Fun With Words
Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniAll righty, then.
The alert reader will remember Carousel Tides, which had a few weeks ago gone out to the bold and courageous folken who had agreed to be beta readers. The comments are now in, since every one of them reads much faster than I write, and are insightful and helpful. In the way of such things, everyone found something different to note or talk about*. My job now is synthesis, and then a little more wait before I actually, y'know, read the whole manuscript myself.
*With this exception: No fewer than three readers wished to know what "ravin" meant. Fair enough. I accept that I know a lot of weird words. Also? I have been known to make words up when none of those on hand were precisely what I wanted, so they're right to watch me. If "ravin" kicks even experienced readers out of the story, it needs to go, and another, less weird, word found to bear its weight.
Which brings us to today's exercise. Behold the sentence frag in which "ravin" appears:
The alert reader will remember Carousel Tides, which had a few weeks ago gone out to the bold and courageous folken who had agreed to be beta readers. The comments are now in, since every one of them reads much faster than I write, and are insightful and helpful. In the way of such things, everyone found something different to note or talk about*. My job now is synthesis, and then a little more wait before I actually, y'know, read the whole manuscript myself.
*With this exception: No fewer than three readers wished to know what "ravin" meant. Fair enough. I accept that I know a lot of weird words. Also? I have been known to make words up when none of those on hand were precisely what I wanted, so they're right to watch me. If "ravin" kicks even experienced readers out of the story, it needs to go, and another, less weird, word found to bear its weight.
Which brings us to today's exercise. Behold the sentence frag in which "ravin" appears:
...vandals and condominium developers poised to rape and ravin the land.
Now, I like this. "rape and ravin" have a nice rhythmic rrrr thing going on between them, I like the reflection back to the vandals, and I want to evoke precisely the sort of terrible things both "rape" and "ravin" have packed inside them. In short, I think the phrase says everything it should say, neatly, sweetly and in voice.
OTOH, we certainly don't want people getting knocked out of the story at this point, saying "WTF is 'ravin'?" (I think it's broadly understandable from context, but that's just me.)
The search is therefore on for a new phrase. I dismiss out of hand "rape and pillage". "Rape and wreck" preserves the rrrrr thing, but, I dunno, "wreck" just doesn't pack the same weapons as "ravin."
Suggestions? Comments?
Now, I like this. "rape and ravin" have a nice rhythmic rrrr thing going on between them, I like the reflection back to the vandals, and I want to evoke precisely the sort of terrible things both "rape" and "ravin" have packed inside them. In short, I think the phrase says everything it should say, neatly, sweetly and in voice.
OTOH, we certainly don't want people getting knocked out of the story at this point, saying "WTF is 'ravin'?" (I think it's broadly understandable from context, but that's just me.)
The search is therefore on for a new phrase. I dismiss out of hand "rape and pillage". "Rape and wreck" preserves the rrrrr thing, but, I dunno, "wreck" just doesn't pack the same weapons as "ravin."
Suggestions? Comments?
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 05:58 pm (UTC)I think there are two problems here, rather than just one. First, as you note, ravin is a rare word. Neither my wife nor I had seen it before, which I suggest puts it into Gene Wolfe territory.
Second, it's being used in its rarest sense -- as best I can tell from my references, ravin is usually a noun, sometimes an intransitive verb, and not quite never a transitive verb.
So...
If you want to preserve the sense of "greedily gobble up", and the alliteration with rape as well, I'd suggest going with raven. It's got a very common cognate that gives the right idea of what it means, and its most common use is as a transitive verb.
On the other hand, rape and raven strikes me as a mixed metaphor. Predators don't rape, and plunderers don't eat the thing they plunder (though they may eat some of the plunder). Maybe I'm overly sensitive to that sort of thing.
At any rate, I would humbly suggest giving up on ravin/raven entirely, or using raven by itself, or with some other (probably non-alliterative) transitive verb of predation. As an alliterative pair, ravish and ravage or rape and ravage would avoid the mixed metaphor (since plunder and destruction are consistent but different behaviors), but might be a bit clichéed.
(...raven and wolf..., while amusing, would be A Bad Idea.)
Just my $.02.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 06:19 pm (UTC)