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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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« LIKE THE TITLE | Main | L.A. EVENT/GUEST COLUMN: SETH GREENLAND »

March 15, 2005

L.A. EVENT: DEBORAH SANTANA

OK, it's not our usual fare but we are fans of Eso-Won Books and so we wanted to mention that Deborah Santana (yes, of those Santanas) will be reading from her new book Space Between the Stars this evening at 7:00.  Check it out. 655 S. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90016 Phone: (323) 294-0324

Posted by TEV at 12:17 AM |

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