The Student Writer's Guide to Avoiding “Dead Words”

By James Deaux

The Student Writer's Guide to Avoiding Dead Words is a reference/instructional book to help students of all ages avoid the most commonly used words in the English languageoften referred to as dead words. Where this book differentiates itself from common thesauri is that each dead word is followed by a list of synonyms, as well as places the writer should use them. After all, what good is substituting a word when you do not know the specific contexts of it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503578739

James Deaux

James Deaux is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and has always held writing in the top spot of his favorite hobbies. He is married to his lovely wife, Catrina, and they hope to adopt a child within the next eighteen months. James also currently cohosts a monthly Parsec-award-nominated podcast, "Tranquil Tirades," where the worst movies of all time are put under a microscope of sarcasm and mockery.

Book preview

The Student Writer’s Guide

to Avoiding

Dead Words

James Deaux

Copyright © 2015 by James Deaux.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/15/2015

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Contents

Introduction

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

INTRODUCTION

Writing is essential. Writing is critical. For the most part, though, I think writing is epic amounts of sheer enjoyment. It can take you to fantastical worlds created from someone’s imagination. It can be used to explain how to build something. It can be used to dispense opinions on innumerable topics. You cannot have social media without it. Unfortunately, even though writing is necessary in so many ways, it is still an area in which millions of students struggle. What is worst of all, to me, is that when students struggle to write, they can feel like failures. I wholeheartedly believe, though, that the one of the biggest problems that students that have difficulty writing encounter is not that they cannot write—it is that they cannot figure out how to express their thoughts on paper without using the same words over and over again. They will start writing and be okay for a while because of the energy of their idea, but then fall into a rut where all of their sentences start with the same word. Writers may use the same boring, overused words repeatedly. That is where this book comes into play. As someone who has written quite literally hundreds of articles, reviews, reports and summaries, I can help students improve their creative writing and reports in a major way just by straying from what are known as dead words. At the same time, I hope to improve the confidence of this generation of student writers.

What are dead words and why should you avoid them?

Dead word is the name given to the most commonly overused words in everyday life and in writing. These words are dull, vague (at times), and worst of all, they can be hugely detrimental to your writing—especially when it comes to English and language arts classes. Your grades can actually be affected by using these commonplace words, because when you just fall back on dead words like good, bad, really, pretty, or very, then you are not showing your teacher or professor that you have learned any new vocabulary. (And if you ever say very, very… or really, really…, then you are just begging your English teacher to give you a D.) The fact of the matter is, you will have to use more refined vocabulary in order to get the grade you really want and need. Never fear, that is where I come in.

Who ever said writing was easy? And why should you want this book?

Well, no one who has done it for any length of time claims it is easy, anyway. Ask the student or professional writer that has spent countless hours, days, and months behind his or her computer if writing is easy. You might not get an actual response, but instead, an enraged glare. In this day and age of electronic media being involved in every aspect of our lives, it is challenging to sit down and focus for ten minutes, let alone several hours, to write a paper or a story. (Trust me—I spent six months writing this book.) Nevertheless, being able to write is crucial to your ability to move on in your education, as well as your adulthood and finding a career. If you cannot write well, then you are more likely to be left behind in today’s world where jobs, especially those that pay well, are increasingly more difficult to locate or secure. This book is a guide for students young and old that have difficulties composing written thoughts or generally just struggle to find better words than those utterly boring, overused dead words that plague so many term papers, book reports, or stories. Even if you like writing, there is value to this book. It can help you fine-tune your writing ability by picking more appropriate descriptive words for the specific subject matter of your writing project. Anyone can make a giant laminated chart with a list of replacement words on it, but this book will help you make sense of those replacements, and choose which works for your specific writing. Think of it as a thesaurus that actively works for you. The major problem with normal thesauri is that they are mere lists of synonyms (and antonyms). They do not break down when you should and should not use each synonym—in other words, the context of each word. Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Example:

Yes: The thing about professional athletes for me is that I think they are all spoiled.

No: The object about professional athletes for me is that I ponder they are all spoiled.

The first sentence is perfectly acceptable and makes sense. The second one, however, does not make sense for multiple reasons. Firstly, the word thing does not mean a physical object in the context of that statement. It is an abstract usage of the word thing. Secondly, while the words think and ponder can often be synonyms, in this particular case, they are not. The speaker is not pondering if athletes are spoiled—he is telling his opinion of them by using the word think. Saying that he ponders that they are all spoiled can imply that he is unsure of whether they are or not. This then defeats the entire purpose of his statement because he is clearly quite sure of his opinion. Here is another example:

Yes: The skateboarder got a broken bone in his fall the other day.

No: The skateboarder contracted a broken bone in his fall the other day.

The word get can mean dozens of different things, and one of them is to suffer an illness or injury. One of the synonyms in such instances is contract. However, you cannot contract a physical injury. You can only contract illnesses. Therefore, you cannot use it in this example.

These are just two examples. It is important to remember that you must know the meaning of the word you wish to use as a substitute. Plus, there are times when you will simply not be able to avoid using dead words. And that is okay. It happens. Many times, using a less common word will clutter your writing and make it clunky, or just cause it to not make any sense. Also, in many instances while you write, you might simply want to throw a different word into your writing just to not sound repetitive. True, readers and teachers do not want to read the same words over and over again, because it sounds unnatural and it is highly monotonous. However, you need to be just as careful in doing this as you would be in making sure all your sentences don’t start with the same word. This book will help you make sense of dead word synonyms and how to best utilize them, or if, depending on your unique situation, you should use them at all.

Remember, it’s all about three things: necessity, meaning, and flow.

What else should you know about this book?

First and foremost, though I would like for it to be the case, this is not the end-all, be-all for finding better words. For virtually every dead word listed in this book, there are synonyms for each that I probably did not list. It is entirely possible that there is a synonym I did not place in here that you will find in a standard thesaurus that fits better in your particular paper. Great! As long as you know the unique definition and usage for those words, go for it. Ultimately, I just want your paper or story to be better, even if it is only in some minute way. Hopefully, if your confidence in your writing is wavering, I can help you in that regard, as well. Increasing your vocabulary is my obvious goal for this book, but if you are reading this, then you probably just have a paper to write and want it to sound better. I am at your service. With that said, start browsing!

A

Anger/Angry – (n.) A feeling of intense displeasure towards someone or something/(v.) to cause someone to have this feeling/(adj.) to be in a state of anger

Anger, in and of itself, is a word that carries a great deal of weight, despite being overused. It is an emotion of intense dislike or even hatred. However, there are varying levels and causes of anger, and its synonyms can help you more clearly express the reason for, and intensity, of the anger. One person’s anger does not equal another’s.

• Acrimony/acrimonious: Acrimony is bitterness towards another person. The adjective form, acrimonious tends to be used to describe a debate that has gotten hostile and unnecessarily angry.

• Annoyance/annoy/annoyed: Being annoyed implies a much lighter level of anger, and can imply that the subject is not necessarily angry, but is just inconvenienced. This is clearly best used for a less serious tone.

• Displeasure/displease/displeasing: Like annoy, this is a less serious level of anger, though it is stronger than mere annoyance. These words should be used when someone has been disappointed or disapproves of the actions of another.

• Exasperation/exasperated: When someone becomes exasperated, they are angered to the point of being exhausted. You have probably seen a person just throw their hands up in the air because they are so angry at something that they just give up. That is exactly what exasperation looks like.

• Fury/infuriate/furious: You should use fury and its for cases of extreme anger. The only word that I feel is stronger than fury is rage, but that is a personal opinion.

• Indignation/indignant: When someone is said to be indignant, they are angry because they are offended at something done or said to them. It can also imply self-righteousness. Therefore, you should only use these words in cases of uppity people

• Ire/irate: Ire is not used all that often anymore, as it is more of a classical or poetic word. It does have its use, though. When you use the noun, ire, in this day and age, it is used almost exclusively in the phrase to draw the ire of… Basically, you can use this when someone makes another person (or, say, an animal) angry unintentionally. For example, a person wandering into a lion’s den will draw the ire of the lions, causing them to maul this person. The adjective form, irate, is much more commonly heard, and denotes that a person is wholly angry.

• Miff/miffed: This is a word I feel is not used nearly enough. To be miffed means to be slightly angered or just annoyed. It is a terrific word to use in comedic writing.

• Offend/offended: When someone becomes offended, they are angry because they have been insulted on a personal level or their feelings have been hurt.

• Rage/enrage/enraged/raging: In my opinion, enraged is as intense a word as it gets for synonyms of anger. Use these words when you are trying to convey absolute, unbridled anger or hatred.

• Vexation/vex/vexed: The word vex should be used mainly when you want to show that someone is confused or baffled by someone or something to the point of becoming angry. For example, someone could become vexed at another person because they do something reckless over and over again, despite the consequences.

• Wrath/wrathful: A much more powerful synonym for ire that likely implies revenge for a serious crime or offense. Because it is one of the classic seven deadly sins, it has religious connotations, as well.