Spunk & Bite Read online

  time lays down its layers like strata of rock, the porous limestone of the present over the granite of the Communists over the ashes-and-diamonds of the Hapsburgs over the basalt of the Premyslids.

  Some conceits work, each trope adding something meaningful; others are maddening. If my earlier boxing conceit maddened anyone, be tolerant—I’m teaching! And be thankful that I stopped the fight after a few rounds, because almost any metaphor can be extended, as they say, to the gates of doom. Why? Because all particulars of the universe share at least some qualities—both a shoe and a geranium can be new, old, bright, owned, loved, deteriorated, forgotten, discarded, and so on. Most astonishing is that all possible comparisons have not been exhausted and never will be—not even the punchy ones. Readers, however, can be exhausted faster than a shoe gets scuffed. In general, heed the type of advice given to comedians: Know when to step off the trope.

  Trope management affects the texture of a piece—how figurative and lyrical it will be. It does the same with fictional narrators and characters, giving them a texture based on the natures and amounts of their figures of speech. Astrid Magnussen, fictional narrator of Janet Fitch’s White Oleander, speaks in extravagant tropes that sometimes fall just short of parody. For example, “we stared out at the city that hummed and glittered like a computer chip deep in some unknowable machine, holding its secret like a poker hand,” and “I was bricks sewn into the hem of her clothes. I was a steel dress.” Extravagant, yes; but such tropes perfectly reveal the texture of Astrid’s mixed-up-yet-resilient soul. On the other hand, in his novel Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee portrays the literary soul of David Lurie with barely a metaphor in sight, the austere texture suggesting Lurie’s desolation and ultimate despair.

  Writers naturally want to compete and be noticed, and most will feel they can equal the punchiest or most hilariously warped tropes in contemporary writing. Indeed, they should go for the big warp in any genre that welcomes it. But one last trope is worth bearing in mind: In the weaver’s art, a controlling hand—a discerning and restraining hand—fits the warp skillfully into the weft.

  Word

  LANGUAGE—AEROBATIC AND INCANDESCENT

  TEN

  HOW TO LOOT A THESAURUS

  Who can resist? Open a good thesaurus such as an authentic Roget’s, and feel the urge to appropriate—to lay hands on, pluck, plunder, and loot its bounty of words. I confess that the aptly named thesaurus (from the Greek for “treasure house”) unleashes my own rapacious urge to snatch the goose that lays the golden synonyms.

  Ah, but snatcher beware. Writers as diverse as Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) and novelist Stephen King warn that words plucked from a thesaurus—especially as intended synonyms—are ill-gotten and bogus. Don’t open the thing in the first place, they advise, since its so-called synonyms are but closely related words that have taken on their own nuances. By blindly plugging in these undefined words, a writer risks being off-target, arcane, pretentious, or downright ludicrous. So they tell us.

  The Oxford-educated Winchester, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, tarred Roget’s for “our current state of linguistic and intellectual mediocrity.” In eighteen pages of what thesaurus lovers would call a rant, he argued that Roget’s seduces the masses with an easy solution to word choice; and yet,

  because the users are ill-versed, and because the book offers no help at all in discovering what anything means, the word chosen with each presto! is often wrong. . . . Each time such a wrong is perpetrated, [language] becomes a . . . measure more decayed, disarranged, and unlovely. And that, I suggest, is why all Rogets should be shunned.

  Winchester allowed that the thesaurus might be used to jog the memory or solve a crossword puzzle; “but one never, never relies on it to help with the making of good writing.”

  So decreed Winchester. And King seconded the motion in On Writing, in effect telling readers to toss the great treasury—with its 330,000 terms organized into 1,075 categories—to the nearest junkyard dog.

  But hold on just a minute.

  ROGET’S MUNIFICENT GIFT

  If I were to throw any thesaurus to the (virtual) dogs, it would be the type that is often bundled with word-processing programs—the low-rent, censored, lazy-person’s list of pedestrian synonyms. Talk about seductive. I pity anyone who might judge the splendor of true thesauruses by these click-and-fix aids for office memo writing. They have nothing to do with the beneficent genius of a retired doctor named Peter Mark Roget.

  Roget (1779–1869) had the sort of restless intellect that allowed him to solve London’s water filtration problem, invent the log scale for slide rules, and organize an immense collection of words into categories, according to the ideas they represent. The first such collection, Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1852), launched a fleet of editions that he and his successors improved upon over the decades. It also prompted a host of (generally inferior) imitators bearing Roget and “thesaurus” labels, many of them simply alphabetized lists of synonyms.

  The longevity of the categorized (classified) Roget’s—which has endured for more than a century and a half—confirms its value to word seekers. In contrast to an A-to-Z dictionary of synonyms, where one seeks a mot juste by slogging door-to-door through rows of words, a genuine Roget’s charts the word on a comprehensive map of ideas. One zooms in from thematic provinces to thematic villages to thematic streets, where the words and phrases live. Using the vast index, one can spring from an approximate idea (say, bright) directly into a neighborhood (light) teeming with such luminous terms as incandescent, effulgent, lambent, and opalescent. Or, via the classified arrangement, users can wander thematic roads toward their destinations, choosing well-marked trails (flash, glow, radiation, reflection) and exploring unknown and thrilling language (rutilant, coruscating) along the way.

  That, I think, is the magic of Roget’s for writers: Traveling from theme to theme, directed by cross-references and other clues, one lives among word families, discovers Shangri-las of exotic terminology, beholds clashes of synonyms and antonyms, and finds adventure even in misused words. Shun this wonderland of expression? A writer would have to be mad, unhinged, moonstruck to do so.

  * * *

  THESAURUSES TO LAY ONE’S HANDS ON

  Here’s a selection of printed thesauruses to be found in bookstores or libraries. (Later editions of these titles may also be available.) At least one quality thesaurus belongs within an arm’s reach of any up-and-coming-writer.

  Some online thesauruses are also listed below.

  Roget’s International Thesaurus. Fifth edition: Robert L. Chapman, editor. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. 1141 pages, indexed. Sixth edition: Barbara Ann Kipfer, editor. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. 1280 pages.

  The HarperCollins versions are heirs to the original Roget’s. For the fifth edition, Chapman overhauled the Victorian categories, building a postmodern framework (1,073 categories) for 325,000 related terms. Included are many special lists, such as “Gods and Goddesses” and “Manias and Phobias.” The sixth edition features further updating, additional lists, and hundreds of quotations.

  Bartlett’s Roget’s Thesaurus. First edition: Roger Donald, editor. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. 1415 pages.

  With some 325,000 references in 848 main categories, Bartlett’s is organized by concept, like Roget’s. Its classification has been overhauled, its contents Americanized. Quotations from Bartlett’s’ vast archive illustrate selected words. The massive index is all-inclusive, covering all the entries, synonyms, lists, and quotes.

  Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form. Second edition: Princeton Language Institute, editor; Barbara Ann Kipfer, head lexicographer. New York: Dell, 1999. 957 pages, paper.

  A good choice as far as relatively portable, A-to-Z thesauruses go. Includes a conceptual index to seventeen thousand main-entry terms and an impressive 450,000 synonyms associated with them.

  Random House Webster’s College Thesaurus. Revised a
nd updated by Fraser Sutherland. Original editors: Jess Stein and Stuart Berg Flexner. New York: Random House, 1997–98. 792 pages, paper.

  With a medium-range number of main entries (twelve thousand), this A-to-Z thesaurus is bountiful in synonyms and antonyms (some four hundred thousand), mindful of new terms, and distinguished by thousands of word-in-context sentences and discussions of usage, even of offbeat words. (If you mean awry, don’t use cattywampus, “a midwestern locution for diagonally opposite.”)

  Webster’s New World Roget’s A–Z Thesaurus. Fourth edition: by Charlton Laird; Michael Agnes, editor. New York: John Wiley, 1999. 894 pages.

  A synonym dictionary with frequent “synonym studies” and brief definitions to aid usage. The classification scheme presented up front is of limited use. Features include cross-references, antonyms, and special lists.

  A few thesauruses have enduring Internet presence, though at this writing none matches the quality of the best print volumes. Web addresses change, but the following and other examples can be located using key words on a search engine such as Google:

  Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (www.wordsmyth.net).

  Definitions, synonyms, and related words on one site featuring some fifty thousand headwords. Neither the latest nor largest in terms of vocabulary, but the site’s clear distinctions, advanced search capabilities, and quick links help users to pin down words. Free registration is required.

  ARTFL Project: Roget’s Thesaurus Search Form

  (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/ARTFL/forms_unrest/ROGET.html).

  One of several sites offering Project Gutenberg’s digital transcription of Roget’s (1911 edition, supplemented in 1991). Searchable by headword or from the full text.

  Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus (www.m-w.com/home.htm).

  Allows quick look-ups of synonyms, related words, and antonyms included in Merriam-Webster’s New Collegiate Thesaurus.

  The Visual Thesaurus: A Dictionary of the English Language

  (www.visualthesaurus.com or thinkmap.com).

  In this otherworldy thesaurus, related words float around chosen terms; when clicked on, they become the center of a shifting matrix—an ingenious presentation echoing and aiding the mental process of word association. A sample trial is available on the Internet; desktop and online versions are offered at modest prices.

  * * *

  TIPS FOR WORD GATHERERS

  Before venturing to the hinterlands of words, writers might want to consider these tips from a weathered Roget’s traveler:

  Understand Roget’s’ possibilities. Use a thesaurus to

  • discover more fitting or more forceful words;

  • find those good words you can’t quite recall;

  • avoid repetition of words;

  • escape clichés and worn modifiers;

  • help describe the so-called indescribable;

  • refine your intended meanings (via related concepts); and

  • simply luxuriate in the plenitude of language.

  But understand Roget’s’ limits. Do not look to the thesaurus to supply newly minted phrases, fresh and surprising uses of a word, or unique imagery; it can’t provide these things by itself. Nor can a traditional Roget’s tell you how felicitous (or ridiculous) a word will be in your context, although some recent thesauruses offer hints. When you loot a treasury, the loot doesn’t tell you how to spend itself. For looters, that’s the creative part.

  Before embracing an unfamiliar word, look up its definition and usage in a good dictionary. Roget’s-bashers can’t imagine that anyone would take this duh of a step. Look-ups can be tedious, but words looked up are words attained, whether or not they turn out to be mots justes.

  Don’t fish in the categories, swim in them. The thesaurus organizes each category by nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. Don’t cast in only one pool for the most creative solution. Dive into several listings, then do the same with the nearby antonyms. Looking for a fresh way of describing wild laughter? Look under lamentation, where such terms as bawl, keen, and roll in the dust are ready to rollick.

  Don’t grab all the words that fit. As a writer seeking blurbs and other publicity, I confess that I’ve been obsequious, unctuous, groveling, fawning, toadying, and truckling at times; but shoot me if I ever use all those synonyms again in a sentence. So many juicy words crop up for a concept, and we want them all. But we have to make a choice based on nuance, texture, rhythm, and sound—keeping in mind our audience’s frame of reference.

  Search your brain as well. Don’t truckle to the genius of Roget. As you consider the thesaurus’s suggestions, keep pumping your own synapses for related words and offbeat associations. One stimulating trick is to flip the thesaurus to a section that has nothing to do with your original category. The terms here may suggest figurative alternatives to a synonym. For example: I want to communicate the brightness of light; I flip (randomly) to the “Violence” section and find such terms as savage, brutal, barbarous, and scorching—one of which might be more forceful and telling than, say, glaring.

  Use new and/or older editions. While new editions may have added handy features and thousands of new terms, many of these terms may also be already-outdated colloquialisms, such as yukky. I like the option of resuscitating quaint terms—even quaint slang words like monstrotonous—from older editions.

  Take chances. Yo, this ain’t Oxford, where word bunglers fear towel whippings and social snubs. Stick your thumb into that thesaurus and pull out a plum. If now and then you end up with a prune, you’ll have learned something—and both you and English will survive.

  Recently the novelist Alan Furst weighed in against Roget’s, saying that rather than succumb to “thesaurusitis,” he chose to repeat an apt modifier (billowing) throughout his entire book. Okay, so you can’t always find an alternative for a good word, even in the mighty seas of the thesaurus. But don’t throw out the boat with the bilge water. For all writers there comes a time when, abandoned by their muses, adrift like the Ancient Mariner, they pray for the wallop of a favorable word—a word to billow their sails and push them along. For thousands of authors, Roget’s has answered that prayer; and if it pushed them in new and unintended directions, so much the better for readers.

  ELEVEN

  WORDS WITH MUSIC AND SPLOOOSH

  BZZZZ . . . RRRIP . . . NYEEEOW. That’s the sound of a writer’s brain at work. When it comes to shaping experience into words, the brain box needs all the rhetorical tools it can hold. One of the oldest such tools—yet as contemporary as steel-cutting lasers—is onomatopoeia, a form of “sound symbolism.” Like all power tools, it must be well honed, fitted to the job, and used with extreme caution.

  So, you there—clicking the keys, gulping your coffee, braying at the muse as your computer burps and hums: Watch carefully as we throw the onomatopoeic switch.

  But—screech!—hold on, we’ve already thrown it, haven’t we? A word such as click or gulp, mimicking the sound of the thing named, is exactly what rhetoricians mean by onomatopoeia, from the Greek term for “word-making.” The word onomatopoeia itself should bring a swoosh of nostalgia to those who learned to jangle its six syllables in college. On-o-mot-o-pee-ya. Textbooks presented it mainly as a poetic effect, invariably warbling these lines from Tennyson’s “The Princess”: “The moan of doves in immemorial elms, / And murmuring of innumerable bees.” Or maybe you got the Robert Browning sample, from “Meeting at Night”: “A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch / And blue spurt of a lighted match.”

  Aesthetically, poets do get the most out of the device, given the oral tradition of poetry and its marriage of sound and meaning. But those who command both the whomp of onomatopoeia and ka-ching of royalties tend to be prose stylists—Tom Wolfe the most ear-splitting of all:

  The fan overhead went scrack scrack scraaaacccckkkkk. Grover Washington’s saxophone went buhooomu-hoooooooom. . . . Thragooooom! Gluglugluglug went the toilets. . . . And then the tuckatuckatucka- tuckatuckat
ucka [of spoons beating ice cream cups] began. (—A Man in Full )

  Other writers cashing in on “echoic” words, as they are also called, include graphic novelists such as Mike Allred (Madman Comics), who sprongs noisy, uppercase words across his panels in the best tradition of comic book creators. His bams and blams are standard fare, but most of his onomatopoeia is a blast or two ahead of the lexicon: “SPTANNG! THOOM! FTASK! NYAASH!BTHUP! FTASK, FZASK, THROCK! SPLOOSHH!” (G-Men from Hell ) Not that graphic novelists invented loopy onomatopoeia. James Thurber was there some time ago: “Tires booped and whooshed, the fenders queeled and graked,” he wrote in one of his sketches.

  Just as words like gargle, gobble, and squawk appear in everyday speech, onomatopoeia finds its way into almost any extended piece of writing. Such casual use helps animate a passage without calling attention to itself. For example, in Nadine Gordimer’s “Safety Procedures,” a New Yorker short story about a horrendous plane ride, teeth “chatter,” the pilot “gabbles,” sick people “gurgle,” and a heart “thuds.” Here the onomatopoeia emerges naturally; but when writers deliberately nail a precise sound, one feels the difference—as with Wolfe’s chundering ventilation system or Don DeLillo’s wallop of the wind on sheets hung to dry. How those images resonate!