With vocabularies that certainly represent their academic pedigree, five-hundred dollar words are tossed about, while poor unfortunate souls are discussed at length.
MR: On the other hand, what you say with brevity is a lot larger than what many others might say with thousand dollar words.
It's really a wonderful, beautiful ten-dollar word that has an importance to this story.
Yet not one of them picked up on the fact that in the space of 50 pages, the word 'mien' - a ten-dollar word if ever you heard it - was used seven times.
Mr. Barnes was no doubt just tweaking Mr. Kondracke for using a two-dollar word when a two-bit item like "untrustworthy" would have covered most of the same ground.
(Jenny is one of the few writers I've ever seen portrayed on TV who sound as though they actually cared about language; at one point, she says to Marina, "Every time I look at you, I feel so completely dismantled". It's not a ridiculous ten-dollar word; it's a word that someone who likes words would use).
It is also a prime example of a kind of writing prized by people from E. B. White to Gordon Lish, Elmore Leonard, and numberless creative-writing teachers: show don't tell, always keep the verbs active and propulsive, never use a two-dollar word when a ten-center might suffice, leave adverbs to the nervous and the self-obsessed.
Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able". As both Strunk and White were aware, this is hard advice to follow, for it is much more difficult to be concise than to be verbose.
That is the million-dollar word from all of us who knew and loved these boys and their families.
Apryl Beverly, The Million-Dollar Word Stylist, is an award-winning copywriter who slings million-dollar, smack-the-buy-button sentences for solo entrepreneurs, small business owners, CEOs and marketing executives of big profitable brands.
Apryl Beverly, The Million-Dollar Word Stylist is a six-figure, award-winning copywriter who slings million-dollar smack-the-buy-button sentences for solo entrepreneurs, small business owners, CEOs and marketing executives of big profitable brands.
