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  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."
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November 18, 2004

NEWSFLASH: FEMALE FICTION NOVELIST WINS NBA

Lily Tuck has won the National Book Award for her novel The News from Paraguay.  You can find the following coverage of the news:

* The New York Times report.

* The Reuters report.

* The Seattle PI report.

* The Houston Chronicle carries the Associated Press' coverage.

Congratulations to Ms. Tuck and her fellow nominees.  OK, what do we gnash our teeth over now?

Posted by TEV at 12:30 AM |

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