Unit 5 · Topic 5.6

5.6 Descriptive and precise word choice

Adjectives, adverbs and other describing words do more than paint a picture; they reveal how the writer sees the thing being described. Exact words leave readers less to guess and let them see the subject the way the writer does, so strong verbs and specific nouns usually beat vague words propped up with extra modifiers.

Key terms

diction
precise language
descriptive language
tone
imagery

Descriptive words carry a point of view

Adjectives and adverbs modify other words, but they also show how the writer feels about the thing described. "A modest house" and "a cramped house" may describe the same building; one respects it, the other pities it. Calling a crowd "passionate" or "unruly" shows where the writer stands. When you read, treat descriptive words as small claims.

Exact words leave less to guess

Vague words force readers to guess. Exact words pin down what the writer means and let readers see the subject through the writer's eyes.

Precision also builds credibility: a writer who says exactly what they mean sounds like someone who has thought it through.

Vague	Precise
The town has a lot of problems.	The town's only grocery store closed in March.
The speech was really good.	The speech made a skeptical crowd laugh, then applaud.
He walked away.	He stormed out.
Prices went up a lot.	Bus fares doubled in two years.

Strong verbs and specific nouns

Many vague sentences are weak because the verb is weak (is, has, gets, goes) and an adverb is trying to rescue it. "She ran very quickly" becomes "She sprinted." "The city did something about the problem" becomes "The city repaved the road." Specific nouns work the same way: "a vehicle" tells less than "a delivery van."

This doesn't mean cutting every adjective. Keep the ones that add information or attitude the noun can't carry alone: "a borrowed axe" tells readers something "an axe" doesn't.

Precision in your own analysis

Your commentary benefits from the same advice. "The author uses words to show his feelings" says almost nothing. Replace vague analytical verbs (shows, uses, talks about) with precise ones: mocks, dignifies, warns, concedes, exaggerates, undercuts. Name the exact feeling, too: not "emotion," but grief, outrage, nostalgia or contempt. On all three essays, a consistently vivid, precise style is one way to earn the sophistication point.

Descriptive words in reading passages

In reading passages, look for descriptive words that quietly judge. Jacob Riis, describing the water pump in a tenement hallway, one that gives no water in summer when people need it most, writes: "Hear the pump squeak! It is the lullaby of tenement-house babes." A lullaby should be gentle and soothing; calling a squeaking pump the babies' lullaby is bitterly ironic, and it tells readers how Riis feels about the conditions without stating it.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Thoreau's precise verbs
In Walden (1854), Henry David Thoreau explains why he lived alone in a cabin at Walden Pond: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." A little later he adds: "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." Explain how Thoreau's precise word choices convey his perspective.
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: "Deliberately" is a precise adverb: it means on purpose and with full attention, the opposite of living by habit.
2. Step 2: "Front" is an unusual, physical verb. It means to face something head-on, as if confronting it, rather than just look at it.
3. Step 3: "Suck out all the marrow" is a vivid image: marrow is the rich center of a bone, so living fully means getting at what's hidden inside, not just the surface.
4. Step 4: Connect to purpose: Thoreau wants readers who live busy, habitual lives to see ordinary living as half-living.
Answer: Model paragraph: Thoreau's word choices are exact, and each one sharpens his criticism of ordinary life. He wanted to live "deliberately," a word that implies most people live by habit rather than by choice. He went to "front" the essential facts of life, a physical verb that makes living sound like facing an opponent head-on. And he wanted to "suck out all the marrow of life," an image that treats life like a bone whose richest part lies hidden inside. Together, these precise choices suggest that the busy lives of his readers are only scraping the surface, and they invite readers to want something deeper.
Example 2
Sharpening a vague analysis sentence
Practice sentence (written for this page): "The author uses really good words to make the speech very powerful and emotional." Revise it to be precise, using Thoreau's "front only the essential facts of life" as the evidence.
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Replace "uses really good words" with the specific choice: the verb "front."
2. Step 2: Replace "very powerful and emotional" with the precise effect: the sense of confronting life head-on.
3. Step 3: Name the purpose the choice serves.
Answer: Revised: "By choosing the blunt, physical verb 'front,' Thoreau makes his retreat to the woods sound like an act of courage, a decision to face life head-on rather than hide from it."

Common mistakes

Reaching for impressive-sounding thesaurus words that don't fit the meaning.
Piling up adjectives and adverbs instead of choosing one precise noun or verb.
Using vague analytical verbs (shows, uses, talks about) in your commentary.
Treating descriptive words in a passage as neutral instead of as signs of the writer's attitude.

On the exam

Writing questions may ask which word choice best conveys a specific attitude or most clearly describes something. Pick the most precise option that fits the writer's purpose and tone.
Precise language in your own essays makes commentary clearer and can contribute to a vivid, persuasive style, one route to the sophistication point.

Connected topics

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Check yourself

4 questions on 5.6 Descriptive and precise word choice. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1 (December 1776). Paine wrote it as George Washington's army retreated across New Jersey, and Washington had it read to his troops. "Tories" were colonists loyal to Britain; Amboy is a town in New Jersey. Paragraph 2 comes from later in the essay; the text between paragraphs 1 and 2 is omitted.

Question 1 of 4

Paine's statement "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly" (paragraph 1) supports his argument mainly by suggesting that

Question 2 of 4

In paragraph 2, Paine notes that the tavern keeper held "as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw." This detail is most likely included to

Question 3 of 4

The image at the end of paragraph 2, "though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire," conveys

It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may escape from school honours with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear for their medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, and begin the world bankrupt. And the same holds true during all the time a lad is educating himself, or suffering others to educate him. It must have been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words: “Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.” The old gentleman seems to have been unaware that many other things besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles and cannot walk without a stick. Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle and glamour of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thought.

If you look back on your own education, I am sure it will not be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry that you regret; you would rather cancel some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking in the class. For my own part, I have attended a good many lectures in my time. I still remember that the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability. I still remember that Emphyteusis is not a disease, nor Stillicide a crime. But though I would not willingly part with such scraps of science, I do not set the same store by them as by certain other odds and ends that I came by in the open street while I was playing truant. This is not the moment to dilate on that mighty place of education, which was the favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac, and turns out yearly many inglorious masters in the Science of the Aspects of Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad does not learn in the streets, it is because he has no faculty of learning. Nor is the truant always in the streets, for if he prefers, he may go out by the gardened suburbs into the country. He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones. A bird will sing in the thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of kindly thought, and see things in a new perspective. Why, if this be not education, what is?

Robert Louis Stevenson, "An Apology for Idlers" (1877), collected in Virginibus Puerisque (1881). An "apology" here means a defense. Lord Macaulay was a famous historian who won top honors at school; the Lady of Shalott, from a poem by Tennyson, sees the world only in a mirror. A "burn" is a stream.

Question 4 of 4

Stevenson's description of books as "a mighty bloodless substitute for life" (paragraph 1) suggests that books

0 of 4 answered