Re: What if Your Muse Isn't Into SF?

On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:16:05 GMT, Jonathan L Cunningham
<spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:48ffaad3.977064@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:13:37 +0100, JF
<julian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan L Cunningham wrote:

It depends how many people interpret what you write
incorrectly. If you think that level of mistake is akin
to regarding religious decoration as blasphemous, or
"tawdry" as akin to "obscene" rather than merely
"gaudy", then I can only disagree.

Tawdry is a very different word from gaudy. Gaudy is
Janet Street Porter, a macaw, flamboyant, bright,
striking. Tawdry is cheap, tacky, flim-flam, flash,
pinchbeck, trashy.... Think Debby Harry in the early
days.

And yet, "gaudy" is a meaning of "tawdry", according to my
dictionary.

Then your dictionary is inadequate, because the two are not
synonymous.

I chose the word for that reason (after looking it up) because it is
close to my understanding of "tawdry". Clearly (!) it is not your
preferred meaning; but it is one valid meaning.

No, it isn't. I gave you the basic meaning in an earlier
post: 'of the nature of cheap finery; showy or gaudy without
real value'. That's from the OED; M-W OnLine has 'cheap and
gaudy in appearance or quality', and AHD4 has 'gaudy and
cheap in nature or appearance'. (AHD4 also has the other
main sense, oddly omitted by M-W: 'shameful or indecent'.)
The cheapness is an essential part of the meaning -- more
important in current usage, I'd say, than the gaudiness.

[...]

Brian
.

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