This one is inevitably used when the writer has already described the view (or simply said that it’s great) and doesn’t want to use the word ‘view’ twice in quick succession.
It’s a spectacular example of journalese, the language only used by journalists. Think headlines along the lines of “Top cop in vice girl rap shame.”
No normal person ever uses the word ‘vista’, other than in the context of an intermittently reliable Microsoft operating system. Yet read the travel pages, and you’d think it was an integral part of everyday conversation.
Tags: travel writer clichés
Ha you’re absolutely right, and I plead guilty to using it in my own travel writing on occasion – for exactly the reason you mention, to avoid using the word “view” too frequently. From a writer’s point of view it is frustrating when a frequently used word has few synonyms; “event” is another one that’s particularly synonym-challenged.
Tim Richards
Travel blog: http://www.aerohaveno.com/
Yup, I’ve used it before too… The journalistic equivalent of pulling the ugly, desperate one at the end of the night due to a lack of available options.
what about verdant, as in “verdant hillsides”? I’ve never heard any body actually say that word.
I can think of loads more, but might be a hostage to fortune…