Diction

The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing the bigger the word the better for example: repulsive instead of ugly the harder it is to understand most likely the higher diction Examples of Diction:  > (Theodore Roosevelt, 1916)
 * "One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words.' When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a 'weasel word' after another, there is nothing left of the other."

> (Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar, 3rd ed., Allyn and Bacon, 1999)
 * "Diction will be effective only when the words you choose are appropriate for the audience and purpose, when they convey your message accurately and comfortably. The idea of comfort may seem out of place in connection with diction, but, in fact, words can sometimes cause the reader to feel uncomfortable. You've probably experienced such feelings yourself as a listener--hearing a speaker whose words for one reason or another strike you as inappropriate."

> Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, > Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, > Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, > Will not stay still." > (T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton")
 * "Words strain,

> (Dorothy Parker, 1956)
 * "There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words."

> (James Agee)
 * "I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive."

> (Theodore Bernstein, Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, 1971)
 * "The principal meaning of diction is the selection and use of words or the manner of expression. But this fact does not rule out, as some purists would like to do, the companion meaning of mode of speaking or enunciation."