Wordy Wednesday: PALATIAL

(Adjective) ~ resembling a palace in being spacious and splendid.

I love words like this. So much is conveyed in eight simple letters. It stirs up images of gold, marble, expensive wood moldings, fine silks, extravagant tapestries, china, silver, crystal, servants . . . The list goes on and on. All those things are wrapped up into one word. I don’t need to go into long, specific descriptions of what a character’s home looks like with a word like this.

And in the same way, HOVEL is another word that does a lot with so little and quite the opposite of PALATIAL.

HOVEL (noun) ~ a small, squalid, unpleasant, or simply constructed dwelling. Can’t you just picture it?

If I were to put one of the PALATIAL things in a HOVEL, it would seem radically out of place. I would want to know why a silver tea service, or a fine silk tablecloth, or a fancily-dressed servant were in a HOVEL. There would need to be some intriguing story behind it. Likewise, if a grimy, barefoot street urchin greeted me at the front door of a PALATIAL home, there’s a story there too. Hmm . . . I wonder what he’s doing there? Is it some sort of “wife-swap” thing with the servant in the HOVEL?

Could there be a PALATIAL HOVEL?

I wish there were more words like these that packed so much into so little.

What are some others that pack a lot into so little?

New Release:
COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…
Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January 2018, Courting Her Amish Heart in March 2018, The Widow’s Plight in July 2018, Courting Her Secret Heart September 2018, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December 2018. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

MaryDavisBooks.com

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub