Specific Words.—Suppose it were desired to make clear to a friend how the sunset looked—a difficult task. One would hardly succeed if one had no better words to offer than the general terms clouds, beautiful, lovely, bright. The friend, if he cared to know, would insist on specific words: What kind of beauty? was it quiet beauty, or awful beauty, or picturesque beauty? What kind of brightness? was it redness? If so, was the sky blood-red, or merely pink? What kind of clouds?—great masses of storm cloud, or high frozen clouds, or mottled “mackerel” clouds? To be clear, then, words must be specific enough to give the idea intended. Just how specific they should be depends on the audience. They must be familiar to the hearer or reader, if they are to be understood without explanation. All audiences would understand the general term tool; all would understand the genus name saw, which specifies a kind of tool. But many would not understand the species name rip-saw; for to most people rip-saw is unfortunately a technical term. In choosing specific words the line should therefore be drawn between common terms and technical terms, the latter not to be employed without explanation, except in addressing special audiences.

Specific words are usually as forcible as they are clear. Most people’s feelings are roused by the thought of a particular object, not of a class name. Flower is a class name; it does not move one. Clover is a specific name; it calls back the old farm, the old friends, the old joys and sorrows. No word will really interest the reader unless he has previously used it or heard it in association with his feelings. Take the word contusion; it means something forcible to a doctor, but not to a boy, for the latter never used it. But say bruise—which means exactly the same thing. That’s forcible. It feelingly reminds us of the hour in which that dead branch broke and delivered us over to the law of gravitation.

Pick out from these words those that are in themselves forcible to most people: paternal solicitude, fatherly care; home, domicile; altruism, unselfishness. You see at once that certain of these words get their force from the long associations of childhood. In childhood we use the simpler words of the language, those that are derived from the Anglo-Saxon mother-tongue. Anglo-Saxon words, therefore, are usually forcible. Compare [page 183].

Oral Exercise.—Reduce the following names step by step to a particular genus and a particular species. Thus: animal, mammal, quadruped, graminivorous animal, cow, Alderney.

Similarly, extend the following species names step by step to family names.

General Words.—We found that most specific words are of Anglo-Saxon origin. Most general words are of Latin origin. Both these statements are only roughly true, of course; but the distinction is worth making. The language of science is mostly of Latin origin, because it consists so largely of class names. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers had fewer class names, for they had not progressed far enough to care to classify everything. When, later, the English came to study history, and philosophy, and science, they had either to invent new Anglo-Saxon words for class names, or else use Latin words. They chose the latter course. Consequently we have such Latin class names as animal, and such individual names as cat, dog, horse, pig. We speak of white, blue, green, red; but when we want a class name for these, we say color, a Latin word. From all this it may be seen that any great number of general words gives a scientific, abstract tone to writing. General words are absolutely necessary for the exact purposes of science and philosophy. They are adapted, as Professor Carpenter puts it, to “precise and elaborate distinctions of thought.” They do not give a clear mental image; that is, you cannot see beauty, or smallness, or animal, or color—you can see only a beautiful object, a small object, a particular animal, a particular color. But, still, general words mean exactly what they say. Animal means exactly this: a summing up of all the qualities that are common to all individual animals. All the things called animal have in common powers of sensation and voluntary movement. When such a distinction is wanted, it is wanted badly, as we say. There is no better mark of literary mastery than knowing just when to use a general word, just when a specific one. Examine a few pages from Robert Louis Stevenson, to see with what exquisite fitness words of Latin origin may be used in the midst of Anglo-Saxon words when the appeal turns from the feelings to the intellect.

There are many reasons why a writer may not wish to be too specific. In the sentence, “I picked up my traps and left,” the colloquialism traps answers every essential purpose. The reader does not care to have tooth-brush and books and papers all specified. People are not to be blamed for referring vaguely to death as a passing away, for the specific word is harsh at best. Such expressions as pass away are called euphemisms. Many euphemisms are legitimate; but whether a given one should be employed is a question of taste, a question of beauty. It seems a beautiful expression when Keats says, “to cease upon the midnight with no pain,” instead of, “to die painlessly at twelve o’clock;” but it is a mark of false modesty and bad taste to insist on saying rose for got up, retire for go to bed, lower limbs for legs.