On Dumbin� It Down

A response to wrongheadedness

On Dumbin’ It Down

By

William Walter Wraith

 

 

“Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense?”

—Henry David Thoreau

 

 

“You need to dumb it and simplify the text,” wrote one reviewer.

      Another remarked, “While your vocabulary is stunning, it bogs down the reading.  Why use phrasings like ‘the becalmed lake,’ when simpler text would do?  Unless you are sure that your audience is going to be interested and captivated by the grandiose nature of your descriptions and verbiage, why alienate those who will simply misunderstand what you are saying?”

      Finally, this:  “If you are wanting readers to understand what you are saying, use more modern language.  You have a great understanding of English, which most people don’t.  If your readers need to use a dictionary to understand your work, they won’t read it.”

      The caps are mine, fellow authors.  I hope the words shake your minds—that they sound as a bugle call urging you to hold the line.  Don’t retreat.  Don’t give in.  Write to the best of your abilities.  Seek to dazzle your readers.

      Above all, don’t assume they’re stupid.  Unless, of course, you’re selling snake oil.  Then the deeply stupid will be your natural audience.

      What we choose to write is a product of our unique experiences.  Writers often attempt to create works resembling those that have most enhanced their own lives.  We want to pass along to others something of the wonders we have beheld and the joys we have experienced.

      Sure, most people I know don’t even own an English dictionary.  Yet it is their language.  Too bad they can recite the lineup of the Yankees and memorize the TV guide, but cannot choose with confidence between “affect” and “effect.”  Let them revel in the comics and wonder at the astrological tables; I don’t begrudge them their pleasures.  They need authors, too.

      But they don’t need me.  I don’t do funnies.  Therefore, I don’t expect them to read my works.  If their habits do not include a love of language, they won’t want me.

      You won’t find much literature in the funnies.  I think Jay McNerney's definition of literary fiction is right on where he includes the clause, “it requires new reading skills and teaches them within its pages.”  This is what happens when authors skilled in their craft work to express truths about complex themes arising from human nature.  Literature may well result when, in every instance, we seek—as Samuel Clemens admonished us—to use precisely the right word, not its second cousin.

      Readers averse to learning anything new read the funnies, the familiar, what makes them comfortable, what merely entertains them, what reassures them that the stereotypes and prejudices that make them feel warm and fuzzy are all they need to know.

      But I say to anyone who reads, you will enjoy reading all the more if now and then you take a moment to look up that word you're not quite certain of; and as a bonus, you might forever after be better able to express yourself.  Literature makes people better.  Authors who don’t believe this may write, but seldom will they create literature.

      Oh, and anyone who calls himself an author, but does not own a dictionary, is merely a fool.

      I know many readers out there would sooner turn on a video than look up a word.  But I know many readers, myself included, who take joy in imaginative works that attempt to instill in us wonder for the fluidity of expression afforded by the English language.

      I think it is a crime to write down to the reader.  Whatever the language of the piece, some will take to it, some will not.  I expect the kind of audience I write for to own a dictionary and love the language.

      No author should dare to target the whole world.  Why, even “Run, Spot, run,” thank all gods, could not capture all the readers.

 

Reviews

[Nicole Hellene]

Man if anything we need more rich diction in languages, afterall that's where I learned my vocabulary--from reading it in books and grasping the meaning in the contexted of the rest of the sentance. I've read good books when I was younger where I didn't understand hardly a word in it. This is one of the reasons I hate sci-fi, the language is just so primitive that it ruins the story, so mechanical and blunt that I feel like I'm one of the machines the darn thing is talking about. I want art in text, art! Rich language and very bourgeois adds depth to the story. Look at Nathaniel Hale and The Scarlett Letter. I read that book in eight grade and although it was an extremely hard book to grasp and get through, the story was full of art and I think that maybe if I went back and read it now I'd enjoy it more.

[M. Bergeron]

You make very good points. I'm left wondering what your stance is on inventing words, when no other word will do. Words that have a clear meaning and yet have never appeared before. Something like Stephen Colberts "truthiness", but not so silly.

[Kenny Blade]

I know exactly what you mean. I'll use words like "reckon" and "figger" and other double syllable words and people get their underwear all knotted up.

Just kidding my friend. I appreciated and enjoyed this piece. Keep writing what you feel.

Peace
KBlade

[Siobhan MacIntyre]

I don't read without a dictionary close at hand, just in case. And I don['t define words for my kids when they're reading; I just hand them the Merriam-Webster and tell them to take a stab at some self-education.

I agree that people write "down" to the readers. Even famous authors (King takes the most dings for it) writes down. But when your audience has been dumbed down and you want to sell books, I suppose it makes sense in the short term. It's the long term effects that bite. Write down to the dumbed down, and they won't benefit from your writing.

I had one brilliant mind (insert sarcasm here) tell me in a forum thread that using big or uncommon words just makes a writer look like they read the dictionary and threw in a word they learned amongst otherwise mediocre prose. Another came to my profile and told me that I should use a word with "more meaning" than beautiful. But if beautiful is what I meant, why should I choose another word? To assume that my vocabulary is insufficient to choose the word that means closest to what I'm trying to say is arrogant and insulting, and a lot of that goes on around here. People have been given conflicting information about what's expected: Give a glowing review, and you get "I really wanted an in-depth edit & analysis"; give an in-depth edit and analysis, and you get "Grammar Nazi!".

I'm not dumbing my work down for anyone, and I don't think anyone else should. The very suggestion is ludicrous. I'm with you on this one.

[Bullgooseloon]

Recently, a friend of mine and I had a discussion on how we would define the word "art". After a lengthy and heated debate, we both felt comfortable with: the expression of a complex emotion. If I write the word "happy" down on a piece of paper, and that describes everything I want to say, then why have I wasted my - and your - time? But, if I write a story describing a protaganist who's happy, but filled with the dreadful knowledge of his own manic tendencies, then maybe that's closer to art or literature.

But - o, how I love to hope fences - I reviewed a wonderful article called "who v. that" on this site and I know you read it and enjoyed it. In my critique, I talk about how much I loved the information she gave me and how she presented it, but also asked her to slow the pacing down, to spread out the info, because of the sheer amount and diversity of it. So, I guess, I'm asking her to dumb it down? Am I a hypocrite in this respect? It was my opinion of the piece; should I dumb my review down?

Funny you should bring it up, I recently had a battle with "affect" and "effect". I constantly battle with "than" and "then" which is ironic because I've done some programming in my day. You correctly asserted in a story of mine, today, my improper use of apostrophes. I am far from perfect with grammar and poorly educated, so I very much appreciate such a comment and, as you say, I have my handy dictionary software always running when I question something. Hopping the fence, again.

Okay, okay, a point: isn't the idea behind such sites as these to have strangers read and judge our "complex emotions" and for us to qualify their critiques? From what I know of you in your bio, from this piece, from previous reviews of yours, I respect your opinion, and if you tell me something doesn't make sense, I'll want to reexamine that something. But - and finally, my meandering thought process works itself out - I think the review from the dullard who tells me to dumb it down or "no modern reader would ever read such trite" (that's a word for word one to me) is equally as important, because it's a line I can draw. I can say, "I'm okay with this, because this person isn't my audience".

Wouldn't Samuel Clemens agree, when I stare at that big, beautiful word in the middle of a sentence that I hate to cut but know I must because it sticks out in the prose, that I, too, am looking for precision?

Great stuff, very thought provoking.

[Mishel Rosario Reyes]

I'm so glad you wrote this article, I share many agonies when reviewed, translate, don't translate, don't be passive, be active, characterization vs. plot, vocabulary, romanticism being too mushy, explain more don't explain, etc. No reader can be made truly happy, others want different...:(

---thank you again for the piece,
Mishel

[Ilene M.W. Lush]

wonderful www. I agree with you and I love my OED.

[(j.a)kazimer]

Couldn't have said it better.