Definition:
The characteristic of writing that seeks the effect of informal spoken language as distinct from formal or literary English. Noun: colloquialism.
See also:
- Conversationalization
- Informal Style
- Lionel Trilling on Mark Twain's Colloquial Prose Style
- Vernacular
Etymology:
From the Latin, "conversation"Examples and Observations:
- "Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.”
(Thornton Wilder) - "I find a conversational tone in writing--as in telephoning--carries further than shouting."
(James Gibbons Huneker, letter to Emma Eames, 1913) - "Out of his knowledge of the actual speech of America Mark Twain forged a classic prose. . . . [Twain] is the master of the style that escapes the fixity of the printed page, that sounds in our ears with the immediacy of the heard voice, the very voice of unpretentious truth."
(Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, 1950) - "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next."
(Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884) - "There is not much to do with [George] Orwell's novels except read them. Nor is there much to be said about his style. It was colloquial in diction and sinewy in construction; it aimed at clarity and unobtrusiveness and achieved both."
(Richard H. Rovere, Introduction to The Orwell Reader, 1961) - "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
(George Orwell, 1984, 1949) - "Here’s my latest reminder on the use and misuse of 'like.'
"Using 'like' as a conjunction, to introduce a full clause, is common in casual conversation. But this colloquial construction grates on the ear of many sophisticated readers, and we should generally avoid it.
"And yet . . . it’s never hard to find new examples:
At 92, Mr. Harman looks and sounds like he is 72, and he is determined to keep it that way.
Such an easy fix here, and shorter, too: 'At 92, Mr. Harman looks and sounds 72.'"
(Philip B. Corbett, "The Trouble With ‘Like.’" The New York Times, Aug. 31, 2010)
Pronunciation: co-LOW-kwee-ul
