There is a reason, however, why Kipling wished that last sentence to stand alone. Subordinated as it is here rewritten, it does not half express the spiteful independence she assumed to teach Coppy a lesson. It needs the independent construction. Just as surely as Kipling is right in putting the reasons into two sharp, independent sentences, is Irving right when he puts the reason in the following sentence into a subordinate clause. It is not important enough to deserve a sentence all by itself.
“He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s ‘History of New England Witchcraft,’ in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.”
In the following sentence the effect of subordination is unmistakable:—
221 “He had a name in the village for brutally misusing the ass; yet it is certain that he shed a tear which made a clean mark down one cheek.”
Now read it again:—
“He had a name in the village for brutally misusing the ass; yet it is certain that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark down one cheek.”
The last clause has burst away from its former submission, and in its independence has made the most important announcement of the sentence,—the witty climax. Emphasis is, to a large degree, a matter of position, but position cannot emancipate any clause from the thralldom of subordination. To emphasize one idea, subordinate ancillary ideas; make them take their proper rank in the sentence. Reduce them to a clause or to a phrase; and if a word justly expresses the relative importance of the thought, reduce its expression to a single word.
The Dynamic Point of a Sentence. In the chapter on paragraphs it was said that one sentence is often the source of the succeeding sentence; that such a sentence seemed to be charged like a Leyden jar, and to discharge its whole power through a single word or phrase; and further, that this word or phrase should be left free to act,—it should be uncovered. How a sentence can be arranged so that this word or phrase shall have the prominence it deserves, and can unhindered transmit the undiminished force of one sentence to the next, has now been explained. First, such words can be made dynamic by placing them at the beginning or the end of a sentence; second, by placing them near the major marks of punctuation; third, by forcing them from their natural order; and fourth, by the subdual of the other parts of the sentence. The greatest care in 222 massing sentences so that none of their power be lost in transmission is one of the secrets of the literature that carries the reader irresistibly forward. Sometimes he may be annoyed by the repetition of phrases; but he cannot get away; he must go forward. In the paragraph below, quoted from Matthew Arnold, every phrase that is the point from which the next sentence springs is in a position where it can act untrammeled. Through it the whole force of the sentence passes:—
“It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner the Indian virtue of detachment and abandoning the sphere of practical life, it condemns itself as a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate ideas will satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and uproar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the case where that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually threaten him.”48
Good Use. Good use has been mentioned. In massing the parts of a sentence for the purpose of emphasizing some idea, a writer has not entire freedom. Good use, which is the 223 use of acknowledged masters, decides what may be done. There are certain arrangements of words to which we are accustomed; and the disregard of them leads to obscurity or downright contrariety in the thought. “Brutus stabbed Cæsar” is the common order; “Brutus Cæsar stabbed,” or “Stabbed Brutus Cæsar,” is obscure; while “Cæsar stabbed Brutus” is the very opposite of the truth. Those who have studied Latin know that as far as understanding the sentence is concerned, it would make no difference in which order the three Latin words should be arranged; though it would make a mighty difference in the emphasis. In Latin the case endings determine the construction of the words. In an inflected language the words may be massed almost to suit the writer; in an uninflected language, within certain limits the order determines the relation between groups of words. Though for emphasis it might be advisable to have the object first, for the sake of clearness in a short sentence the object cannot stand first. The primary consideration in making any piece of literature is that it may be understood. To be understood, the sentence must be arranged in the order to which we are accustomed. The order to which we are accustomed has been determined by good use.
The variety in the arrangement of the parts of a sentence that has been sanctioned by good usage is great, yet there are limits. Grammar is based upon the usage of the best writers. Any offense against the grammar of our language is a sin against good use. Browning may use constructions so erratic that the ordinary reader does not know what he is reading about; Carlyle may forge a new word rather than take the trouble to find one that other people have used. But the young writer, at least, is far safer while keeping within the limits of good use.
Clearness gained by Coherence. 224 Coherence in a sentence is that principle of structure by which its parts are best arranged to stick together. The parts of a sentence containing related ideas should be so associated that there can be no mistake regarding the reference or the modification. Such a sentence as the following cannot be understood; the reference is obscure. “James told him that he did not see what he was to do in the matter.” If the reader were sure of the first “he,” he could not come nearer than a guess at the reference of the second “he.” The third personal pronoun—he, she, it—in all its cases is especially uncertain in its references.
The first sentence below is from an English grammar. The second is from a recently published biography. Both are obscure in the reference of the pronouns.
“When ‘self’ is added to a pronoun of the First and Second person, it is preceded by the Possessive case. But when it is added to a pronoun of the Third person, it is preceded by a pronoun in the Objective case.”
“I am reminded of Swinburne’s view of Providence when he said that he never saw an old gentleman give a sixpence to a beggar, but he was straightway run over by a ’bus.”
The relative pronoun is also uncertain in its references.
Some Southerners were among the ship’s passengers, of whom a few had served in the Rebellion. (Obscure reference.)
Red lights were displayed in a peculiar succession, which warned of impending storm. (No antecedent.)
To make the reference of pronouns, personal and relative, distinct, the antecedent must be made prominent; sometimes the only way out of the difficulty is a repetition of the antecedent. And the pronoun should stand near the word to which it refers. Keep associated ideas together.
225 Like pronouns in the uncertainty of their reference are participles. Either the subject is not expressed, or it is uncertain.
Hastening up the steps, the door opened. (None.)
Coming from the spring, with a pail of water in either hand, he saw her for the first time. (Uncertain.)
Adverbs are sometimes placed so that they make a sentence ridiculous; and frequently their meaning is lost by being separated from the words they modify. “Only” is a word to be watched. Like adverbs are correlative conjunctions. They are frequently so placed that they do not join the elements they were intended to unite.
He seized the young girl as she rose from the water almost roughly.
I think I hardly shall.
I only went as far as the gate.
“Who shall say, of us who know only of rest and peace by toil and strife?”
He not only learned algebra readily but also Latin.
Phrases and clauses may lose their reference by being removed from the words they modify.
Toiling up the hill, he arrived at Hotel Bellevue through a drizzling rain.
Addison rose to a post which dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it an honor to fill without high birth, and with little property.
“Fred was liked well; but he had the habit of that class that cannot get the English Language in the right order when a little excited.”
All the classes of errors which have been exemplified here are due to the infringement of one rule: things that belong together in thought should stand 226 together in composition. Nothing should be allowed to come between a pronoun, an adjective, an adverb, a correlative, a phrase, or a clause, and the word it modifies. Sometimes other modifiers have to be taken into account: where more than one word or phrase modifies the same word, a trial will have to be made to arrange them so that there shall be no obscurity or absurdity. Keep related ideas together; keep unrelated ideas apart.
Parallel Construction. The second principle which helps to make the relation of parts clear is parallel construction. It has already been explained in paragraphs. In sentences the commonest errors are in linking an infinitive with a gerund, a participle with a verb, an active with a passive voice, a phrase with a clause. The result is sentences like the following:—
You cannot persuade him to go and into buying what he does not want.
Thus he spoke, and turning to the door.
The king began to force the collection of duties, and an army was sent by him to execute his wishes.
He was resolved to use patience and that he would often exercise charity.
Such sentences are offensive to the ear; and were they as long as the ones below, they would not be clear.
“You cannot persuade them to burn their books of curious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts of laws; or to quench the lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those persons who are best read in their privileges.”
“For though rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as such, nor have any steps been taken towards the apprehension or conviction of any individual offender, either on our late or our former Address; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much more 227 resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects.”
“My Resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity and justice of a taxation of America by grant and not by imposition; to mark the legal competency of the colony Assemblies for the support of their government in peace, and for public aids in time of war; to acknowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise; and that experience has shown the benefit of their grants, and the futility of Parliamentary taxation as a method of supply.”49
In the second sentence Burke has used a passive voice when it would certainly be more elegant to change to the active. “Is proceeded against” is surely awkward, but for uniformity and resulting clearness he has retained the passive. In the last sentence the infinitives “to establish,” “to mark,” and “to acknowledge” are in the same construction; they are objects of “mean.” Then comes a change of form to show that the clauses “that this legal competency has had,” etc., and “that experience has shown,” etc., are in a like relation to the infinitive “to acknowledge.” Though the last clause by reason of the punctuation looks correlative with the others, it is not related as object to the verb “mean,” as the others are, but it is the object of “to acknowledge.” There could hardly be a better example of the value of parallel constructions for the purpose of avoiding confusion, and linking together parts that are related.
Balanced Sentences. Parallel constructions are used in balanced sentences. In balanced sentences one part is balanced against another,—a noun and a noun, an adjective and an adjective, phrase and phrase. Balanced sentences are especially suited to express antithesis, the figure of speech where two ideas are sharply 228 opposed to each other. In the following from Newman, the balancing is admirable: “Inebriated with the cup of insanity, and flung upon the stream of recklessness, she dashes down the cataract of nonsense and whirls amid the pools of confusion.” This is not antithesis, however; but the following from Macaulay is: “She seems to have written about the Elizabethan age, because she had read much about it; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addison, because she had determined to write about it.”
The danger in the use of balanced sentences is excess. Macaulay is very fond of brilliant contrasts. But is a very common word with him. In some cases the reader feels that for the sake of the figure he has forced the truth. Balanced sentences are palpably artificial, and should be used but sparingly.
There is, however, but little danger of overdoing the parallel construction where there is no antithesis. The parts of succeeding sentences do not resemble each other so much in thought that there is great danger of resulting monotony in its expression. However, should the difficulty arise, the monotony may be broken up by a trifling variation. Macaulay has done this well in the sentences quoted on page 186, beginning with the words, “For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed,” and continuing to the end of the paragraph.
Use of Connectives. The third method of securing coherence in a sentence is by the use of connectives. The skillful use of prepositions and conjunctions indicates a master of words. The use of connectives has been discussed when treating of emphasis secured by subdual of unimportant details. Such parts are connected, and in a very definite way. The 229 relations are evident. Two examples will illustrate. The first group of sentences are the fragments of but one of Irving’s.
He did not look to the right or left. He did not notice the scene. The scene was of rural wealth. He had often gloated on this scene. He went straight to the stable. He kicked and cuffed his steed several times, and so forth.
Now note the value of prepositions in giving these separate sentences coherence.
“Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed most unceremoniously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.”
The next also is from Irving, and shows the skillful use of conjunctions to point out unerringly the relation of the clauses in a sentence.
“What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed.”
Coherence, the principle of structure that surely holds the parts of a sentence together, is of greater importance than Mass. Upon Coherence depends the meaning of a sentence; upon Mass the force with which the meaning is expressed. That the meaning may be clear, it is necessary that the relation of the parts shall be perfectly evident. This lucidity is gained by placing related parts near together, and conversely, by separating unrelated ideas; by using parallel constructions 230 for parallel thoughts; and by indicating relations by the correct use of prepositions and conjunctions.
To summarize, sentences are the elements of discourse. The ability of a sentence to effect with certainty its purpose depends upon Unity, Mass, and Coherence. A sentence must contain all that is needed to express the whole thought, but it must contain no more. A sentence must be arranged so that its important parts shall be prominent. Position and proportion are the means of emphasis in a sentence. By placing the important words near the major marks of punctuation, by arranging the parts in a climax or a period, by forcing words out of the natural order, and by subduing unimportant details, a sentence is massed to give the important elements their relative emphasis. Last, the parts of a sentence should be arranged so that their relations shall be clear and unmistakable. Proximity of related parts, parallel construction for parallel ideas, and connectives are the surest means of securing Coherence in a sentence.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS
SILAS MARNER.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 83.)
On page 18 put together the sentence beginning “Every man’s work,” etc., with the next. What connective and what punctuation will you use? What is the difference in effect? What one of the relations of a compound sentence does the second part bear to the first?
On page 26 could you make two sentences of the sentence beginning, “Raveloe lay low among the bushy trees”? Would it be as well? Would it be better?
On page 35 do the three parts of the compound sentence beginning, “He would have liked,” etc., belong to one sentence? Which one?
Is it right to say, “He would have liked to spring,” or would it be better to say, “He would have liked to have sprung”?
Do you think colons are used too frequently in Silas Marner? Compare their use with their use in Hawthorne’s Stories and Irving’s Sketches.
In the sentence beginning, “Let him live,” etc., at the bottom of page 94, is “a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming,” a climax or an anti-climax? Why?
At the bottom of page 183 why was it necessary to crowd so much into one sentence?
MACAULAY’S ESSAY ON MILTON.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 103.)
Re-write the sentence on page 33 beginning, “Of all poets,” etc., making it loose. Is it better or worse?
232 Why does “here” stand first in the next sentence?
What poets with whom you are familiar have philosophized too much?
Is the first sentence of the paragraph beginning in the middle of page 36 periodic or loose?
How many periodic sentences in this paragraph?
In the paragraph on pages 37 and 38 trace the relation of the succeeding sentences.
At the bottom of page 45 what is the reason for putting first in the sentence, “of those principles”? What do you think of the massing of the whole sentence? What has been made emphatic?
Note the last two sentences at the end of the paragraph on page 58. Is their arrangement effective? Change one. What is the effect? (See also the middle of page 64.)
On page 60 why did he not say, “She grovels like a beast, she hisses like a serpent, she stings like a scorpion”?
What arrangement of clauses in the first sentence in the paragraph beginning at the bottom of page 66? Does it add clearness?
In the same paragraph find a balanced sentence.
What advantage is there in the short sentences on page 68?
In the first sentence of the paragraph, beginning on page 71, read one of the clauses, “by whom king, church, and aristocracy were trampled down.” What is the effect of the change?
Is the parallel construction in the last sentence beginning on page 77 good? Is it good in the last sentence of this paragraph?
In the next paragraph, why is Macaulay’s way better than this: “He was neither Puritan, free thinker, nor royalist”?
When a sentence is introduced by a participial phrase or a dependent clause it is in part or wholly periodic. Does Macaulay frequently use this introduction? What is the effect upon his style?
233 Can you find examples of sentences beginning with a loose structure, and having within them examples of the periodic structure?
In the paragraph filling pages 79 and 80 there are many examples of periodic and parallel structure. Contrast this paragraph with some of Lamb’s paragraphs.
What is the effect of position upon the phrase, “Even in his hands,” on page 67?
When Macaulay inverts the order of a sentence does he usually do it for emphasis or to secure coherence?
Does he use many pronouns and conjunctions?
Does he repeat words?
BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 100.)
How many sentences in the first paragraph are periodic?
What kind of sentences in paragraph 10?
What is the effect of this paragraph?
Notice the arrangement of loose and periodic clauses in the last sentence in paragraph 12. Make this sentence entirely loose.
In the long sentence in paragraph 25 do the he’s and him’s all refer to the same person?
What would you say of Burke’s use of pronouns?
Find examples of balanced sentences in this oration.
Are you ever astray regarding Burke’s meaning?
What has he done to gain clearness?
For what purpose does he frequently use questions?
WEBSTER’S BUNKER HILL ORATION.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 56.)
What relation has the second sentence of paragraph 1 to the first?
Is the last sentence in paragraph 3 clear? How has he made it so?
Compare this sentence with the one beginning at the bottom of page 12.
234 In the last sentence of paragraph 6 where does loose structure change to the periodic?
In paragraph 7 why would it be a blemish to write, “That we may keep alive similar sentiments”?
Why does he repeat “We wish” so many times? Why did he not substitute synonyms?
In paragraph 18 why has he used the word “interest” more than once? If the thought is to be repeated, why not some other word?
In the eighth sentence of paragraph 21 is the structure periodic or loose?
Reverse the order of clauses in the last sentence of paragraph 28. What is the effect?
CHAPTER IX
WORDS
A word is the sign of an idea. Whether the idea be an object, a quality, an action, simple existence, or a relation, if it be communicated to another, it must have some sign; in language these signs are words. Infinitely varied are the ideas man has to express. Each day, each moment, has its new combination of circumstances; yet by the common person the effect of the novel situation is described as “horrid” or “awful” or “perfectly lovely.” Three adjectives to describe all creation! No wonder that people are constantly misunderstood; that others do not get their ideas. How can they? Do the best the master can, the thought will not pass from him to his reader without considerable deflection. He cannot say exactly what he would. His words do not hold the same meaning for him as for others. “Mother” to him is a dear woman with a gentle voice, always dressed in black, sitting by the window of home; to another she is a shrieking termagant, whose phrases are punctuated by blows. There is not a word that means exactly the same to two persons; yet with words men must express their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes, their purposes,—always changing, ever new,—and for all this shall they use but a few score of words? Words are the last, least elements of language; without these least elements, these atoms of language, no sentence, however simple, can be made; by means of them, the master drives mobs to frenzy or soothes the 236 pain of eternal loss. The calm and peace which Emerson knew, we know; the perpetual benediction of past years which Wordsworth felt, all may feel. These thoughts masters have expressed in words, but not in three words. Thousands are not enough accurately to transfer their visions of this changing universe from them to us. Ideas infinite in their variety demand for their expression all the means which our language has placed at the disposal of the master. For this true expression the whole dictionary with its thousands of words is all too small.
Need of a Large Vocabulary. Whoever hopes to be understood must acquire a full, rich vocabulary. However clearly he may think, however much he may feel, until he has words, the thought, the emotion, must remain his alone. To get a vocabulary, then, is a person’s business. He who has it can command him who has it not. Not in literature alone, but in business,—in medicine, in law, behind the accountant’s desk or the salesman’s counter,—he is master who can say what he means so that the person to whom he speaks must know just what he means. Now it is a singular truth that when we read any great author, the words which we do not understand are remarkably few. Even in Shakespeare there are not many; and the few are unknown by reason of a constantly changing vocabulary. It was probably true then, as it would certainly be to-day, that the large majority of audiences lost not a word of his fifteen thousand, while they themselves used less than eight hundred. We know what others say; yet we say nothing ourselves. What a vocabulary one could accumulate, if from six to eighteen he added only two words a day! Twelve years, and each year more than seven hundred words! It does not look a difficult task. Children do more, and 237 never realize the superiority of their achievement. Nine thousand words at eighteen! Shakespeare alone used more. Macaulay needed scarcely six thousand.
Dictionary. How shall a vocabulary be accumulated? One method is by the use of a dictionary; and many persons find it a source of great pleasure. The genealogy and biography of words are as fascinating to a devoted philologist as stamps to a philatelist or cathedrals to an architect. “Canteen” is quite an unassuming little word. Yet imperious Cæsar knew it in its childhood. The Roman camp was laid out like a small city, with regular streets and avenues. On one of these streets called the “Via Quintana” all the supplies were kept. When the word passed into the Italian, it became “cantina;” and cantinas may be found among all nations who have drawn their language from the Latin. There is this difference, however: that whereas eatables were to be had in the Roman quintana, only drinkables can be found in the Italian cantina. When the English adopted the word, the middle meaning, a place where wines are stored, a wine-cellar, came to be a small flask especially fitted for the rough usage of a soldier’s life, in which a necessary supply of some sort of liquid may be carried. So the name of a street has become the much-berated canteen of the sutler and the much needed canteen of the soldier. The dictionary is full of such fascinating biographies. Still its fascination is not the reason why most people study the dictionary: it is because such a study is necessary for the person who hopes for an accurate knowledge of the words he reads. It is not impossible to know “pretty nearly what it means” from the context; but no master uses words without knowing exactly what they mean. Certainty of meaning precedes frequency of use; and this necessary confidence 238 is gained from a study of the dictionary. In a general way we know all the words of Macaulay’s vocabulary; but the average man uses only eight hundred of them. His knowledge of words is no more than an indistinct, mumbling knowledge. To lift each word out of its context, to make it a distinct, living entity, capable of serving, the definition must be studied. Then the student knows just what service the word is fitted for, and finds a pleasure in being competent to command that service. The dictionary is a necessity to the person who hopes to use words.
Study of Literature. Yet the knowledge of words that the student derives from the dictionary is not sufficient. When one hears an educated foreigner speak, he detects little errors in his use of words,—errors which are not the fault of definition, but errors in the idiomatic use of words. This use cannot be learned from a dictionary, where words are studied individually, but only by studying them in combination with other words where the influence of one word upon another may be noted. There is little difference in the size of a pile of stones, whether we say a great pile of stones or a large pile of stones; but a great man is of much more consequence than a large man. A dictionary could hardly have told a foreigner this. A man may pursue or chase a robber, as the author wishes; but he may not chase a course. Prepositions are especially liable to be misused, and their correct use comes from a study of literature, not of the dictionary. The nice and discriminating refinements in the use of words are learned by careful reading. When a phrase is met, such as “the steep and solitary eastern heaven,” where each word has been born to a new beauty; or this, “And the sweet city with her dreaming spires,” where the adjectives “sweet” and “dreaming” have a richer 239 content, they should be regarded with great care and greeted with even more delight than words entirely new. How to read that we may gain this complete mastery of words, Mr. Ruskin has best told us in “Sesame and Lilies.” Every person should know “Of Kings’ Treasuries” by reading and re-reading. Literature, the way masters have used words, will furnish a knowledge of the nicer discriminations in their use.
The dictionary and literature are the sources of a full and refined vocabulary. But the vocabulary which may be perfectly understood is not entirely in one’s possession until it is used. Seek the first opportunity to use the newly acquired word. It will be hard to utter it; you will feel an effort in getting it out. Only once, however; after that it rises as easily as any old familiar word. Because the companion with whom you speak is always “just as mad as” she can be, is no reason why you may not at times be vexed, annoyed, aggravated, exasperated, or angry. Men are not always either “perfectly lovely” or “awful;” neither are all ladies “jewels.” There are degrees of villainy and nobility; and all jewels have not the same lustre. Know what you want to say, and find the one word that will exactly say it. This costs work, it is true; but what is there worth having which has not cost some one work? Do the work; search for the word; then use it. In this way a vocabulary becomes a real possession.
The words which a person may use are generally described as reputable, national, and present. Words must be reputable; that is, sanctioned by the authority of the creators of English literature. They must be national; words that are the property of the mass of the people, not of a clique or a district. And they must be of the present; Chaucer’s vocabulary, though 240 it be the source of English, will not satisfy the conditions of to-day.
Vulgarisms are not reputable. First, words must be of reputable use. No person would consider vulgarisms reputable. When a person says “I hain’t got none,” he has reached about the acme of vulgarisms, the language of the illiterate. Grammar has been disregarded; a word has been used which is not a word; and another word has no reason for its appearance in the sentence. Yet sometimes this expression is heard; seldom seen written. It is always set down to the account of an illiterate home; for no one can reach a high school without knowing its grammatical errors. The unerring use of don’t, me, I, lie, lay, set, and sit, is not so assured that the list can be omitted. Adjectives are used for adverbs; “real good” is not yet forgotten. Nouns are called upon to do the work of verbs. This is the language of the illiterate, and it should be avoided; for vulgarisms are not reputable.
Slang is not reputable. Neither is slang reputable. He would be a prude who would not recognize that slang is sometimes right to the point; and that many of our strongest idioms were originally slang. Still, although many phrases which to-day are called slang were at one time reputable, the fact of their respectable birth cannot save them from the slight imputation that now they are slang. Notwithstanding the fact that we owe some of our strongest idioms to slang, the free use of slang always vulgarizes. It generally is called upon to supply a deficiency either in thought or in the power of expression. People too lazy to think, too indolent to read, with little to say, and but a few slang phrases to say it with, may be allowed to practice this vulgarity; but cultured persons in cultured conversation will eschew all acquaintance 241 with it. To find it in the serious composition of educated persons always raises a question of their refinement. It is the stock in trade of the lazy and the uncultured. It is used to divert attention from poverty of thought and a threadbare vocabulary. It is unnecessary for the complete expression of thought by the scholar and man of refinement.
It is a real misfortune that many good words have been tarnished by the handling of the illiterate. “Awful,” “horrid,” and “lovely” are good words; but they have been sullied by common use. So common have they become that they approach slang. They may be rescued from that charge in each person’s writing, if he shows by accurate use of them that he is master of their secret strength.
Milton wrote in “Paradise Lost:”—
“No! let us rather choose,
Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once
O’er Heav’n’s high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer.”
Lord Lytton makes Richelieu exclaim:—
“Look where she stands! Around her form I draw
The awful circle of our solemn church.”
And in the New Testament we read:—
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
There is no question here of the words; they have all the freshness and vigor of their youth. Do not hesitate to use such words exactly. When the thought calls for them, they say with certainty what can be expressed only doubtfully by other words.
Words must be national. Provincialisms. 242 Second, words must be of national use. They cannot be words confined to a locality. When Morris talks of a house that has been “gammoned,” he deprives a large number of readers of his meaning. “Gums” and “brasses” may be good in certain districts of England, but in literature they should not be used, for they would not generally be understood. For the same reason much of the common conversation of the South is foreign to a native of New York. Whoever employs the language of a locality limits his circle of readers to that locality. To write for all he must use the language of all; he must avoid provincialisms.
Technical and Bookish Words. Like words that are used by a small region are words which are understood by a clique of persons. Scholars are inclined to use a scholarly vocabulary. The biologist has one; the chemist another; the philosopher a third. This technical vocabulary may be a necessity at times; but when a specialist addresses the public, his words must be the words which an average cultured man can understand. Such words can be found if the writer will look for them; if he does not, his work can scarcely be called literature. Technical words and bookish terms are not words of national use.
The following by Josiah Royce illustrates how clearly a most abstruse topic can be handled by a man willing to take the trouble:50—
“If you ask what sort of thing this substance is, the first answer is, that it is something eternal; and that means, not that it lasts a good while, but that no possible temporal view of it could exhaust its nature. All things that happen result from the one substance. This surely means that what happens now and what happened millions of years ago are, for the substance, equally present and necessary results. To illustrate 243 once more in my own way: A spider creeping back and forth across a circle could, if she were geometrically disposed, measure out in temporal succession first this diameter, and then that. Crawling first over one diameter, she would say, ‘I now find this so long.’ Afterwards examining another diameter, she would say, ‘It has now happened that what I have just measured proves to be precisely as long as what I measured some time since, and no longer.’ The toil of such a spider might last many hours, and be full of such successive measurements, each marked by a spun thread of web. But the true circle itself within which the web was spun, the circle in actual space as the geometer knows it, would its nature be thus a series of events, a mere succession of spun threads? No, the true circle would be timeless, a truth founded in the nature of space, outlasting, preceding, determining all the weary web-spinning of this time-worn spider. Even so we, spinning our web of experience in all its dreary complications in the midst of the eternal nature of the world-embracing substance, imagine that our lives somehow contain true novelty, discover for the substance what it never knew before, invent new forms of being. We fancy our past wholly past, and our future wholly unmade. We think that where we have yet spun no web, there is nothing, and that what we long ago spun has vanished, broken by the winds of time into nothingness. It is not so. For the eternal substance there is no before and after; all truth is truth. ‘Far and forgot to me is near,’ it says. In the unvarying precision of its mathematical universe, all is eternally written.
‘Not all your piety nor wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out one word of it.’”
Foreign Words. Words and phrases from a foreign language should be used only as a last resort. Bon mot, sine qua non, and dolce far niente are all very apt, and to a person like Mr. Lowell, who was intimately 244 acquainted with many languages, they may come as soon as their English equivalents. In the case of such a person, the reason why they should not be used is that the reader cannot understand them. But when a young smatterer uses them to advertise his calling acquaintance with a language, he is but proclaiming his own lack of good taste. In his composition they are as ineffective to make it respectable as a large diamond on a gamester’s finger to make him an honored gentleman. Use the English language when writing for English-speaking people. It has the fullest, richest vocabulary in the world. It will not be found unequal to the task of expressing your thoughts.
Words in Present Use. Third, words should be in present use. Words may be so new that people do not know them; they may have passed out of use after years of good service. Of new words, but little can be said. The language constantly changes. New discoveries and inventions demand new words. What ones will be more than temporary cannot be prophesied. “Blizzard” and “mugwump” were new but a short time ago: the latter is dying from disuse, the former has come to stay. In this uncertainty one thing can be said, however. No word which has not secured recognition should be used by a young person, if by reputable words already in the language he can express his meaning. And just as he should not be the first to take up an untried word, so the young writer should not be the last to drop a dead one. There is at present a sort of fad for old English. A large number of words that have been resting quietly in their graves for centuries have been called forth. Some may enjoy a second life; most of them will feel only the weakness of a second obsolescence. “Foreword” and “inwit” were good once; but “preface” and “conscience” 245 mean as much and have the advantage of being alive. To be understood use the words of the present.
Words in their Present Meaning.
Use words in their present signification. Not only
has language cast out many words; it has
changed many others so that they are hardly
recognized. When Chaucer wrote,
“Ther may no man Mercury mortify
But hit be with his brother knowleching,”
“mortify” meant to make dead, to kill. To-day a lady may say she was mortified to death; but that is hyperbole. In “Paradise Lost” Satan may
“Through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way.”
But a person to-day is not justified in using “uncouth” for “unknown.” The works of Shakespeare and Milton abound in words whose life has been prolonged to the present, but whose signification has been changed. The writer who seeks to use words with these old meanings is standing in his own light. Such use always attracts attention to the words themselves, and by so much subtracts attention from the thought.
Words of Latin and Saxon Origin. Words that are in good use have been divided into two classes, as they have been drawn from two sources. Some differences between Anglo-Saxon and Latin words are marked. Saxon words are generally short; Latin words long. The first are the words of home and are concerned with the necessities of life; the second are the words of the court and the adornments of polite society. The former made the foundation of our language and gave to it its idiomatic strength; the latter came later, and added to the strength of the language its grace and refinement.
246 In our speech there can be no doubt that short words are used when the purpose is to be understood quickly, even harshly, while the longer words are frequently employed for saying unpleasant things pleasantly. Euphemism, the choice of words not harsh for harsh ideas, has its uses. It is not always wrong to say, “He was taken away” for “He was killed.” But when the plain truth is to be spoken, when, as in most composition, the object is to be understood, the words should be chosen which exactly express the thought, be those words Latin or Saxon. For any one to say, “Was launched into eternity” for “Was hanged,” or “When the fatal noose was adjusted about the neck of the unfortunate victim of his own unbridled passions” for “When the halter was put around his neck,” is a useless parade of vocabulary.51 One knows that such phrases are made by a writer who is ignorant of the value of words, or by a penny-a-liner, willing to sacrifice every effect of language to the immediate needs of his purse. Such writing has no power. The words are dictated by too low a motive to have any force in them. Let a writer go straight to the point as directly as the hindrances of language will allow. Even then his expression will lag behind his thought.
This does not mean that one is to use Saxon words always. It means that one shall use the words that say exactly what is to be said, so that the reader can get the exact thought with the least outlay of attention to the words. Latin words are as common as Saxon words. To search out a Saxon word because it is Saxon and short is as reprehensible as to use the indirection of Latin words where directness is wanted. Latin words have a place; they express the finer distinctions and gradations of thought. In the discussion 247 of any question requiring nice precision of statement Latin words are necessary. In the following from Newman, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to substitute words of Anglo-Saxon origin for the words of Latin origin, and could it be done, the passage would not then have the clearness it now has from his use of common words, though they be Latin:—
“I mean then by the Supreme Being, one who is simply self-dependent, and the only Being who is such; moreover, that He is without beginning or Eternal, and the only Eternal; that in consequence He has lived a whole eternity by Himself; and hence that He is all-sufficient, sufficient for his own blessedness, and all-blessed, and ever-blessed. Further, I mean a Being who, having these prerogatives, has the Supreme Good, or rather is the Supreme Good, or has all the attributes of good in infinite intenseness; all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all beautifulness; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; ineffably one, absolutely perfect; and such that what we do not know of Him is far more wonderful than what we do and can.”52
Latin words, moreover, have a fullness of sound which gives them an added weight and dignity. One would hesitate long before changing one of Milton’s big-sounding phrases, even if he were not compelled to sacrifice the metre. In Webster’s orations there is a dignity, a sublimity, gained by the use of full-mouthed polysyllables. Supposing he had said at the beginning of his eulogy of Adams and Jefferson, “This is a new sight” instead of “This is an unaccustomed spectacle,” the whole effect of dignified utterance commensurate with the occasion would have been lost. The oration abounds in examples of reverberating cadences. Milton’s sentences are a stately procession of gorgeous words: the dignified pomp of the advance is occasioned 248 by the wealth of essential beauty and historical association in the individual words:—
“That proud honor claimed
Azazel as his right, a Cherube tall:
Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl’d
Th’ imperial ensign, which, full high advanc’t
Shon like a meteor streaming to the wind,
With gemms and golden lustre rich emblaz’d
Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while
Sonorous metall blowing martial sounds:
At which the universal host up-sent
A shout that tore Hell’s concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air,
With orient colours waving; with them rose
A forrest huge of spears; and thronging helms
Appear’d, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable.” (“Paradise Lost.”)
The choice of words does not depend on whether they are of Latin or of Saxon origin. In use it will be found that short words, like short sentences, give more directness and force to the composition; while long words have a dignified elegance and refinement of discrimination not the property of monosyllables. No one should think, however, that short words cause the force or long words cause the dignity. These qualities belong to the thought; the completeness of its expression is approached by a choice in words. Choose words for their fitness to say what you think, or feel, or purpose, having no regard for their origin.
General and specific. Words are also classified as general and specific. By a general word is meant a word common to or denoting a large number of ideas. By specific is meant a word that denotes or specifies a 249 single idea. “Man,” “move,” “bad,” are general and denote a large number of ideas; while “Whittier,” “glide,” “thieving,” are specific, denoting but one man, one movement, one kind of badness. “Man” denotes the whole human race, while it implies a feeling, thinking, speaking, willing animal. “Whittier” denotes but a single person, but beside all the common qualities implied by the, word “man,” “Whittier” suggests, among other things, a homely face, serious and kind, a poet, and an anti-slavery worker.
Use Words that suggest most. As a principle in composition, it may be said that the more a word or phrase can be made to imply or suggest, while at the same time expressing all that the writer wishes to say, the more valuable does that word or phrase become. Yet it should be remembered that words may be so specific that they do not include all that the author wishes to include. For instance, if instead of “Blessed are the peacemakers,” the beatitude should be made to read “Blessed are the Quakers,” though this organized body of persons labor for the blessings of peace, yet the meaning would be restricted by the limited denotation of the term. It does not include enough. So in almost all of Emerson’s writing, it would not be possible to express his entire thought with more specific words. Therefore regard must always be had for the thought,—that it may be expressed in its perfect fullness and entirety. Keeping this full expression in view, those words are strongest, truest, richest, which suggest most. To say of a person that he is a bad man is one thing; that he is a traitor is quite another; but when one writes that he is a veritable Judas, words fail to keep pace with suggestions, and reason yields to emotion. Specific words, if they denote the whole idea, are as much better than general terms as their suggestion exceeds the suggestion of general terms.
Synecdoche, Metonymy. 250 Much of the force of figures of speech is derived from the suggestive quality of the specific words employed. When a man calls another a dog, he has used a metaphor. He has availed himself of a term that gathers up all the snarling qualities of the worst of the dog species. The figure has high suggestive power. Synecdoche, too, that figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, employs a term of higher suggestive power for one of lower connoting force. “All hands took hold” is better than “All persons went to work.” Metonymy is the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another to which the former bears a known and close relation. The most common of these known and close relations are those of cause and its effects, of container and the thing contained, and of sign and the thing signified. “He has read Shakespeare,” “He was addicted to the use of the bottle,” “All patriots fight for the flag,” are examples of metonymy. All these figures depend in large degree for their power upon the greater suggestiveness of specific words; and their use gives to composition an efficiency and directness commensurate with the greater connoting value of the specific words.
Care in Choice of Specific Words. A writer should keep in mind the fact that the same word may mean widely different things to two persons. For this reason the specific word that appeals to him most may be of no value in addressing others. “Free silver” means to one set of men the withdrawal of money from investment, consequent stagnation in business, followed by the closing of factories and penury among laborers. To others it means three dollars a day for unskilled labor, fire, clothes, and something to eat. Again, if one wished to present the horrors of devastating disease, 251 in the South he would mention yellow fever, in the North smallpox; but to a lady who saw six little brothers and sisters dead from it in one week, three carried to the graveyard on the hillside one chill November morning, all the terrors of contagious disease are suggested by the word “diphtheria.” Words are weighted with our experiences. They are laden with what we have lived into them. As persons have different experiences, each word carries to each person a different meaning. The wise writer chooses those specific words which suggest most to the men he addresses,—in general, to the average man.
There are many words that carry some of the same suggestions to all. These words are connected with the common things of life: such words as “home,” “death,” “mother,” and the many more that have been with all people from childhood. They are simple little words crowded with experiences. Such words carry a weight of suggestion not found in strange new words. It is for this reason that simple language goes straight to the heart; it is so loaded with life. Of two expressions that convey the thought with equal accuracy, always choose the simpler.
The following poems—one by Tennyson,53 steeped in pain, perfect in its phrasing; the other by Kipling, rising to a conception of a true artist’s work, never before so simply expressed—are both written in home words, little words, but words all know, words that carry to all a common meaning:—
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean:
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
252 “Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the underworld;
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
“Ah! sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
“Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!”
L’ENVOI.54
“When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an æon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!
“And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
253 “And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!”
Avoid Hackneyed Phrases. Much like general terms, which mean something or nothing, are expressions that have become trite and hackneyed. At some time they were accurate phrases, saying just what was needed. By being used for all sorts of purposes, they have lost the original thought of which they were the accurate expression. They have no freshness. The sounding phrases repeated in the pulpit, or the equally empty phrases of the scientist, however good they were at their inception, are, in the writing of many persons, but theological and scientific cant relied upon by ignorant people to cover up the vacuity of their thought. One’s own expression, even though it be not so elegant and graceful, is better than any worn-out, hackneyed phrase. Think for yourself; then say what you have thought in the best language you can find yourself.
“Fine Writing.” “Fine writing,” the subjection of noble words to ignoble service, is to be avoided. Mr. Micawber was addicted to this pomposity of language; and Dickens, by the creation of this character, has done literature a real service, by showing how absurd it is, how valueless for anything more than humor. “‘Under the impression,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road—in short,’ 254 said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, ‘that you might lose yourself—I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.’” Here are great words in profusion to dress out a little thought. “Fine writing” is as much out of taste as over-dressing. When the thought calls for noble expression, then all one’s energies should be bent to finding noble phrases; but for common things common expressions are the only ones in good taste.
In Prose avoid Poetical Words. Much like “fine writing” is the use of poetical words in prose. Enow, erstwhile, besprent, methinks, agone, and thine are examples of a large class of words which, though in perfectly good taste in poetry, are in extremely poor taste in prose. They are out of place; and so attract attention to themselves, not to the thought they express. When writing prose, avoid poetical words.
All of this comes at last to one rule: be exact, be accurate in the choice of words. Not a word that half expresses the thought, not even one that is pretty near, but the only word that exactly expresses the meaning, that word must be used. It is not a question of long or short, of Latin or Saxon, of general or specific; it is a question of accuracy or inaccuracy, the whole or a part, the whole or too much, of just right or about right. No one would entirely misunderstand the following sentence; and just as certainly no one would derive from these words the impression the author had when he wrote it. He has phrased it as follows: “Another direction in which free education is most valuable to society, is the way in which it removes the gulf affixed between the rich and poor.” The boy wanted the opening sentence to sound big, and forgot that the first use of words is accurately to express the 255 thought. In this sentence are the commonest errors in the choice of words. “Most valuable” says more than truth; “direction” says less than truth; and “affixed” does not say anything. Had the boy studied the dictionary, had he been familiar with the Bible, had he carefully considered the figure he introduced with the word “gulf,” he would not have written this incongruous sentence; he would not have been inaccurate. Spare no pains in your effort to be exact. Search through the words of your own vocabulary; if these fall short, find others in the dictionary. Get the word that exactly expresses the thought. Let no fine-sounding or high-born word trick you into saying what you do not mean. Be master of your words; never let fine expressions enslave you. In a word, be accurate.
Such painstaking labor has its reward not alone in the increased power of expression; there is also a corresponding growth in the ability to observe accurately and to think clearly. No man can write such descriptions as Ruskin and Stevenson have written without seeing accurately; nor can a man speak with the definite certainty of Burke without thinking clearly. The desire to be accurate in expression drives a writer to be accurate in thinking. To think is the highest that man can hope from education. Anything that contributes to this highest attainment should be undertaken with joy. Whether planning a story or constructing an argument; whether excluding irrelevant matter or including what contributes to the perfection of the whole; whether massing the material so that all the parts shall receive their due emphasis; whether relating the parts so that the thought advances steadily and there can be no misunderstanding,—in all this the student will find arduous labor. Yet after all this is done,—when the theme, the paragraphs, and the sentences 256 contain exactly what is needed, are properly massed, and are set in perfect order,—then comes the long labor of revision, which does not stop until the exact word is hunted out. For upon words, at last, we are dependent for the expression of our observation and thought. He is most entirely master of his thoughts who can accurately express them: clearly, that he cannot be misunderstood; forcefully, that he will not be unread; and elegantly, that he give the reader joy. And this mastery he evinces in a finely discriminating choice of words.