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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 06, 2006

WHAT WE'RE READING

An excerpt from "On Being Debonair" from Frederick Seidel's lovely new collection Ooga-Booga.

Sometimes I don't go out till the end of the day.
I simply forget till
I rush out, afraid the day will end.

Love that.  Happens here damn near every day.

Posted by TEV at 12:30 AM in Readings |

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THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
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