One of my favorite pieces of writing advice comes from Mark Twain: "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." I like that maxim so much that it's on the home page of my Web site, leighcomonline.com.
If you're trying to capture lightning on paper, or at least a few illustrative sparks, you must choose wisely when it comes to words. Nuance is everything. That means paying attention to words, many of which sound alike but have different meanings, such as affect and effect or continual and continuous. Confusing word meanings and connotations can create confusion or produce chuckles.
One of the exercises I give my university students is to write a news story about a bank robbery from a fictional set of facts, including one that states that the robbers ordered the tellers to dump the cash from the cash drawers into bags. Unfailingly, I'll get sentences from my students such as, "The robbers got into the tellers' drawers" or "The robbers told the tellers to empty their drawers into bags."
In these instances, the students didn't confuse meaning, but they neglected word nuance and the fact that drawers can have a different interpretation, sometimes to comical effect. These slips are funny when someone else does them. But be careful and make sure it isn't you.
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