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If you would like to catch your reader off guard with a sumptuous portrayal of an event, try explaining sense perceptions in terms of another sense. That is, describe sights in terms of sounds, smells in terms of vision, touch in terms of taste.

Here is an example from C.S. Lewis:

But of course this didn’t prevent Edmund from seeing. Only five minutes later he noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of an old tree — gold and purple and white. Then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of the water. (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, page 132)

Now, everyone knows that sounds aren’t delicious. Or are they? What Lewis has just done is create an alternate sensual universe for his readers to romp around in.

Let’s try this out:

1. The lake looked like a whisper.
2. She pulled a sunset out of the oven.
3. His voice sounded like sweet tea on a summer afternoon.

Can you think of other examples?

The BBC News online magazine carries the following user-contributed list of 20 common grammatical errors. At some points BBC either corrects or adds further clarification to the suggestions. I will list those suggestions in bold type so you can look them up at your leisure. Here they are:

1. Confusing “have” and “of”, as in “I could of learnt how to write properly.”
2. Using the phrase “for free” instead of “for nothing”.
3. Writing “12pm” when “am” means “ante-meridiem” (before noon) and “pm” means “post-meridiem” (after noon). One should use either “midday” or “noon”.
4. “Effect” versus “Affect”.
5. Haphazard applications of apostrophes, as in “CD’s” (I’m assuming “CDs” would be the proper use).
6. Using “I” where “me” is correct, as in “She said some very kind things about George and I.” (Crystal has corrected I — I mean me — a number of times on this one.)
7. Incorrectly using reflexives, such as “yourself” or “myself” when “you” or “me” is correct. (I just did this recently. I said something like “Myself and another guy are being mentored by one of the pastors.” Ack! Away with the pomp and frillery!)
8. Saying “none of them are” instead of “none of them is”.
9. Avoiding varied prepositions such as “similar to“, “different from“, and “compared with” by slapping “to” on every phrase.
10. Saying “Then they opened fire on us” when it should really be “Then they open-fired on us”.
11. Using “literally” incorrectly, as in “I literally went blue with anger.” People don’t literally turn blue.
12. Confusing “its” and “it’s”, the former being the possessive form, and the latter being the contraction of “it is”. (I still remember getting this wrong on a test I took when I was a young chap. It’s plagued me ever since.)
13. Employing the phrase “due to” when “owing to” is meant.
14. “They’re”, “their”, and “there”. Oh, and “to”, “two”, and “too”, too.
15. Confusing “lend” and “borrow”, as in school children asking “to lend your pencil” when they really mean “to borrow your pencil”.
16. Saying “amount of people” instead of “number of people”.
17. Telling someone you went to a place “by foot” rather than “on foot”.
18. Using a singular noun with a plural verb, as in “The team are happy with their victory.”
19. Trying to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition when you’re using a verb that includes a preposition, such as “set up”. For example, trying to say “…I am using a new computer up with which my manager recently set me” instead of “At work I am using a new computer with which my manager recently set me up.”
20. Saying “stadiums” rather than “stadia” as the plural of “stadium”.

One I would add is saying “The car needs washed” rather than “The car needs washing” or “The car needs to be washed.” I grew up thinking nothing of the first construction. When I came to college, however, a friend told me that was incorrect. I was aghast.

Are there any you would add?

BBC reported on the 7th of this month that Ken Smith from Bucks New University is advocating the acceptance of commonly misspelled words as “variant spellings.”

In the original article at Times Higher Education, Smith provides ten candidates for orthographic leniency:

1. Arguement for argument.
2. Febuary for February (and Wensday for Wednesday).
3. Ignor for ignore.
4. Occured for occurred.
5. Opertunity for opportunity.
6. Que for queue, or better yet cue or even kew.
7. Speach for speech.
8. Thier for their (or better still, why not just drop the word their altogether in favour of there?).
9. Truely for truly.
10. Twelth as twelfth.

His final exhortation is: “Remember, I am not asking you to learn to spell these words differently. All I am suggesting is that we might well put 20 or so of the most commonly misspelt words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling.”

If Smith is onto something, then a paragraph like this one could become common fare:

“On the twelth of Febuary a fierce arguement occured between two gentlemen standing in a que at First National Bank. The altercation began when the man in front chose to ignor the importunate speach of the man behind him, who earnestly desired to advance to the window more quickly by taking his place. The heated exchange lasted until the bank closed in the afternoon, thus preventing either man from doing the business he had come to do. It was a truely lamentable event. Thier hope is to try again this Wensday, when they plan to visit the bank at separate times.”

What do you think? Is Smith’s proposal merely an accommodation to sloth or is it an inevitable outworking of the adaptability of human language (think Shakespeare vs. today)?

I think one other list would be appropriate, because there is another common use of “good” that begs for revision.

When we experience an event that is underwhelming in its quality, we will say that it was good when we really mean that it was mediocre. This usage is a subtle beast, because it can only be detected by voice inflection. When we are really impressed with something, we say “good” with a deep, melting voice, like it’s warm butter rolling over corn on the cob. However, when we want to be diplomatic and staid in our commentary, we say “good,” but we elongate it, and the tone sounds more like a roller coaster.

Example #1:

“How was the vacation in the Swiss Alps?”

“It was goooooood.” Warm butter.

Example #2:

“How was the conference on Hungarian tax law?”

“It….was….guuhhhooooouuuhhhd.” Tentative. Furrowed brow. Up, down, up.

To resolve the confusion, here are ten other words to put in your quiver for those times when you want to say a thing was mediocre (or worse) and you are tempted to say it was good:

1. Vapid
2. Middling
3. Adequate
4. Tolerable
5. Prosaic
6. Acceptable
7. Pedestrian
8. Humdrum
9. Insipid
10. Passable

Any other suggestions?

I say “good” too much. “I’m good.” “Our trip was good.” “Class was good.” “That was really good.” Sometimes I even say “pretty good” to express measured ambivalence. “Good” is my drip-pan descriptor. As a result, all of its meaning leaks out and I’m left with a hollow verbal shell. Good is no longer good. It’s filler.

The answer, of course, is not to pick some other term to wear out. The answer is to vary my responses.

Here are ten substitutes for the word “good.” Try to throw them into a conversation. That way, when you do use “good,” it will not be a synonym for fluff:

1. Profitable
2. Pleasant
3. Glorious
4. Delectable
5. Phenomenal
6. Prodigious
7. Gratifying
8. Mirthful
9. Worthwhile
10. Delightful

May you find the exercise to be a prodigious experience of phenomenality.