Thinking about Walter Lipman’s “Journalism and the Higher Law” and Italo Calvino’s “Exactitude” prompted me to consider the extreme importance of word choice in nearly all mediums of expression, as well as my own personal word choice (which I am considering as I write this response). Lipman discusses word choice in relation to truth within journalism and government. Specifically, he explores how institutions may may choose certain words to show themselves in a good light, and in the process, the truth becomes buried. He writes, “the most immoral act [is] the immorality of the government, so the most destructive form of untruth is sophistry and propaganda by those whose profession it is to report the news” (Lipman, 10). 

When Calvino addresses word choice, he defines it more specifically as exactitude. Calvino presents the issue that “language is always being used in a loose, haphazard, careless manner” (Calvino, 68), and instead should “covey as precisely as possible the perceptible aspect of things” (Calvino, 91). I particularly enjoyed how Calvino pointed to the benefits of writing in the beginning of his speech (which I think actually would have been much more effective towards the end). He explains that writing is the most effective medium of conveying exactitude, since a writer can choose their words precisely, while a speaker is merely improvising and may not select the appropriate words on the spot. 

I thought these two authors, especially Calvino, connected very well to our writing assignment this week. As we were tasked to rewrite our pieces with more fitting and apt adjectives and descriptors, I became much more aware at how much specificity, conciseness, and clarity are essential in providing an accurate description of whatever a writer chooses to describe. This exactitude not only favorably demonstrates the writer’s skill, but also resonates better with their readers.