SECTION III.—OF PRECISION.
Precision consists in avoiding all superfluous words, and adapting the expression exactly to the thought, so as to say, with no deficiency or surplus of terms, whatever is intended by the author. Its opposites are noticed in the following precepts.
PRECEPT I.—Avoid a useless tautology, either of expression or of sentiment; as, "When will you return again?"—"We returned back home again."—"On entering into the room, I saw and discovered he had fallen down on the floor and could not rise up."—"They have a mutual dislike to each other."—"Whenever I go, he always meets me there."—"Where is he at? In there."—"His faithfulness and fidelity should be rewarded."
PRECEPT II.—Repeat words as often as an exact exhibition of your meaning requires them; for repetition may be elegant, if it be not useless. The following example does not appear faulty: "Moral precepts are precepts the reasons of which we see; positive precepts are precepts the reasons of which we do not see."—Butler's Analogy, p. 165.
PRECEPT III.—Observe the exact meaning of words accounted synonymous, and employ those which are the most suitable; as, "A diligent scholar may acquire knowledge, gain celebrity, obtain rewards, win prizes, and get high honour, though he earn no money." These six verbs have nearly the same meaning, and yet no two of them can here be correctly interchanged.
PRECEPT IV.—Observe the proper form of each word, and do not confound such as resemble each other. "Professor J. W. Gibbs, of Yale College," in treating of the "Peculiarities of the Cockney Dialect," says, "The Londoner sometimes confounds two different forms; as contagious for contiguous; eminent for imminent; humorous for humorsome; ingeniously for ingenuously; luxurious for luxuriant; scrupulosity for scruple; successfully for successively."—See Fowler's E. Gram., p. 87; and Pref., p. vi.
PRECEPT V.—Think clearly, and avoid absurd or incompatible expressions. Example of error: "To pursue those remarks, would, probably, be of no further service to the learner than that of burdening his memory with a catalogue of dry and uninteresting peculiarities; which may gratify curiosity, without affording information adequate to the trouble of the perusal."—Wright's Gram., p. 122.
PRECEPT VI.—Avoid words that are useless; and, especially, a multiplication of them into sentences, members, or clauses, that may well be spared. Example: "If one could really be a spectator of what is passing in the world around us without taking part in the events, or sharing in the passions and actual performance on the stage; if we could set ourselves down, as it were, in a private box of the world's great theatre, and quietly look on at the piece that is playing, no more moved than is absolutely implied by sympathy with our fellow-creatures, what a curious, what an amusing, what an interesting spectacle would life present."—G. P. R. JAMES: "The Forger," commencement of Chap. xxxi. This sentence contains eighty-seven words, "of which sixty-one are entirely unnecessary to the expression of the author's idea, if idea it can be called."—Holden's Review.
OBSERVATION.
Verbosity, as well as tautology, is not so directly opposite to precision, as to conciseness, or brevity. From the manner in which lawyers usually multiply terms in order to express their facts precisely, it would seem that, with them, precision consists rather in the use of many words than of few. But the ordinary style of legal instruments no popular writer can imitate without becoming ridiculous. A terse or concise style is very apt to be elliptical: and, in some particular instances, must be so; but, at the same time, the full expression, perhaps, may have more precision, though it be less agreeable. For example: "A word of one syllable, is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, is called a dissyllable: a word of three syllables, is called a trisyllable: a word of four or more syllables, is called a polysyllable."—O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 19. Better, perhaps, thus: "A word of one syllable is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a trissyllable; and a word of four or more syllables, a polysyllable."—Brown's Institutes, p. 17.