Sunday 22 April 2012

In defence of the sesquipedalian

Will Self is one of my modern-day writing heroes. A man who can drive you to a dictionary to make sense of one of his pieces of writing (a fact I regard as a good thing, given that it's such a powerful learning tool), and who is one of the very few people I've read who's used 'callipygian', one of my favourite words ever, in his work. He's written a piece for the Beeb website defending not only his own use of these words, but bemoaning the fact that he needs to make that defence.

He rightly points out that this is one more symptom of the dumbing down of our culture, one more piece of evidence of the overwhelming need for immediacy, even in reading these days. The idea that looking up words is somehow a chore is anathema to me, and to Will Self, fortunately. He's one of those people holding up the barricades against that tide of atrophy, a little flashing buoy in a huge, dark sea of ignorance. I offer him my fullest approbation. (Yep, looked that one up...)

3 comments:

  1. Kind of agree largely, but I do think to use obscure words well is a skill which needs to be learnt... to my mind there's no excuse to use a long obscure word where a better-known one with precisely the same meaning can be used instead. Otherwise the writer runs the risk of being a know-it-all. (Plus if I'm getting into a story, the last thing I want is to reach for a dictionary). Now there's a Machiavellian countenance. Oo! A sextet of ale...

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  2. I agree with Mr. Thomson's comment above, but I'd also like to add that I think the overuse of obscure words is almost as bad as the poor use of the English language that is so sadly demonstrated in print media, books and everyday conversation these days. In the same way that poor English is not necessarily an indication of a lack of intelligence, intellectual language does not necessarily equal intellectual thought. I, personally, think that a truly inspirational writer can convey the deeper message of his or her work using simple language creatively, that the ability to craft sentences dextrously is more impressive than the length of the words used...

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    1. You're correct, of course, but my problem (and Self's, I suspect) is that there's now a burgeoning negative attitude to longer words, even where they're used correctly. Some of the finest writing I've read has not needed such adornment, but the use of an extensive lexicon should not in itself be cause for complaint on the part of the reader.

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