Diction Worksheets

1. An example of low or informal diction is, "...I only climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could, to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside."

2. Words & Definitions
-Opaque: not able to be seen through
-Elongated: unusually long in relation to its width.
-Phosphorescent: something glows with light without becoming hot to the touch
-Elusive: difficult to find, catch, or achieve.
-Immersed: dip or submerge in a liquid
-Cadaverous: resembling a corpse in being very pale, thin, or bony
-Ghastly: causing great horror or fear; frightful or macabre

Paraphrasing the paragraph:

The side of the ship made a hazy belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. I saw at once something extended and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before i could form a guess a faint flash of shimmering light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the intangible, silent play of summer lighting in a night sky. With a gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid back shot right up to my neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea lighting played about his limbs at every stir, and he appeared in it terrible, silvery, fishlike.

3. The elevated language contributes to the tone to make it sound more formal and more mysterious. Paraphrasing the passage affects the tone in a casual way. It sounds less formal and when reading the passage, it's not as intriguing as reading elevated words since it makes it sound better.

4. 4 examples of concrete diction in the passage are:
- phosphorescent light
-opaque belt of shadow
- a board livid back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow.
- a headless corpse

5. The author chose to leave the captain, the ship, and the crew nameless in the story because he wanted the readers to still keep thinking and being in a way clueless as to who was being described. The elevated words are the ones which unveil what the objects are and how they look like.

6. The denotative meaning of the title The Secret Sharer is of a person who talks about their side that other people don't see, which is dark.

Word

Denotation

Connotation

Cadaverous

resembling a corpse in being very pale, thin, or bony

Body

Darkling

of or relating to growing darkness.

Darkness

Pale

light in color or having little color.

White

Phosphorescence

something glows with light without becoming hot to the touch

Flashy

Ghastly

causing great horror or fear; frightful or macabre

Scared

Headless

having no head

No mind

Fishlike

a characteristic of a fish