"This dedication may serve for almost any book that has or shall be published."1 A "He seemed rather to aim at gaining the doubtful, than mortifying or crushing the hostile.” 2 Λ "Tf you want something done, write your Senator." "The use of this envelope will help prevent letters Λ being sent to Dead Letter Office, if properly filled out." 4 Л "It was universally agreed that Mr. Ferrars had never recov ered the death of his wife." Λ Λ "His letters recommenced, as frequent and rather more serious and business-like than of old." • The insertion of " as after "as frequent," without other change, would make this sentence clumsy. It would be better to write, "as frequent as of old, and rather more serious and business-like." The next three sentences should be recast in a similar way: “The English are quite as ancient a people as the Germans, and their language is as old if not older than German." Λ "A country as wild perhaps, but certainly differing greatly in point of interest, from that which we now travelled."8 "And this can be done now as well-better rather - than at any former time.” Λ "Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the perilous task.” 10 "The King took the money of France, to assist him in the enterprise which he meditated against the liberty of his subjects, with as little scruple as Frederick of Prussia or Alexander of Russia accepted our subsidies in a time of war." 11 Λ 1 Cited in Campbell's Rhetoric. 2 Lord Dalling and Bulwer: Life of Sir Robert Peel, part iv. 8 American newspaper. 4 U. S. Post Office Notice. Query as to the position of the last clause. Disraeli: Endymion, chap. xxix. Trevelyan: Life and Letters of Macaulay, vol. i. chap. v. Richard Morris: Primer of English Grammar, chap. i. 8 Scott: Rob Roy, vol. ii. chap. vi. 9 Mallock: The New Republic, book i. chap. iii. 10 Scott: A Legend of Montrose, chap. viii. 1 Macaulay Essays; Hallam's Constitutional History. "It is asked in what sense I use these words. I answer: in the same sense as the terms are employed when we refer to Euclid for the elements of the science of geometry," &c.1 ... Λ "the good which mankind always have sought and always "I have made no alteration or addition to it, nor shall I ever ^ 998 "I shall do all I can to persuade all others to take the same measures for their cure which I have Such omissions as those in the last three examples are of a somewhat different character from those that precede them. The omission is easily supplied from the context; and it occurs at the end of a sentence, where it is least offensive and where an additional word might offend the ear or retard the flow of thought. In such cases good authors now and then allow themselves to omit words that are necessary to the construction; but inexperienced writers cannot safely take such liberties with the language. Those only who have mastered the rules of grammar have the right to set them aside on occasion. Difficulty in applying the principles of good use. The reader of the foregoing pages will have observed that the principles which determine what is and what is not pure English are few and simple, and that the practical difficulty for an inexperienced writer consists in the application of those principles to the case in hand. This difficulty, it is obvious, is enhanced by the fact that English is not a dead language, but a language which is thoroughly alive, and which, like other living things, grows in ways that cannot be foreseen and changes as it grows. Difficult as it sometimes is to determine what is good English to-day, it is still more difficult to conjecture what will be good English in the next generation. 1 Samuel T. Coleridge: Church and State. Quoted in Fitzedward Hall's "Modern English." 2 The Quarterly Review. 8 J. S. Mill: Autobiography, chap. vii. 4 Sir Richard Steele: The Guardian, No. 1. Since, then, any one man's observation of the language as it exists is far from complete, and since his inferences from what he observes may be questioned, a writer on this subject cannot be too careful not to express himself as if his knowledge were complete or his judgment unerring, as if he were a lawgiver instead of a humble recorder of decisions made by his betters. In so far as he confines himself to his business, he is of service to others; in so far as he sets himself up as an authority, he misleads in one way those who accept him as such, in another way those who do not. Those who accept his judgments are in danger of writing, not good English, but his English; those who do not accept them may be so disgusted by his pretensions as to contemn all efforts to teach them what really is GOOD USE. BOOK II. RHETORICAL EXCELLENCE. CHAPTER I. CHOICE OF WORDS. THE efficiency of all communication by language must depend on three things: (1) the choice of those words that are best adapted to convey to the persons addressed the meaning intended; (2) the use of as many words as are needed to convey the meaning, but of no more; (3) the arrangement of words, sentences, and paragraphs in the order most likely to communicate the meaning. Value of an ample vocab A writer should have not only ideas to express, but words with which to express them. The larger his vocabulary, the more likely he is to find in it ulary. just the form of expression he needs for the purpose in hand. It is from poverty of language quite as much as from poverty of thought that school and college compositions often suffer. Material which counts for little in the hands of a tyro, because of his inability to present it in appropriate language, would tell for much in the hands of a writer who has so many words at his command that he can find a fresh expression for every fresh thought or fancy. To have words at one's command, it is not enough to know what they mean. Many that we understand in books, and perhaps recognize as old friends, do not come to mind when we sit down to write. Others that we know a little better will not come without more effort than we are disposed to make. The easy, and therefore the usual, course is to content ourselves with those that we are in the habit of using; and most of us use very few. Even in Shakspere the whole number of words is "not more than fifteen thousand; in the poems of Milton not above eight thousand. 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 small. So is that of ordinary conversation. Poverty of language is the source of much slang, a favorite word or phrase-as nice, nasty, beastly, jolly, bully, ghastly, elegant, exciting, fascinating, Overworked gorgeous, stunning, splendid, awfully, utterly, words. vastly, most decidedly, perfectly lovely, perfectly maddening, how very interesting! - being employed for so many purposes as to serve no one purpose well. · The modern use of slang "is vulgar," writes T. A. Trollope, "because it arises from one of the most intrinsically vulgar of all the vulgar tendencies of a vulgar mind, - imitation. There are slang phrases which, because they vividly or graphically express a conception, or clothe it with humour, are admirable. But they are admirable only in the mouths of their inventors. "Of course it is an abuse of language to say that the beauty of a pretty girl strikes you with awe. But he who first said of some girl that she was 'awfully' pretty, was abundantly justified by the half humorous, half serious consideration of all the effects such loveliness may produce."2 1 Marsh: Lectures on the English Language, lect. viii. |