The Introduction to the Thesaurus, by the way, though deserving of study, is a dull and cumbrous piece of work and not necessary to the usefulness of the book.
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The sin of using trite expressions is equally common among men and women. There are others which chiefly beset women:--
Undue insistence. I have touched upon this in Chapter II. The remedy is to use superlatives only under compulsion, and to eschew italics and such adverbs as "absolutely," "utterly," "positively."
Wordiness. When you have written a paragraph, examine it carefully with the object of eliminating every word which is not necessary to the expression of the meaning. Be sure that you have not said the same thing twice in different words. Keep watch especially against pleonasms. Let this be your motto: Brevity without baldness.
Undue use of metaphor, simile, and figure. This is a sin to which women are wofully prone. They commit it with glee, and I have often found it a most difficult matter to make them realise the absurdities which result from the practice of it. As an illustration of the ludicrous consequences of unbridled indulgence in metaphor and simile, I quote the following extract (not, however, the work of a woman) from a serious and justly respected newspaper.
"I have gasped in wonder to witness one of Her Majesty's judges forsake--on very insufficient provocation--the gossamer of recreative conversation, to upraise a few monumental, I may say memorable, judgments on the subject of lithography. Now, there are many red rags in the various arts with which to encompass the discomfiture of the Philistine's bull, and the raven will always appropriate the feathers of the peacock and look ridiculous in them; but the rapier enwreathed in the red rag of painting is more readily rushed upon, and plumes of appreciation more wantonly borrowed and grotesquely worn in this walk of art than in any other."
Shun especially mixed metaphors. [Footnote: The most beautiful instance of mixed metaphor I have ever seen occurred in a solicitor's letter, brought to my notice by the clerk to whom it was dictated. It ran thus:--"We go upon the principle that, in order to pull the matter out of the fire, a fourth of a fifth of a loaf is better than no bread, which the terms proposed are.">[ See the section on figurative language (p. 76) in Nichols' English Composition. But do not take Nichols himself as a model; I find him writing thus:--"Avoid an accumulation of little words. The luggage of particles is an impediment to strong speech and a jar in the harmony of style," which is nearly as funny as the funny examples which he quotes.