Words and Linguistic Communication Devices.

How do you write “No Entry:  This is a Prohibited Area Within the Meaning of the Official Secrets Act and is Defended with Lethal Force” in Ant.

No.  Seriously.  We have tried the sprays.  Useless.  We are now resorting to feeding them with succulent repasts that contain elements that are inimically pernicious, hopefully fatal, to these diasporas of their multivoltine species.  Their tropism towards the food in our domestic habitat across the taut cables from which our accoutrements, when wet, are disported is creating a paradigm shift in our considerations towards annihilating whole families of Formicidae.

Whole families.  Now I feel bad.  Guilty, even.

You may have observed that I have taken a swerve away from my usual style in favour of linguistic diarrhoea.

Just making a point.

Shakespeare, however he spelt his name, kept his language simple.  Possibly it seems not to be the case now but, in his day, he was speaking to the common (uneducated) man.  For this reason he kept his words to a level that would be easily understood by most, if not all, of his audience.

All sorts of people like books.  Many have English as a second language.  There are those, in very poor countries, who may well have picked up a book from the rubbish dump, taken it home to read in order to learn something, and then passed it on.  Even those for whom English is a first language do not, very likely, wish to resort to a dictionary every so often to ‘translate’ the words into something that they are able to easily understand.

There are, of course, technical journals in which there languish flowery phrases, often written in concise and necessary jargon.  Such journals are written by, and for, a specific group who may be understood to follow such texts.

Books for everyone, fiction specifically, do not require the use of multisyllabic (sic) words.  Perhaps it is the author’s view that the public must be so impressed and in awe of their knowledge and intellectual prowess that intense cerebration must be required to read their prose.

Am I being mordacious?  I think not.  See?  Now they’ve got me at it!  Catching isn’t it?  So tempting to wander off the beaten track of popular comprehension.

Examine, if you will, within the confines of your own head the purpose of language.  Is it to confound and confuse?  Is it to flaunt your scholarly education?  No.  None of these.  It is to convey an idea, an image, into the mind of another person.

In terms of fiction a precise image is not normally necessary.  “Broad shoulders” on the hero is adequate; descriptions of his precise musculature and skin tones are, generally speaking, overstating the case.

I have usually stayed clear of describing surroundings in intimate detail in my stories.  Just painted a general background to set the tone and scene so that the readers, who have ample imagination of their own, are able to fill in the gaps and details to their own satisfaction.

How do I know that readers have imagination?  Two reasons, really.

1.            I am a reader.  I love stories written by other people.  As well.

2.            They are readers.  If they were not they would watch Films, TV and DVD’s instead of choosing to spend their hard-earned pecuniary rewards—oops!  Sorry.  ‘Pay’ on books.

Writing does not have to be oversimplified.  It does not require to be monosyllabic.  A book is the same as a mediaeval tapestry, full of colour and images that tell a story.

Just keep the stitches simple.