Part 12

362. "The joining together two clauses with a third," etc.; read, "of two clauses," etc.

GOWN. See DRESS.

GRADUATED. Students do not graduate; they are graduated. Hence most writers nowadays say, "I was, he was, or they were graduated"; and ask, "When were you, or was he, graduated?"

GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. "The correctness of the expression grammatical errors has been disputed. 'How,' it has been asked, 'can an error be grammatical?' How, it may be replied, can we with propriety say, grammatically incorrect? Yet we can do so.

"No one will question the propriety of saying grammatically correct. Yet the expression is the acknowledgment of things grammatically INcorrect. Likewise the phrase grammatical correctness implies the existence of grammatical INcorrectness. If, then, a sentence is grammatically incorrect, or, what is the same thing, has grammatical incorrectness, it includes a GRAMMATICAL ERROR. Grammatically incorrect signifies INCORRECT WITH RELATION TO THE RULES OF GRAMMAR. Grammatical errors signifies ERRORS WITH RELATION TO THE RULES OF GRAMMAR.

"They who ridicule the phrase grammatical errors, and substitute the phrase errors in grammar, make an egregious mistake. Can there, it may be asked with some show of reason, be an error in grammar? Why, grammar is a science founded in our nature, referable to our ideas of time, relation, method; imperfect, doubtless, as to the system by which it is represented; but surely we can speak of error in that which is error's criterion! All this is hypercritical, but hypercriticism must be met with its own weapons.

"Of the two expressions--a grammatical error, and an error in grammar--the former is preferable. If one's judgment can accept neither, one must relinquish the belief in the possibility of tersely expressing the idea of an offense against grammatical rules. Indeed, it would be difficult to express the idea even by circumlocution. Should some one say, 'This sentence is, according to the rules of grammar, incorrect.' 'What!' the hypercritic may exclaim, 'incorrect! and according to the rules of grammar!' 'This sentence, then,' the corrected person would reply, 'contains an error in grammar.' 'Nonsense!' the hypercritic may shout, 'grammar is a science; you may be wrong in its interpretation, but principles are immutable!'

"After this, it need scarcely be added that, grammatically, no one can make a mistake, that there can be no grammatical mistake, that there can be no bad grammar, and, consequently, no bad English; a very pleasant conclusion, which would save us a great amount of trouble if it did not lack the insignificant quality of being true."--"Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech."

GRATUITOUS. There are those who object to the use of this word in the sense of unfounded, unwarranted, unreasonable, untrue. Its use in this sense, however, has the sanction of abundant authority. "Weak and gratuitous conjectures."--Porson. "A gratuitous assumption."--Godwin. "The gratuitous theory."--Southey. "A gratuitous invention."--De Quincey. "But it is needless to dwell on the improbability of a hypothesis which has been shown to be altogether gratuitous."--Dr. Newman.

GROW. This verb originally meant to increase in size, but has normally come to be also used to express a change from one state or condition to another; as, to grow dark, to grow weak or strong, to grow faint, etc. But it is doubtful whether what is large can properly be said to grow small. In this sense, become would seem to be the better word.

GUMS. See RUBBERS.

HAD HAVE. Nothing could be more incorrect than the bringing together of these two auxiliary verbs in this manner; and yet we occasionally find it in writers of repute. Instead of "Had I known it," "Had you seen it," "Had we been there," we hear, "Had I have known it," "Had you have seen it," "Had we have been there."

HAD OUGHT. This is a vulgarism of the worst description, yet we hear people, who would be highly indignant if any one should intimate that they were not ladies and gentlemen, say, "He had ought to go." A fitting reply would be, "Yes, I think he better had." Ought says all that had ought says.

HAD RATHER. This expression and had better are much used, but, in the opinion of many, are indefensible. We hear them in such sentences as, "I had rather not do it," "You had better go home." "Now, what tense," it is asked, "is had do and had go?" If we transpose the words thus, "You had do better (to) go home," it becomes at once apparent, it is asserted, that the proper word to use in connection with rather and better is not had, but would; thus, "I would rather not do it," "You would better go home." Examples of this use of had can be found in the writings of our best authors. For what Professor Bain has to say on this subject in his "Composition Grammar," see SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.

HALF. "It might have been expressed in one half the space." We see at a glance that one here is superfluous.

HANGED--HUNG. The irregular form, hung, of the past participle of the verb to hang is most used; but, when the word denotes suspension by the neck for the purpose of destroying life, the regular form, hanged, is always used by careful writers and speakers.

HASTE. See HURRY.

HEADING. See CAPTION.

HEALTHY--WHOLESOME. The first of these two words is often improperly used for the second; as, "Onions are a healthy vegetable." A man, if he is in good health, is healthy; the food he eats, if it is not deleterious, is wholesome. A healthy ox makes wholesome food. We speak of healthy surroundings, a healthy climate, situation, employment, and of wholesome food, advice, examples. Healthful is generally used in the sense of conducive to health, virtue, morality; as, healthful exercise, the healthful spirit of the community--meaning that the spirit that prevails in the community is conducive to virtue and good morals.

HELPMATE. The dictionaries suggest that this word is a corruption of help and meet, as we find these words used in Gen. ii, 18, "I will make him a help meet for him," and that the proper word is helpmeet. If, as is possible, the words in Genesis mean, "I will make him a help, meet [suitable] for him," then neither helpmate nor helpmeet has any raison d'être.

HIGHFALUTIN. This is a style of writing often called the freshman style. It is much indulged in by very young men, and by a class of older men who instinctively try to make up in clatter for what they lack in matter. Examples of this kind of writing are abundant in Professor L. T. Townsend's "Art of Speech," which, as examples, are all the better for not being of that exaggerated description sometimes met within the newspapers. Vol. i, p. 131: "Very often adverbs, prepositions, and relatives drift so far from their moorings as to lose themselves, or make attachments where they do not belong." Again, p. 135: "Every law of speech enforces the statement that there is no excuse for such inflated and defective style. [Such style!] To speak thus is treason in the realms and under the laws of language." Again, p. 175: "Cultivate figure-making habitudes. This is done by asking the spiritual import of every physical object seen; also by forming the habit of constantly metaphorizing. Knock at the door of anything met which interests, and ask, 'Who lives here?' The process is to look, then close the eyes, then look within." The blundering inanity of this kind of writing is equaled only by its bumptious grandiloquence. On p. 137 Dr. Townsend quotes this wholesome admonition from Coleridge: "If men would only say what they have to say in plain terms, how much more eloquent they would be!" As an example of reportorial highfalutin, I submit the following: "The spirit of departed day had joined communion with the myriad ghosts of centuries, and four full hours fled into eternity before the citizens of many parts of the town found out there was a freshet here at all."

HINTS. "Never write about any matter that you do not well understand. If you clearly understand all about your matter, you will never want thoughts, and thoughts instantly become words.

"One of the greatest of all faults in writing and in speaking is this: the using of many words to say little. In order to guard yourself against this fault, inquire what is the substance, or amount, of what you have said. Take a long speech of some talking Lord and put down upon paper what the amount of it is. You will most likely find that the amount is very small; but at any rate, when you get it, you will then be able to examine it and to tell what it is worth. A very few examinations of the sort will so frighten you that you will be for ever after upon your guard against talking a great deal and saying little."--Cobbett.

"Be simple, be unaffected, be honest in your speaking and writing. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Call a spade a spade, not a well-known oblong instrument of manual husbandry; let home be home, not a residence; a place a place, not a locality; and so of the rest. Where a short word will do, you always lose by using a long one. You lose in clearness; you lose in honest expression of your meaning; and, in the estimation of all men who are qualified to judge, you lose in reputation for ability. The only true way to shine, even in this false world, is to be modest and unassuming. Falsehood may be a very thick crust, but, in the course of time, truth will find a place to break through. Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straightforwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferiors, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are."--Dean Alford.

"Go critically over what you have written, and strike out every word, phrase, and clause which it is found will leave the sentence neither less clear nor less forcible than it is without them."--Swinton.

"With all watchfulness, it is astonishing what slips are made, even by good writers, in the employment of an inappropriate word. In Gibbon's 'Rise and Fall,' the following instance occurs: 'Of nineteen tyrants who started up after the reign of Gallienus, there was not one who enjoyed a life of peace or a natural death.' Alison, in his 'History of Europe,' writes: 'Two great sins--one of omission and one of commission--have been committed by the states of Europe in modern times.' And not long since a worthy Scotch minister, at the close of the services, intimated his intention of visiting some of his people as follows: 'I intend, during this week, to visit in Mr. M----'s district, and will on this occasion take the opportunity of embracing all the servants in the district.' When worthies such as these offend, who shall call the bellman in question as he cries, 'Lost, a silver-handled silk lady's parasol'?

"The proper arrangement of words into sentences and paragraphs gives clearness and strength. To attain a clear and pithy style, it may be necessary to cut down, to rearrange, and to rewrite whole passages of an essay. Gibbon wrote his 'Memoirs' six times, and the first chapter of his 'History' three times. Beginners are always slow to prune or cast away any thought or expression which may have cost labor. They forget that brevity is no sign of thoughtlessness. Much consideration is needed to compress the details of any subject into small compass. Essences are more difficult to prepare, and therefore more valuable, than weak solutions. Pliny wrote to one of his friends, 'I have not time to write you a short letter, therefore I have written you a long one.' Apparent elaborateness is always distasteful and weak. Vividness and strength are the product of an easy command of those small trenchant Saxon monosyllables which abound in the English language."--"Leisure Hour."

"As a rule, the student will do well to banish for the present all thought of ornament or elegance, and to aim only at expressing himself plainly and clearly. The best ornament is always that which comes unsought. Let him not beat about the bush, but go straight to the point. Let him remember that what is written is meant to be read; that time is short; and that--other things being equal--the fewer words the better.... Repetition is a far less serious fault than obscurity. Young writers are often unduly afraid of repeating the same word, and require to be reminded that it is always better to use the right word over again than to replace it by a wrong one--and a word which is liable to be misunderstood is a wrong one. A frank repetition of a word has even sometimes a kind of charm--as bearing the stamp of truth, the foundation of all excellence of style."--Hall.