Saturday, February 6, 2010

Etymology - Evoke and Invoke

I wasn't sure, whether when I'm telling, to say that “I want to evoke worlds for my audience to travel to” was correct, or ifI should be speaking of invocation.

Both words come from the french and latin, from the latin vocare – to call. The prefixes, In and E come from movement inwards and outwards respectively, and the suggestion is that whist both have a sense of conjuring, to evoke is to call up, and invoke to call upon. They are sometimes somewhat interchangable in usage, particuarly as the usage becomes more and more figurative, and the reference to magic purely metaphorical – but this interchangeability relates more to the summoning side of things. The correct usage for storytelling would be, I think, evoke – unless the aim is to invoke the spirit of a particular story or teller for aid!

2 comments:

  1. Well, I would a lot rather feel evoked than invoked--evoked to travel somewhere new rather than invoked to gather around for the tried and true.

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  2. Agreed. Invoke the muse to evoke the story. Consider the use of invocation in religious ritual.

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