not.

In poetry, one wants to be able to say "Love's Labour Lost", rather than
be constrained to "Love's Work Lost."

Or "Murder in the Cathedral" rather than "Getting Killed in the Big
Church"  :)

You can make either side of the fence sound silly by choosing a phrase
that English speakers would normally say on your favoured side and
showing how wrong it would sound if you said it on the other side. Thus
Paul's "walk in the hills" -> "perambulate in the elevated terrain"
going one way or my "Murder in the Cathedral" -> "Getting Killed in the
Big Church" going the other way. Choosing examples that suit you isn't a
good form of argument: people don't actually say it the silly way so
you've demonstrated nothing.

Well, OK, there are people with certain personal issues who do try to
use latinate English to make their everyday speech sound lofty, but it's
also bad to warp your meaning in trying to make yourself sound earthy.

The fact remains that either sort of word can be better than the other
sort, depending on exactly what you're trying to say, the impression you
want to give, or even the aesthetic.

(BTW, I would never say or write "zip" for "enthusiasm"! Nor are "good"
and "beneficent" synonymous. "Multitudinous" is one of these words where
a quite common (at least in the Bible!) word like "multitude" gets
stretched to breaking point, and is therefore perhaps a word to be
avoided as a rule. But careless extensions of Anglo-Saxon words can lead
to an increase in the misunderstandability of your speech or writing
too.)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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