'Use More Expressive Words' Teachers Bark, Beseech, Implore

Writing advice has certainly come full circle.

It wasn't that far back that the "simpler is better" approach was de rigueur: "if you can use 'said'," it was said, "don't strain for some artificial substitute." This advice would be followed by laughable examples in which a lamentable student effort would be cited as an example of strained dialog (e.g., so-and-so "ejaculated" and another so-and-so "emitted", all in an obviously strained effort to avoid having to say "said").

This article indicates that writing teachers today are going out of their way to teach students to avoid using lists of simple words that pretty much say what they say but do not do it in a colorful manner.

What is missing here is obvious to me. A good writing style uses simple words, and sometimes even copiously, but also uses pace and rhythm to mix colorful or even arresting words in with them.

It is as big a mistake to strive artificially to avoid simple words as it was in the past to say that all writing should be reduced to such words in the name of directness.

Neither approach is natural and neither works. Yes, strive to lift yourself up from the banal, the trite, or the Valley Girl modes of expression. But don't avoid perfectly good words for expressing perfectly good ideas just because they are widely used. By all means, do use such words. Just learn to vary your expression selectively so that you do not become boring or lifeless in how you say what it is you want to say. In other words, use your imagination and vary your language accordingly but do so against a backdrop that uses everyday words in their usual way. In that way, your reader's attention will be drawn to the part that counts and not to the backdrop part that doesn't need either emphasis or attention.

At least that is how I see it.

The advice to vary simple words merely for the sake of varying them is bad advice. Avoid it.