Word Guide: Choosing the right words

By Mary Morel

This word guide is suitable for anyone looking for the most appropriate words to use in whatever they're writing. It covers word terms (e.g. nouns and verbs); how to write for your audience concisely without jargon and verbose language; 100 commonly confused words and spelling. It also covers rhetorical and literary devices, e.g. similes and personification, for those wanting to add more colour to their writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Morel
• Release date: Jun 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311337979

Mary Morel

Mary Morel's first non-fiction books were about marketing your small business because she needed to learn these skills. She had a thriving small business in New Zealand, but when she moved to Australia in 1999, she had to start again from scratch. Now established in Sydney, she's turned her attention to business writing and grammar. She's developed online writing courses, classes and webinars (www.onlinewritingtraining.com.au) and works with companies to improve their board papers (www.writetogovern.com.au).

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Introduction

‘When I choose a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Humpty Dumpty would’ve had problems with the fact that words change their meaning over time. For example:

•   Decimate used to mean to kill every 10th person. It now means mass destruction.

•   Peruse meant to read thoroughly, but now often means to skim read.

•   Evacuate used to refer to places and buildings, but now people are evacuated too.

•   Viable meant capable of living, but is now used to mean workable.

•   Terror is now used to mean terrorism – ‘the fight against terror’.

We are continually adding new words to our language and modifying the meanings of old words. Think of the new words that have entered our vocabulary thanks to social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

With such a wealth of words available, the challenge is choosing the right words for our messages and audience.

Quotes about words

‘The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.’

Mark Twain

‘The most ordinary word when put into the right place, suddenly acquires brilliance. This is the brilliance with which your images must shine.’

Robert Bresson, French film maker

‘If you wish to persuade me you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and use my words.’

Cicero

‘Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power.’

Sigmund Freud

‘Excuse me, but proactive and paradigm? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?’

The Simpsons

‘I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.’

Mark Twain

‘The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.’

George Eliot

‘One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.’

Stephen King

‘If you would be pungent, be brief: for it is with words as well as sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.’

Robert Southey

‘Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific term or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.’

George Orwell

Chapter 1: Word terms

Traditional grammar talks about parts of speech. Modern grammar calls them ‘word classes’. Whatever terminology you use, these terms are still relevant.

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns and tell which, whose, what kind and how many. They’re ‘describing’ words.

beautiful, several, tall

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs, and tell how, when, where and how much.

quickly, slowly, later

Conjunctions join words, phrases and clauses.

and, because, but

Determiners are little words that tell us which ones, whose and how many.

the, a, three, that, my

Nouns are the names of persons, places or things.

cat, book, report

Prepositions are used before nouns or pronouns to relate them to other words.

by, for, in, of, to

Pronouns take the place of nouns.

I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they

his, hers, mine, ours, its, theirs, your, yours

Verbs show action or state of being.

play, exist, write, sit

Open and closed word classes

We can divide word classes into open and closed classes. We constantly add new open-class words to our language (podcast) and turning nouns into verbs (I googled), but closed-class words seldom change.

Open word classes

Nouns – cat, hat, shelf

Adjectives – beautiful, lazy, plentiful

Verbs – play, work, eat

Adverbs – slowly, very, enough

Interjections – Ouch!

Closed word classes

Determiners – the, a, an

Pronouns – I, his, someone

Conjunctions – and, so, yet

Prepositions – beside, in, at

Auxiliary verbs – can, must, were

Prefixes and suffixes

We create many new words by adding a prefix or suffix.

Some common prefixes relate to:

•   Time and order – pre, post

•   Location – sub, super

•   Number – bi, tri

•   Size or degree – micro, macro

•   Action or its negation – de, dis, un, in

You don’t need hyphens with prefixes unless the rest of the word starts with a capital (anti-Hitler) or the same vowel (micro-organism). The hyphen drops out of common words with repeated vowels (cooperate).

We commonly use suffixes to turn:

•   Verbs into nouns

apply,