arbitrary
 

can someone explain this to me and explain why its important in literature?

my friends telling me thats what english is all about whcih im trying to get better at becuase i miss fine detail....

Arbitrary?
Arbitrary basically means a value or selection process that is completely whimsical, random, or otherwise valueless. In other words, if I asked you to give a dollar to anyone in the room, and you gave it to the prettiest girl to impress her, that would not be arbitrary. But if you just decided to give it to her because she was the first person you saw after I told you to pick, that would be arbitrary.

Perhaps I havent been privy to your friends' school of thought, but good literature is -anything- but arbitrary. Every word that a good author writes has a purpose, influencing the story as a whole, even if you dont see it.

A lot of people use a thesaurus arbitrarily, to get "big words" for papers, also. What they have to realize is that every synonym has a special connotation or implication, so if you use big words arbitrarily, you will sound like a fool.

It's also a word used for individual preference and the like. Which, I guess, could be pretty important in literature, since it can be viewed as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." A book or piece of writing one person views as garbage or worthless, another might love and cherish.

I'm wondering if your friends aren't using the word "arbitrary" when what they mean to say is "replaceable." A lot of words in the English language are synonymous. In other words, we have a lot of words that mean the exact same thing, so essentially, a person could arbitrarily choose one of the many words that mean the same thing and not change the meaning of a sentence.

You have to be careful about doing that, though, as krikkit pointed out, because some words have a close meaning to another word, but can only be used in certain contexts, and will sound odd if used any other way.