Back when the English language had a limited vocabulary, Shakespeare is thought to have created thousands of words. After Robert Heinlein created grok as a Martian word in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, his new word became popular among computer geeks, meaning “to understand.” Richard and Robert Sherman created “super-cali-fragilistic-expiali-docious” for their song written for the 1964 Disney musical film Mary Poppins, meaning “something extra-fantastic, superbly wonderful.”
Our language will always have its limitations. We have no singular neuter pronoun that we can use in an abstract sense, meaning “him or her,” so our best writing of abstractions are made in the plural sense, where the plural noun matches the plural pronoun “they.”
Readers won’t take time to look up fancy words like abstruse, recondite, or arcane, which ironically mean “difficult to understand.” We need common words that easily communicate what we mean.
We have the one word love, which must convey much different emotions in the way we feel about a spouse, a car, or a pet. How do we describe feelings when no words seem adequate?
Saying “he was angry” fails to evoke the character’s emotion in the reader. One solution is to show the feeling through the character’s actions. For example: He slammed his fist on the table, spilling coffee on his manuscript. Or, She threw her wine glass into the wall and stomped out of the room. A metaphor or simile might be useful, but it needs to relate to the context of the scene. For example: He was a volcano on the verge of eruption. Or, She was like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.
Actions speak louder than words, so describing actions, expressions, and tone of voice are as important as writing good dialogue. This fact is well illustrated by Adriano Celentano’s 1972 song “Prisencolinensinanciusol.” The music and actions make us feel like we’re listening to a classic American pop song, but you’ll not find many of the “words” in any language’s dictionary.
