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know “capacious,” but “lacuna”? Would the sentence have been clearer if my Mend had written that Halberstam’s history, though capacious, leaves out a good deal? , In his book, Halberstam recalled John Chancellor’s coverage of racial turmoil in Little Rock, Ark. As a mob jostled and jeered him, a local civil rights leader “had an epiphany about the power of the media.” An epiphany is an “illuminating discovery.” It is “a sudden perception of the essential nature of something.” I would classify “epiphany” as a hard word, but Halberstam used it precisely. I wouldn’t touch the line.
In the Chicago Sun-Times in September, a columnist noted that small investors are pouring money into mutual funds. He wondered what would happen if this “tsunami of cash” should be reversed. In context, the word “tsunami” probably was clear enough, but would “tidal wave” have been better?
A columnist for Newsday turned out a piece on Wal-Mart stores. An Arkansas judge had ordered the chain to pay $289,000 to four of its small competitors. The columnist thought Wal-Mart could afford it. After all, “Wal-Mart is not some eleemosynary institution victimized by a hayseed court.” Why trot out “eleemosynary” when “charitable” is waiting in the stable?
’Nuff said. Every writer knows the temptation of the unfamiliar word. The exotic is always tempting, and now and then we have to succumb. But this should be kept in mind: Not many of our readers are likely to have epiphanies on sighting an avatar. Give’em a break!
COPYRIGHT 1993
UNIVERSAL PRESS
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