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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 27, 2008

THINGS TO DO IN ROCHESTER

To all of our Rochester, NY readers (surely, we must have some) - don't miss the chance to see Laila Lalami who is making a number of area appearances.

Posted by TEV at 10:07 AM in Events |

Comments

You have at least one!

I heard her in a radio interview on Monday in advance of her visit, and it was very nice.

Posted by: Deb | March 27, 2008 at 12:20 PM

The events are high priced and scattered all over town, the book is terrible and trite, based on a sensational news story. This idea of everyone reading the same book is hysterical! But hey, it's Rochester.

Posted by: Lloyd Mintern | April 01, 2008 at 10:15 AM

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