I learned this lesson from my beta reader, who objected to words like "unnuanced". It was exactly the right word and it told her nothing about the character's tone of voice. So after stewing a bit I changed it to "neutral", and she got what I was trying to say. Which was the point, right?
This is definitely an episode I will need to share with my spouse immediately. But first I must commit the faux pas of a bad car analogy. Anyone who utters that cars are tools, not jewels, well, I'd probably get along with them either way.
One of my spouse's favorite stories is how, when pressed to provide a compliment, I had told her she had the most expressive brows. She took this as a one-star review.
Her other favorite story was how she absolutely did not notice me in high school until our English teacher was too lazy to grade essays so she had us read them in front of the class. That is when I first got her attention with my loquaciousness as I waxed sophomoric about how Henchard deserved Hester Prynne's scorn for a plurality of reasons. At this point I should pause to mention that Sofia was still a recent immigrant in ESL, and that the entirety of my elementary English curriculum was predicated on using a list of 20 weekly vocabulary words in sentences. Lazy as we were, the goal was to stick as many long vocabulary words into as few sentences as practical, so that's how I imagined we were all to write as we matured into burgeoning adults. The teacher interrupted me right there to call me out on why the hell would I write "a plurality of reasons" and I replied because there was more than one and continued moving right along. It would still be years until my attempts to sound smart by using bigger words than I photosynthesis would lead to a first kiss, getting laid, or getting hitched for life.
But that was the moment, according to my wife, that the seeds were planted.
Mother did like.
I learned this lesson from my beta reader, who objected to words like "unnuanced". It was exactly the right word and it told her nothing about the character's tone of voice. So after stewing a bit I changed it to "neutral", and she got what I was trying to say. Which was the point, right?
This is definitely an episode I will need to share with my spouse immediately. But first I must commit the faux pas of a bad car analogy. Anyone who utters that cars are tools, not jewels, well, I'd probably get along with them either way.
One of my spouse's favorite stories is how, when pressed to provide a compliment, I had told her she had the most expressive brows. She took this as a one-star review.
Her other favorite story was how she absolutely did not notice me in high school until our English teacher was too lazy to grade essays so she had us read them in front of the class. That is when I first got her attention with my loquaciousness as I waxed sophomoric about how Henchard deserved Hester Prynne's scorn for a plurality of reasons. At this point I should pause to mention that Sofia was still a recent immigrant in ESL, and that the entirety of my elementary English curriculum was predicated on using a list of 20 weekly vocabulary words in sentences. Lazy as we were, the goal was to stick as many long vocabulary words into as few sentences as practical, so that's how I imagined we were all to write as we matured into burgeoning adults. The teacher interrupted me right there to call me out on why the hell would I write "a plurality of reasons" and I replied because there was more than one and continued moving right along. It would still be years until my attempts to sound smart by using bigger words than I photosynthesis would lead to a first kiss, getting laid, or getting hitched for life.
But that was the moment, according to my wife, that the seeds were planted.