Stories That Words Tell Us

by Elizabeth O'Neill

The great lesson which these stories ought to teach us is respect for words. Seeing as we do what a beautiful and wonderful thing the English language has become, it ought to be the resolution of each one of us never to do anything to spoil that beauty. Every writer ought to choose his words carefully, neither inventing nor copying ugly forms of speech. We have seen also from these stories, especially in the chapter on "Slang," how people have misused certain words, until speakers and writers of good taste can no longer use them in their original sense, and therefore do not use them at all.

There are many other faults in speaking and in writing which take away from the beauty and dignity of the language. We shall see what some of these faults are; but one golden rule can be laid down which, if people keep it, will help them to avoid all these faults. No one should ever try to write in a fine style. The chief aim which all young writers should keep before them is to say exactly what they mean, and in as few and simple words as possible. If on reading what they have written they find that it is not perfectly clear, they should not immediately begin to rewrite, but instead set themselves to find out whether their thoughts are perfectly clear.

There is no idea which has no word to fit it. Of course some writers must use difficult language. The ordinary reader can sometimes not understand a sentence of a book of philosophy. This is not because the philosophers do not write clearly, but because the ideas with which they have to deal are very subtle, and hard for the ordinary person to understand.

But for ordinary people writing on ordinary things there is no excuse for writing so as not to be clearly understood, or for writing in such a long and round-about way that people are tired instead of refreshed by reading. Nor is there any excuse for the use of words and phrases which are vulgar or too colloquial for the subject; yet how often is this done in the modern newspaper. It may seem unnecessary to speak to boys and girls of the faults of newspaper writers. But the boys and girls of to-day are the newspaper writers and readers of the future, and the habits which young writers form cling to them afterwards. Of course many of the faults which the worse kind of journalists commit in writing would not occur to boys and girls; but one fault leads to another. The motive at the root of most poor and showy writing is the desire to "shine." The faults which seem so detestable to the critical reader seem very ingenious and brilliant to the writer of poor taste. To the journalist, as to the schoolboy and the schoolgirl, the golden rule is, "Be simple."

Let us see what some of the commonest faults of showy and poor writers of English are—always with the moral before us that they are to be avoided.

One great fault of newspaper writers and of young writers in general is to sprinkle their compositions thickly with quotations, until some beautiful and expressive lines from the greatest poetry and prose have almost lost their force through the ear having become tired by hearing them too often. Some such phrases are—

"Tell it not in Gath;"

"Heap coals of fire upon his head;"

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof:"

all fine and picturesque lines, the apt quotation of which must have been very impressive, until, through frequent repetition, they have become almost commonplace.