No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

lullabyknell

Can I just… talk for a moment… about how much I love how, if you know them well, words don’t have synonyms?

English, for example, is a fantastic disaster. It has so many words for things that are basically the same, and I find there’s few joys in writing like finding the right word for a sentence. Hunting down that peculiar word with particular meaning that fits in seamlessly in a structure, so the story flows on by without any bumps or leaks.

Like how a shout is typically about volume, while a yell carries an angry edge and a holler carries a mocking one. A scream has shrillness, a roar has ferocity, and a screech has outrage.

This is not to say that a yell cannot be happy or a holler cannot be complimentary, or that they cannot share these traits, but they are different words with different connotations. I love choosing the right one for a sentence, not only for its meanings but for how it sounds when read aloud. (Do I want sounds that slide together, peaceful and seamless, or something that jolts the reader with its contrast? Snap!)

I love how many words for human habitats there are. I love how cottage sounds quaint and cabin sounds rustic. I love steadiness of house, the elegance of residence, the stateliness of manor, and tired stubbornness of shack. I love how a dwelling is different to a den.

And I love how none of them can really touch the possessive warmness of all the connotations of home.

Words are great.

bead-bead

I did not expect to cry by the end of this, but I did.

Which proves the point, no?

megan-cutler

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.” - Mark Twain (and one of my favorites, since I happen to agree with everything the OP said!)

hockeylvr42

^that is an incredible quote I’m upset I’ve never heard it before

dialogue-prompts

❤️

caffeinewitchcraft

When I’m editing a story, I read it aloud. Not only does reading it out loud bring my attention to little grammar mistakes or skipped words, but the wrong word stands out like a sore thumb.

If you read your work aloud and you come across a sentence that doesn’t feel right or isn’t exciting, stop. The sentence is wrong. There is a better word out there and it’s your job to find it.

Your story has to be good enough for you. Not anyone else or any perceived audience, just you. If even a sentence, just one sentence, doesn’t excite you , it needs editing because you deserve the best story you can tell.

dr-archeville

“cottage in the forest” vs. “cabin in the woods”

Anonymous asked:

In your opinion, what qualifies as a Cardassian flirting technique/come-on?

thornfield13713 answered:

…that one is complicated, and also pretty class-dependent. These things are a lot more formalised and ritualised among the political classes - the hands-on-shoulders thing, for example, is roughly equivalent to the Victorian convention of asking permission to call upon the object of one’s interest, with the subtext being a hope of courtship with the expectation of an eventual enjoining. It also tends to be much more restrained than the lower-class version. This is the style in which Garak is flirting with Julian, as, while he was raised as a servant in Tain’s household, his actual class position in Cardassian society is somewhat uneasy - technically, if anyone but Tain knew the truth of his birth he’d probably have been killed as a child, but he rose high enough in the Obsidian Order to almost count fully among the political class before his exile - and he’s also…a bit of an old-fashioned romantic, by Cardassian standards, who got a lot of his ideas on these things from books written about the political classes.

Among the mercantile, service and labouring classes, things are a lot less codified, but condescension, insults and debate are universal constants. Most of the cues about the difference between a true disagreement/dislike and a flirtatiously feigned ones are in tone and body language, and are thus very difficult to pick up through a translator or if one doesn’t know much about Cardassian physical cues. This post gets across a lot of the issue, which is similar to that on Earth in the 19th through mid-twentieth centuries - showing open interest in a person in the way a human would is deeply scandalous and only really acceptable within formalised relationships - betrothals or marriages, mostly. It’s an indication of split loyalties, that this person has a claim on you that distracts from state and family. If said person is part of your family by your marriage, this becomes acceptable and, indeed, part of the duty to the state, but outside that, the very notion of being openly fond of someone is kind of shocking, the sort of behaviour that would have Cardassian matrons doing the full Lady Bracknell at you.

As such, a whole series of coded gestures and phrases have come to mean ‘I am strongly attracted to you, but cannot openly express this, and so I will lash out at you’. If these are absent, then it is just straightforward hatred. If they are present, it’s a coded show of interest. Unfortunately, Miles had the bad luck to stumble into all of them with Gilora.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.