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Here's a new, rich source of language special effects. This article shows you how to use a new type of reference book that serves up words by their consonant sounds and how it may assist you in making your writing or campaigns more memorable. Because recognition and association are so much easier than creating from scratch, you may agree that this book deserves its place in your reference library. Language Special Effects in General The use of rhyme, onomatopoeia (words that imitate real sounds like "splash"), and alliteration (front-end rhyme) are three special effects that writers use to make a written sequence more interesting. These special effects can increase the pleasure of listening and can make a phrase more memorable and therefore an idea, situation, or scenario more memorable and even unforgettable. Writers can come by special effects by using their minds and by using dictionaries, thesauruses, and rhyming dictionaries. All of these tools, including the mind, serve up suggestions from which to choose. Enter Morrison's Sound-It-Out Speller. The Speller serves up words that are grouped together in a new manner. In it, words are alphabetized not by spelling but by their consonant sounds: words that share the same consonant sounds in the same order are grouped together. The book contains thousands and thousands of these groupings and they yield combinations like caffeine and coffin. These two words are 65 pages apart in my standard dictionary and would not be connected in any way in a thesaurus or rhyming dictionary, yet here they are next to each other. The effect that this combination of words gives is much stronger than alliteration alone. Many more thousands of word combinations that contain the same or almost the same consonant sounds can be found quickly. For instance, you can easily find words that begin and end with the same sounds like science and silence by looking at SNS and then at SLNS. (Is it that science and silence cannot walk hand in hand?) Also a unique effect is served up when two words like essence and iciness are grouped together (at SNS). They have the same consonant sounds in the same order. The two words don't rhyme or give the alliterative effect, yet the combination is hard to forget. And the alternate and now obvious combination icy essence is also hard to forget. Prose: His icy essence formed a shield that no one, except his brother,
could penetrate. Here are a few other phrases that I came up with by browsing (in the LT's): a litany of light-minded lunacy, low-tech lunatic, alter of the ultra cool, or alter of the ultra religious, ...ultra conservative, ...ultra liberal etc.) The technique is to find a word or a concept that you want to work with and then use this new language tool to serve up powerful words that resonate with your word or concept. If the following hasn't been said before, I'd be surprised. If you say it first, you'll be quoted whether you know it or like it or not. Here's a typical use of the technique. Slogans: phrases that grab the mind's attention and can therefore cause one to buy a product or to think or behave in a certain way. Slogans are always in demand and can be very valuable. [I took the concept of safety and looked up its address SFT and found the words soft and softy near by and saw that I could use them both with safety.] Don't be soft on safety. (or) Don't be a safety softy. (or) Don't be soft when it comes to safety. (or) When it comes to safety, don't be a softy. [Each of the examples above can stand on its own or be the bottom or top line on a billboard with "Safety First" or "Buckle Up".] •••••••••••••••••• The bottom line is that you can use this new creative tool to bring new, hard-to-imagine combinations into view so that you can use or dismiss them. •••••••••••••••••• Extra Info: Product and business names and URLs: terms that are valuable because of their implication(s) and/or their memorableness. Here are two ways that are used to create first-rate names these days: (1) choosing an appropriate word and changing its spelling in a creative way and (2) using a recognizable part of an appropriate word. Both methods can be use singularly or together to create unique terms. Uniqueness automatically makes a term protectable and perhaps very memorable. Four examples that quickly come to mind are Intel®, Cisco®, Compaq®, and Cingular®. Three of these happen to use the letter C. •••••••••••••••••• If you work for yourself or for an agency that handles ad campaigns and/or creates new names, URLs, etc., you may want to take a look at Morrison's Sound-It-Out Speller to evaluate its use as a creative tool. There's gold in "them there" words. (And in the hills and creeks too, and maybe in your back yard or bookcase.) •••••••••••••••••• Click here to go to the book's site. You can order the Speller through your local bookstore (or for faster service) on line at Amazon.com and many other net booksellers. MM Copyright © 2001-2006 by Marvin L Morrison All rights reserved except for your right to reproduce the above article at will providing the use is noncommercial, reproduced without change and in its entirety, and with proper credit. |