Madeleine and the Right Words

Posted by Melissa Howard Sep 12, 2007

I remember when I first read Madeleine’s words about words. What struck with me was her defense of difficult words in children’s books. She said that publishers didn’t like that A Wrinkle in Time had so many difficult words. Madeleine then suggests that children’s literature would be much poorer if Beatrix Potter had been handed a controlled word list to write from. If she had been told use these words, we would have no soporific Flopsy Bunnies. Sleepy just isn’t the same.

Those thoughts stuck with me. My four-year-old had memorized all the Beatrix Potter stories. I realized her vocabulary would be less accurate and less extensive without those wonderful stories.

Madeleine writes in response to those who say language is dead: If language is to be revived, born of its own ashes, then violence must be done to it...to do violence to language...is not to use long words, or strange orders of words, or even to do anything unusual at all with the words in which we attempt to communicate. It means really speaking to each other, destroying platitudes and jargon and all the safe cushions of small talk with which we insulate ourselves; not being afraid to talk about the things we don’t talk about, the ultimate things that really matters. It means turning again to the words that affirm meaning, reason, unity, that teach responsible rather than selfish love. And sometimes, doing violence to language means not using it at all, not being afraid to be silent together, of being silent alone. Then, through thunderous silence, we may be able to hear a still, small voice, and words will be born anew. (from A Circle of Quiet)