Aravind from Frisco, Texas, asks about wordsmithing, a verb for rephrasing, tightening, and choosing words more carefully. Wordsmith has been around since at least the mid-19th century, built on the older -smith pattern in words such as blacksmith, goldsmith, silversmith, and locksmith. The original smith worked metal, so newer compounds extend the idea to skillful fashioning of words, jokes, or even social media posts. The surname Smith comes from the same craft term. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Wordsmith” Follows “Blacksmith” and Other Craft Words”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Thank you. My name is Aravind.
Aravind?
Yes.
And where are you calling from?
I’m calling from Frisco, Texas.
Frisco, Texas. Welcome to the show.
What can we do for you?
Yeah, I’ve been curious to know about the word wordsmithing and the origins of it.
I could not find it, I mean, at least I was not satisfied with different explanations that I saw.
But I was curious to know a bit more about that word.
About wordsmithing, are you a wordsmith yourself?
I don’t know.
Sometimes, maybe, but whenever I’m writing a PowerPoint presentation or writing some drafts,
I keep on getting this, and it’s been for over the years, but I keep on hearing this,
So we need to wordsmith it more.
Oh, as a verb.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because when you first said wordsmith, I was thinking of it as a noun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was referring it in the context of wordsmithing, but maybe it is now too.
I would be open for more education on that.
And so when you talk about wordsmithing something, what do you mean exactly, Arvind?
Well, in the context that I have referred, I’m referring to and I have used to is when we are rephrasing some sentences
Or kind of correcting some errors or trying to make it more.
Sometimes it also could refer to grammatically being correct, but it also sometimes is choosing the right word for the context or, you know, basically removing some of the words and replacing it with one word that could mean a sentence.
Right. Okay. Well, that makes sense. And of course, the smith in wordsmith or wordsmithing has to do with the old practice of somebody working with metals, like a blacksmith, somebody fashioning something.
And you do that when you’re wordsmithing.
You do that with words.
You fashion them and make them fit.
And so I can see how that would arise.
The word wordsmith has been around at least since the mid-19th century or so.
And there’s a positive connotation, right, Martha?
Like if you wordsmith, it’s usually good things are happening with your pen, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Wordsmithing implies a certain amount of skill and expertise.
And I’m not so used to seeing it as a verb, but it makes sense to me.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
I mean, it makes sense because is locksmith and wordsmith,
These are all maybe have the same roots in there?
Yeah, that same suffix of smith.
So you’ve also got ironsmith, goldsmith, gunsmith, and they’re all working.
Jokesmith.
Well, joke is a little more like words,
But the older ones are all metals, like Martha said,
And the newer ones are a little less literal.
Yeah.
I see.
Maybe there will be a tweet Smith that will come up.
A tweet Smith, yeah.
You know what?
I bet maybe there already is.
I don’t know.
But, yeah, that makes sense.
Somebody’s got it in their bio.
A tweet Smith since 2007.
Yeah.
And that Smith is the same Smith in the name Smith, which is the most common name in the United States.
It’s a name that’s associated with a profession, like blacksmith.
Thank you very much.
I learned something new today.
Well, great.
We’re glad to have you, Arvind, and happy wordsmithing.
Yeah, I will do that.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Yeah, it’s such a widespread surname.
Smith, Haddad, Ferraro.
They’re all about working with metal way back in the day.
Yeah, Schmidt.
When more people worked with metal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Call us with your language question or your language story.
I often hear wordsmithing used in the specific context of group writing. While preparing a formal document as a group, we will come to a point where we have generally agreed upon what we want a sentence or section to say, but don’t want to take the time to work out the exact wording as a group. In these situations, someone will often suggest “we leave the wordsmithing” to one of the team to do after the meeting.