Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Would you use these verbs?

When I blogged about my favorite verbs recently, I was thinking in terms of creating action within fiction. A couple of friends joked about the piece and offered a few of their own favorites, none of which I plan to use in my own work. But, the topic, and the laughs, made me think about other types of verbs, common and not so common, some of which I've listed below. I can’t foresee using them – at least not at this moment – but who knows. Maybe, just maybe, one or two of them will slink around the crevices of my brain and worm their way into my prose.

Verbs like:
  • Backspace: I’m not sure this is really a verb but I caught myself saying I was going to backspace somebody out of my life. Don’t you think it’s a stronger word than delete?
  • Abscind: Can you imagine writing this: The killer abscinded his victim’s hands. Nah, it doesn’t even sound like a verb.
  • Scamander: I think I’d just use meander. Scarify: This really means to scar but I think readers might interpret it as a form of scare.
  • Plodge: I kind of like this one. I can almost see someone plodging around an unclean stable or maybe the soggy ground during a monsoon.
  • Fantasticate: Sorry, but this one sounds a bit too much like one of those malaprops, like refudiate.
  • Obfuscate: This is actually a common word, one I used in a column many, many years ago. A reader told me if I didn’t stop using such big words, he would stop reading my stuff. (I backspaced him from my Christmas list, even before I ever thought of using backspace as a verb.)
  • Gerrymander: We’ve probably seen a version of this word as a noun but not so much as a verb. It’s kind of sad, though, that a word that sounds so nice would mean something so nefarious. (Okay, maybe nefarious is too strong but isn’t it a melodic word, despite its definition?)
  • Decatise: Hmmm. I bet ephemera experts know how to decatise.
This whole verb thing interests me. It’s the verb that moves action along and the precise verb should be powerful enough to let the reader feel and see the action.

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