What Makes Prose GOOD? Part 3: Rewriting Tolkien, Sanderson, and Rothfuss | Professor Craig Explains

In this installment, we put one of your comments to the test! Jum Hed says "English flows a lot better when you remove the Romance words and keep it Germanic." But is that true? To test it out, I rewrote 3 paragraphs from Tolkien, Rothfuss, and Sanderson, taking out as many Latinate words as I could and replacing them with Germanic synonyms. So how do the paragraphs turn out? Watch on and find out!

[dpo]

I thought 'ladder' was old english--from proto-German 'Hlaidri'.

[Yusuf]

"Other spotting bands had kept themselves from that doom. They'd used great ladders that stretch to make it atop the flat-hills in highstorms. They'd lost many men though, for the hills lacked much shelter under storms, and you couldn't bring wagons or other shelter with you into the rifts. The worse threat, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi gangs on their rounds. They found and killed many bands of spotters."

^
This would be my German-ization. I think the more freedom we allow with phrasing, the more we can see the poetic potential and "flow" of Germanic words. Latin and Old English of course don't structure sentences the same way so the more adjustment we make to that aspect too, the more it "feels right".

Great video. I loved it.

[briankinsey]

I think it might be instructive to consider why a writer like Tolkien who not only used 90% Germanic words, but was also a professor of English and student of Germanic language and myth, chose the Latinate words he did use. In just about every case where you changed a Latinate word to Germanic, either some connotation was lost or changed, or the rhythm of the sentence was altered, and not often for the better. I'm pretty sure he didn't choose those specific words just because they were the first ones that came to mind, but because they were better suited for his considered purpose in each case. Sometimes it's as simple as there not being an alternative, as you pointed out, but sometimes word choice comes down to flow/rhythm and specific connotational information.

[WatchParty]

I think the lesson is you can't just sub out words. It's about how the entire scene and passage is conceived and constructed. For Sanderson you basically have to rewrite the whole piece from a more Germanic perspective.

[percivalyracanth]

"Other forward-bands had forbowed/forbown those two dooms. They'd noted great, outstretchendly ladders to make it atop the boardlands amidst highstorms. They'd lost many men, though, as boardlands gave arm shelter under storms, and you couldn't bring wains or other shelters with you into the clefts. The worse arveth, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi umgangs. They'd found and killed many bands of forwards."

This is a *highly* Anglicized version, with hefty revivals (forward 'scout' from OE forweard; forbow 'avoid' from OE forbúgan; note 'to use' from OE notian; boardland 'plateau' (compare 'tableland'); forthat 'because'; arm 'poor' from OE earm; arveth 'problem; difficulty' from OE earfoþ; umgang 'round, circle, circuit, patrol' from OE ymbgang; also mark the use of -endly from OE -endlic instead of -able).

This is much harder to understand for the modern English-speaker, I think, than a much more 'conservative' approach, mostly since it behooves a pretty deep knowledge of Old English vocab and of phonetic development between Old to Middle to Modern English, as well as a kind of creativity in coining words that OE and ME didn't have, often using extant words as models (like with 'board-land' instead of 'table-land'). What I notice, though, is how the flow becomes more 'Germanic', almost like Netherlandish (though they have their fair share of borrowings from French and Latin themselves).

Conservatively, without revivals that aren't readily recognizable to the modern speaker:

"Other forward-bands had avoided those two dooms. They'd used great, outstretchable ladders to make it atop the tablelands amidst hightstorms. They'd lost many men, though, as tablelands gave poor shelter under storms, and you coudn't bring wains or other shelters with you into the clefts, The worse worry, he'd heard, had been the Parshendi watchmen on their rounds. They'd found and killed many bands of forwards."

At the end of the day, however, I do very much prefer Germanic over Latinate/Hellenic words, half for aesthetic ends, half for more or less justice against the loss of many words and cultural symbols ever since the Normans came in and forced themselves upon (the) English. To me, the inborn words legitimize the tongue as something which can stand on its own, and these words also make it easier for more complicated concepts to be grasped by the average reader/listener/speaker (see 'whalelore' vs. 'cetology'; most folk would understand the first, if think it twee and odd, whereas the latter comes off almost wholly foreign, aside from the -logy suffix, and behooves 'expert' definition. I'll choose twee and odd yet easily graspable over over-affected and bourgeois any day).

[stranger]

The main difference I noticed between the three is in description, not word usage.

Tolkien lovingly describes the environment in such detail that the reader could count the leaves on the trees.

The scene from Rothfuss is personal. We're given all the detail we need to understand the emotions at play.

Sanderson meanwhile provides just the facts. This is a paragraph that would be hard to summarize because the paragraph itself is already a summary compared to the one from Tolkien.

[Darmk]

I don't know if what fantasy readers think of as "good prose" is something that "goes by unnoticed". It might be the opposite. Rothfuss in particular seems to want you to notice his prose. Tolkien's goal seemed to have been to write something that felt older and more formal. And Sanderson is writing modern stories for modern audiences and is probably going for accessibility over anything else.

I certainly don't necessarily think good prose has to be flowery or poetic. I've read modern legal thrillers or mysteries that weren't the least bit poetic, but the prose serves the story and flows really well.

[Kyptan]

Fun video, and a nice object lesson in the restrictions you place on yourself when trying for some form of linguistic purity in English. For me, flow is aided by having the widest possible selection of words to draw from, etymology be darned. The right word in the right spot doesn’t come from a shackled vocabulary.

[Yusuf]

Am I the only one who actually thinks "came into sight" is indeed more poetic than just "appear"? It turns it from just a fact into a momentary story / human experience.

I think you did a good job with that choice.

[Mondlicht]

8:52 Perhaps “seat” would have been a good Germanic substitute for “chair”. 11:03 and perhaps “setback” or “hitch” for “problem”, though those might not fit depending on context.

[alexanderlavoie]

Plain modern English is what I want 80+% of my books to be written in. I want to fully understand every word, and I want the writing to disappear into the background and the storyline to be at the forefront. If I'm constantly thinking "wow, this Prose is really something" then it is taking center stage over the actual story and being a distraction. I think this really comes from me being Dyslexic. The more familiar I am with the words on the page, the more my brain can just focus on the story instead of chewing on seldom used words and phrases.

[ezraferguson_author]

Great video. Liked and subscribed!

Perhaps de-latinating a passage is not a matter of vocabulary only, but of wider translation. It isn't strictly fair, but here's an attempt at Tolkienizing and Germanicing Sanderson:

"Other outriders did not meet those two dooms. They used great lengthening ladders to climb atop the cliffs in highstorms. They lost many men, though, as the heights gave scant shelter in the storms, and you could not bring wagons or other dwellings with you into the gulches. The greater threat, he had heard, were the Parshendi watchmen. They found and killed many bands of outriders."

More comprehensible? To our ears, probably not. However, the flow of the prose feels older and may be preferable to some.

[dpolaristar]

I honestly prefer stiffness it seems to denote an uncomfortable almost involuntary bodily reaction that comes from being in a position where you see no escape and can't will your body to take action, it denotes more the lack of motion or the trouble of acting to show her current lack of agency. Tension seems like it can be more ambiguous with its meaning and come from multiple causes.

[seymourpant]

Interesting that you prefer 'tension' to 'stiffness' there. I think stiffness paints a picture, whereas tension is a shortcut word that describes more directly and lazily her internal feeling than her external expression

[morganainsleymusic]

YES I was wondering if you’d make any more of these - so glad there’s another one!

[hazzmando]

I'm sure you're already aware of it, but there's a great example of the clunky-ness that comes with forcing a change in word origins. It's called "Uncleftish Beholding", and it was written as a description of atomic theory from chemistry using only germanic roots. Much of the technical language of science is derived from Latin and Greek, so it makes a lot of interesting and inspired choices. It's also quite short, so it's worth giving a look, and you can find sample paragraphs all over the internet.

[StinFriggins]

I told a friend about this series yesterday! How serendipitous

[tyson]

Really fun exercise… to watch you do… I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to tackle something like this. But it is enlightening to know how word choices impact a story’s, or even a sentences, feeling. Similar to camera angles in film, average people (me) won’t give it a second thought, but that doesn’t mean the impact will be missed.

[R-sm]

It’s so interesting that the Rothfuss rewrite actively lessens the weight of the scene. The connotation of what’s happening, as well as the woman’s discomfort, is far less clear. You still gather it, of course, but it loses the severity.

[polaris]

You might find a non-native speaker's opinion interesting: I couldn't get through Lord of the Rings in English, I switched to my native language (Bulgarian) somewhere in the middle of the Two Towers. I'm not saying that I couldn't understand what I was reading, it was just hard to get through and was taking me considerable time which ultimately became annoying. On the other hand, I had no such issues with The Name of the Wind. My overall opinion on the book aside (definitely positive), the act of reading itself was an enjoyable experience and I found Rothfuss'es style quite pleasant.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to distinguish Germanic and Latinate words, it is something I rarely give much thought. I guess the reason is English words are mostly just 'foreign' to me. I haven't given much thought or analysed what the reason for LotR being that difficult to me is but I think it goes deeper than just choice of words. I'd be interesting to see move videos on this topic!