The Alluding Wordsmith

The Holy Grail for any writer-cum-author must be recognition, and the knowledge that what they spent so much time artfully crafting, all the facts, opinions, and references hinted at but never written, is appreciated by their readers.

What You Read And What You Don’t.

That said, whether the writer is concerned about how their facts and opinions, expressed or alluded to, are read and interpreted may be neither here nor there, and whether the reader agrees with said facts and opinions may well be a moot point as well.

Irrespective of what the writer believes, or expects the reader to acknowledge, if what the writer expresses or alludes to is too obscure, then even the most perceptive of readers will not grasp the essential without resorting to linguistic analysis, and the Easter eggs the writer so skillfully wove into the article will have to wait another day to be discovered.

Northern Lights and Hidden Kingdoms

Peer Review

According to a blogger I follow on social media, a lawyer specializing in media law with a side interest in constitutional law*, there are two things to consider when contemplating a written document, for example, a legal document with all its attention requiring details, caveats, negations, and disclaimers: what you read and what you don’t.

(* For common mortals, constitutional law is, without doubt, boring and unintelligible, but this insightful blogger’s crusade is precisely to render the subject a little more intelligible, especially when it concerns the actions of certain government ministers. Case in hand: To prove a point, the blogger recently parsed, in a post, relevant sections of the UK government’s manifestly “intangible” Ministerial Code and examined their correlation with the resignation of an Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, Lord Geidt. He did it in a way that this particular reader was, subsequently, able to follow a discussion elsewhere regarding the ministerial code, happy that I could at least understand some of the terms and technicalities discussed.)

Firstly, according to the blogger, there’s the tangible: what the document says, and not what you think it says or what you want it to say. To bring the reader to an intended conclusion, either by convincing or persuading them, the writer must translate thoughts and reasoning into articulate, informative communication.

How this is done often comes down to paying particular attention to tiny details such as commas, use of the conditional, and verb tenses that, when used carefully, can turn the original expression into articulate persuasion and by so doing, give the author an advantage over the reader, positioning them exactly where the writer wants them to be: in agreement with the writer.

Secondly, there is the intangible, i.e., what the author may choose not to say there and then, for whatever reason. It may not be immediately clear to the reader why this should be, but after all, that’s the objective. The non-communication of provisos, surmises, and renunciations, advantageous to the author, may, here again, help guide or orientate the reader towards the required conclusion: that of concuring with the author’s “prima facie” communication.

Yggdrasil – The Norse tree of life

Judge not the author, but the article

Not to labour the point, there are advantages (and recognition) to be had by inserting an artful allusion into a communication. For example, in a professional context, it may help formulate a proviso that may allude to, say, a contingency without actually mentioning it thus creating an unwritten caveat for future reference. You are effectively kicking the ball down the field for a later resolution, but in the meantime, it may help progress things to their intended next stage.

And in a personal context? It’s simply a fun way of tipping the hat to a person, place, or thing without needing to spend a thousand words explaining why, and the more oblique the allusion, the better.

As a final thought, I also follow a philosophy professor on social media who happened to comment on how her students’ grammar had improved of late. Curious, the professor looked into the matter and learned that her students were using a well-known online/offline grammar corrector. Once again, it’s a matter, here as above, of the writer respecting the reader’s intelligence.

Something to close with:
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”
Cyril Connolly, The New Statesman, February 25, 1933.