In “The Case for Small Words,” Richard Lederer agues that short words are often more powerful and expressive than longer, more complicated words. He writes, “Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big things— night and day, love and hate, war and peace, and life and death,” and continues on with expressive, colorful prose consisting entirely of one syllable words. Furthermore, Lederer points out that numerous proverbs such as "Where there's a will, there's a way," are entirely monosyllabic. While, as he points out, there is no need to restrict oneself to only short words, doing so can help focus one’s writing. Here, I attempted to create my own short work of monosyllabic prose:
Walk: Old English wealcan [roll, toss,] also [wander,] of Germanic
Lost in the wastes of time it walks, on and on and on. A cactus here, rusted objects on the side, the odd flower there. Here, there, it drifts, until – just past the next dune – could it be? It runs, trips, falls, goes on. And it sees only more sand, more time. “Surely you knew!” the voice taunts. It sinks into the sand, tense, scared, lost. But then it says, with a gleam in its eye, hope in its voice, “There is still more time.” It walks on and on and on.
After looking at the etymology of many of the words I used, I noticed that the vast majority of words are descended from Old or Middle English.
Word Etymologies:
Now: Old English nū, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch nu, German nun, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin nunc and Greek nun.
Cactus: from Greek kaktos ‘cardoon.’
Flower: Middle English flour, from Old French flour, flor, from Latin flos, flor-
Drift: originally from Old Norse drift ‘snowdrift, something driven’; in later use from Middle Dutch drift ‘course, current’
Desert: Middle English via Old French from late Latin desertum ‘something left waste,’ neuter past participle of deserere ‘leave, forsake.’
Gleam: Old English glǣm [brilliant light,] of Germanic
Hope: late Old English hopa (noun), hopian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch hoop (noun), hopen (verb), and German hoffen (verb)
Time: Old English tīma, of Germanic origin; related to
