The History of Words

One of Woolf's objectives with "Craftsmanship" is to communicate to her audience that English words are never heard or read in a vacuum. On the contrary, Woolf argues that words are consistently building on one another and inviting new interpretations and meanings throughout history. She says, "Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations – naturally. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the field, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today – that they are so stored with meanings, with memories, that they have contracted so many famous marriages" (6).

For Woolf, writing has become more and more challenging as writers (and readers) must contend with the multiple connotations each individual word offers. One cannot, for instance, hear certain words without thinking of certain others. In...