When Would You Choose Latinate Words?
And Co-working Session Is Cancelled Due to Hurricane Idalia
Words that have their roots in Latin are generally different from those based in Angle and Saxon cultures.
Consider the word “axe.” Such Anglo-Saxon words, of Germanic origin, are
shorter
more concrete
often monosyllabic, blunt, or gutteral
informal
often of the body
often feelings-based
Consider the word “pontificate.” Such Latinate words, coming from the Romance languages, are
longer
more abstract
often polysyllabic, or mellifluous
more formal
often of the mind
often ideas-based
I teach these differences in my courses, because it’s important to understand the layers and eons of meaning behind word choice. I do an exercise where I call out Latinate words. Very readily writers respond with Anglo-Saxon synonyms, proving that most of us have a gut understanding of etymology.
Masticate is Latinate. A Germanic equivalent would be chew.
Try it. If inundate is Latinate, what is its Germanic equivalent? ____________ (Answers are in the footnotes.)1
What about consume?
Imbibe?
Cogitate?
Consecrate?
Precipitation?
Inebriated?
Terminate?
Fallacious?
You get it.
Academic writing is heavy on Latinate words, which makes it feel erudite, elevated, dense, and more difficult to read. Creative writing is based in the body—in weight and extension, as Flannery O’Connor would say—and Anglo-Saxon words, being of the body, generate more electricity for the writer.
Think about this when you’re at your desk. Try to use words with punch.
Actually, I shouldn’t make that blanket statement. Instead, I should say to be conscious of word choice in order to ensure a word is doing the job you’re asking it to do. Don’t fall into the quagmire of using Latinate words because you want to sound smart.
What I’ve learned is that not only do Anglo-Saxon words stand in sharp contrast to Latinate words, so do those of most native languages. I realized this after reading linguist Keith Basso’s book, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Native words are in general
more land-based
communal
sensate
evocative of the mysterium.
On the other hand, Latinate words are
based more heavily in built environments
more individual
insensate
biased toward science and reason.
Some years ago the Oxford Junior Dictionary began culling words that, as it turned out, were more Anglo-Saxon than Latinate. Words that concerned nature, religion, farming, and food were falling out of favor, replaced by words belonging to our new vocabularies of technology. Suddenly kingfisher and willow and otter were gone, swapped for broadband and database and analogue.
One important implication of this change, as the British nature writer Robert Macfarlane wrote in The Guardian, is “A place literacy is leaving us." Not only is a place literacy leaving us, so is the language of human interaction, of community, of the senses, of symbolism, of myth. The literacy of mystery is leaving us.
Barry Lopez was keenly aware of this and wrote about it in his book Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, a lexicon of place-names. Orion Magazine published this report in which Macfarlane spends an afternoon with Lopez taking about these subjects.
Here’s a little piece on how English became such a mongrel language to start with.
As I work with a manuscript, I keep replacing less interesting words for more unusual, real, active, and exact ones. 2
I attempt to keep alive glossaries of place and wildness and bodies and food. That’s my advice to you: in an era of virtual chatrooms and facetimes and cell phones, focus on IRL.3
Because Hurricane Idalia Is Coming
I am canceling our Writers Co-Working Session for tomorrow. The hurricane is headed straight toward our farm, although it’s not forecast to be fierce, and it will have lost steam traveling overland through Florida by the time it gets to southern Georgia. Still, schools and government offices and doctor’s offices are closed in our area. Our losing power is likely. Therefore, I will miss seeing you writers who regularly show up to work.
One Day Only The Woods of Fannin County is $8.29
Today is the first birthday of the novel, The Woods of the Fannin County, which was released on Aug. 29, 2022. For one day only the book is on sale at my website for $8.29. Postage and taxes will be added to this price. The book sells for $20, so if you haven’t purchased a copy, this would be a good time to get it. The price will revert to $20 on Wednesday morning.
flood
eat
drink
think
bless
rain/snow
drunk
end
wrong
There is one exception: says is the best verb for someone speaking. We can spend a lot of time finding substitutes—encourages, stresses, reveals—but in almost all cases, says is best.
in real life
I remember a debate from my working naturalist days about using Latinized names, sometimes called scientific names, for plants and animals. A colleague said that if you used the Latin name, there was no question about which plant or animal you meant and that the scientific names do not change.
I could have articulated my opinion better, but my feeling today is that if you use scientific names, no one in your audience knows what you are talking about unless they are specialists used to the particular names. If you use common names, a few people will recognize them and apply them to the same plant or animal, even though some may use that name for a different organism or call the one you speak of by another name.
The idea that scientific names do not change is patently false. Names change every time the organizations that do the naming meet. Species are split into two new species. Molecular genetics recognize new relationships and dissolve old ones. For example, once considered birds of prey, vultures are now grouped with storks.
Recognizing that different audiences have different needs and standards, I plan to continue using common names. I am unlikely to speak before a technical or specialized audience.
Thank you, this is really enlightening!