A Quote by Mark Twain
Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.
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One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perservereingly during fifty-five years; that word is failure
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
I was trained as journalist never to use the word 'I,' never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word 'I,' you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgement.
Never use the word, 'very.' It is the weakest word in the English language; doesn't mean anything. If you feel the urge of 'very' coming on, just write the word, 'damn,' in the place of 'very.' The editor will strike out the word, 'damn,' and you will have a good sentence.
Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head. ~Garrison Keillor
Effective readers, even at their earliest levels, read in five to seven word phrases rather than word by word.
Praise the name of baseball. The word will set captives free. The word will open the eyes of the blind. The word will raise the dead. Have you the word of baseball living inside you? Has the word of baseball become part of you? Do you live it, play it, digest it, forever? Let an old man tell you to make the word of baseball your life. Walk into the world and speak of baseball. Let the word flow through you like water, so that it may quicken the thirst of your fellow man.
I was like, "This is a new thing that the gay people have decided? That's the gayest thing I've ever heard in my life." You can't do that. You can't decide that a word is forbidden now collectively amongst your group of human beings, that the word is a slanderous evil nasty word about homosexuals. It's not, the word doesn't mean that. And sometimes it's a good word to use in comedy. That's what your friend has to realize when he's at a bar just yelling out the word.
To use a big word or a foreign word when a small one and a familiar one will answer the same purpose, is a sign of ignorance. Great scholars and writers and polite speakers use simple words.
Words can mean different things to different people. It is important to understand what people mean when they use a certain word. Let's make an example. Take the word gay. Fifty years ago, gay meant exclusively cheerfulness, lighthearted excitement, merry or bright colors. Today this word has a different meaning. You won't call a cheerful person gay because it could be understood as something else.
I think the word 'blog' is an ugly word. I just don't know why people can't use the word 'journal.'
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Probably the best way to describe my writing style is to refer you to "purple prose", which was a tag given to the early mass market magazine writers earning a half cent a word for their fiction. They had to use every adjective, verb and adverb in the English language to add word count to stories in order to feed and support families.
I am a writer, I deal in words. There is no word that should stay in word jail, every word is completely free. There is no word that is worse than another word. It's all language, it's all communication.
Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion, because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word. ... We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.
Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.
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