Wonderful Words

Weird and whimsical, wondrous and wise. Words of all kinds are celebrated here. I invite you to dive, delve, delight and devour. Enjoy!

Exhausting or exhaustive?

Image of the word "exhaust" with alternate endings of "-ing" or "-ive" It is an easy mistake to make, especially when you’re tired. Nevertheless, there is a difference in meaning between the words “exhausting” and “exhaustive”, and astute writers know which one to choose.

The word “exhausting” may be used either as a verb (as in exhausting all possibilities) or as an adjective (an exhausting day). In either case, its meaning is to use or consume, to drain of strength or resources, or to draw out all that is essential or interesting. Often, it denotes tiredness or fatigue.

While it is true that the word “exhaustive” may also refer to the draining of strength, energy or resources, its more typical meaning is thorough, complete or comprehensive. An exhaustive examination of something, for instance, would be extensive and meticulous, leaving nothing out.

Thus, “exhausting” typically means tiring, while “exhaustive” usually means entire.

There are occasions when both words can be applicable. An exhausting search, for instance, may well be an exhaustive one. Likewise, an exhaustive line of questioning could also be exhausting – for interrogator and interrogated alike.

Clever writers might like to play around with these simultaneous meanings. For the sake of simplicity, however, I suggest that it is best to select the one word of these two that most accurately reflects your intended meaning. Is it more important, for instance, to imply a certain tiredness or to evoke a level of diligence?

As always, it is wise to keep your reader in mind. Rather than impressing your audience with your stylistic decision to use one of these words in place of the other, you could risk causing confusion. Worse still, you might end up looking like you don’t know the difference between them. If conveying both meanings matters to you, try finding a way to do it more precisely.

This brief explanation of these similar but distinct terms is itself not exhaustive. Yet hopefully it is not exhausting either. It is merely intended to assist you in choosing the best word for your purpose and to help you become a more artful writer.

Now it’s your turn…

Is the difference between “exhausting” and “exhaustive” clear to you? Which other words that seem or sound alike do you often get confused?

Those monsters who live in the air

You know that delicious shiver which good writing can deliver? This passage from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall does it for me. It describes the scene of the procession through London for Anne Boleyn’s coronation.

The route is hung with tapestries and banners, and at his orders the ground beneath the horses’ hooves is graveled to prevent slipping, and the crowds restrained behind rails in case of riots and crush; every law officer London can muster is among the crowd, because he is determined that in time to come, when this is remembered and told to those who were not here, no one is going to say, oh, Queen Anne’s coronation, that was the day I got my pocket picked. Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall, Cheap, Paul’s Churchyard, Fleet, Temple Bar, Westminster Hall. So many fountains flowing with wine that it’s hard to find the one flowing with water. And looking down on them, the other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city’s uncounted population of stone men and women and beasts, fanged rabbits and flying hares, four-legged birds and pinioned snakes, imps with bulging eyes and ducks’ bills, men who are wreathed in leaves or have the heads of goats or rams; creatures with knotted coils and leathery wings, with hairy ears and cloven feet, horned and roaring, feathered and scaled, some laughing, some singing, some pulling back their lips to show their teeth; lions and friars, donkeys and geese, devils with children crammed into their maws, all chewed up except for their helpless paddling feet; limestone or leaden, metalled or marbled, shrieking and sniggering above the populace, hooting and gurning and dry-heaving from buttresses, walls and roofs.

from Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
(Fourth Estate, London, 2010, pp.463-64)

There’s so much to enjoy here. Mantel piles detail upon detail, creating a cavalcade of creatures while dishing up some dextrous linguistic tricks to delight her reader. The use of assonance in this excerpt is especially pleasing. This is the rhyming of the accented vowel sound in words, as demonstrated in “horned and roaring”, “lions and friars” and those disturbing “fanged rabbits”.

Alliteration is at play as well, with “metalled and marbled, shrieking and sniggering”, and who does not revel in the unexpected occurrence of the word “gurning”? There’s not even a listing for this in my New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, nor in either edition of the Macquarie I own. Online sources assure me, however, that it refers to the pulling of grotesque faces, which is fitting for the image Mantel’s language evokes.

Indeed, Wolf Hall is rich with many such magnificent images and descriptions. I love it when writing like this causes me to catch my breath, to stop and read again, slowly and appreciatively, certain sentences, scenes or phrases. It’s one of the reasons my job is such fun.

There is always the chance that I’ll discover something wondrous like this.

Now it’s your turn…

What is your impression of this description by Hilary Mantel? What do you find most striking or enticing? What other exceptional texts have you been reading lately?

Choosing a word of the year the Macquarie Dictionary way

While devising new words and wrangling existing definitions into curious contortions can be considered all manner of fun, it is only cautiously that such linguistic innovations make their way into official dictionaries. Yet the value of these terms lies in their ability to reflect the practices and preoccupations of the societies that generate them.

This, at least, is the claim made by the people who bring you the Macquarie Dictionary. Since 2006, they have assembled an annual panel of experts to select the one word from the dictionary’s online update that most potently expresses the tone or focus of the preceding year. Past winners have included ‘infovore’ (2013), ‘burqini’ (2011), ‘googleganger’ (2010), ‘shovel-ready’ (2009) and ‘muffin top’ (2006). Of course.

Shortlisted words are sorted into categories including arts, communications, social interest, technology, politics, business, health and (everyone’s favourite) colloquial. The word of the year is determined by an esteemed assortment of academics, librarians, editors and authors. However, we more ordinary folk can also join in the fun by nominating our selection in the People’s Choice.

It’s dictionary meets democracy.
(Would that be ‘dictiocracy’? ‘Democtionary’?)

Voters are invited to select the word in each category that they think has made the most valuable or striking contribution to Australian English in the previous year. It’s a serious business – or at least it might be.

In truth, it’s hard not to just plump for the most absurd or appealing word on each list, and believe me, there are quite a few.

Words like ‘wikiwash’ (meaning to edit Wikipedia for the purposes of self-promotion) and ‘emoji’ (denoting ideographs used in electronic messages, from the Japanese e for picture and moji for character), from the communications category, indicate the direction of our online interaction. The slightly snarky ‘generation XL’ (referring to any generation characterised by high levels of obesity) in the social interest category also reflects a certain broadening trend.

One for writers and editors to watch out for is ‘atomic typo’, listed in the arts category. This is the result of those slips of fingers on keyboard that produce a real – though incorrect – word a spellchecker will blithely ignore. (Another reason why human proofreaders are so valuable.) The phrase derives from the idea that the mistake is usually very small, often with only one letter absent or transposed. Even so, I would argue that the potential impact of such errors echoes in the more sobering associations of the word ‘atomic’.

Meanwhile, the practice of concocting awkward nouns from other word forms lurches ever onward, as the phrase ‘to fly by the seat of one’s pants’ is transmogrified into the uneasy ‘pantser’. This term, also located in the arts category, describes a fiction writer who improvises without a definite outline, in contrast to a ‘plotter’ who writes to an established structure.

Other shortlisted words show a more sombre side of the past year. These include:

‘precariat’ in the politics category, which blends ‘precarious’ and ‘proletariat’ to describe a social class comprised of people who lack security in their work, income and material wellbeing
‘defund’ (also in politics) to indicate the cancellation of government funds to organisations, programs or enterprises
‘ambulance ramping’ (health) which occurs when a lack of hospital resources prevents patients from being transferred from an ambulance, with the result that the ambulance is unable to attend others in need
‘bamboo ceiling’ (business), describing a kind of prejudice which impedes the progress of Asian Australians to leadership positions in business and government. (It wouldn’t be an Australian list without a hint of racism now, would it?)

And in just case you dreamed that misogyny and homophobia miraculously disappeared from our lexicon last year, you’ll be discouraged to discover such terms as: ‘mansplain’ (colloquial), which occurs when a man delivers a patronising explanation to a woman with the assumption that she will be ignorant of the matter at hand; ‘dude bro’ (colloquial), referring to a man who demonstrates overt masculinity through dress, behaviour, and sexist and homophobic attitudes; and the contemptible ‘girlie man’ (politics) to denote an effeminate male. We can apparently thank Arnold Schwarzenegger for that one. Or not.

Although certainly diverting, filtering through these lists and picking your word of choice from each could deliver you a dose of ‘decision-fatigue’ (general interest). If affected, don’t get all ‘flappity’ (colloquial). Just take yourself down to your local ‘cat cafe’ (general interest) and seek solace in a nibble from a ‘share plate’ (eating and drinking) or a bracing cup of ‘cold-brewed coffee’ (eating and drinking).

I’m sure you’ll feel much better after that.

Voting for the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year closes on 30 January, with the winning words announced on 4 February. To enact your dictiocratic right, head over to the Macquarie Dictionary website and let them know what you really think.

Now it’s your turn…

What nifty neologism, pointed phrase or twisted definition captured your attention this year? Which words from the Macquarie Dictionary’s 2014 lists most tickle your linguistic fancy?

A Christmas poem

In my last post, I mentioned a collection of poems by e.e. cummings among the books I stole from my parents. In it I found this treasure which I’m happy to share with you today.

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid

look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
“Noel Noel”

Here’s to taking out our spangles and allowing them to shine! And here’s to a Christmas filled with poetry and joy.

Murder, unkindness and storytelling

It began with ravens. A flurry of birds, persons and other wondrous beasties hurried thereafter. But it did begin with ravens. I read an interesting article about these sleek creatures and it led me to wonder. I was familiar with the expression “a murder of crows”, but what was the collective noun for ravens?

Turns out, it is also a murder of ravens, as well as an “unkindness” which equally applies to crows. But it was a third collective noun for ravens that really caught my attention. This was a “storytelling”. And at that point, my mind lifted its wings, flapped them a few times and went soaring off into the skies.

A storytelling of ravens. Isn’t that fabulous?

It’s almost a small story in itself. In just four words, a surprising world is glimpsed. You can picture the birds, gathered blackly on the grass, cawing their ravenish tales. What stories do you imagine they’d tell?

Off now on a jaunt, I started seeking out other collective nouns that offered equally intriguing impressions. And believe me, there are many!

Bears come in sleuths or sloths – perhaps depending on the season and how sleepy they’re feeling. It’s a passel of possums and a kettle of hawks, a pod of pelicans and a knot of frogs. An aurora of polar bears is nice, not least because it’s fun to say. I quite like a charm of hummingbirds, but it worries me that it’s also a “troubling” of them. Surely a “tremoring” or a “shimmering” would be more apt?

Even hermits get their own collective noun, as paradoxical as that sounds. Should you ever happen upon a gathering of them, please note that it’s an observance of hermits.

Some among these nifty nouns are considered to be official, in that they were written down centuries ago. Many of them show a distinct linguistic delight in their contrivance, just as those devised today do. It really is a fascination of boars, though I’m not so sure about a platter of platypuses. As for a committee of vultures… Well, I’m sure we can all understand that one.

Entertaining as these explorations are in themselves, the realm of collective nouns in fact contains some valuable insights for aspiring writers.

First, there’s the pleasure of encountering such rarely heard words as “gam” (of whales), “skirl” (of pipers) and “clew” (of worms). Sure, you may not find a use for these neglected treasures in everyday conversation, but isn’t your vocabulary improved by their inclusion?

Next, there’s the rhetorical contrivance of collective nouns, many of which play around with alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia. Not for nothing is it an armoury of aardvarks, a litter of kittens and a crash of rhinoceroses. The play of sounds in collective nouns is part of what makes them engaging and memorable. The same can be true of your writing too.

Then there’s the condensed richness of the image. The juxtaposition of the collective noun with the object it describes can be poetic, provocative, or purely incongruous. (Why, I can’t help wondering, is it a “troop” of mushrooms? And how on earth can it be a “walk” of snails?) In any case, an effective collective noun is an evocative gem.

Tighter than a haiku, it compels precision. It’s an exercise in finding that one right word which most potently and appropriately expresses some essential quality of the collection in question. And isn’t divining such perfectly pertinent words what the best writers successfully do?

This leads us to the greatest gift that collective nouns bestow, which is the ingenious joy in inventing your own. This particular party trick invites you to employ all your wit and skill with language to find that artfully astute term which captures an essence and conveys a whole story.

Messing around with collective nouns may seem like nothing more than an agreeable indulgence. But actually, it shows language at use in a deliberate and considered way. As such, it can be quite instructive, as well as being both amusing and diverting.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering. The collective noun for writers? That would be a “worship”. Of course.

Now it’s your turn…

What’s your favourite collective noun? It can be official, idiosyncratic or entirely imaginary. Or, what throng of things do you believe is in need of an inventive collective noun? Share your cleverness below.

Photo credit: That murderous looking raven (no doubt with a story or two to tell) was snapped by neeravbhatt and is used here via photopin under a Creative Commons licence.

« Previous Page