Tricky Edits Column for April 2026

Tricky Edits

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

When Words Disappear…

And Why Some Authors Make Do With What They Have

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 
author of  the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

Including the soon to be released Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success

Words disappear all the time. They disappear from dictionaries because the English language is full of words we’ve been using for millenniums. We borrow them, discard them. We misuse them and come to dislike them. Soon we have so many that one source—one fat dictionary—can’t handle them all. They disappear because we get tired of them or misuse them and replace them with something else.  We forget them when we’re young and from disease as we age. And we come to realize that the Internet isn’t going to solve all those problems and might make some of them worse.

That doesn’t mean authors might not need them. Or need one particular word. When it can’t be verified (or is difficult to find because they are so hard to spell!), we might just give up. Lexicographers and other word experts decide their dictionaries don’t need them anymore. When a word can’t be verified, we might just give up.

And when that happens, our writing suffers.

We need these words to put into the mouths of characters.

Maybe characters who live in another English-speaking country or dialect-speaking region.

Maybe characters we bring to life from another century, another era, another class. 

~Here’s what to do: Ask your wife or even the person sitting next to you at Starbucks trying to get some writing done.

~Using keywords, look up books published in past decades on Amazon’s New and Used feature.

~I have a couple books of slang that I’ve stashed in my own real-life bookshelves. 

~Ask people you know who are lots older—or younger—and see what they come up with.

~Make up a word of your own. A poem called Jabberwocky made such words perfectly legitimate.

~Visit charity shops and buy old paperbacks for a dime. Start with Thesauri, but anything including lists of words for specific purposes will do, like one published only a few decades ago called The Describer’s Dictionary. 

~Put marginalia in all your book and don’t go giving them to charity or anyone else. Build more bookshelves. And alphabetize them in ways that will be meaningful to you decades from now.  

MORE ABOUT CAROLYN

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative). The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales.

This article is an excerpt from a new vocabulary book written especially for career-minded authors that WinningWriters.com will give to those who enter their 2024 #NorthStreetBookPrize. Carolyn has been a sponsor since that contest’s introduction. This book is among the several value-added benefits Winning Writers contestants and winners are offered at no extra charge. Carolyn’s book will be released in early 2026 by Modern History Press. Find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon.

Carolyn blogs sporadically on editing at The Frugal Editor and at her SharingwithWriters blog on other aspects of the publishing world and welcomes guest posts with ample author credit lines and links and welcomes guest posts complete with credit lines and ample links for her guests. She also tweets writers' resources and tips at her Twitter account using #FrugalBookPromoterTips hashtag.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program where has found a little humor can decidedly make a lot of learning easier on one’s disposition. 

The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes both the third editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and my The Frugal Editor.Published by Modern History Press, they have won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethicallyis still in its first (very frugal!) edition but please wait for the second edition from Modern History Press. 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.