14 May 2018 – Le Mot Juste

Ever had a word, a name, or a fact just on the tip of your tongue? How frustrating! How aggravating! How maddening! Nothing quite matches the feeling of chasing down that piece of language that evades you. Makes one want to spit it out and trample on it, eh?

What are the ways to succeed in your search? Stick with it, for one thing. Don’t give up and let that scrappy piece of language get the best of you. Another trick that many people engage is thinking about what they are looking for while going through the alphabet. It’s strange, but when one gets to the letter that begins the word, some intuitive skill kicks in, and the rightness of that beginning letter feels correct right down to your bones.

Still eluding you? The next trick is to take each alphabet letter (except the five vowels), and one at a time, take each consonant ( B, C, D, G . . .) and try out each vowel (A E I O U) behind the first letter (e.g. Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu). That investigation will offer possibilities because it is the rare word that starts with two consonants that are the same. If all else fails, and you just have to have that Le Mot Juste, it’s tedious, but go through the alphabet again, using each vowel, and each consonant in turn. But that’s going a bit far, now, isn’t it?

Below, I’ve tried to capture the feeling of chasing down “just the right word.”

Le Mot Juste

                                    A rapid shiver trickles down my spine

                                    I almost had it! It was nearly mine

                                    The word’s proximity makes me shake

                                    In the ruins of verbs, one was awake

                                    Perhaps I can trace its lettered tracks, its scent

                                    It held the gem, the pearl, of what I meant

                                    Maybe by stealth I can parallel its route

                                    intercept its path and catch Le Mot Juste

                                    Soon enough, I let that prey fade and I slash my way

                                    to another line, another wreck, and stalk the motley word

                                    that teases me, teeters on my tongue, flashes its teeth

                                    invites me closer but remains just beneath

                                    I raise up my courage for heroic assault

                                    on my own stagnant brain and the word that won’t out

                                    I nearly weep at my subverted morale

                                    like a sleazy night in a trashy motel

                                    Now like a medieval knight I raise my banner

                                    to charge a fortress keep, break in with a hammer

                                    but Le Motis smug and safe from my neutered rout

                                    demoting my charge from vow to doubt

                                    Not to be played with, I leave behind

                                    the whole broken piece – every line

                                    and move to a pristine page and invite the rhyme

                                    to spread its splendor just this one time

                                    but it refuses to brighten this expanse of white

                                    My impulse now is to let go the fading scent

                                    but I cannot. I must know where Le Motwent!

                                    I try to surround it like moat circles castle

                                    but the nouns and adjectives prove too agile 

                                    Oh, how my poet’s heart this grand chase despises

                                    but just as my search fails, something else rises

-      curiosity won’t be quelled, so I ponder

thickets of gerunds and adverbs out yonder

My heart pumps slower like an old motor idling

now waiting in place for Le Motto find me

to decorate my page with i’s dotted and crossed t’s

Illuminate this parchment like the old manuscripts

Put me in monk’s robes with a supply of quill tips

So many phrases await just the right words

yet instead come the abstract nouns, clichés, and weak verbs

Am I doomed to parrot only what’s been said before?

Will my wordy constructions be the ones critics ignore?

My failure to capture Le Motfires my rage

Won’t some muse transform me and perk up my page

with flowing ink causing each and every reader

to smile and admire my rhymes, stanzas, and meter?

But I sigh leaning back in my chair

and something shifts like music on air

Suddenly, pen in hand, I’m on the edge of my seat

as the treasury opens and Le Mot Justeand I meet

With quivering hand, I take up my pen

to write before Le Motescapes not to return again

but just as I almost write, I put down my pen and stare at Le Mot

I can do better – anyway, I forgot what I just about wrote

Background 

By now, it should be obvious that I’m a poet and a writer, generally. I haven’t mentioned it, but I’ve had four books published and numerous poems printed in various zines. At the moment, I’m finishing my fifth book, focused on Buddhism, martial arts, and a samurai I happen to know. But that’s another story. What I really want to say at the moment is how important finding just the right word can be. When writing, I often mark words with an underline or a highlighter when I know the word or phrase or even a whole sentence doesn’t feel right. Then when I’m finished with the whole piece, I go back and hunt down that word or phrase, pursuing like a predator on the scent of its prey. How to do that? As you probably know WORD has a function (shift F7) that is a thesaurus; of course, you can always use the paper version of the thesaurus – they are still around, if you look for them. Anyway, happy hunting.

Exploration 1: Next time you just about have that word you are looking for, stick with it, until you have it. It’s worth the effort and supplies great satisfaction much like the post-coital state.

Exploration 2: Try your hand at creative writing (poem, essay, even a short story or vignette) and notice how many times you chase Le Mot Juste.

Exploration 3: Hopefully, if you aren’t familiar with French, you got help from Google’s translate function.

Exploration 4: Just for fun, see how many times I used a word, other than the French “mot,” that has “mo” or “mot” contained in it. They are sprinkled throughout the poem. If anyone is interested, I’ll tell you how many there are.

On the trail of Le Mot Juste,
Jack Pine Savage