word choices
23 Mar 2011 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouI was writing a reply recently and stumbled at a description. "Straightforward," I started to type, then paused, backed up, and pondered for a bit before coming up with "forthright". When rereading before hitting the post button, it occurred to me that I do this rather often, with the following words and phrases, and use alternates instead.
straight up => right out
straighten out => clear up, set right
go straight => go forward
setting someone straight => correcting, telling clearly
a straight answer => succinct answer
straight through => all the way through
___ straight [period of time] => ___ unbroken [time], ___ uninterrupted [time]
They're not all perfect synonyms, and sometimes I can see I've done a bit of a sidestep around my kneecap to get to my elbow, just to avoid the word. It's not like I'm trying to be PC, only that I think I took it to heart the joke a gay friend used to make, when I was in college: "never go straight, go crooked." (Though if feeling cranky, he'd say, "don't go straight, get bent.")
My sensitivity to the word and its connotations means I'm equally sensitive to reading the word in anyone else's writing. Not that I judge when I see it, only that I think, here is someone not sensitive to that, the way I am, sort of like when you're surprised that someone doesn't get hay fever like you. Neither good nor bad, just a bit of ah 'oh' observation. If someone else also avoids the word... that's harder to assess, because unless it's a really obvious one (where 'straight' would be kind of the default term, so to speak), there are different ways to say just about anything, so the absence isn't proof of anything.
But am I the only one who goes out of the way to avoid certain, specific words? And not even words that necessarily politically loaded, either -- because I also avoid 'overt' and 'sublime', whenever I can.
straight up => right out
straighten out => clear up, set right
go straight => go forward
setting someone straight => correcting, telling clearly
a straight answer => succinct answer
straight through => all the way through
___ straight [period of time] => ___ unbroken [time], ___ uninterrupted [time]
They're not all perfect synonyms, and sometimes I can see I've done a bit of a sidestep around my kneecap to get to my elbow, just to avoid the word. It's not like I'm trying to be PC, only that I think I took it to heart the joke a gay friend used to make, when I was in college: "never go straight, go crooked." (Though if feeling cranky, he'd say, "don't go straight, get bent.")
My sensitivity to the word and its connotations means I'm equally sensitive to reading the word in anyone else's writing. Not that I judge when I see it, only that I think, here is someone not sensitive to that, the way I am, sort of like when you're surprised that someone doesn't get hay fever like you. Neither good nor bad, just a bit of ah 'oh' observation. If someone else also avoids the word... that's harder to assess, because unless it's a really obvious one (where 'straight' would be kind of the default term, so to speak), there are different ways to say just about anything, so the absence isn't proof of anything.
But am I the only one who goes out of the way to avoid certain, specific words? And not even words that necessarily politically loaded, either -- because I also avoid 'overt' and 'sublime', whenever I can.