Have you ever had trouble finding just the right word? Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster—and several professional writers—can relate.
The company has unveiled a series of videos called Word Choices, in which scribes of different varieties discuss their quests to find the perfect word in some of their projects.
In one episode, Gabrielle Zevin discussed the language in her hit novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow with Merriam-Webster’s John Sabine. She read a passage that includes the sentence “Unless they were unreliable or clearly established to be lunatics or scoundrels, characters in novels, movies, and games were meant to be taken at face value—the totality of what they did or what they said.”
“In terms of ‘lunatics’ or ‘scoundrels,’ I was aware in choosing those words that they were old-fashioned,” she said. “And so I was always thinking that this was a book that was about something very modern to most people, which is…computers and technology, but that I always wanted to be pushing you back to something that felt more classic.”
Another episode features Emma Straub talking about her children’s book Very Good Hats, illustrated by Blanca Gómez, with Eboni Booth of Merriam-Webster. Straub revealed that the working title for the picture book was 20 Extraordinary Hats.
“That’s a word choice right there,” Straub said. “Clearly, I thought ‘extraordinary’ was, I don’t know, too long, too froofy. It didn’t get to the feeling that I wanted.”
Other writers featured in the video series include novelist Celeste Ng, cartoonist Emily Flake, video game writer Eli Cymet, and comedian Ophira Eisenberg. All of the episodes are available on Merriam-Webster’s website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
