Rare Words Well Done
Uncommon words can make writing clearer, more engaging, and more precise.
Writing well means making good choices, including choosing the right words to convey your message. It’s usually best to choose short words that most people know because they make writing easy to read and understand.
Sometimes, however, an uncommon word works better. Take, for example, this passage from my last Harding Project article:
Internet hucksters promise “one weird trick” to melt belly fat, boost credit scores, or cure insomnia. Unfortunately, real life rarely offers shortcuts to success. Writing is no different. No trick—weird or otherwise—can turn a weak writer into Toni Morrison or Ernest Hemingway.
I spent at least half an hour searching for the perfect word before finding “huckster.” Charlatan, fraudster, shyster, and scam artist felt too criminal, while salesperson, vendor, merchant, and peddler felt too legitimate. But “huckster” struck exactly the right tone.
Uncommon words can also solve problems, as in my article on writing guides at From the Green Notebook:
Other worthwhile picks include Stephen King’s On Writing, Helen Sword’s The Writer’s Diet, Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools, Diedre McCloskey’s Economical Writing, and Benjamin Dreyer’s eponymous Dreyer’s English.
The obscure “eponymous” saves me from this awkward repetition:
…and Benjamin Dreyer’s Dreyer’s English.
I could have bypassed this problem by using prepositions instead of possessives but adding “by” four times clutters the sentence:
…On Writing by Stephen King, The Writer’s Diet by Helen Sword…and Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer.
I also considered adding a preposition only to Dreyer’s English, but that would disrupt the list’s parallel structure:
…Stephen King’s On Writing, Helen Sword’s The Writer’s Diet… and Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer.
Ultimately, I settled on “eponymous.” Some readers may not know what it means, but they’ll still understand the passage.
Beyond solving problems, uncommon words create opportunities for literary devices that make writing more engaging. Here’s an example from my zombie noun article at Modern War Institute:
The undead lurk among us—zombie nouns. These word cannibals have invaded Army writing, where they consume lively prose, leaving it dense and dead. When we, the living, find ourselves slogging through esoteric emails or impenetrable information papers, zombie nouns are close by.
“Esoteric” anchors the second of three alliterations, reinforcing the passage’s campy tone. Moreover, “esoteric” and “impenetrable” add a touch of autological wordplay; they describe “dense and dead” writing but are themselves dense words we might find in dead writing. And, like the previous example, context suggests meaning. Readers may not know what an esoteric email is, but they can infer it would be unpleasant to read.
Here’s another example of a literary device from Diedre McCloskey’s Economical Writing:
Your boss probably won’t tell you outright that she thinks you’re an idiot on account of the shocking illiteracy of the last report you turned in. But you’ll get the point soon enough, with a pink slip or lack of promotion.
McCloskey brilliantly juxtaposes the slightly highbrow “illiteracy” (which shares the root word lit with literature) against the decidedly lowbrow “idiot.” (Thank you to my wife Wendy for suggesting this example).
The main argument against complex or uncommon words is that they slow readers down. It’s a sound argument. But as we have seen, writers can use the surrounding text to help readers along.
Here are some examples from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. In the first one, Zinsser introduces the word “turgid” and then gives us its meaning:
Perhaps that’s why bureaucratic prose becomes so turgid, whatever the bureaucracy. Once an administrator rises to a certain level, nobody ever points out to him again the beauty of a simple declarative sentence, or shows him how his writing has become swollen with pompous generalizations.
In the next example, Zinsser reverses the order, providing a list of adulterants before using the word itself.
Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
As all these examples show, uncommon words have a place in effective writing. But good judgment is the key. Here are a few guidelines:
Use uncommon words to make the writing clearer and more engaging. Don’t use them to show off or impress—it doesn’t work.
Use uncommon words sparingly; don’t pile them on the reader sentence after sentence.
Keep the surrounding text simple and use it to suggest the uncommon word’s meaning.
A well-placed “esoteric” or “eponymous” can make writing clearer, more engaging, and more precise. But a fine line divides clever and clutter. Stay on the right side of it.