BOOK II. CHOICE AND USE OF WORDS. CHAPTER I. PRINCIPLES OF CHOICE. HAVING defined that good use which determines what is and what is not pure English, and noted some violations of its rules, such as even writers of credit inadvertently commit, we have now to consider how communication by language can be rendered efficient for its purpose. In every spoken or written composition, three things should be regarded: (1) the choice of words; (2) their number; and (3) their arrangement. Value of Other things being equal, a speaker or writer who has the largest stock of words to choose from will choose the best words for his purpose. an ample Hence, the desirableness of an ample vocabulary. vocabulary. In the copiousness and variety of the vocabularies at their command, men differ widely. Of the one hundred thousand words computed to exist in the English language, there occur in Shakspere "not more than fifteen. thousand, in the poems of Milton not above eight thou sand. The whole number of Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols does not exceed eight hundred, and the entire Italian operatic vocabulary is said to be scarcely more extensive."1 The vocabulary of business has not been estimated, but it is certainly a small one. So is that which suffices for the ordinary necessities of a traveller. Poverty of language is the source of much slang, a favorite word as nice, nasty, beastly, jolly, awful, stunning, splendid, lovely, handsome, immense-being employed for so many purposes as to serve no one purpose effectively. A copious vocabulary, on the other hand, supplies a fresh word for every fresh thought or fancy. The first thing, then, to be done by a man who would learn to speak or to write well, is to enlarge his vocabulary; and the best way to do this is to make himself familiar with the classics of his native tongue, taking care always to learn with the new word its exact force in the place where it occurs. Words may, of course, be gathered from a dictionary; but for most people it is better to study them in their context. For this purpose, books that one really enjoys are better than those in which, though intrinsically more valuable, one takes a languid interest; for the memory firmly retains that only which has fastened the attention. How to enlarge one's Vocabulary. Care should, however, be taken to educate the taste; for one who is familiar with the best authors will naturally use good language, as a child who hears in the family circle none but the best English talks well without knowing it. As, moreover, every person, however well brought up, comes in contact with those who have not had his advantages, hears from his companions or Marsh: English Language, lect. viii. 2 Chatham" told a friend that he had read over Bailey's English dictionary twice from beginning to end." Lecky: England in the 18th century, vol. ii., chap. viii, meets in the newspapers phrases such as he does not hear at home or meet in good authors, it behooves him to fix in his mind, as early as possible, the principles of choice in language. SECTION I. CLEARNESS. Importance of Clearness. A writer or speaker should, in the first place, choose that word or phrase which will clearly convey his meaning to the reader or listener. It is not enough to use language that may be understood; he should use language that must be understood.1 He should remember that, so far as the attention is called to the medium of communication, so far is it withdrawn from the ideas communicated, and this even when the medium is free from flaws. How much more serious the evil when the medium obscures or distorts an object. Difficulty of writing clearly. If, to every one who understands the language, every word always meant one thing and one thing only, and if the combinations of words exactly corresponded to the relations of things, Clearness (otherwise called Perspicuity) would be secured by grammatical correctness; but, in languages as they exist, Clearness, even under the most favorable conditions, is exceedingly difficult to attain. Such certainly, for example, were the conditions under which Macaulay wrote his "History." He was not hampered by originality of thought or breadth of view; what he saw at all he saw distinctly; what he believed he believed with his whole strength; he wrote on sub 1 Quintilian: Inst. Orator. viii. ii. xxiv. "Non ut intellegere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intellegere, curandum." jects with which he had been long familiar; and he made perspicuity his primary object in composition: for him, in short, the difficulty of clear expression inherent in the very nature of language was complicated with scarcely any other difficulty. That difficulty he overcame with unusual success, as all his critics admit; but with how much labor his biographer will tell us. “The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence. He well knew, as Chaucer knew before him, that, "There is na workeman That can bothe worken wel and hastilie. If his method of composition ever comes into fashion, books probably will be better, and undoubtedly will be shorter. As soon as he had got into his head all the information relating to any particular episode in his 'History' (such, for instance, as Argyll's expedition to Scotland, or the attainder of Sir John Fenwick, or the calling in of the clipped coinage), he would sit down and write off the whole story at a headlong pace, sketching in the outlines under the genial and audacious impulse of a first conception, and securing in black and white each idea and epithet and turn of phrase, as it flowed straight from his busy brain to his rapid fingers. "As soon as Macaulay had finished his rough draft, he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written in so large a hand and with such a multitude of erasures, that the whole six pages were, on an average, compressed into two pages of print. This portion he called his 'task,' and he was never quite easy unless he completed it daily. More he seldom sought to accom- · plish; for he had learned by long experience that this was as much as he could do at his best; and except when at his best, he never would work at all. . . 66 Macaulay never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was 1 One of the severest of them, Mr. John Morley, says, in The Fortnightly Review, that Macaulay never wrote an obscure sentence in his life." as good as he could make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke or apt illustration, Whatever the worth of his labor, at any rate it was a labor of love." 1 66 Clearness a relative quality. Clearness is a relative term. The same treatment cannot be given to every subject, nor to the same subject under different conditions. Words that are perfectly clear in a metaphysical treatise may be obscure in a didactic poem; those that are admirably adapted to a political pamphlet may be ambiguous in a sermon; a discourse written for an association of men of science will not answer for a lyceum lecture; a speaker must be clearer than a writer, since a speaker's meaning must be caught at once if at all. Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak. He who would convince the worthy Mr. Dunderhead of any truth which Dunderhead does not see, must be a master of his art. Declamation is common; but such possession of thought as is here required, such practical chemistry as the conversion of a truth written in God's language into a truth in Dunderhead's language, is one of the most beautiful and cogent weapons that is 2 forged in the shop of the Divine Artificer." 3 In the fact that it is a relative quality, perspicuity differs from precision. The writer who aims Distinguished at scientific accuracy, finding ordinary words from precision. in their ordinary meanings vague or equivocal, either 1 G. Otto Trevelyan: Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 198. See also Mili's account of his method of composition: Autobiography, p. 222. 3 Emerson: Letters and Social Aims, p. 116. 2 See p. 33. |