Language Choice, aka art of making making familiar things alien, making beautiful things ugly, making lovely things creepy: a thread

(Illustrated here with an article from LA weekly describing tang yuan in most unpleasant terms possible.)

Writing is more than just listing its physical traits, a reproduction of a picture in the mind of a writer: the car is red, the door is wide, the cat is small.

Writing can frame those images. Show the reader how to feel, how they should feel.

I use the example of the tang yuan article because it treats this as an inevitability.

"Has there ever been another food that required as many unfortunate adjectives to describe?"

No, you did that on purpose, Brown. That sensationalism is intentional in your word choice.

There is nothing inherently alien about spherical food. Or saccharine soups. Or gelatinous textures.

But you can make it so by intentionally using words that are not commonly used to describe food.

Like what I did above.

Little chocolate menu cards would describe its contents as "luscious white chocolate wrapped around a heart of smooth hazelnut praline cream"

They're choosing words intentionally to make it sound, well, nice. Those words have association.

Menu writers in fancy restaurants oft describe food to make simple, familiar dishes sound posh. These aren't just chips, they're handcut deep fried potato slices.

Marks and Spencer's adverts are also famous for doing this with food porn closeups.

And whilst there's certainly plenty to scorn in such slights of hand, there's a lot to learn in framing & language choice as writers.

Our use of language shapes how the reader *feels* the world we build.

Those techniques of othering can be used to make familiar objects and situations seem strange and creepy. The reverse is also true, unfamiliar customs can be made to feel cosy and welcoming.

Needless to say, I find this incredibly useful a trick when writing sff.

Btw: you can describe tang yuan as "savoury-sweet sesame wrapped in a chewy rice-flour skin". You can write abt how the grit of sesame paste perfectly compliments softer textures of rice-flour skin. Or how rice wine soup cuts through savoury & sweet flavours of the tang yuan.

There has been an old game in sff of describing familiar things in alienating or esoteric ways.

Since thread has a food theme, let's have a quote from Terry Pratchett's Mort:

"They don't go in for fancy or exotic, but stick to conventional food like flightless bird embryos, minced organs in intestine skins, slices of hog flesh and burnt ground grass seeds dipped in animal fats; or, as it is known in their patois, egg, soss & bacon & a fried slice."

Or from the replies to this thread: https://twitter.com/vandroidhelsing/status/999477259298717696?s=21

There is both a world of difference and none at all between "auspicious" vs "lucky".
"Honour" vs "integrity", "honest"
"August" vs "respected"
"Traditional" vs "premodern"

I swear there are certain words that only ever show up in Victorian translations of East Asian texts.

These probably aren't the best examples, but I'm trying to get across the idea that we don't have to use the same words that have always been used.

Besides word choice, be selective in the details deployed.

Does the book-cluttered room grant the room an opppressive atmosphere? Sheer weight on the double-stacked shelves causing them to loom over the main character?

Or does double stacking cause a sense of pleasing infinity?

We as writers are often told to "show, don't tell", a mantra which many seem to think means you should not give judgment or framing in a description.

Don't tell me the food was delicious SHOW me!!!

But sometimes that word, delicious. That helps. That frames.

Thread is very food centric as it spun off the article about tang yuan, but word choice matters no matter what you're writing about.

Toilets aren't same as privies, or latrines, outhouses, earth closets, conveniences.

Not all houses are homes.
Not all fortresses are castles.

The same linguistic magic tricks that are used to make food seem delicious or alien, etc, all those tricks work on people, their customs and their body language.

Sinister smiles that slice across a face. Grimaces that crumple a mouth.

Use this power responsibly.

@threadreaderapp unroll please