The Mot Juste: Our Search for the Perfect Word

What would twenty-five blog posts on the benefits of word power be without an entry on the perfect word or phrase for any situation?  Precision, exactness in diction is, after all, what we're after and thus is the subject for today.  Many thanks to the French for lending us mot juste, a label that attempts to identify perfection in our word choice.


Definition
mot juste:  the perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation about which you are writing or speaking


Origin
French
It seems to have been coined in the nineteenth century by novelist Gustave Flaubert (author of Madam Bovary), who, like many other writers, spent a lifetime searching for the right words.


Examples
1.  Shakespeare was a master of the mot juste, coining over 1500 words himself.


2.  Bill gazed into her eyes, relieved to find the mot juste, for her response was the one he had been praying for.


3.  His final essay for the course, banal and lacking in imagination, was a clear indication of his disregard for the mot juste.


4.  Cilla's natural inclination for the mot juste earned her a job as the senator's speech writer.




Did you notice that the word mot juste isn't necessarily itself the perfect word?  It does, however, identify the importance of seeing or hearing the right word.




One of my favorite writing gurus, Donald Murray, said, "We write to explore the constellations and galaxies that lie within us, waiting to be mapped with our own words." 


Without question, Murray's imagery demonstrates the power of the mot juste when writers and readers, too, stumble onto that perfect word, perhaps on the journey or even serendipitously. And they will never be the same.