I admit it. I’m hooked on mysteries. It started when I was a kid—lying on the couch with my grandmother’s quilt pulled up to my chin—reading Nancy Drew stories. Not much has changed over the years. Like every Agatha Christie junkie, I love deciphering a whodunit, especially mysteries I watch on the MHz network. Reader alert: if you don’t like following sub-titles in most of the shows, skip this channel. One of my favorite MHz series is Edderkoppen, Danish for Spider, set in post-war Copenhagen. The main character, a newspaper reporter named Bjarne, investigates a web of greed, corruption, and horrific murders (hence the title Spider) while falling in love with the “wrong” woman. I’ll say no more.
Side-effect of Subtitles
An aspect I love about international shows is hearing different languages spoken and seeing the on-screen English translation. Maybe it’s because I not only hear the foreign words—which I don’t normally understand—but I see the words. The sight of them in bold text across the bottom of the screen makes me pay closer attention to each word than I might have if I’d only heard each word. Maybe. This is just a theory. Or perhaps it’s because I totally love words. I’m a writer. You’re a writer. We love words. And I suspect that if characters are speaking English, some unique words might slip past me in a stream of spoken sentences. In this foreign-country situation on MHz, though, new or provocative words jump out at me in capital subtitles.
A Spider Word
Since watching the series, one striking word in Spider springs to mind when I hear someone hedging in a conversation or hesitating to tell it straight. Near the end of the show, Bjarne and his troubled older brother—who was caught in the crime-web Bjarne was investigating—got into a heated conversation. For some minutes Bjarne presses his brother for vital information, leaning in close to his face. They are in a small room—which intensifies their combative emotions. “Don’t prevaricate!” yells Bjarne. Instantly, his brother relents and spills the truth.
Prevaricate – what we don’t want to do
Although I grasped from the context what prevaricate meant, I looked it up anyway in Merriam Webster: “to deviate from the truth: equivocate.” That’s a no-no, especially when you’re trying to solve a crime. Don’t stray from the truth or use ambiguous language!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prevaricate#synonyms
The Power of the Negative Command
Rather than telling his brother what to do (tell the truth), Bjarne tells him what NOT to do. A wonderful part of this scene is that Bjarne is confident his brother’s vocabulary is up to the task. No need for him to grab a dictionary. I like this approach of employing a negative command to get a positive response and plan to use it in a story I’m working on.
What’s in Your Vocabulary?
Long ago I had a book about building one’s vocabulary. It suggested choosing a new word every day and using it in a sentence as often as possible that same day without annoying people around you. By the end of the month, you will have about thirty new words at the tip of your tongue, and, theoretically, you’ll be adept at putting them to good use. This month, I’m going to practice with prevaricate. How about you?
Niki Kantzios
Words, words! How we love them! I’d like to roll in them like a cat in catnip! But I’ve had editors “nip” my favorite words out sometimes. Stand up for not dumbing down literature, folks!