A. D. SHEFFIELD, 1938

2. Usability

The whole body of English words may be viewed against a sort of star map which shows the distinguishable "tone"-constellations and suggests their outer limits of usability. A large nucleus of the vocabulary is of course neutral in tone, comprising words (like man, proud, strike, different) which have no restrictive associations with any one level or field of discourse. Around this nucleus, however, appear groupings which affect one's judgment as to where  (in what sort of writing) the proffered word will be "in good use." Thus -

Here the vertical series of "tone"-distinctions forms a scale of dignity, moving from "neutral" up through "literary" (e.g.:  ingenuous, deprecate), "poetic" (e.g.:  eventide,  froward), line - for most occasions - into "affected" (e.g.:  eleemosyne); and moving down through "colloquial" (e.g.:  cocky), "slang" (e.g.:  boob, galoot), over the line into " vulgar" (e.g.:  bum doodads). Next we have restrictive time-associations, moving through "archaic" (e.g.:  hostel, wroth), over into "obsolete" (maumetry) ; and place-associations which move through "dialectic" (e.g.:  mawk for "maggot") over into what is out-and-out " foreign". Finally we have restrictive "technicality", moving through is felt as "jargon" (protasis, volplane) over into the special nomenclatures of science (maxilla, pomiform); and restrictive feelings as to what is cultivated and well-bred, moving through the banal and "common" (a gripping show) over into the "illiterate" (e.g.:  infer for "imply").

The Writer's Cabinet

Meaningfulness

Usability

Core-sense & synonym cluster

Beyond limits

Making  a word the best


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