Kitabı oku: «English: Composition and Literature», sayfa 16

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” 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.

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.⁵³ 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 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.”⁵⁴

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 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 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. 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, 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,⁵⁵ 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.
 
 
“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. ⁵⁶

 
“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!
 
 
“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,’ 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 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 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.