As a young boy, I developed a curious interest in four letter words. I knew the meaning of many, but not for those considered most vulgar. Educational pursuit drove my quest for knowledge, rather than any basic prurient interest. Nevertheless, I guarded my ignorance with caution, lest my school chums tease me as a mere tyro on the facts of life. I conducted secretive research in our home library, consisting of an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and an even older edition of a Webster’s Dictionary. Not surprisingly, none of the forbidden four letter words made the edit. Over time, with sly discrete inquiries and through idiomatic context, I became aware of their meaning.

Thereafter, I still carried a fascination with four letter words, and collected them, as a kid would collect baseball cards. Occasionally, I would flip one to win a point. Whenever I located a good four letter word that sounded like a bad one, I reveled in the discovery and added it to my collection. For example, the ubiquitous word FART is a four letter word that every kindergartner knows, evoking childish laughter upon a mere utterance. Can you think of any other sound alike words, not homonymous but close enough? Consider two:

FARD and PHOT! Both sound alike, and easily could be mistaken for an over-exuberant rush of foul air, teasing the ear and nose; while in truth, their respective meanings approach astuteness and, and in one case, enlightenment. In fairness, I will use both words in a sentence, so the reader may determine their meaning from context. (1) Did you FARD today? (2) If you remain uncertain, let me add a little PHOT to the question.  Alas, if neither context helped, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary provides their meaning:

FARD, may be used as a noun or a verb, meaning: to paint the face with cosmetics; to gloss over, as a verb; and the paint used on the face, as a noun.

PHOT may be used only as a noun. No action here! Despite sounding like a Bostonian utterance, A PHOT is a ray of light; defined as: a unit of illumination equal to one lumen per square centimeter.

Accordingly, an actor may FARD in a PHOT without awakening the aural and olfactory senses.

My freshman college English professor introduced me to the famous writing primer, Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (New York: MacMillan, 1979.) William J. Strunk taught English at Cornell University in the early part of the twentieth century, and had self published a small handbook, known on campus as “the little book”, to improve the writing of his students. E. B. White, a student of Strunk, republished the booklet forty years later.

Through frequent usage, my thumb-worn copy became unbound, requiring rubber bands and staples to hold it together. With sadness, likened to the loss of a loyal friend, I replaced my underlined, highlighted and note-ladened version with a clean, intact later edition. For some, the little book may seem outdated today, but it contains many useful writing tips. Three of my favorite Strunk tips stress concise writing, repeated below in quotes, with my comments:

1. “Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs.” (Strunk, 71) Without strong nouns and action verbs, a sentence fails. Adjectives and adverbs limit rather than expand meaning. No matter how descriptive an adjective, it cannot improve a weak noun. Similarly, an action verb avoids the need for a descriptive adverb. My early writing years featured sentence diagraming, which placed nouns and verbs in a prominent place on the diagram line, with adjectives and adverbs modifying them on a slant line. Substituting a stronger noun in the subject and an action word for the verb enabled removal of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.

2. “Omit needless words. . . Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences . . .” (Strunk, 23.) Revision is the fun part of writing. Tightening a paragraph, and the sentences within, will energize a written work. Reducing a sentence to a clause; a clause to a phrase, or a phrase to a word, brings an “eureka” moment to the writer, as it omits needless words, and improves clarity.

3. Use the Active Voice. . . makes for forceful writing.” (Strunk, 14) In forceful writing, the action will move from the subject through the verb to the object. In Passive voice, the action flows in reverse. Importantly, this rule does not declare that use of the Passive voice is wrong, however, for in many instances it may perform better.

Strunk included many other writing tips, but to my thinking the three above merit special attention and, if followed, will inject vigor and force in one’s writing.