WRITING TIPS

How to Make Your Writing Opportunities Authentic

Choose your words correctly, and listen to the music as you write.

Writing is an unnatural act. Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children, whereas no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write — Charles Darwin.

Although our written communication evolved from storytelling, sometimes we write the auditory version instead of the written version. To clarify, we may write it the way it sounds to us.

When I started school, I had two friends as designated buddies. I learned their names as spoken, not as written, and to me, the melodic tones of their names seemed musical. As my family moved, I only attended the school part of the year I turned five. I can’t remember spelling the names. One was Lori Bulzoni, and the other was Nevis Cunial. I always used the full name, not knowing there was a space in between.

To me, years later, they sound like characters from a story.

In year three at school, we had a daily session called “Notable Events.” Neither word was part of our vocabulary outside of school. However, we used the expression and whole-heartedly took part in the sessions. For the following generations, the session became “show and tell,” where “what you call it, is exactly what it is.”

This was an evolutionary thing where parents want to make everything pint-sized and easier for their young children.

For example, when my son was three, his preschool teacher was Mrs. Rosenblatt. A few mothers wanted her to suggest a more manageable name for the children to use when addressing her. She declined in a stoic Russian way, and said, ‘Difficult for you, easy for them.’ And this was true.

When you don’t have the written skill, you become much more attuned to the acoustic effect. The children never had a problem because there was an association. The sound they heard, and the way they said it was the identity of their teacher.

I received an email from a younger business acquaintance recently, with an apology written as “…I apologize dearly.” I believe she was being courteous with a formal, unfamiliar expression. She may have meant to write, “…I apologize sincerely,” a word used infrequently.

Speech and writing differ, according to Steven Pinker, in a way, “which makes the acquisition of writing a lifelong challenge even after the mechanics have been mastered.”

Writing is storytelling.

Writing is documenting oral history and experiences.

Writing is also aural. It’s the music we hear when we write. It’s the rhythm the reader sees and hears as the music of our written words.

I find some writers write aurally, spell correctly, but misuse the words.

Let’s have a look at eight examples of words frequently misused in writing, which may benefit your writing.

1. Weary vs. Wary

Weary is an adjective meaning exhausted in strength, endurance, or freshness; expressing a weariness; having one’s patience, tolerance or pleasure exhausted.

Example: I need to rest my weary eyes.

Weary is also a verb meaning to become weary.

Example: The work wearies me sometimes.

Wary is an adjective meaning marked by keen caution, cunning, and watchfulness, especially in detecting and escaping danger.

Example: Investors are increasingly wary about putting money into stocks.

2. Decimate vs. Devastate

Decimate is a verb meaning to exact a tax from; to reduce in number, a percentage of the population; to cause great destruction or harm to (city, an industry).

Example: This kind of moth is responsible for decimating thousands of trees in our town.

Devastate is a verb meaning to bring to ruin or desolation by violent action (a country devastated by war); to reduce to chaos, disorder, or helplessness (overwhelm, devastated by grief).

Example: The flood devastated the town. The disease has devastated the area’s oak tree population.

3. Impel vs. Compel

Impel is a verb meaning:

• to urge or drive forward, or as if by the exertion of strong moral pressure: felt impelled to correct the misconception
• to impart motion to: to propel.

Example: She felt impelled to give a speech after the performance.

Compel is a verb meaning:

• to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly.

Example: Hunger compelled him to eat.

• to cause to do, or occur by overwhelming pressure.

Example: Public opinion compelled her to sign the bill.

4. Amuse vs. Bemuse

Amuse is a verb meaning:

• to entertain or occupy in a light, playful, or pleasant manner

Example: His jokes don’t amuse me.

• to appeal to a sense of humor.

Example: She tried to amuse the child with a story.

Bemuse is a verb meaning:

• to make confused; to puzzle or bewilder.

Example: He was fumbling with the pages, and looking down at them with a slightly bemused expression as though the stuff before him was in a foreign language.

• to occupy the attention of; distract, absorb, lost in thought or reverie.

Example: As distant and bemused as a Professor Emeritus listening to the prattling of his freshman class.

• to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement, especially from something surprising or perplexing.

Example: This is not another of those now popular books about a bemused outsider’s sojourn in rural France, brimming with colorful locals and heart-warming anecdotes.

5. Nauseous vs. Nauseate

Nauseous is an adjective meaning causing or affected with nausea or disgust.

Examples: The nauseous smell of rotting garbage was upsetting.

When the medication makes her tired and nauseous, she works at home instead of going to the office.

Nauseate is a verb meaning to become affected with nausea; to feel disgust.

Example: The smell of gasoline nauseates me.

6. Immemorial vs. Memorial

Immemorial is an adjective meaning:

• extending or existing since beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition
• existing from time immemorial.

Example: The immemorial roots of human spirituality stories passed down from time immemorial.

Memorial as an adjective meaning:

• serving to preserve remembrance; commemorative
• of or relating to memory.

Example: A memorial plaque for a diver who died in the line of duty, was placed on the bridge.

Memorial as a noun meaning:

• something that keeps remembrance alive: such as a: monument. b: something (such as a speech or ceremony) that commemorates. c: keepsake, memento
• record, memoir, language, and literature.

Example: The Vietnam War Memorial is a starkly beautiful testimonial to the bravery of the soldiers who served in Vietnam.

7. Incredible vs. Incredulous

Incredible is an adjective meaning:

• too extraordinary and improbable to be believed; making incredible claims
• amazing, extraordinary, incredible skill, an incredible appetite, met an incredible woman.

Example: It’s incredible to me such a lazy person could be so successful.

Incredulous is an adjective meaning:

• unwilling to admit, or accept what is offered as true; not credulous, skeptical
• expressing incredulity, an incredulous stare
• incredible sense.

Example: Many people were incredulous such a small fire could cause so much damage.

8. Fortunate vs. Fortuitous

Fortunate is an adjective meaning:

• bringing some good thing not foreseen as certain; auspicious; made a fortunate investment
• receiving some unexpected good.

Example: We should try to help others who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Fortuitous is an adjective meaning occurring by chance.

Example: I ran down the stairs, and there was a fortuitous train.

Speech and writing differ in their mechanics … and that is one reason children must struggle with writing; it takes practice to reproduce the sounds of language with a pencil or a keyboard. The written word is a recent invention that has left no trace in our genome and must be laboriously acquired throughout childhood and beyond

– Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style.