I’ve found that there are “triggers” in writing, random words or phrases which just get the mental power plant in full operation and encourage the flow of ideas. But not always. Now and then there’s a word with a limited amount of writing life embedded in it, a mixture of stodgy with no room for a creative spin or imaginative twist. Take the word “dilute”. Please.

Take it and make it go away because it can back you into a corner given its various (boring) descriptions. The overall meaning of the word covers the concept of lessening the strength or effect of something, such as diluting to reduce the concentration of a given solute, sometimes by just adding water. Then, we have opinions which may be diluted (lessened) by mixing them with opposing facts and then we have how currency is diluted when more printing of it goes into motion.

Where investments are concerned, an adviser might caution agains diluting the quality of a bond portfolio given the risk of default. Teachers can dilute the value of grades they give by distributing a generalized “A” to everyone. Connotations such as devalue, degrade and diminish help us to imagine situations where one would use dilute instead of any of these words.

Frankly, I’ve diluted my efforts to make this particular word exciting and less vague by succumbing to wordinesss; please ignore the blur cast over this post.

From the Writer’s Workshop: Write a post based on the word dilute and…Write a post in 12 sentences.