An Article About Nothing

Tip Of The Day — On using synonyms

This is part of a series of daily tips for writers, published to share ideas and suggestions on our craft. Everyone will have different advice on writing, so the tip below is just a personal selection which I hope you will find useful. Do share any of your own in the comments.

Zero, zip, zilch, nix, blank, bagatelle, trifle, triviality, cypher, goose-egg, nil, nix, null, nada, nonentity, nothing, nihility, not a lot, aught, s*d all, insignificancy, blank, nebbish, small fry, the pits, diddly squat, void, bu**er all, Sweet Fanny Adams, bupkis, not a dicky bird, f**k all, and not a sausage, are all synonyms, for nothing, which also happen to be the amount I earned on the platform yesterday in spite of over six months on the platform and 87 articles!

Will I give up? No way. I am the Forest Gump of writing, the Eddie the Eagle of literature, the Sinclair C5 of the motoring world, the Donald Trump of integrity, the Nick Leeson of Finance, the Boris Johnson of truth, and the Bernie Madoff of trust. Point me in the right direction and I am foolish enough to just carry on regardless!

Is the algorithm broken? Who knows? Possibly not even Medium understand how the black box they inherited from Evan Williams works. They seem to have lost the instruction booklet on “Alchemy for Dummies”. They try pressing different buttons, pulling different levers, spraying it with WD40, and whacking it with a hammer, but still gold goes in and not a lot comes out the other side! Transmutation in reverse.

Moving swiftly on, the subject of today’s writing tip, is to make use of a synonym dictionary to make our golden articles even more interesting. The use of synonyms avoids repetition. Did you know for example that it is rumoured the Eskimos have up to 300 different variations for the word snow (though quite how many is disputed)?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow

As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life, so finding different ways to say the same thing keeps our writing interesting and fun to read, especially if the reader learns new words. So, if like me your earnings are the pits, try and find a novel way of saying the same thing.

I hope you found this article useful, and any tips of your own in the comments.

Previous tips:

Day 27 — On drafting and revising

Day 26 — On Medium etiquette

Day 25 — On using informal language

Day 24 — Put a Tigger in your prose

Day 23 — Dedication — time, place, space

Day 22 — On spell-checking, Grammarly and proof-reading

Day 21 — The five unspoken commandments of Medium

Day 20 — George Orwell’s six tips on writing style

Day 19 — The importance of interaction

Day 18 — Replying to comments

Day 17: Engagement

Day 16- Attention-seeking behaviour — the importance of your first sentence –

Day 15 — Keep it snappy — headlines

Day 14- Subject selection –

Day 13 — Making time –

Day 12 — Deadlines –

Day 11 — Layout –

Day 10 — Niches for Riches –

Day 9 — Do your own research –

Day 8 — Choosing your subject –

Day 7 — Reverse engineering success –

Day 6 — Planning –

Day 5 — Location –

Day 4 — Dictionary and thesaurus –

Day 3 –Quotations

Day 2 — Mind your language — learning new words

Day 1- The Notebook

As always, thank you for reading.