Sending readers to a dictionary

I think there might be a disconnect here though.

I'm not talking about using '$10 dollar words'. I also find it annoying when a writer gets unnecessarily verbose. Especially as I like my writing fairly sparse.

But if an uncommon word is the right word, if using that word means missing out loads of description that uses little words, then use the big word. If the reader doesn't know what it means, they have plenty of opportunities to find out. Especially with Kindle and internet and what not.

Because if writers stop using uncommon words out of fear that readers won't read their work then this:

and your vocabulary naturally expands as a result.

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doesn't happen.

Ok. If you're not talking about the so-called $10 words, then why would you assume that the reader doesn't know what you mean? Rightly or wrongly I tend to assume that my readers have a vocabulary like mine, and if I do use an uncommon word (assuming it's the best choice) I assume that they will either already know it or discern it from context. I don't think I've ever not used a word because I thought someone might not understand it (with the exception of my mg ms due to obvious concerns of age group), but I've certainly changed words because it didn't sound right. For me it's all about flow. I don't want to be pulled out of the story. It's the same reason I don't enjoy books where the characters have unpronounceable names, it pulls me out.

then why would you assume that the reader doesn't know what you mean?

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I wouldn't. I only contributed to this thread because of something posted by a couple of other people in that they won't read a book if they have to use a dictionary whilst reading it. Which struck me as slightly odd. So I wondered how they developed their vocabularies if they won't learn words they don't already know.

I don't think anyone was saying "I can't be bothered to go to the dictionary." At least that's not what I was saying. However, I have a reasonably expansive vocabulary, I've been reading voraciously for forty years, literally looking up every word I did not know (which I still do to this day). Basically, if a writer is firing a dozen words at me that require the use of a dictionary, all twelve are showing up on my radar for the first time -- despite having read thousands of books. At that point, the odds of the writer merely looking for the "best" word, as opposed to the word that is most intended to impress me with her vocabulary are slim.

I haven't seen anyone disagree with this sentiment:

mirandashell said:

But if an uncommon word is the right word, if using that word means missing out loads of description that uses little words, then use the big word.

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It has nothing to do with whether it's the best word. And if I found myself learning my tenth new word in a book and realizing all ten were, in fact, the best word, I would be in awe. I certainly wouldn't put the book down. But I would wonder why no other author I had ever read bothered to use such a perfect word before.

I agree with you, Mooky. It is all about the right word. As Mr Flibble said on the first page.

My only point was the vehemence shown in a couple of posts about not wanting to see new words struck me as a bit odd so I wanted to know why they felt that way

And IMO, the only writers who should restrict their vocab are the ones who are writing for a certain age. And even then, it's something that should be carefully weighed. Reading above my age is why I knew what defenestration was when I was 10 years old.


But yeah, there are times when a writer is just showing off. But that's normally fairly easy to work out, I think.

mirandashell said:

So I wondered how they developed their vocabularies if they won't learn words they don't already know.

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By seeing a word in action, in context. If I can figure out what it means by evaluating the sentence (consciously or not) then I learned a new word AND how it's used.

Kind like being shown what it means as opposed to being told.

Thing is, I don't always have a dictionary to hand, you know? If I'm on the bus or something. And while reading I kinda want to know what the writer means as I'm reading, not five hours later when I get home. So sure, bung in new (to me) words, I love learning them. Just make it clear from the context what it means or I'll get frustrated.

I read a book not too long ago which was very bad at this -- loads of new-to-me words and little or no context as to what they (or the author) actually meant. Leaving the whole book vague and me scratching my head (and ultimately putting the book down once it got to three times a page).

It costs very little to make sure context is there. And being so opaque a reader can''t see what you mean, seems to have very little value.

True. I think that is the best way to do it. It's how I normally work out what a new word means.

Also you can sneakily teach people new words without them being aware of it

I lurve obscure words. I admire authors with bigger vocabularies than my own and love reading things that teach me more about the language or play with it artfully.

Two of my betas have been fluent ESL-speakers, and some of my obscure vocabulary threw them (like canape, which means "sofa" in French but "hors d'eouvres" in English, confused a French-speaking reader. It sounded like the characters were eating a sofa!) Sometimes obscure words are useful because I'm writing historical stuff, but I try to make the words obvious from the context so the book can be accessible to lots of people, not just me.

Funny, I just wrote a blog post about 'fancy ten-dollar college words' in response to a couple of articles about unfamiliar words being viewed as somehow 'elitist' by readers.
Especially one author's (paraphrased) comment that the only people insulted by not knowing a word are folks already aware of and ashamed by their ignorance.

I'm in the middle. I love words and I learned how to suss out context before I was ten. I don't mind using a dictionary in the few cases where I still can't grasp a word. It doesn't derail my reading at all. At the same time, I can recognize when a (usually lower-skilled) author is throwing around big words for all the wrong reasons.

Unless I was writing for Middle Grade readers, I'd never censor that part of my writing. Not even for YA readers. I'm saddened when some presumably adult readers can't keep up with what I viewed as ordinary writing. But I'm not their teacher or their remedial tutor.

That said, someday I want to write an erotic romance using little more than the language in the old 'See Spot Run' reading primers, just to be evil.

That said, someday I want to write an erotic romance using little more than the language in the old 'See Spot Run' reading primers, just to be evil.

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Now I would like to read that! LOL!

Umm, we all know who spot's owner was, right? And I'm not talking about Jane.

Jamesaritchie said:

I'm the opposite. I use a dictionary for any word I don't know. If a writer uses it, I figure he has a reason, and I want the definition. If context gives it to me, fine, but if not, I still need the meaning.

I've been this way my whole life. I still remember the first word I looked up in the dictionary when I was a wee, pre-school lad. It was "cranium". I was reading a book about English Rangers in WWII, and one of them was shot through the cranium. I didn't know what a cranium was, but it sounded painful, so I looked it up.

I've never been without a dictionary since.

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I used to read the dictionary, that's how I learned new words. I get distracted easy. If I put down a book to look up a word, I may not come back until it's the next day's reading time. So I don't. That said, I have no problem with unknown words. I simply just don't go out of the way to look up their meaning to confirm it matches what I inferred.

Filigree said:

That said, someday I want to write an erotic romance using little more than the language in the old 'See Spot Run' reading primers, just to be evil.

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Try the Dolch Basic Sight Words and Dolch Basic Phrase list.

I kid you not, these lists and flash cards were how I learned to read.

Jamesaritchie said:

I'm the opposite. I use a dictionary for any word I don't know. If a writer uses it, I figure he has a reason, and I want the definition. If context gives it to me, fine, but if not, I still need the meaning.

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Same here. My problem is that the dictionary is so entertaining that it takes me an hour just to get around to the word I intended to look up. Worse than TVtropes, it is!

Even if the context makes a new word's meaning completely clear to me, I'll still look it up. Probably just an old habit that will never die, but I like to know about the word -- other meanings or usage, if I dissected the root and guessed it's origin correctly. All of it.

MookyMcD said:

Even if the context makes a new word's meaning completely clear to me, I'll still look it up. Probably just an old habit that will never die, but I like to know about the word -- other meanings or usage, if I dissected the root and guessed it's origin correctly. All of it.

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Me too. And sometimes the dictionary's definition really isn't what I figured the word meant from the context at all. If I'd done without the definition I wouldn't have grasped the full meaning of a scene or possibly even have misunderstood it.

Medievalist said:

All I care about is that a writer uses the best word.

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This.

It never occurs to me that I might be sending the reader to the dictionary. I use what I consider the best word for a given situation.

It is not my job to educate people who care to read what I write. It is my job to inform and entertain them, if possible. Their knowledge of the English language is not my responsibility. It is theirs, and--unless I were writing for children--I see no reason to limit my vocabulary. I do not wish to insult my readers by writing down to them.

Hemingway was said to have responded, 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.'

-I love that quote! Never heard it before.

I tend to hate books with heaps of long and convoluted words but, having said that, I love to find a little 'gem' of a word that I have to go and look up.

kenpochick said:

Ok. If you're not talking about the so-called $10 words, then why would you assume that the reader doesn't know what you mean?

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Because most people don't have very good vocabularies. Also, if you write within a particular genre, someone who's seasoned within the genre might know words that someone who's a newcomer wouldn't. Words like pell, hob, salle,postern gate, epaulets, necromancer etc. are words many readers of epic fantasy (or historic fiction) are used to encountering, but people who usually read contemporary stuff might not.

This is where context is important. But some readers are better at figuring things out from context than others. I had a scene where a character was whacking away at a training pell with a sword, and one of my readers still couldn't figure out that a pell is one of those padded thingies for sword practice

I was accused of being 'elitist' in a writing workshop because I'd used 'pukka' and 'cause célèbre'. (Not in the same sentence!) I wasn't sure how to deal with that.

Nymtoc said:

It never occurs to me that I might be sending the reader to the dictionary. I use what I consider the best word for a given situation.

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My thought precisely.

I know that my working vocabulary is probably somewhat larger than average, and it's been a long time since I encountered a word outside of a technical context that I actually needed a dictionary to understand. And I consider every word I know suitable for use in fiction if it's the right word to use in that particular spot. Considerations may include whether it carries exactly the right shade of meaning, whether it fits the rhythm and tone of the passage, or whether it's appropriate to the POV. Whether the reader may need a dictionary? Never even crosses my mind. IMO it's not a relevant point.

There's also that matter of how essential is one's understanding of a word to their understanding of the sentence (and scene in which the sentence takes place). Running across an unfamiliar word that's absolutely essential to comprehension or meaning, a word on which an entire scene hinges, will be very different than an incidental word.

First time I ran across the word "hob," it was in a scene where someone was cooking in a fireplace and they put the kettle on the hob. I assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that a hob is a sort of shelf of stand they had in fireplaces for cooking. But if I'd been wrong (say the hob was really the word for a hook, or for a fancy kind of fireplace grill), then it really wasn't going to be a big deal, since it was just something the character was doing while talking about what was really important in the scene.

Actually, come to think about it, the first time I ran across the word "grate" in reference to a fireplace was in a fantasy novel too. I later discovered that this is simply the word for the metal thingie that holds the logs or coals and allows air to get up underneath for more efficient burning (and it was invented in the renaissance). See, reading fantasy and historic fiction has taught me more about fireplaces than I probably ever needed to know.

But if someone dropped the name of some very important device, philosophy, military maneuver, or implement, one where the scene would have been impossible to understand, then it might be different. That's where you might actually have to cleverly sneak something into the narrative that actually defines the word for readers.

It's a bit harder when it's a word you don't think of as big or inappropriate for the context, but some readers do. Say I mention that someone's being pedantic, or that they've arranged their features in a parody of grief, and a reader doesn't know what pedantic is, or they don't know what the word parody means (and they don't want to know and it ticks them off that your book taught them these words)?

Don't know what to do about that.