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I seem to have this problem where I know a lot of words but can't always seem to think them up when I write an article or a story. I know the meaning of most of these words, but when I write, some everyday phrase or idiom comes to my mind first or I write elaborate wordy sentences even though a succinct alternative is clearly there but I fail to think them up.

Anyway what would you people suggest me to incorporate advanced vocabulary into my writing so that I can use the words I know instead of just identifying them when I read?

Hopefully this is not off-topic. Sorry if it is.

Rio1210
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    I think this idea too small for an answer, but I suggest rereading those elaborate, wordy sentences the next day (or even the next week) to see if the word comes to mind. I've found that I need a sleep to free my mind from previous decisions. Also, a bad mood enhances this process, in my experience: it makes me more willing to criticize anybody, even my past self. – Jeutnarg Apr 04 '17 at 16:27

6 Answers6

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The Carnegie Hall method: Practice, practice, practice.

You know those Word-A-Day calendars? We joke about them, but they're not bad as a starting point. Each day you pick a word you want to start using more often (from the calendar, the dictionary, or list you create). Spend 10 minutes writing it in a bunch of sentences. Write a little story if you want; it's okay if it sounds ridiculous because you're using the word so much.

The next day, pick a new word to write sentences about. Then practice using yesterday's word in context in your speech as often as you can. The day after, you'll use Day 3's word in sentences and Day 2's word in speech.

The reasons for focusing on two words in two different media are

  1. sleep helps you learn and assimilate information better in the long term
  2. writing and speaking use slightly different parts of the brain
  3. you're forcing yourself to remember something from a previous day, so you're embedding the word into your longer-term memory

For a grand finale, try using all seven words from a week over the course of a weekend.

Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
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Don't. I know the use of fancy vocabulary may seem like a sign of sophisticated writing, but it's not. Every fancy word you use makes you prose less accessible to readers. The only reason to bring in a fancy word is if you cannot express the idea you need to get across using simple words. The hallmark of a good writer is that they can get complex ideas across using simple words. Practice that.

The paragraph above is perhaps not the best example of the advice it gives. Did I need to use the word "hallmark" for instance? Some readers may not have an immediate recognition of what "hallmark" means. (A hallmark is an imprint that a craftsman makes in precious metal to indicate who made the object. My wedding ring was custom made and has the hallmark of the goldsmith on the inside.)

I could have used simpler language for this. I could have said "sign" instead of "hallmark". Then my meaning might have been clearer to more readers. Or I could have simplified the sentence even more and said, "A good writer can get complex ideas across using simple words."

There is a saying that gets attributed to a number of different writers, "If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter". Our first drafts tend to be lengthy and verbose. They tend to use all sorts of complex and difficult words. If we have time for a second draft, we can and should make them shorter, and use simpler words.

If you read avidly, as you should if you want to be a writer, then your vocabulary will naturally grow over time. Your challenge, as a writer, is not to incorporate all that vocabulary into your writing, but to resist doing so as much as you can so as to make your writing as simple and easy to understand as possible.

Hmmm... I wonder if I could recast that first sentence to avoid the word "avidly"...

EDIT: Interesting finding: "Interestingly, using long words can result in readers missing shorter words that follow them, which can greatly affect text interpretation. http://centerforplainlanguage.org/what-is-readability/

  • Sorry if I'm not wrong, but I think a similar idea was championed by Orwell, wasn't it? I also feel it's important to write simple sentences in general (I mention this in the question). Thanks for the well written suggestions though. – Rio1210 Apr 04 '17 at 12:20
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    Definitely championed by Orwell. His Politics and the English Language should be required reading for anyone who wants to write. (First draft of that sentence was "aspires to write". As a good Orwellian, I substituted to the simpler and more Anglo Saxon "wants".) –  Apr 04 '17 at 12:28
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    I disagree — not enough to DV, because I don't think your advice is harmful, but because sometimes les mots justes are complex. I do think that 98% of the time you should make clarity of writing your primary goal, but sometimes that means using gravid and not merely pregnant. Boiling down your writing to a fourth-grade level isn't necessarily an improvement. Adding sesquipedalian effluvia just because you happen to find an apropos niche can come off as meretricious, of course, but I wouldn't advise someone to use "fake news" if "specious" contains the necessary nuance. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 04 '17 at 13:01
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    Also, just because a word is Anglo-Saxon and not Romance/Latinate/Greek doesn't make it qualitatively "better." – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 04 '17 at 13:02
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    @LaurenIpsum, les mots juste is the word that is most clear to your intended audience. That differs by audience, and you sometimes need to make a distinction that only a more sophisticated audience makes. But it is about the audience's vocabulary, not yours. If you can express yourself effectively with a smaller vocabulary, you can communicate more effectively with a larger audience. You don't have to take it down to the fourth grade level unless that is your audience. But expanding your vocabulary is not something a writer should aspire to for its own sake. –  Apr 04 '17 at 13:19
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    @LaurenIpsum and while the Anglo Saxon word may not be better than the romance word in any absolute sense, it is more English. And the vocabulary of bureaucrats and technocrats, is invariably romance in its sources, so a preference for the Anglo Saxon almost forces you to be more honest and more clear. It is a virtuous discipline, therefore, if not a matter of the absolute quality of language. –  Apr 04 '17 at 13:22
  • Sir, I take great (teasing) umbrage at your slur against my linguistic heritage, as do my parents, both teachers of French, Spanish, and Italian. There is plenty of room for euphemism and vagueness in any language of any vocabulary. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 04 '17 at 14:26
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    And I really genuinely disagree that a smaller vocabulary is better. That is Orwellian, and not in a good way — doubleplusungood, one might even call it. Having a multiude of shaded words helps convey meaning. I keep a list of "look this up" words which I didn't know and had to research so that I can learn to use them as needed. When you narrow vocabulary, you remove some of the tools of expression. You make it harder to think about concepts when you don't have the words to describe them. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 04 '17 at 14:29
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    "Having a multitude of shaded words helps convey meaning." but only to those who recognize those shades of meaning. Again, it is the vocabulary of your audience you have to consider. Smaller vocabulary equals larger audience. No way round that, much as we might wish otherwise. I might quip that perhaps French bureaucrats use Anglo Saxon words to obscure their meaning, but somehow I doubt it. After all, bureaucrat is a French word. :-) –  Apr 04 '17 at 15:25
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    Your analysis of "hallmark" is interesting, but I would suggest that you chose it for impact. "Hallmark" has very strong connotations and a very narrow usage, so it actually ends up making your point more clear and stronger than "sign" would. Granted, your reader has to understand the word, but that's the case for every single word you use. So deciding what level of simplicity to go for is part of the art of understanding your audience. – jpmc26 Apr 04 '17 at 17:05
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    @jpmc, so the question becomes, which words is your reader most likely to understand? As I remarked to Lauren, it is about your reader's vocabulary, not yours. The besetting sin of new and occasional writers, is not excess of brevity or simplicity. It is prolixity and complication. (Considering my audience, I may be able to get away with "prolixity" in this context.) Thus we should be encouraging simplicity, not vocabulary building. Learn to say more with a small stock of common words and you will have equipped yourself to have an impact on a wider range of people. –  Apr 04 '17 at 17:41
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    @MarkBaker "So deciding what level of simplicity to go for is part of the art of understanding your audience." ;) The danger in encouraging simplicity is that you end up telling people to write in the style of Simple English Wikipedia or Simple Thing Explainer. I agree that blind vocabulary building is fundamentally useless past 5rd grade reading level, but choosing the level of vocabulary to use is still strongly tied to your choice of audience. I should think that it's certainly possible to go the other way around, as well: your choice of vocabulary may partially determine your audience. – jpmc26 Apr 04 '17 at 17:45
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    @jpmc, only if your writing is entirely self indulgent. It is no way to run a business. –  Apr 04 '17 at 17:50
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    @MarkBaker Are you seriously suggesting that every piece of writing must appeal to the widest possible audience? That there's no room for niche works? Entire businesses are certainly run on the basis of targeting a narrow audience. Are they as big as McDonald's or Walmart? No, but that doesn't make them failures in any sense of the word. *5rd --> 5th above – jpmc26 Apr 04 '17 at 17:51
  • Of course there is room for niche works. But you write for the niche that exists, and you do so for a serious business reason. You appeal to a niche only if there is no interest in what you are selling outside of the niche. And you don't attempt to create a niche out of thin air by putting out something with no consideration for an existing audience and just hoping that one shows up. –  Apr 04 '17 at 17:54
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    Mark, I think Steve Jobs pretty much built his entire Apple empire on "putting out something with no consideration for an existing audience and just hoping that one shows up." :) – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 04 '17 at 18:16
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    No, he built it by brilliant marketing of solutions that other companies had developed and show the existence of a market for. Apple was never first at anything. But they were very good at being second. Jobs did not invent niches, he took concepts and expanded them out of niches by -- guess what -- making them simpler. I love language as much as the next writer, but simplicity sells. Jobs was a fanatic of simplification -- to a fault if anything. –  Apr 04 '17 at 18:28
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    And some people will see "hallmark" and think of the greeting card publisher before anything else. – Damian Yerrick Apr 04 '17 at 19:47
  • +1 - made me think of Up Goer Five and Thing Explainer, you can even use https://xkcd.com/simplewriter or http://splasho.com/upgoer5 to write your own text "using only the ten hundred most used words" (though that is of course taking it to the extreme maybe a bit too much...) – Tobias Kienzler Apr 05 '17 at 05:22
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    Words exist because the have meaning, and should be used accordingly. If you target your writing at the "Me-Tarzan-you-Jane" audience, this is the audience you will get and that audience actually does not read a whole lot. IKEA manuals do not employ words at all. And: in the age of electronic books looking up an oh-my-god-four-syllable-one word takes a mere moment. – Lew Apr 05 '17 at 13:29
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    I agree with simplicity for the most part, but… i also worry that the less exposure to "complicated" words the public has, the more words people feel bad about writing, there seems to be the potential for a downward spiral of literacy here :/ – Weaver Apr 05 '17 at 18:51
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Standback Apr 07 '17 at 06:39
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I recommend three pillars: 1. Practice 2. Thesaurus 3. Drafting

  1. The more you write, the better your writing will become. This means finding the best word, and the best order to put the words in.

  2. Thesaurus. Personally I don't think a writer should ever use a thesaurus to find a word you don't already know - that's the sort of use that gives thesaurus use a bad name. However, in exactly the situation you describe above, I think a thesaurus is perfect. Type in the word you know isn't quite right, and browse until you find the one (which you already knew), that is.

  3. Drafting. I think it's best to first write any old words to get the gist and the feel of the story down, rather than getting bogged down on finding the right word, when you may end up cutting the entire scene anyway. Then every time you do a reiteration see if a better word springs to mind, or use the thesaurus, as mentioned above.

SnootyShrimp
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  • Thanks for some practical advice. I had people tell me the same about thesaurus. I think you make a good point about its sound use. – Rio1210 Apr 04 '17 at 12:15
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    Agreed on the thesaurus point. I only look at the thesaurus when I am absolutely certain that a more suitable word exists, but I can't quite remember exactly what it is. 'Looking up fancier vocabulary' is NOT something that writers should do, because a thesaurus provides no context on how the word is used, and knowing an individual word is not useful unless you also know its context. – manyaceist Apr 04 '17 at 12:19
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    Please remove the "I think" bits. This is all very sound advice! – jpmc26 Apr 04 '17 at 17:07
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    I agree with all of this. I might add that it's never a bad idea to double-check your understanding of a word with a dictionary; if I have to find a word through a thesaurus (always one I already think I know) I almost always look it up in a dictionary, too, just to make sure that my sense of plain meaning and especially connotations is correct. With online reference works and reference works built-in to most word processors, this is a very quick and easy process. – 1006a Apr 05 '17 at 16:09
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I'm going to try the practice-practice-practice answer, but what has been helping me up until now is editing.

Go ahead and write the first draft with whatever words come to mind. Don't let searching for the right phrase interrupt your creative flow.

As you re-read your draft, take note of where

  • you stumble over verbose phrasing,
  • you haven't conveyed the precise meaning or mood you wanted (or needed),
  • you have distracting, unintentional repetition.

Those are the places where finding the right word or phrase pays off. That's when you head to the thesaurus, not to learn the right word, but to remind yourself of the choices available to you.

In particular, I find that verbs that aren't pulling their weight are the easiest to find and sharpen because the weak ones are propped up with -ly adverbs.

Plain language is fine, and you don't want to inject twenty-dollar words where ten-cent ones do the job. You certainly don't want to do that too often. Overusing sophisticated vocabulary can be off-putting.

Occasionally, however, a plain word doesn't cut it, and you need the mot juste.

I'm disappointed whenever I read a novel that doesn't send me to the dictionary once or twice.

Adrian McCarthy
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I am surprised that no one has advised you to read. The use of a language is primarily based on exposure to it and mimicking. That's how everybody learns their native language and masters foreign ones.

Most answers have recommended you to practice writing, wich is sound advice. But for your practice to be effective, you need base material.

Pick a word and collect examples in dictionnaries, books or ask people to make a few sentences with it. If possible (although these are harder to find) don't limit yourself to written examples. You will soon see that the word comes to your mind more naturally.

Patsuan
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    While "reading" in general is good advice, how would you know if a given book contains the word(s) you're looking for so you can "collect examples" of it? – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Apr 05 '17 at 10:51
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    'I am surprised that no one has advised you to read.' @MarkBaker did. 'If you read avidly, as you should if you want to be a writer, then your vocabulary will naturally grow ' – Spagirl Apr 05 '17 at 13:36
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I face this issue a lot. I used to worry about misusing a word, but over time I've decided that if the original thought includes the word, then it probably deserves to be used.

Another test to use is: can I express this thought adequately without using the word?

In fiction writing, you can make excuses for sesquipedalianism by claiming that a character would want to use exotic words (and then if you don't use it properly, you can simply say, that was the character misusing the word, not me!).

Often I use a long word and later edit it to use a shorter word. On the other hand, sometimes long words can seem more terse -- also for non-English natives, sometimes longer Latin-based words are easier to understand than seemingly simply verbal phrases.

I wrote an article about building your vocabulary:

Don’t worry about using words incorrectly. It happens. I frequently discover that I have learned a word partially or even wrongly. Sure, don’t rush to use a $2 word after you discover it, but really, the public shame of misusing a word in conversation is vastly overstated. (I am much more cautious when I write though). When writing, if the word doesn’t fit snugly into the context you need it for, chances are that either you don’t need this word or don’t know it well enough to use it. (Yes, a simpler word is almost always better if it conveys what you want).

idiotprogrammer
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