RDF/RSS Feed
Atom Feed
No sooner was I into a new POV in Book Three than the whole words thing came down on me.
A character “intoned” something. Now we all now that “said” and “asked” are the safest ways to denote speech: they’re just about invisible and don’t stick out in unwanted ways. But every once in a while the way of saying or asking matters, and in a situation where a physical gesture won’t do. In this case, a gnome is quoting The Law. It’s like a preacher quoting the Ten Commandments…he’s almost chanting it. Intoning it, in fact.
But does it stick out too much? Hmmm. For some readers, it will pass and add resonance to the passage. For others, it will be an excuse to wave their mental arms at an imagined teacher and complain that the rules say you should only use “said” and “asked.” Hmmm. For now, it’s still in. For later, I don’t know.
And a little later, I was caught in another word-related tangle. “Dangerous” and “perilous,” to be precise. They’re synonymous in most usages, but they don’t feel the same. The book title Dangerous Visions suggests one kind of story filter…Perilous Visions would suggest another. Sometimes etymology can help a decision (“danger” coming from ME daunger: power, domination, arrogance, back to L. dominus, master, but possibly also influenced by the late Latin damnum, injury and loss….and “peril” from Latin periculum, a danger [big help there] via OFr and ME. But, aha!, danger as taken from another Latin word, experiri, to try or attempt…thus exposure to harm or risk…jeopardy.) But sometimes etymology simply takes up hours of time and doesn’t offer a solution to the modern problem–writing for the modern reader’s understanding of the words–including the reader’s feel for the words’ emotional resonance.
Back in my problem paragraph…am I dealing with danger in the sense of risk, or danger in the sense of meeting someone of power and mastery? Hmmm.
Owen Barfield, in one of the essays in a book honoring Charles Williams, commented on the essential lie at the root of words…words become substitutes for things, and thus can be made to falsify the reality of those things. (For instance, corporations are granted legal personhood in some ways, with the result that corporations very deftly remove legal responsibility from some actual human beings and place it on a legal fiction–the corporation as person.)
Take any noun: sock, let’s say. We can point to a sock and say “That’s a sock. Sock means that article of clothing.” But the word “sock,” once in a human brain, can morph into something other than the sock we pointed to. Can place limitations (“That’s not a real sock–that’s a costume piece”) and extensions (“Of course it’s a sock–it goes on your foot, doesn’t it?) What’s the difference between a sock and a stocking? Do you think kids’ pajamas with “feet” are “sock-feet” or “stocking feet?” What about hose?
When we utter a noun and believe it’s really the thing it names…we err. “Sock” is not the object that I have on my left foot at the moment. It’s a code.
Obviously, a writer can become too interested in all this (here I am writing a blog post and not the story) and yet words are our material–our clay, our stone, our paint and plaster, our bronze and gold and silver. We have only words to paint those pictures in your minds–to make our characters as solid as human flesh, and their behavior as real as your neighbor’s.
It is a perilous road we take, for words are dangerous.
Comment by green_knight — November 10, 2009 @ 1:52 pm
I think once you’re in the middle of the scale of speech tags, it’s _entirely_ a question of taste. On the one end, ‘he ejaculated’ will draw scorn, and other complex and melodramatic tags aren’t any better, but that’s partly because often they’re $5 words standing out from their more pedestrian surroundings, drawing extra attention to themselves.
On the other end, ‘he said she said he said she said’ becomes repetitive, and once you’ve noticed it, extremely annoying. ‘Intoned’ sounds just about right for the occasion you describe.
‘danger or peril’ is a similar type of question. Danger is an everyday word, almost invisible. Lots of things are dangerous) – crossing the street, speaking without thinking. When you use any of it’s synonyms, most of which have specific connotations of their own, you draw more attention to both the word and the danger. Sometimes you want that. Sometimes you don’t. Peril – whatever its lexicographic meaning – will always arrive along with ‘mortal peril’ and ‘Seat Perilious’ in my mind, just as ‘hazard’ comes with ‘natural, biological, chemical, health-’.
Comment by Gerd — November 10, 2009 @ 2:01 pm
“intone” will stand out. If you want that – keep it. If you don’t want it that strong, let the gnome tell it in a y way – with y being something like preaching, formal, reciting,…
Careful selection of your phrasing is one of my criteria if I want to read a book twice or not: if the book is any good, the story got me so hooked up and excited when reading it the first time that I miss such fine differentiation of words. That is part of the pleasure for reading it the second time.
Comment by Dave Ring — November 10, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Given a willingness to deceive, words enable lies. On the other hand, the varying connotations of words for each author and reader provide immense opportunities for grace. In All Hallow’s Eve, Charles Williams wrote, “In this air every word meant something, meant itself; and this curious new exactitude of speech hung there like a strange language”.
A good author uses rare words as a good cook uses rare spices, sparingly but decisively. And sometimes there is magic beyond what author or cook intends.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — November 10, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
Your reference to Barfield on words and your foray into etymology reminded me of something in C. S. Lewis’s introduction to his Studies in Words. He remarks that the “philologist’s dream” of a “perfect semantic tree,” all the branches of meaning perfectly accounted for, is perhaps never achieved. And he adds, “all studies end in doubts.” Nevertheless, he thinks (if I’m reading him right) that such studies are important because they help us to understand the background of meaning, its historical depth and volume, so to speak, and thus to be better word-users ourselves.
Lewis said elsewhere that the past has a determinate nature and to that extent resembles eternity. That being so (if, again, I read him right), the history of words has a kind of real presence in every utterance, spoken on the cutting edge of time, which ought to be honored–indeed celebrated–through serious investigation. (I don’t think he would object to the theological move implied by my use the phrase “real presence”).
So we incarnate meaning with each use of a word, whether or not we are aware the history behind it, and because this occurs in time, the zone of mutablity, the meaning changes a little every time the word is used. This is the most ordinary thing in the world for us language users, and yet it constitutes both a noble and a scary responsibility. Our speech, our use of words, is real creation of determinate reality–or, as Lewis would say, it *participates* in real creation.
A bit abstruse and high-flown, perhaps, but to a poet and theologian this kind of thing really matters. As it does, in one way or another, to all wordsmiths.
Comment by elizabeth — November 10, 2009 @ 10:27 pm
Green_knight: I feel as you do about danger and peril–danger is, in a way, mundane, and peril (unless it’s tongue in cheek, Perils of Pauline sort of thing) has that Siege Perilous aura…almost (and sometimes definitely) a spiritual component.
Gerd: I agree–Story alone can drag me through once, but it takes some quality to the writing for re-reading.
Dave: I remember that passage, though I hadn’t thought of it when writing this. I haven’t re-read Williams for years now, though I have re-read Barfield. Hmmm. Need to re-find the Williams (things have migrated off one particular shelf.)
Kip: Certainly the entire history of the word–every word–matters to those of us who write. Or those who write mindfully, I should say. When I was writing the first Paks books, I spent hours with every dictionary in the house, including Greek, Latin, and Latvian lexicons. And yet, for some readers, nothing works. I’ve seen discussions of the books in which readers thought the language was barely adequate (along with a host of other faults.) I myself cannot appreciate all other writers, even some of those considered excellent.
Comment by Elizabeth D. — November 15, 2009 @ 6:26 pm
O.K… here I must insert my 2 cents.
“Nominalism” has a history, starting with Ovid, and it has caused such things as representationalism, and other such ideas which claim that every word is, in fact, a lie.
But literature tells the truth about humanity, not lies. Somewhere, especially in a Medieval-feeling story, there must be a truth in the words, or the reader will not have a “suspension of disbelief.”
At one time, everything had a meter, rhyme scheme, and also an order of unfolding a story. These rules of “rhetoric” are not often taught. First, the poet must salute the hero’s family, or the gods. The rhythm chosen also must match the occasion and style of the speaker. (I personally have a lot of trouble matching style.)
So, who is talking? A gnome. Without being funny or stilted (which they often are), the gnome would present himself in the most formal possible way. Does he chant, intone, sing, or something else? Intone might do for a religious invocation, or maybe that is the word that is more neutral. Sing might do for poetry. Chant might work, or he might monotonously repeat the words. Certainly he doesn’t just “say” them.