"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite"
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Lewis is doing what he does best: sneaking a moral argument into a piece of practical advice, then making it feel like common sense. On the surface, it is a style tip about verbal inflation. Underneath, it is a warning about a culture that cheapens its own instruments of truth. If you spend "infinitely" on the weather, the movie you liked, or the minor inconvenience that ruined your afternoon, you are not just being sloppy. You are burning down your capacity to name reality when reality actually requires awe, terror, or metaphysical precision.
The line works because it treats language like a finite resource, not a bottomless toy chest. Hyperbole becomes a kind of deficit spending: you get a quick hit of emphasis now, but you are left linguistically bankrupt when you need to describe the absolute. Lewis, a Christian apologist and a medievalist, is also protecting a word with theological and philosophical stakes. "Infinite" is not merely "a lot"; it gestures toward the unbounded, the divine, the conceptual edge where human measurement fails. To use it as a synonym for "very" is to flatten the vertical dimension of experience into consumer-grade enthusiasm.
There's also a quiet jab at pretension. "Words too big for the subject" indicts the insecurity that reaches for grand diction to dress up small thoughts. Lewis is arguing for proportion: match your language to your meaning, so that when you finally confront the truly immense, your vocabulary still has the muscle to lift it.
The line works because it treats language like a finite resource, not a bottomless toy chest. Hyperbole becomes a kind of deficit spending: you get a quick hit of emphasis now, but you are left linguistically bankrupt when you need to describe the absolute. Lewis, a Christian apologist and a medievalist, is also protecting a word with theological and philosophical stakes. "Infinite" is not merely "a lot"; it gestures toward the unbounded, the divine, the conceptual edge where human measurement fails. To use it as a synonym for "very" is to flatten the vertical dimension of experience into consumer-grade enthusiasm.
There's also a quiet jab at pretension. "Words too big for the subject" indicts the insecurity that reaches for grand diction to dress up small thoughts. Lewis is arguing for proportion: match your language to your meaning, so that when you finally confront the truly immense, your vocabulary still has the muscle to lift it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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