If you want to keep readers, don’t drive them to the dictionary with unfamiliar words

Is it just me?

Or would you have to look up the word adamantine?

That word appeared in a column in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd, sizing up Nikki Haley’s campaign against Donald Trump.

Dowd wrote that Haley “was not mighty and canny enough to rescue us from the brute. She was on defense, not offense. She needed more of that adamantine quality that Nancy Pelosi showed against Trump.”

Adamantine derives from adamant, a stone so hard it’s impenetrable.

I know that now, because I looked it up.

Just as most readers had to look up words used by William F. Buckley Jr. — for example, epicene to describe a man considered effeminate.

Many people say Buckley was showing off. Was Maureen Dowd showing off? A better question might be: Did her choice serve her readers?

An old quip about the craft of writing says, “Ernest Hemingway never drove anyone to the dictionary.”

In other words, keep it simple and conversational to make it clear.

Is it ever OK to use an unfamiliar word?

Yes, in fiction, when the sweep of the narrative makes the experience so delicious that readers may find the discovery of a new word thrilling; in looking it up, they may get so excited that they linger in the search, exploring synonyms.

Hello, new word; hello, new friend.

For me, certain words seem unfriendly — for example, inchoate. I have to look that one up every time I see it. It means being in an early stage, imperfectly developed, disordered or incoherent.

My brain resists absorbing that definition. I suppose that makes at least part of my brain inchoate.

In nonfiction writing — for journalistic, business or social communication — a word that drives us to the dictionary interrupts the flow, undermining effectiveness.

I’m not suggesting that nonfiction writing take the form of “See Jane. See Jane throw the ball.”

But an occasional curveball may entice you to look up an unfamiliar word and find delight.

Want nonfiction delight? Read “The Devil in the White City,” by Erik Larson. His command of language and narrative will stun you.

Gary Gilson can be reached through www.writebetterwithgary.com.