Kitabı oku: «English: Composition and Literature», sayfa 15

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 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 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.”⁵¹

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 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 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 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?

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?

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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:⁵²—

“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 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 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.