I'm reading "The Twitter Account That Collects Awkward, Amusing Writing/When writers strive for elegant variations of the same word, the anonymous Second Mentions account takes note" by Naaman Zhou (The New Yorker). Here's the Twitter account: Second Mentions.
I remember laughing over a specific example of this faux fastidiousness half a century ago: A young woman, having written "small house," felt the need, on second mention, to go with "petite edifice."
Zhou writes:
Take, for example, Adele, who is frequently “the singer Adele” on first mention, and then maybe “the Tottenham soul-pop titan” on second mention. Cheese, if you are saying “cheese” too much, can be “the popular dairy product.” A “pair of armadillos,” who, for some reason, were put on a diet? “The oval-shaped duo.”... [T]he Times of London [referred to] “tea” as “the bitter brown infusion.” The Guardian [called] a fox who ran onto a soccer field... “the four-legged interloper.”...
The second mentions often border on poetry. The moon, described by the Mirror, as “the tide-changing rock.” The Sun describing a sex doll as a “lust vessel.”...
Now that I know a name for this — "second mentions" — I think I might be able to find these elegant variations more delightful than annoying. And I have been peeved at this cheap ornament, so common in everyday newspaper writing. But they are funny foibles. Just humans trying to write. Now, I can think, oh, no, they're doing that!
ADDED: Here is "Chapter III: Airs and Graces/ELEGANT VARIATION" from H.W. Fowler's "King’s English" (1908).
WE include under this head all substitutions of one word for another for the sake of variety, and some miscellaneous examples will be found at the end of the section. But we are chiefly concerned with what may be called pronominal variation, in which the word avoided is either a noun or its obvious pronoun substitute. The use of pronouns is itself a form of variation, designed to avoid ungainly repetition; and we are only going one step further when, instead of either the original noun or the pronoun, we use some new equivalent. 'Mr. Gladstone', for instance, having already become 'he,' presently appears as 'that statesman'. Variation of this kind is often necessary in practice; so often, that it should never be admitted except when it is necessary. Many writers of the present day abound in types of variation that are not justified by expediency, and have consequently the air of cheap ornament. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules, but two general principles may be suggested: (1) Variation should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided. (2) The substitute should be of a purely pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no killing of two birds with one stone. Even when these two requirements are satisfied, the variation is often worse, because more noticeable, than the monotony it is designed to avoid.
४५ टिप्पण्या:
In the second mention you can indicate that the house is small using a clause, rather than an adjective-noun combination.
Guilty as charged! I am irritated by certain word repetition in the same paragraph, so I try to not bother others by repeating certain words. I don't care about the usuals - the, and, her, him, etc. But, for example, the mouthy word "repetition" sticks out. So when I see it again, in close proximity to its first mention, I am rubbed the wrong way.
The lawyerly way is much better - "said second house," the "aforementioned fox," "the singer Adele (hereinafter "Adelle")", etc.
It's in poor taste to laugh at a petite erection.
Definitely not the way you are supposed to draft legal documents. Once you have specially defined “BATMAN” (see, Appendix A “Specially Defined Terms”), reference to “The Caped Crusader” can only lead to confusion . . . Right?
I have concluded that the second mention must figure very large in all the writing classes of the past twenty years. Everyone seems to knock himself out avoiding the dreaded repetition. I read phrases like “he said to the younger man” or, perhaps “the taller man. It’s ugly, it’s klunky, and it yanks me out of the story.
Why, oh, why not just repeat his damned name or, God forbid, use “him”?
Great topic. I’ve been wondering for years where I could vent about it. Next, how about a post on how “who” is being replaced by that”.
Tiny home would have sufficed.
Please ensure that if you must use the phrase "second mention" more than once, the next iteration should be "the mention preceding the third," und sofort.
H.W. Fowler's disdain for the "elegant variation" seems less about proper English and more about a personal pet peeve bleeding into pedantry.
Having written many things for many different purposes, my opinion are as follows:
1. Repeating the same phrase over and over again is, by its very nature, awkward. People generally do not have a conversation where they say "John Smith" or "small house" or whatever in every sentence. It makes sense if you are writing, say, a legal document or technical manual or something similar where being explicit is a requirement, but for other purposes it sounds unnatural and boring.
2. Pronouns can be very ambiguous and make some sentences confusing, if not impossible to parse properly. Relying on pronouns to prevent repetition is a questionable recommendation. (I assume Fowler could not conceive of the current fad to have custom pronouns, which sometimes make it impossible to communicate clearly.)
3. If the writing is meant to be entertaining, whether that be dramatic or comedic, or at least to be easy to read, like news stories are typically written, then a flourish or two is generally appreciated. This assumes the flourishes do not make the story confusing, like using jargon or graduate level synonyms for a story directed at average readers, or are embarrassingly bad like "petite edifice."
“faux fastidiousness” - I see what you did there, well played.
Fowler (2nd edition) is worth browsing through.
Fowler: "...Even when these two requirements are satisfied, the variation is often worse, because more noticeable, than the monotony it is designed to avoid."
Exactly. Almost never IMHO is the substitution a point that you want the reader to notice. You want it to slip by, like a deft servant at the dinner-table, delivering the needed meaning without pause or flourish. If you labor to find some rococo replacement, you defeat yourself.
I do like the idea of "near-poetry" substitutions: because, yes, the mental process of determining a need for a replacement, and then thinking of one (selection over variation), may lead to a deeper appreciation for the intended idea and how to restate it in fresh form. But this is tricky and takes time, and (as we see) can easily produce cringeworthy locutions.
Repetition is certainly an issue when writing anything of length, other than a legal document. But use of an "elegant variation" (a term I haven't heard before) must certainly be governed by the subtle nuances that all words carry. An abrupt change, for example, one that veers off to words of Norman origin after having carried on in Anglo Saxon, might well mark the author as a novice writer to discerning reader.
Not that I consider myself a professional writer, but I still have hopes ....
Writing program notes for our community orchestra, I try to avoid/reduce second mentions by packing as much info as possible in the first mention - all part of saying as much as possible with the fewest words.
I haven't found a great deal of difficulty avoiding awkward second mentions.
I did get some excellent advice from a writing friend - secondhand, she said, but I can't recall where she heard it: "said" is the appropriate verb, most of the time, in writing dialogue. The whole high school pilgrimage through the thesaurus looking for creative ways to say that someone said something often just gets in the way of the dialogue itself.
A couple of those are pretty good, and a couple of them are laughable flubs of the opportunity for poetry.
The substitute should be of a purely pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no killing of two birds with one stone
The opportunity to use more words than strictly needed should never be eschewed!
The junk science test used by a lot of police departments to detect lying treat second mention as evidence of lying, even though there is no evidence for this.
https://statementanalysis.com/
The junk science used by some police departments to detect lying regards second mention as evidence of deception even though there is no evidence for this.
https://statementanalysis.com/
A paragraph with three Mr. Gladstones would be a monstrosity. Of course I avoid the second mention. Repeated nouns are one of my pet peeves.
Voila.
"Errant nonsense, up with which I will not put." - W. Churchill.
Don't strain your typing fingers trying to figure out an alternative.
i learn something Every Day (whether i mean to, or not!)
Just Yesterday, i learned what they call it, when someone writes something like:
"'We must hurry,' said Tom Swiftly."
Today, i learnt about a petite edifice!
Who Knows what we will be learning Tomorrow!
The toughest Second Mention is to avoid over use of the First Person Singular. Luckily, Obama never bothered, as This Commenter noted. Anyway, it seemed a blessing to Yours Truly.
You can't go wrong with Fowler on style.
If you have written "small house" first, no need to mention size again. Better, take us inside the cottage. The house must be important.
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When you write, do you work at avoiding the "second mention"
Yes.
and strive to achieve what Fowler mocked as the "cheap ornament" of "elegant variation"?
No.
Mike of Snoqualmie @ 6:18: "Errant nonsense..."
Are you sure? I'd bet my lunch money that it was "Arrant nonsense."
Sorry to be so picky but isn't that part of the joy of a post like this?
I just now went out to the store and while driving, I was thinking of how I would write a news story about Elon Musk, how would I describe the Gen-X billionaire? Would my second mention be "EV Tycoon", when a deer ambled into the road out of the darkness and I noticed the garden munching ungulate just in time to avoid banging up my car, - whew! Playfulness is part of writing interesting prose, who wants to read news stories that read like Ikea directions?(didn't use it there and the second use of 'read sounds clumsy) Of course "garden munching ungulate" is an obvious reach, which draws attention to the writing, considered a no no, as it breaks the spell you strive to put the reader under with fiction, but Gen-X billionaire? Why not? It's economical, news stories are short, playfulness is a plus. Discernment and taste are everything in writing and there are no hard rules.
“ I did get some excellent advice from a writing friend - secondhand, she said, but I can't recall where she heard it: "said" is the appropriate verb, most of the time, in writing dialogue.”
It’s one of Elmore Leonard’s rules, specifically only to use “ said” when presenting dialogue.
Owen said...
"Mike of Snoqualmie @ 6:18: "Errant nonsense..."
Are you sure? I'd bet my lunch money that it was "Arrant nonsense."
Sorry to be so picky but isn't that part of the joy of a post like this?"
"When Winston Churchill was chastised for ending a sentence with a preposition, he wittily responded. “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” Churchill's retort illustrates that attempts to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition can be labored and ludicrous." (Wikipedia)
Owen:
Here's a discussion on arrant vs. errant. Arrant is an offshoot of errant.
Duckduckgo-ing the Churchill quote in either form yields no result for that phrase. Lot's of citations about arrant and errant.
I believe Owen is right.
Oh my God this is so me!! I swear it's like a disease that I can't repeat the same word in the same paragraph. And repeating the same word twice in a row is like hell!
"aforementioned" does the job in legal writing, but is otherwise clunky, especially in writing aiming to be euphonious.
It’s one of Elmore Leonard’s rules, specifically only to use “ said” when presenting dialogue.
That must be the guy! Thank you, Professor.
I have to assume Mr. Leonard is being a little hyperbolic... Surely there are appropriate exceptions. But overall, an excellent guideline!
1. God
1a. Jesus
2. Fowler
The main difference I detect between Fowler and Ping is that it’s harder to embarrass Ping.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the place where "second mention" occurs most frequently, which is in pornography. There are only so many times you can use "penis," and yet in a porn novel you are constantly tripping over the damn thing.
Admittedly, I've actually read only one porn novel (it was titled "Michelle," and my husband bought it for me as a sort of joke), but man did that pseudonymous author try to find evocative synonyms for the "male member" (can we call it that any more?). I remember "minaret" was one, but there were dozens. Plus various other absurdities; the book ended, more or less, with the leading man sodomizing a slave, who in turn was pleasuring "Michelle." Sort of a f*ck sandwich. Can you imagine such a scene in real life? I mean, without muffled cries of "Sorry!" and "Oops!" and "Excuse me!"? It would be very interesting as farce.
Oh, where did my husband find the book? At my then-workplace, Borders in Emeryville. I don't know why ours was different from other Borders, but we had an entire wall of black-bound porn novels. I once sold one to the late Michael Morgan, who was at the time director of the Cal University Symphony as well as the Oakland Symphony. His pick was "Tabitha's Tickle." He brought it up to the register before seeing that it was his principal violist who was ringing him up :-)
I suppose I write like the scent of a Fowler- uh, flower…
Or not. I write like I think- editing before the words exit the mouth.
It may be annoying to read, but I have fun.
Of course, it’s my 2nd “job”. The 1st job feeds us.
Moo. Moo.
Michelle- such a great story!!
Don’t forget the female chest- and the many ways to… never mind. I’ve not graduated from the occasional romance novel. I’m not that… brave.
Good writing doesn't call attention to itself. In The Remains of the Day, the narrator describes a good butler as being nearly invisible; if the guest needs something, it just appears, without attention being drawn to how it got there. Good writing is like that--natural, the reader just flows along and doesn't have to stop and think about the writing too much. So I try to avoid repetition through pronouns or changing the phrasing, not by reaching for synonyms that are jarring in a different way.
Betty White was on the tonight show talking about writing a story when she was a girl and trying not to repeat the word "said." She ran through all the synonyms and when she got to "ejaculated" she got a big laugh. It wasn't very funny or at all relevant, but she was Betty White so she got a big laugh.
You've already written "banana," so quit for the day and now go eat an elongated yellow fruit.
As the Master said, pornography always ends in the copulation of cliches.
Having gleefully filed this post in my Althouse Treasures collection, I was making myself a coffee before it struck me that hardin's "2nd edition" comment was another gem within a gem.
Made my day!
Slightly OT: To quietly read Fowler on “Split Infinites” (hereafter S.I.)
Tyler Cowen linked to an article about Europa today that had the following "second mention"
"The researchers behind the new paper believe that the mechanism for how these double ridges formed in Greenland ought to apply to Europa—which suggests that there is more liquid water on the Jovian moon than we could ever have imagined."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/chances-of-finding-alien-life-on-jupiter-moon-europa-shoot-up-with-new-liquid-water-discoveries
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