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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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« NEW YORKER ON ISHERWOOD | Main | TEV TUESDAY »

January 11, 2005

NYC EVENT: CUPCAKE SERIES

Those fabulous Cupcakes are at it again.  If you're in the NYC area, check out tomorrow night's reading featuring NBA nominee Kate Walbert and debut novelist Felicia Luna Lumes.  Wednesday, January 12, 7:30, Lolita 266 Broome (at Allen), FREE. Bluestockings will have selected books available for sale at the reading.  You can find more details here.

Posted by TEV at 12:25 AM |

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