Part 8

1. The phrase leading genius is badly chosen. Founder, projector, head, organizer, principal, or president--some one of these terms would probably have been appropriate. 2. What course? Race-course, course of ethics, æsthetics, rhetoric, or what? 3. "The following laws and principles of speech." And how came these laws and principles in existence? Who made them? We are to infer, it would seem, that Professor Townsend made them, and that the world would have had to go without the laws that govern language and the principles on which language is formed had it pleased Professor Townsend to withhold them. 4. "Sufficient reason"! Then there were reasons why Professor Townsend ought to have kept these good things all to himself; only, they were not sufficient. 5. "Practical benefit"! Is there any such thing as impractical benefit? Are not all benefits practical? and, if they are, what purpose does the epithet practical serve? 6. Consented to what? It is easy to see that the Doctor means acceded to the request, but he is a long way from saying so. The object writers usually have in view is to convey thought, not to set their readers to guessing. 7. The outgrowth of would be English. 8. "Occasional instructions"! Very vague, and well calculated to set the reader to guessing again. 9. Given to whom? 10. "The chair." The definite article made it necessary for the writer to specify what particular chair of Sacred Rhetoric he meant.

These ten lines are a fair specimen of the diction of the entire volume.

Page 131. "To render a given ambiguous or unintelligible sentence transparent, the following suggestions are recommended." The words in italics are unnecessary, since what is ambiguous is unintelligible. Then who has ever heard of recommending suggestions?

Dr. Townsend speaks of mastering a subject before publishing it. Publishing a subject?

Page 133. "Violations of simplicity, whatever the type, show either that the mind of the writer is tainted with affectation, or else that an effort is making to conceal conscious poverty of sentiment under loftiness of expression." Here is an example of a kind of sentence that can be mended in only one way--by rewriting, which might be done thus: Violations of simplicity, whatever the type, show either that the writer is tainted with affectation, or that he is making an effort to conceal poverty of thought under loftiness of expression.

Page 143. "This quality is fully stated and recommended," etc. Who has ever heard of stating a quality?

On page 145 Dr. Townsend says: "A person can not read a single book of poor style without having his own style vitiated." A book of poor style is an awkward expression, to say the least. A single badly-written book would have been unobjectionable.

Page 160. "The presented picture produces instantly a definite effect." Why this unusual disposition of words? Why not say, in accordance with the idiom of the language, "The picture presented instantly produces," etc.?

Page 161. "The boy studies ... geography and hates everything connected with the sea and land." Why the boy? As there are few things besides seals and turtles that are connected with the sea and land, the boy in question has few things to hate.

On page 175, Dr. Townsend heads a chapter thus: "Art of acquiring Skill in the use of Poetic Speech." This reminds one of the man who tried to lift himself over a fence by taking hold of the seat of his breeches. "How to acquire skill" is probably what is meant.

On page 232, "Jeremy Taylor is among the best models of long sentences which are both clear and logical." Jeremy Taylor is a clear and logical long sentence?! True, our learned rhetorician says so, but he doesn't mean it. He means, "In Jeremy Taylor we find some of the best examples of long sentences which are at once clear and logical."

Since the foregoing was written, the second volume of Professor Townsend's "Art of Speech" has been published. In the brief preface to this volume we find this characteristic sentence: "The author has felt that clergymen more than those of other professions will study this treatise." The antecedent of the relative those being clergymen, the sentence, it will be perceived, says: "The author has felt that clergymen more than clergymen of other professions will study this treatise." Comment on such "art" as Professor Townsend's is not necessary.

I find several noteworthy examples of bad diction in an article in a recent number of an Australian magazine. The following are some of them: "Large capital always manages to make itself master of the situation; it is the small capitalist and the small landholder that would suffer," etc. Should be, "The large capitalist ... himself," etc. Again: "The small farmer would ... be despoiled ... of the meager profit which strenuous labor had conquered from the reluctant soil." Not only are the epithets in italics superfluous, and consequently weakening in their effect, but idiom does not permit strenuous to be used to qualify labor: hard labor and strenuous effort. Again: "Capital has always the choice of a large field." Should be, "the choice offered by a large field." Again: "Should capital be withdrawn, tenements would soon prove insufficient." Should be, "the number of tenements would," etc. Again: "Men of wealth, therefore, would find their Fifth Avenue mansions and their summer villas a little more burdened with taxes, but with this increase happily balanced by the exemption of their bonds and mortgages, their plate and furniture." The thought here is so simple that we easily divine it; but, if we look at the sentence at all carefully, we find that, though we supply the ellipses in the most charitable manner possible, the sentence really says: "Men would find their mansions more burdened, but would find them with this increased burden happily balanced by the exemption," etc. The sentence should have been framed somewhat in this wise: "Men ... would find their ... mansions ... more burdened with taxes, but this increase in the taxes on their real estate would be happily balanced by the exemption from taxation of their bonds, mortgages, plate, and furniture." Again: "Men generally ... would be inclined to laugh at the idea of intrusting the modern politician with such gigantic opportunities for enriching his favorites." We do not intrust one another with opportunities. To enrich would better the diction. Again: "The value of land that has accrued from labor is not ... a just object for confiscation." Correctly: "The value of land that has resulted from labor is not justly ... an object of confiscation." Accrue is properly used more in the sense of spontaneous growth. Again: "If the state attempts to confiscate this increase by means of taxes, either rentals will increase correspondingly, or such a check will be put upon the growth of each place and all the enterprises connected with it that greater injury would be done than if things had been left untouched." We have here, it will be observed, a confusion of moods; the sentence begins in the indicative and ends in the conditional. The words in italics are worse than superfluous. Rewritten: "If the state should attempt to confiscate this increase by means of taxes, either rentals would increase correspondingly, or such a check would be put upon growth and enterprise that greater injury would," etc. Again: "The theory that land ... is a boon of Nature, to which every person has an inalienable right equal to every other person, is not new." The words theory and boon are here misused. A theory is a system of suppositions. The things man receives from Nature are gifts, not boons: the gift of reason, the gift of speech, etc. The sentence should be: "The declaration (or assertion) that land ... is a gift of Nature, to which every person has an inalienable right equal to that of any other person, is not new." Or, more simply and quite as forcibly: "... to which one person has an inalienable right equal to that of another, is not new." Or, more simply still, and more forcibly: "... to which one man has as good a right as another, is not new." By substituting the word man for person, we have a word of one syllable that expresses, in this connection, all that the longer word expresses. The fewer the syllables, if the thought be fully expressed, the more vigorous the diction. Inalienability being foreign to the discussion, the long word inalienable only encumbers the sentence.

"We have thus passed in review the changes and improvements which the revision contains in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It has not, indeed, been possible to refer to them all; but so many illustrations have been given in the several classes described that the reader will have a satisfactory survey of the whole subject. Whatever may be said of other portions of the New Testament, we think it will be generally admitted that in this Epistle the changes have improved the old translation. They are such as make the English version conform more completely to the Greek original. If this be true, the revisers have done a good work for the Church. If it be true with regard to all the New Testament books, the work which they have done will remain a blessing to the readers of those books for generations to come. But the blessing will be only in the clearer presentation of the Divine truth, and, therefore, it will be only to the glory of God."

This astonishingly slipshod bit of composition is from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight. If the learned Professor of Divinity in Yale College deemed it worth while to give a little thought to manner as well as to matter, it is probable that his diction would be very different from what it is; and, if he were to give a few minutes to the making of verbal corrections in the foregoing paragraph, he would, perhaps, do something like this: 1, change thus to now; 2, write some of the changes; 3, strike out and improvements; 4, for contains changes substitute some other form of expression; 5, instead of has been, write was; 6, strike out indeed; 7, instead of refer to, write cite; 8, change illustrations to examples; 9, instead of in, write of; 10, instead of the reader will have, write the reader will be able to get; 11, change satisfactory to tolerable; 12, change portions to parts; 13, not talk of the old translation, as we have no new one; 14, strike out as superfluous the words are such as; 15, change version to text; 16, substitute nearly for completely, which does not admit of comparison; 17, substitute the indicative for the conditional; 18, end sentence with the word work; 19, introduce also after be; 20, instead of remain, in the sense of be, use be; 21, introduce the after for. As for the last sentence, it reminds one of Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words," though here we have, instead of a song and no words, words and no song, or rather no meaning. As is often true of cant, we have here simply a syntactical arrangement of words signifying--nothing.

If Professor Dwight were of those who, in common with the Addisons and Macaulays and Newmans, think it worth while to give some attention to diction, the thought conveyed in the paragraph under consideration would, perhaps, have been expressed somewhat in this wise:

"We have now passed in review some of the changes that, in the revision, have been made in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It was not possible to cite them all, but a sufficient number of examples of the several classes described have been given to enable the reader to get a tolerable survey of the whole subject. Whatever may be said of the other parts of the New Testament, we think it will be generally admitted that in this Epistle the changes have improved the translation. They make the English text conform more nearly to the Greek. This being true, the revisers have done a good work; and, if it be also true with regard to all the New Testament books, the work which they have done will be a blessing to the readers of these books for the generations to come."

DIE WITH. Man and brute die of, and not with, fevers, consumption, the plague, pneumonia, old age, and so on.

DIFFER. Writers differ from one another in opinion with regard to the particle we should use with this verb. Some say they differ with, others that they differ from, their neighbors in opinion. The weight of authority is on the side of always using from, though A may differ with C from D in opinion with regard, say, to the size of the fixed stars. "I differ, as to this matter, from Bishop Lowth."--Cobbett. Different to is heard sometimes instead of different from.

DIRECTLY. The Britons have a way of using this word in the sense of when, as soon as. This is quite foreign to its true meaning, which is immediately, at once, straightway. They say, for example, "Directly he reached the city, he went to his brother's." "Directly he [the saint] was dead, the Arabs sent his woolen shirt to the sovereign."--"London News." Dr. Hall says of its use in the sense of as soon as: "But, after all, it may simply anticipate on the English of the future."

DIRT. This word means filth or anything that renders foul and unclean, and means nothing else. It is often improperly used for earth or loam, and sometimes even for sand or gravel. We not unfrequently hear of a dirt road when an unpaved road is meant.

DISCOMMODE. This word is rarely used; incommode is accounted the better form.

DISREMEMBER. This is a word vulgarly used in the sense of forget. It is said to be more frequently heard in the South than in the North.

DISTINGUISH. This verb is sometimes improperly used for discriminate. We distinguish by means of the senses as well as of the understanding; we discriminate by means of the understanding only. "It is difficult, in some cases, to distinguish between," etc.: should be, "It is difficult, in some cases, to discriminate between," etc. We distinguish one thing from another, and discriminate between two or more things.

DOCK--WHARF. The first of these words is often improperly used for the second. Of docks there are several kinds: a naval dock is a place for the keeping of naval stores, timber, and materials for ship-building; a dry dock is a place where vessels are drawn out of the water for repairs; a wet dock is a place where vessels are kept afloat at a certain level while they are loaded and unloaded; a sectional dock is a contrivance for raising vessels out of the water on a series of air-tight boxes. A dock, then, is a place into which things are received; hence, a man might fall into a dock, but could no more fall off a dock than he could fall off a hole. A wharf is a sort of quay built by the side of the water. A similar structure built at a right angle with the shore is generally called a pier. Vessels lie at wharves and piers, not at docks.

DONATE. This word, which is defined as meaning to give, to contribute, is looked upon by most champions of good English as being an abomination. Donation is also little used by careful writers. "Donate," says Mr. Gould, "may be dismissed with this remark: so long as its place is occupied by give, bestow, grant, present, etc., it is not needed; and it should be unceremoniously bowed out, or thrust out, of the seat into which it has, temporarily, intruded."

DONE. This past participle is often very inelegantly, if not improperly, used thus: "He did not cry out as some have done against it," which should read, "He did not cry out as some have against it"; i. e., "as some have cried out against it."

"Done is frequently a very great offender against grammar," says Cobbett. "To do is the act of doing. We see people write, 'I did not speak yesterday so well as I wished to have done.' Now, what is meant by the writer? He means to say that he did not speak so well as he then wished, or was wishing, to speak. Therefore, the sentence should be, 'I did not speak yesterday so well as I wished to do.' That is to say, 'so well as I wished to do it'; that is to say, to do or to perform the act of speaking.