Words can sound powerful without being difficult
“全てを置いていく” (subete o oite iku), meaning “leave everything behind.” There are no difficult words in this Japanese phrase, yet it sounds like something said by someone who has reached the end of a story. Change it to “check everything,” though, and suddenly we’re at work. It’s still “everything.” What makes the difference?
I like expressions whose meaning I can follow, even though what is happening exceeds the scale of everyday life. “I can read it. I can picture it. But I have no idea how anyone could do that.” That mixture of familiarity and remoteness suggests a being on a different level.
Here, I want to unpack that preference by looking at word choice. Psychological research offers some clues, but it hasn’t given us the definitive answer to what sounds cool, or a naming method that works for everyone. Apart from real game and monster names, the lines and strange events in cities below are invented examples for comparing expressions.
“Put down” is ordinary. What gets left behind is enormous
Put down your luggage. Put down your phone. Put down some papers. The Japanese verb 置く (oku, “put” or “set down”) describes a very familiar action. But with “leave everything behind,” readers can expand what is being left behind for themselves.
The past, companions, enemies, old entanglements, victory and defeat, lingering attachments, the role someone has been assigned. Read it more grandly, and even the story itself. Because “everything” is never fully specified, there is room to imagine what this person has already moved beyond.
置いていく (oite iku, “leave behind”) also carries the movement of leaving that place and continuing onward. So let’s change the action a little.
- “Reduce everything to nothing” suggests a final boss destroying the world
- “Entrust everything to others” suggests a predecessor passing things on to the next generation
- “Shoulder everything” suggests a protagonist who is still fighting
- “Leave everything behind” suggests someone for whom even the place of that struggle is now in the past
Of course, the impression depends on who says it and when. In a packing scene, it might just describe someone who forgets a lot of things. Even so, in a story, I sense a strength closer to “passed through” than to “defeated” or “won.”
“I didn’t win. I was just passing through.”
Instead of measuring power with numbers, it reveals a different relationship to the contest itself. That is one reason this expression appeals to me.
Connect an understandable action to an unexpected object
You don’t need more difficult nouns to change the scene. A different pairing of action and object can do it.
- Return the world to night
- Return memories to the sea
- Close off part of Shibuya within the night
- That one day is the only thing I still cannot close
I understand “return” and “close.” But I don’t know how someone would do those things to the world, memories, or a day in the past. The action gives the imagination a way in; the unexpected object leaves a mystery.
By contrast, if I write “a higher conceptual entity that irreversibly occludes the phase of existence,” I start puzzling over the terminology before I can picture what happened. Some readers like language like that, and it can work if a story has built up the meanings. Difficult words aren’t inherently bad. The question is who your readers are and how many clues you give them.
A 2004 paper by Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman reviews the relationship between the feeling that information is easy to process and aesthetic judgments. The relevant concept is “processing fluency.” It did not, however, establish that combining a simple verb with a grand object produces the coolest possible expression.
Phrases such as “change everything,” “connect it to the future,” and “keep protecting” may feel at home in advertising because I find their scenes or messages easy to grasp. But familiarity can also make them less surprising. Ease of reading alone doesn’t determine an expression’s appeal.
Show only the result, and let us imagine the scale behind it
“In one corner of the city, morning never came.”
I can picture a place where morning never arrives. But the line doesn’t explain who left that particular place in darkness, or how. To me, this is a way of showing what happened while leaving the scale of its cause unknown.
To give the idea a slightly grand name, I’ll call it “observable transcendence.” This is a term coined here for discussing creative writing, not an established psychological term. Rather than explaining all of a being’s abilities, show the traces of its passage.
Keltner and Haidt’s 2003 paper emphasizes overwhelming vastness and the feeling that an experience will not fit into our existing framework of understanding when discussing awe. That vastness need not be physical, and awe does not simply mean fear.
The idea brings to mind my preference for sensing an unknowable scale beyond a scene I can understand. But it does not prove that people experience awe when reading a particular line. Withhold too much explanation, and the result may look less like grandeur and more like missing information.
“悉くを殲ぼす”: the interesting combination of kanji and action
A name I think of here is 悉くを殲ぼすネルギガンテ from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. It is read “ことごとくをほろぼすネルギガンテ,” or “Kotogotoku o Horobosu Nerugigante.” A descriptive English gloss would be “Nergigante that destroys everything,” not an official localized name. The written Japanese is challenging enough that a first-time reader may need to start by learning how to pronounce it.
悉く (ことごとく, kotogotoku) means “everything, without exception.” 殲ぼす (ほろぼす, horobosu) evokes the action of destruction. The slightly formal-sounding kotogotoku joins a verb that lets us see what this being does. To me, that makes something seem likely to happen beyond the name, rather than relying entirely on a dense display of kanji.
For comparison, let’s invent “万象悉皆を不可逆的滅尽へ導く終焉古龍”: “the elder dragon of the end that leads all things without exception to irreversible annihilation.” This is not an official name from the game. It is an invented example piled as high as possible. Impressive, certainly, but halfway through I’d want to ask, “So what does this dragon actually do?”
“Devour,” “tear apart,” “roar,” “fall,” and “dance” also make actions visible. “Burn to ashes” and “freeze solid” make it easy to imagine the scene left afterward, too. But piling on violent words doesn’t automatically make a phrase more appealing. The lightness of something like “dance” can also work when paired with an enormous being.
When choosing a name, before adding difficult characters, I’d like to ask: “What can readers picture this thing doing?”
Sometimes “part of it” is eerier than “everything”
Increasing the scale doesn’t always increase the impact. Consider these invented examples.
- Freeze part of Shibuya solid
- Trap one corner of Shinjuku in the night
- Time stops in just one part of Ikebukuro
- No one can remember a certain part of Kyoto anymore
“The world vanished” is enormous, too. But limiting it to “just one part” draws attention to the boundary with the places that remain. Why only there? Where, exactly, does normality end? Naming a city makes it easier to place the disturbance within a familiar landscape.
To my ear, “destroy everything” approaches myth, while “only one corner changes” approaches the uncanny. This is an impression produced by changing the words, not a classification system for fiction. A localized change can suggest the frightening precision with which a power is wielded, or a choice we cannot understand.
What’s more, “part of it” is thoroughly administrative in everyday use. “I’ve revised part of it.” “Part of it is still under review.” That plain specification of scope turns eerie the moment it connects to “freeze solid.” The contrast is what interests me.
Test the sound by saying it aloud
I have preferences about sounds as well as meanings. When I say 凍てつかせる, pronounced いてつかせる (ite-tsuka-seru, “freeze solid”), it feels hard-edged to me, as though broken into small sections along the way. The repetition in ことごとく (kotogotoku, “without exception”) feels like one blow following another.
These are Japanese sounds we are listening to. In this name, 殲ぼす is read ほろぼす (horobosu). I wouldn’t mix that up with the character’s Sino-Japanese reading せん (sen) when explaining its sound. Translating the meaning into another language does not carry the same sound over intact.
Research on associations between sound and shape includes the bouba/kiki effect: people tend to associate “bouba” with rounded shapes and “kiki” with angular ones. An experiment by Ćwiek and colleagues involving 25 languages also found this correspondence overall. That does not mean every language or every individual produces the same result.
The study does not yield a Japanese sound chart declaring that “き・け・く (ki, ke, ku) are always sharp,” “が・ぐ・ど (ga, gu, do) are always heavy,” or “しん・りん (shin, rin) are always cold.” I want to separate a personal impression of how something sounds from what the research actually tested.
To try this in writing, say near-synonymous candidates aloud: 凍らせる (kōraseru, “freeze”) and 凍てつかせる (ite-tsuka-seru, “freeze solid”); 全て (subete, “everything”) and ことごとく (kotogotoku, “everything without exception”). Listen to their length, repetition, and pauses in the mouth, then choose what suits the scene. Comparing them alongside a character’s manner of speaking and the surrounding dialogue is more useful than looking for rules about sounds alone.
Between grandeur and office work, a joke appears
From “leave everything behind” to “check everything.” Keep almost the same sentence pattern and change the final verb in Japanese, and the protagonist suddenly becomes a section manager.
A: “I think the trick to sounding cool is ‘do something to everything.’”
B: “Go on.”
A: “Leave everything behind.”
B: “The hero’s final chapter.”
A: “Reduce everything to nothing.”
B: “The final boss.”
A: “Entrust everything to others.”
B: “The previous generation’s hero.”
A: “Check everything.”
B: “Suddenly, middle management.”
A: “Share everything.”
B: “The meeting has started.”
A: “Make everything visible.”
B: “The consultants have arrived.”
A: “Send everything back for revision.”
B: “A final boss with a very long approval process.”
A: “The boss who sends absolutely everything back.”
B: “Sounds tougher than Nergigante.”
In this little exchange, the grand opening 全てを (subete o, “everything” as the object of the coming action) creates an expectation, and the office terminology that follows shifts it. Repeat the same pattern a few times and you expect another towering figure from a story. Then checking or sharing turns up, and the scene cuts to a conference room.
You can try “put it in Excel,” “turn it into a PDF,” or “take it back for internal discussion,” too. “Take everything back for internal discussion” sounds as though saving the world will require some coordination within the company first. Workplace language isn’t bad in itself; pairing it with a grandiose tone creates the joke.
Even an administrative verb can become godlike if you change its object
Does that mean “approve,” “send back,” and “organize” are no use for a powerful line? Change the object, and the scene changes again.
- Approve the documents → Approve annihilation
- Send back the application → Send back fate
- Organize the materials → Organize the world’s contradictions
“Approve annihilation” suggests that even the end of the world has a procedure, and that some being can authorize it. “Send back fate” suggests someone who refuses to accept an ending that should already have been decided. “Organize the world’s contradictions” gives the creator a slightly administrative air.
The same verbs become work when their objects are documents, emails, Excel, or meetings. Apply them to memories, pain, promises, guilt, names, or companions, and they move toward a human story. Apply them to eras, fate, death, night, boundaries, or the laws of the world, and the scale of what they handle changes.
These pairings also produce lines whose tone falls somewhere between solemnity and office work: “make the invisible god’s name visible,” “share part of a dream,” or “check the specifications of death.” Whether they come across as funny or unsettling also depends on how ordinary such procedures are within that world.
Trope and Liberman’s 2010 paper reviews the relationship between psychological distance, such as distance in time or space, and abstract or concrete ways of construing things. That is not the same as this essay’s metaphor of calling difficult vocabulary “distant” and office language “close.” The paper cannot serve as research establishing the ideal distance for coolness.
What I want to try in choosing words is to preserve a foothold readers can imagine, while shifting just what is being handled. A line as short as “walk with the night in tow” can take us a long way.
Six questions to ask when crafting a phrase
Let’s turn these preferences into a checklist for writing. This is a tool for comparing candidates, not a scorecard or a scientific formula.
- Can you see the action? Keep a movement readers can picture, such as “return,” “close,” or “walk.”
- What does the action act on? Try changing whether someone sets down luggage, the past, or victory and defeat themselves.
- Does it need to feel irreversible? “Bury,” “sever,” and “burn to ashes” carry weight. If the scene doesn’t need it, take a powerful word away rather than adding one.
- How much of the scale should be visible? Compare “everything” with “one corner of the city,” and decide whether you want the extent or the boundary to stay with readers.
- How much should you explain? Show the action or result while leaving some of its cause open. Check that the result isn’t simply incomprehensible.
- Does it fit the voice and context? Would this character say it? Does it work aloud? Does the preceding scene support the line?
Grouped by direction, the possibilities might look like this.
- Someone carrying their burdens onward: “Keep going, still holding it all”; “With everything on my shoulders, take just one step”
- An overwhelming being: “Reduce everything to nothing”; “Swallow everything”; “Devour every last thing”
- Someone who has already gone beyond: “Make everything the past, and keep going”; “The place we finally reached was where he had started”
- An uncanny event known only by its traces: “Part of Nagoya Station fell silent”; “At that station alone, night keeps falling”; “Part of this room is still yesterday”
- Words that land back at work: “Take inventory of everything”; “Circulate everything to the stakeholders”; “Take everything back for internal discussion”
For a slightly longer line, try “He hadn’t left the battlefield. The battlefield couldn’t keep up with him,” “With that one step, an era became the past,” or “The contest was over by the time we thought it had begun.” Rather than explaining an enormous fictional setting, these lines show a difference in time or perspective between someone and those around them.
An action that involves losing something adds another kind of weight: “Cast off your name and cross the boundary,” or “Sink memories into the sea.” None of these is guaranteed to be a memorable line in isolation. Some words only resonate because of the story that has led up to them.
Put a slightly unknowable scene beyond understandable words
I think “全てを置いていく,” “leave everything behind,” sounds cool to me because the ordinary action of leaving things behind comes to handle the past, victory and defeat, and even the story itself. There is an entrance the reader’s imagination can reach, and a depth it cannot fully follow.
That combination works for powerful-sounding names and quiet uncanny events. Change one verb, and it also works for a meeting.
Say “leave everything behind,” and it sounds as though the final chapter is about to begin.
Say “share everything,” and it sounds as though screen sharing is about to begin.
Both are short, understandable expressions. The difference doesn’t come simply from the number of difficult kanji. What do the words act on? What do they show? What do they leave to the reader’s imagination? Change those things one at a time, and it becomes easier to find both the kind of coolness you like and the mismatches that make you laugh.
References (6)
- Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman (2004). A theoretical review of ease of information processing and aesthetic judgments, not a test ranking specific Japanese expressions. Paper
- Keltner and Haidt (2003). A paper examining awe in relation to vastness and existing frameworks of understanding. Paper
- Trope and Liberman (2010). A review of the relationship between psychological distance and abstract or concrete construal. Paper
- Ćwiek and colleagues (published online in 2021; journal issue in 2022). An experiment on the bouba/kiki effect across 25 languages. Paper
- CAPCOM. Event quest information for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne confirming the written Japanese name 悉くを殲ぼすネルギガンテ. Official information
- Famitsu, “Famitsu’s Monster Hunter Kanji Quiz: Answers and Explanations.” The article explicitly says its readings and other details were checked with Capcom. Explanation of the reading
