Word Confusion: Is it “Allusive,” “Illusive,” or “Elusive?” (Alexandra Ambrose) Leave a reply .comments-link .entry-header “Allusive, Illusive, Elusive” by Alexandra Ambrose Homophones like allusive, illusive, and elusive can be extremely confusing. They sound the same (unless you really stress the initial vowel sounds), yet they are spelled differently and have completely different meanings. How do you differentiate them? First, allusive comes from the word allusion, meaning a reference to another text. This can be a quote, name, similar type of phrasing, etc. An example of an allusive text is T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land.” This poem has pages of end notes explaining the many classical, Shakespearean, and cultural allusions included in the poem. These fragments I have shored against my ruins. Copy and paste this link to “The Waste Land” so you can investigate for yourself: http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html Note: Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is one of the most important poems of all time. It launched the Modernist movement and changed poetry forever. In spite of its many obscure allusions and broken narrative, it was quite popular when published. Check it out. Is it a good poem or just an interesting experiment? You decide. Another example is the allusive title of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “Tender is the Night.” This title is taken from a line in John Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale.” Copy and paste this into your browser – “Ode to a Nightingale”: http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html Again, when trying to remember what allusive means, think allusion. Does your text allude to or refer in some way to another text? The Oxford English Dictionary defines illusive as “tends to deceive by unreal appearances”. (The OED is an incredible reference tool and many college campuses provide access to it. If you have the opportunity, explore the website and learn the history of words for yourself. An example of illusive in a sentence is: “When you get close to a mirage, it ceases to be illusive.” When trying to remember whether a text is illusive, think of an illusion or an image that isn’t real (eg “illusory”). Finally, we have elusive. Something is elusive when it escapes simple definition or clarification. The work of Modernist poet Gertrude Stein plays with the sound of language and word association. Because of this, the meanings of her poems remain elusive. For example, in the short poem “Roast potatoes for” (which is the entire poem) there is no way to construct a single meaning or reading of the poem from only these three words. If you are interested in reading more from Stein’s book, Tender Buttons, copy and paste this: http://www.bartleby.com/140/2.html Stein’s work clearly demonstrates how elusive language can be. “In Parenthesis” by David Jones also is another elusive work as it is even unclear whether it should be classified as a novel or a long poem. My favorite quote from the book is a great example of this: “Stealthly, imperceptibly stript back, thinning night wraps unshrouding, unsheafing– and insubstantial barriers dissolve. This blind night-negative yields uncertain flux.” (59) The way this particular quote appears on the page makes it look like it’s written as poem, but other places in the novel are organized as regular prose. Read Jones’ work for yourself. See if you can navigate the elusive shifts between poetry and prose. When trying to remember when a text is elusive, ask yourself if it eludes, or escapes, meaning? Next time you hear, speak, read, or write the words allusive, illusive, and elusive, remember that each has a distinct meaning. Test yourself: Does it a) refer to another text (allusion), b) make use of illusion (illusion), c) escape meaning or definition? (elusive) AA