Using just the 'right' word: priceless

 

“When you catch an adjective, killit. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will bevaluable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength whenthey are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit,once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”– Mark Twain

 

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida,MO in 1835, Twain said that the two most important days in your life are theday you are born and the day you find out why.  For Twain, obviously,the reason was to write and he had a lot to say about how to use words, not theleast being that you should write using plain, simple language, short words andbrief sentences.

 

While he was not averse to havingnice things said about his writing, he abhorred flowery adjectives in thosedescriptions just as he disdained using them in his ownwriting.  “Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbositycreep in,” he advised.

 

He was pleased when he coined a wordor phrase that others liked to use (mentioning that it came from him, ofcourse) and noted that the use of “a pregnant pause” also could be a greatwriting style.  

 

“The right word may be effective,”he wrote, “but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”