A column on writing from Editor & Publisher February 28, 1981.

Context clues (A): Precision without apology

Let Dickens teach us how to write

We write for the generally non-reading citizens of TV land. Must we use only fifth-grade language? Are we to give up the lightning words--Twain's metaphor--that illuminate a passage by their precision or sound?

Dickens, the best-selling writer of his day, lit up every page with words like tenacity, malevolent, accoutred, and similar powerful but exotic flashes. Yet all those are words a reporter today might hesitate to use.

Does this suggest that readers in Dickens' time had a larger vocabulary than do ours? That schools nowadays turn out illiterates, as their critics insist? Perhaps so, but you won't prove it by Dickens. He knew which words his readers understood, and when he came to one he thought they might know only dimly, he did what good writers have always done:

He either defined the tough word straight away, or he left a broad trail of clues to unlock its mystery. Here are three Dickens' techniques you can use to help your readers understand you. All are from A Tale of Two Cities.

1. Define the word nearby

"Miss Pross... seized [Madame Defarge] around the waist in both her arms, and held her tight.... Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight."

Dickens has given not one but two outright definitions of tenacity, (from the Latin for holding fast), one before the word ("held her tight") and one after ("clasped her tight"). And in case vigorous (from the Latin for force, energy) is also unfamiliar, the whole passage makes clear just how much force and energy Miss Pross applied.

2. Define by contrast

[Madame Defarge] knew full well that Miss Pross, was the family's devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy."

The opposite of enemy is friend, so malevolent must be the opposite of devoted. Malevolent, from the Latin for evil wishing, is the quintessential antonym for devoted--there is no better one.

3. Paint word pictures; give examples

"Lying hidden in her bosom was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred,...Madame Defarge took her way along the streets."

Accoutred means "to outfit and equip, as for military duty." Again, Dickens has chosen the perfect word, but only because his readers understand it.

This is not a plea for the use of arcane words like accoutred. But the special jargon and technical language that fill our pages always need explanation, while a nifty 10-letter word here and there would improve many a story.

To define unfamiliar terms is just common courtesy. When we are polite as well as precise, punctiliousness is always possible.

Dickens wrote as if there were no dictionaries. Few of his readers may have owned one. Most of ours do, certainly on line. But they will click on My Face before they will open a reference book anywhere. And it has ever been thus.

See also #5: Context clues (B): Using hard words.