Neology

Bob Harris blogs his "Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing." By which he means words that appear too often in book reviews.

Aside: I immediately assumed that the title was a reference to George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue, also known as "Seven Dirty Words," and sometimes misquoted as "Seven Deadly Words." Turns out I'm not the only one who associates the phrase "seven deadly words" with Carlin; as of this writing, if you Google the phrase (in quotation marks), a Carlin monologue is the first result. At any rate, whether or not Harris meant to refer to the Carlin monologue, his "seven deadly words" are kind of the opposite: they're words that he sees as overused.

And I'm puzzled by almost all of the ones that he and his readers list, because they pretty much all seem perfectly reasonable to me. Perhaps it's just that I don't read very many book reviews?

I may be a little defensive about this, too, 'cause several of the words (such as "compelling" and "intriguing") are words I use all the time.

Anyway, mixed in with the distaste for certain words being used too often, I detect what I think is a certain attitude toward writing in general. Harris starts it off by quoting Wilson Follett (author of Modern American Usage: A Guide and other books) as saying "The best critics [...] are those who use the plainest words[....]" A commenter refers to a word as being "a product of laziness and lack of imagination"; another refers to "great deal of sloppy, lazy writing going on"; another quotes The Elements of Style as referring to critics using words "whose only virtue is that they are exceptionally nimble and can escape from the garden of meaning"; another says reviewers should use more "language every person can relate to."

All of which makes we think that perhaps what's really going on is a complaint about use of words that the objectors see as hifalutin. Reviews, the argument would appear to go, should be written in plain language so that plain-speakin' plain ol' folks can understand 'em.

Which I totally disagree with. I'm not saying book reviews should be hard to understand, but to me, nearly all of the words these folks are complaining about are pretty ordinary words that have pretty ordinary meanings. Is "readable" really meaningless? Are metaphorical descriptions, like "luminous," really so awful? Is the use of the word "smart" to describe a book really so cryptic? They don't seem so to me.

(The one criticism in the list (of those I read) that does seem useful and interesting to me is the idea that male reviewers often refer to a particular feminist poet's work as "engaging"; that sounds to me like potentially the same kind of politically problematic attempted praise as referring to an African-American as "articulate." On the other hand, there are plenty of other contexts where "engaging" is perfectly good praise.)

I suppose part of my reaction is that I have a poor ear for cliches. There are several phrases that I use regularly and see nothing wrong with but that critique groups have told me are cliches to be (yes) eschewed. So maybe overuse just doesn't bother me; maybe I'm deaf to that (um) nuance of language and usage.

And, of course, lists of pet peeves don't have to be rational.

Speaking of rational, I have to object to the other part of the quote from Follett: "[...] and who make their taste rational by describing actions rather than by reporting or imputing feelings." Really? Reviewers are supposed to have rational tastes, having nothing to do with their feelings? I apparently don't live in the same world of reviewers as Follett and Harris; I often rather like learning about a reviewer's feelings about a work.

Posted by Jed at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yams are confusing.

Or at least the word is.

The "true yam" is a starchy tuber that I associate with Africa. It can grow up to eight feet long, and can weigh up to 150 pounds (says Wikipedia). I gather that the flavor is kind of bland, but I've never eaten one; I don't think I've ever even seen one.

But in much of the US, when people refer to "yams," what they're talking about is a rather different starchy tuber. When trying to make clear that they're not talking about the true yam, some people note that they're referring to sweet potatoes.

But that, too, is confusing, because there are at least two prominent kinds of sweet potatoes. One kind looks pretty much like an ordinary brown-skinned potato, and has pale yellowish flesh, and if I remember right is barely sweet at all. The other kind is longer and thinner and knobblier and has redder skin than an ordinary potato, and tapers to a point at each end, and has deep orange flesh, and tastes quite sweet when baked. I like them a lot, though given how sweet and yummy they are, I don't understand the common penchant for candying them by adding sugar and marshmallows and stuff.

If I'm understanding right, both of those kinds of sweet potato are the same species, just different variants. But their flavor and look is very different, so I'm never quite sure what I'm in for when someone tells me they're going to cook some sweet potatoes.

But I suppose if they instead mention "yams," the ambiguity is even stronger. Not only might they be talking about African true yams, they might be referring to such other items as: the Ugaritic god Yam; a Pony Express-like messenger system developed by the Mongols; oca (the "New Zealand yam"); or the Saudi Arabian tribe known as the Banu Yam.

And doesn't that sound like a set of made-up Fictionary definitions?

Posted by Jed at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)