Without being a
malapropism, a word may still fail to be the right word for the
writer's purpose, the "mot juste". A journalist, writing a leader about
Christmas, introduced a quotation from Dickens by saying:
All
that was ever thought and written about Christmas is imprisoned in this
sentence.... Imprisonment suggests force, coercion, as if the meaning
were held against its will. It would better to write contained or
summed up. Epitomized might do, though it is rather a clumsy sound
word. Searching a little farther for the "mot juste" we might hit on
the word distilled. This has more force than contained or summed up.
Distillation suggests essence and we might further improve the sentence
by adding this word at the beginning:
The essence of all that was ever thought or written about Christmas is distilled in this sentence.
English
has a wide vocabulary and it is a very flexible language. There are
many different ways of making a statement. But words that are very
similar in meaning have fine shades of difference, and a student needs
to be alive to these differences. By using his dictionary, and above
all by reading, a student can increase his sensitivity to these shades
of difference and improve his ability to express his own meanings
exactly.
译文：即使不为荒唐的词语缪用，遣词造句也难免不偏离作者本意，即“非中的之语。”有记者在一关于圣诞节的评论文中引用了狄更斯的一段话：
所有关于圣诞节的观点和作品都禁锢于这样的语句。
“禁锢”意味着胁迫，暴力，似与本意背道而驰。不妨改作“包含”或“概括”。涵盖也可，虽听之单板。再稍作探寻，“中的之语”便跃然纸上：凝练。这比“包含”“概括”都要铿锵有力。还藏“精华”之意。若将该词至于句首，更是锦上添花，即：
所有关于圣诞节的枪法与作品的精髓，无不凝练如此文句。
英语词汇广博，使用灵活，措辞表意形式繁多。然，众词极类，区别仅一线之隔。对此，学生要高度警觉。一些方法，如使用字典--当然首要是阅读--课提高学生感差的灵敏度和措辞的技术性。
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