Elegant variation

Elegant variation is the unnecessary, and sometimes misleading, use of synonyms to denote a single thing, driven by an imbalance in compositional tone in which an attempt to maintain euphony by avoiding monotonous repetition degrades clarity and inadvertently introduces a different kind of tonal problem (such as unintended humor or attention-drawing eccentricity). Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933) coined the name elegant variation for this phenomenon. In his Dictionary of Modern English Usage (first edition, 1926), Fowler wrote:

It is the second-rate writers, those intent rather on expressing themselves prettily than on conveying their meaning clearly, & still more those whose notions of style are based on a few misleading rules of thumb, that are chiefly open to the allurements of elegant variation.... There are few literary faults so widely prevalent, & this book will not have been written in vain if the present article should heal any sufferer of his infirmity.
The fatal influence is the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence — or within 20 lines or other limit. The advice has its uses; it reminds any who may be in danger of forgetting it that there are such things as pronouns, the substitution of which relieves monotony;... It also gives a useful warning that a noticeable word used once should not be used again in the neighborhood with a different application.^[1]

Elegant variation may be seen in journalism if word variation, such as the replacement of the word "fire" with "blaze" or "conflagration", draws attention to itself. It is considered particularly problematic in legal writing, scientific writing, and other technical writing, where the avoidance of ambiguity is essential. Alternatives to synonymy include repetition and the use of pro-forms.

"Inelegant variation"

Bryan A. Garner in Garner's Modern American Usage proposes inelegant variation as a more appropriate name for the phenomenon, and asserts that, in coining the term elegant variation, Fowler was using elegant in a then-current pejorative sense of "excessively or pretentiously styled".^[2] Richard W. Bailey denies Garner's contention, suggesting that Fowler's use of elegant was a deliberate irony.^[3] Nevertheless, inelegant variation has been used by others, including Gerald Lebovits^[4] and Wayne Schiess.^[5]

In poetry

Elegant variation in poetry may occur because of a poet’s need to use a word which fits the scansion and rhyme pattern of the poem.

In other languages

Whereas in English elegant variation is often considered a stylistic error, in other languages it might be considered good writing style.

In French^[6] purists consider the rule of elegant variation (that is, using synonyms wherever possible) to be essential for good style.^[7]

Examples

In The King's English (1906), Fowler gives as an example this passage from The Times:

The Emperor received yesterday and to-day General Baron von Beck ... It may therefore be assumed with some confidence that the terms of a feasible solution are maturing themselves in His Majesty's mind and may form the basis of further negotiations with Hungarian party leaders when the Monarch goes again to Budapest.^[8]

Fowler objected to the passage because The Emperor, His Majesty, and the Monarch all refer to the same person: "The effect," he pointed out in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (first edition, p. 131, col. 2), "is to set readers wondering what the significance of the change is, only to conclude disappointedly that it has none."

In The King's English (page 189), Fowler described a report of an art auction from the Westminster Gazette which, within twenty lines, described sales of pictures, using eleven synonyms for "sold for various sums" ("made, fetched, changed hands for, went for, produced, elicited, drew, fell at, accounted for, realized, were knocked down for"); also, it is not clear which of these words implied different success at the sale.
Among sub-editors at The Guardian, "gratuitous synonyms" are called "povs," an acronym of "popular orange vegetables" — a phrase that was removed from the draft of an article about carrots in the Liverpool Echo.^[9] Charles W. Morton similarly wrote of an "elongated yellow fruit," a presumed synonym of "banana" that was used in the Boston Evening Transcript.^[10]
Garner's Modern American Usage cites examples given by Morton, including "elongated yellow fruit" and others: billiard balls ("the numbered spheroids"); Bluebeard ("the azure-whiskered wifeslayer"); Easter-egg hunt ("hen-fruit safari"); milk ("lacteal fluid"); oysters ("succulent bivalves"); peanut ("the succulent goober"); songbird ("avian songster"); truck ("rubber-tired mastodon of the highway").^[2]
In a BBC TV report in March 2005: (Kabul had just fallen): "... he brought a satellite [communications unit] in ... [the road was impassable to wheeled traffic, so] he broke [the unit] down and carried it on donkeys ... with his load on 35 mules ..." "Mule" and "donkey" were used as elegant-variation synonyms, although they are different animals.
Another elegant variation nuisance can happen with dates: e.g., replacing "1947 ... 1963" with "1947 ... sixteen years later," which forces the reader to ferret back through the text for the previous date and then calculate the intended date. This can also cause ambiguity: "1947 [...] sixteen years later [...] twenty years later" may mean "1947 [...] 1963 [...] 1983" or "1947 [...] 1963 [...] 1967".
In a World War II war news report printed in the The Daily Telegraph on 20 June 1943, we read, "The King was refused admission to an R.A.F. station in North Africa by a sergeant who demanded identification papers. The N.C.O., however, quickly recognized his Majesty and permitted him to enter." It is not clear whether the sergeant and the N.C.O. are the same man.
Confusion may result in cases which look like elegant variation but are not. For example:
- A newspaper sub-editor who was accustomed to replacing game with match to avoid repetition may make an error with tennis, where a game is not the same as a match. Similarly, in cricket a draw (game ran out of time) is not the same as a tie (game finished with the same number of runs for each side).
- In a local election for councillors, "Party A won" is not the same as "Party B lost," even if no third party had a chance of winning, because there is also the "hung condition," where no party has 50% or more of the seats.
An example in classical literature is in Virgil Georgics iii 151-519, describing ploughing with two yoked oxen;^[11] Virgil calls one of the two oxen "taurus" (bull) and the other "iuvencum" (bullock (accusative case)); was the ploughman ploughing with a bullock and an entire bull? Or is it merely elegant variation?

References

↑ Fowler, H.W. (2009). David Crystal, ed. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-0-19-953534-7. (A reprint of the 1926 edition.)
1 2 Garner, Bryan A. (2009). Garner's Modern American Usage (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 462. ISBN 978-0-19-538275-4.
↑ Bailey, Richard W. (1999). "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (review)". Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. 20 (1): 151–155. doi:10.1353/dic.1999.0010. ISSN 2160-5076.
↑ Lebovits, Gerald (March–April 2010). "Persuasive Writing for Lawyers—Part II". New York State Bar Association Journal. 82 (3): 60. Conversely, be aware of inelegant variation, in which a writer uses different words to mean the same thing. Inelegant variation confuses, whereas repetition has power
↑ Schiess, Wayne (July–August 2009). "You Can Use the Same Word Twice in the Identical Discussion". Austin Lawyer. Wayne: 6.
↑ Paterson, Ann (2006). "Painting with words". In Eugenia Loffredo, Manuela Perteghella. Translation And Creativity: Perspectives on Creative Writing And Translation Studies. Continuum. p. 88. ISBN 0-8264-8793-9. Elegant variation. French tends to avoid repetition of proper names, with a description of the person, at second reference.
↑ Fuller, Frederick (1984). The Translator's Handbook: (with special reference to conference translation from French and Spanish). Penn State University Press. p. 35. ISBN 0-271-00368-5.
↑ Fowler, H.W.; Fowler, F.G. (1931). The King's English (3rd ed.). London: Oxford University Press. p. 187. ISBN 0-19-869105 X.
↑ "My synonym hell". Mind your language. The Guardian. 2 June 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
↑ "The Press: Elongated Fruit". Time. 10 August 1953. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
↑ https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Georgicon/Liber_III

External links

The King's English, Chapter III

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