THUNK I liked that you made your point here with an onomatopoeia, which is of course the furthest extension of this idea. Anyway yeah that was good I appreciated it.But that's not what communication is about. That's not the point of putting words to paper. The object of the game is to place your reader squarely in your head, seeing and feeling as you do. And when you go spelunking for magic words, your reader can see it. It's like crafting this beautiful vista with blowing grain and purple glaciered peaks in the distance and high cirrus frozen in time and the slightest smell of frost on the air and
"a sparkling light reflected from something wet" is a much more useful definition than "to shine with a soft and fitful luster, as eyes suffused with tears, or flowers wet with dew." Less evocative? Damn straight. Devoid of poetry? True dat. Vastly easier to translate into fifteen languages? guilty.