zlacker

>>cosmoj+(OP)
I couldn't disagree more with this piece, especially the idea of a "draft #4" where you go through what you've written and replace all "pedestrian" words with less common ones from the dictionary. I know these writers, and how they "write" - it's painful to read and oozes pretentiousness. You can always tell when someone tries to fake having a wider vocabulary.

>>suctio+l9
> I know these writers, and how they "write" - it's painful to read and oozes pretentiousness.

Are you thinking, perhaps, of Mark Twain? I've never heard anyone say he was "painful to read" or "oozes pretentiousness"; you could be the first. Yet it was Twain who wrote, "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning," which is what this "draft #4" business is all about. (He stole the phrasing from a friend of his, but the sentiment was his own, in a letter in 01888 to George Bainton: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/09/02/lightning/)

>>kragen+7e
Yes, but no doubt you're aware of Twain's companion piece to that quote: “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

>>cookie+2g
Giving words a cost is a great way of thinking about how to write. Make expensive words pay their way - they must add enough value to the writing to justify their "cost".

>>taylor+9k
It was a common vernacular figure of speech in Twain's time and for decades afterwards. I haven't ever heard of a writer budgeting a dollar figure for each paragraph and adding up the cost of each sentence.