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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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March 23, 2005

POET LAUREATE FINALISTS

The finalists for the glorious (unpaid) position of California Poet Laureate have been announced.  They are:

Wanda Coleman, Marina Del Rey
Carol Muske Dukes, Los Angeles
Luis J. Rodriguez, San Fernando
Al Young, Berkeley

Posted by TEV at 12:30 AM |

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