one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.
Not a sin at all!
This is what's called a poetic epithet, and it happens all the time in writing. Consider, for example, Homer and his wine-dark sea, or Shakespeare and his death-mark'd love.
If you were then to start using them instead of the word they're describing, you'd be making a kenning. For example, if instead of describing the sun as honey-bright, you said "the honey-drop in the sky". Kennings are best known from Norse writings, like "the path of serpents" for gold, or "Grímnir's lip-streams" for poetry itself.
So you're not sinning, you're participating in an ancient literary tradition!
Scansion:
◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – The sun / was ho/ney-bright / that af/ternoon
Metrical form: iambic pentameter
this post is a moving example of the poetic power of the creative spirit,
an illustration that language and its associated rules exist to lift up human expression and not to hinder it (and are both constantly changing and maintaining helpful usage to suit the needs of the moment),
as well as a devastating reminder that whenever you think you’re doing something new and oh-so-scandalously inventive, it was probably actually the well-trodden pasttime of a glorified theater kid several thousand years ago.
isnt language beautiful?
