Writing Tools

By Roy Peter Clark
Senior Scholar

Consider this new writing strategy, one I did not describe in my book, "Writing Tools."  In some future edition, it might read like this:

Develop a lexicon of special words for your reader. 
Help readers become insiders.

Many writers I admire use this strategy, especially when trying to break down the doors of a culture or subculture.  To get "inside," you need access to the special language of the tribe, whether it is expressed in a foreign language, dialect, jargon or slang.  Whether the vessel is a legal document or a rap song,  language is chosen to keep you out.  To use a scholarly phrase, these "discourse communities" are often gated, so it's the good writer's job to offer readers a set of keys.

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Take, for example, Roald Dahl's description of British citizens living and working in Africa and India during the days of the empire:  "They were the craziest bunch of humans I shall ever meet.  For one thing, they spoke a language of their own.  If they worked in East Africa, their sentences were sprinkled with Swahili words, and if they lived in India then all manner of dialects were intermingled.  As well as this, there was a whole vocabulary of much-used words that seemed to be universal among all these people.  An evening drink, for example, was always a sundowner.  A drink at any other time was a chota peg.  One's wife was the memsahib.  To have a look at something was to have a shufti ... Something of poor quality was shenzi.  The empire-builders' jargon would have filled a dictionary."

Language and gender scholar Deborah Tannen offers examples of cultures that use language to bring people together or align them as adversaries:  "In native Hawaiian culture, for example, there is a word, ho'oponopono ('to set things right'), for a ceremony in which family members invite an elder  ... to oversee the resolution of a dispute ... Hierarchical social relations play a major role, as they do in another ritual, ho-opapa, a verbal contest of wits and insults that can be played either for fun or in earnest combat, to establish superiority between rivals."   This last example sounds like the "yo mama" jokes of African-American culture, sometimes called "playing the dozens."

Writers can use this strategy as dialogue to advance a narrative, as in this case from Anne Fadiman, who grew up in a family of word lovers:  "The English professor said 'Mephitic! That must mean foul-smelling.  I've seen it in "Paradise Lost," describing the smell of hell.' My brother, a mountain guide and natural history teacher who lives in Wyoming, said 'Mephitic, hmm, yes.  The scientific name for the striped skunk is Mephitis mephitis, which means Stinky stinky.' "

And here is a passage from Michael Heim, author of "The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality," on how technology has influenced our language:  "During the 1980s a new vocabulary established the computerization of English.  To be initiated, you had to repeat buzzwords like access, input and output.  You learned to speak of files having no apparent physical dimensions, menus offering a selection of non-edibles, and monitors providing vigilance over your own words."

Every group, no matter how small, develops over time its own lingo.  As a reporter or anthropologist or ethnographer, you can't get very far inside without learning the language.  Let me offer, as an exhibit, the amazing Clark family.  If you hung around our house long enough, you would hear odd phrases and invented words -- linguists call them "neologisms"-- that help define our values and relationships.  Here's a mini-lexicon:

1. poop du jour:  A sign that a family member is a regular person.
2. fooding hand:  Meaning your "left hand," created by daughter Emily when she was a little girl.  She ate with her left hand.
3. no say woo-woo:  When you happen to catch a family member partially clad, you are required to say "woo-woo," but baby daughter Lauren didn't like it, so her retort was "no say woo-woo."  It can be used to fend off any objectionable language.
4. Mr. Pelican Pants:  Used to ridicule loud and obnoxious clothing, named after a gent who used to wear his golf pants to church.
5. keysta louista:  Your keys, but only to remind you to grab them.  (Probably derived from "keister," meaning derriere.  Like saying "did you remember your butt?")
6. left ovary:  The yucky stuff at the bottom of mayonnaise or jelly jars.  In other words, it's left over, but in a family with three daughters ...
7. sticky-uppy-outie:  Used almost exclusively to describe your bad hair in the morning.
   

Several reporting paths will get you to such knowledge:  intensive listening, hanging around, eavesdropping, interviewing with language in mind ("What do you guys call that thing?"), attention to family rituals, documents such as letters and family albums, memories of grandparents and siblings, and many more.

It was T.S. Eliot who described the hope that the poet could "purify the language of the tribe."  Journalists can do that by attending to their craft, but there is a task just as important: listening to the language of others and translating so we can all understand.

[Dear Readers:  Please submit examples of your own family secret language.]