The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith

First, we will see what happens when we take one word and forge others
from it which are similar to it in sound. In doing this I am playing with the
signifier. In order to make it clear how all the words relate to that first
word, I will repeat it each time.

Example 1.1: Association by sound (playing with the

signifier)

green ghost truth token

green grate truth ruthless

green grist truth truck

green guard truth rucksack

green grain truth roof

green real truth suit

green read truth soup

green needle truth ute

green scene truth time

green knee truth tool

green agreeable truth tower

green aggravate truth uterus

green oversee

green industry

Here I have improvised pairs of words in which the second word always
bears a sonic relationship to the first. To do so, I have employed strategies
such as alliteration, assonance or half rhymes. The second word may
be quite distant initially in meaning, but the meanings of the two words
become related through sound. In this way connections between
words can be produced by sound that would never occur by a primarily
semantic route. As you can see, some of these combinations suggest
unusual images, for example that truth is token or a soup.
Now let’s see how I can produce word association by meaning:

Example 1.2: Association by meaning (playing with the

signified)

green blue truth falsehood

green sick truth real

green grow truth fiction

green inexperienced truth language

Here I have generated each second word in the pair by meaning (even
though a combination like ‘truth falsehood’ works by antithesis). And you

6 The Writing Experiment