Do You Truly Know Your Words?

This will be a quick post, but not without significance.

How well do you truly know the words you think you know? Yesterday, while writing my review of the novella Silt (review here), I wanted to describe the main character's desire/problem with alcohol.

I said something to the effect of him having "a very strong penchant for lager and booze."

Then, I started doubting myself. "Do I have that word right?"

I think this goes back to a college paper when I was writing about some short story for a class. I was referring to a character's backstory (or what I call their history), and I said something about the "histrionics" of the story. My professor got a chuckle out of that... and enjoyed correcting me.

In fairness, I was a young English major trying out my "vocabulary"... ill-informed as it was.

So, anyway, I looked up penchant, and learned: "a strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something."

I looked back at my sentence and realized my "very strong" was redundant... the equivalent of writing "a very strong strong liking for lager and booze."

So, I dropped the "very strong"... but I did not go into histrionics!

Another word: unique

It literally means "one of a kind or the only one of its kind."

And yet, I wonder how often we write that something is "very unique"?

Can something be "very one of a kind?"

That's kind of like saying something is "very dead".

So, perhaps it's a good time to think about the words you think you know. Might be time for a dictionary refresher from time to time.

If you find my blog posts instructive or enlightening, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division, as a donated payment for the "class."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

A review of the book: here