Words, Words, Words: Choosing the Right Words to Explain Ideas and Express Emotions

by Charles Euchner

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word,” Mark Twain once quipped, “is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” So how do you select just the right word? What words create the greatest impact—not only intellectually, but also emotionally? If sentences and paragraphs make up the basic structure of writing, words provide the planks and nails and screws. To give our writing clarity and verve, we not only need a good method of construction, but also good materials. So what's the best way to pick these materials? In Words, Words, Words, the author and teacher Charles Euchner shows you how • Use simple words, almost always. • Deploy longer words as precision instruments. • Use active verbs ... Even to describe passivity. • Pay attention to “function words.” • Avoid bureaucratese, academese, and words that lie. • Avoid aggressive adjectives. • Ban adverbs … almost always. • "Verb" your nouns and "noun" your verbs, cautiously. This concise how-to guide not only offers step-by-step guides to picking the right words, but also case studies of John McPhee’s The Curve of Binding Energy, the essays of William F. Buckley, Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, James Pennebaker’s The Secret Life of Pronouns, Fredric Jameson’s Signatures of the Visible, Tom Wolfe’s “Girl of the Year,” J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and fragments from all over. About the Author Charles Euchner, an author and teacher, is the creator of The Elements of Writing. Euchner is the author of books on the presidency (Losing the Peace, forthcoming), civil rights (Nobody Turn Me Around), baseball (The Last Nine Inningsand Little League, Big Dreams), urban affairs (Urban Policy Reconsidered and Playing the Field), and other topics. A long time teacher—most recently at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation—Euchner has taught writing at seminars to corporate and education clients as well as author groups. Euchner holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University.

74 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 12, 2012

About the author

Charles Euchner is the author or editor of eight books. He teaches writing at Yale University and was the founding executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Wendeline Kibwe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone who aspires to write well

This short, but rich book equips writers with a right set of tools to populate a sentence with perfect words.