Verisimilitude

A while back, I read the question posed: "What are your favorite words?" It seemed a strange concept to me at the time - after all, words are just tools, so why would I prefer any word over any other? After a period of thought, though, I realized that I did indeed have a favorite word. This stems not only from the structure of the word itself, but from its unique meaning, connotation, and applications that could not easily be replaced by any other phrase, much less another single word:

Verisimilitude. Ve-ri-si-mil-i-tude. A fun word to say, no doubt, but what does it mean? Well, etymologically, it stems from two Latin roots: verus meaning truth and similitudo meaning resemblance or likeness. Putting these together, the most basic definition is the resemblance or proximity to truth. That is itself still fairly vague, though, so let's look in context.

Originally, the word verisimilitude had a more philosophical or even scientific meaning: it dealt with the correctness of theories or statements, and how some "false" ideas may be closer to the truth than others. For example, Newton's theory of motion, while imperfect in some cases, is much closer to the truth than, say, those of Aristotle. It would, then, say to have a higher sense of verisimilitude. Over time, however, a much more interesting use of the word has come into existence.

Often, when people feel that their suspension of disbelief in literature or another artistic work is broken, they claim it is because the work is "unrealistic". However, this simply is not true: in literature, the best and most engaging stories are not ones that seem to follow reality perfectly. Think about dialogue: real life conversations would make for terrible reading, so authors have characters speak more interestingly, but less realistically. The idea that throws off peoples' comfort, that leads them to question the "realism" of works, is actually its verisimilitude, or resemblance to truth. If I were to narrow this meaning down to a few words, it would be "logical internal consistency" - but even that only partially describes verisimilitude in this context.

The idea is, while literature should not be realistic, it should retain a semblance of truth and believably. Characters shouldn't instantly change their minds, fantastic or science-fiction elements should at least appear to have a concrete definition of their inner workings, and chance should not play too much of a role without good reason. It is these things that give a novel verisimilitude, and should be striven for by authors.