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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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June 19, 2006

WE GET LINKS ...

... and they do pile up around here.  Every so often we offer up a pile of these links that we've accumulated but never seem to find the time to post about in detail; it's our version of spring cleaning but it's not at all a comment on quality (we wouldn't post anything if that were the case); more to do with our perennial disorganization.  So, if you have a minute or two, check out:

* The Best New Zealand Poems of 2005, recently launched.

* The one-year anniversary (belated) of Nerve's Henry Miller Awards.

* Martha Cooley is among the summer instructors at the 92nd Street Y.

* Interviews with James Meek and Rupert Thomson at Three Monkeys Online.

* The launching of The Book Depository (via RSB).

* The June issue of the OED newsletter.

* Ionarts on reading Don Quixote with a most fascinating soundtrack.

* And finally, The Picolata Review is the latest entry into the world of online fiction venues.

Posted by TEV at 12:05 AM in Litblog Co-op |

Comments

Thank you for your mention of the Picolata Review.

I hope you've had time to read our first issue, and that you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Thanks again,
Mark

Posted by: Mark Pettus | June 21, 2006 at 07:50 PM

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