The first has to do with the kind of situation that faced the man who knew what he “wanted to say but couldn’t express himself.” Some authorities argue that there is no difference between clear thinking and clear expression. They give no place to the “mute inglorious Milton.” They would not concede that the man groping for language had formed a definite plan in his mind, because that plan was not definite enough to be expressed. “If he has not thought in language,” they say, “he has not really thought.” Their opponents claim that a man thinks in pictures, and that he conceives his ideas as a painter imagines objects. In his mind are the outlines and colors of what he considers. There is truth in both views of the matter. But it is likely from what we know of the training of the military man that his mind works more by visualizing the troops and by conjuring up the scene than by gaining his conceptions through words. His forces are moving along roads, occupying trenches, or surging into conflict. His map is not a plane surface with names upon it, but a vision of highways, waving corps, and rolling hills. He is looking at these things without mentally describing them. For the purpose of this course, we shall take the view that there are occasions where we deduce certain results, but are unable, because of unfamiliarity with framing good sentences or because of a small vocabulary, to communicate those results or deductions in accordance with common usage.
The second road can be illustrated by comparison with the first. There is a wide difference, although at first there does not appear to be, between merely stating a thing clearly and making it unmistakable. The first is but a negative approach to complete certainty of expression, but the second must be a positive one. The distinction is one more or less of attitude of mind, and although heretofore it has been overlooked as an entity in English text books and military regulations, it assuredly illustrates itself in two types of men who actually exist. The man who is content with merely making himself clear takes the attitude of, “O, well, they will get what I meant because any other interpretation is absurd or incorrect.” The man who is not content unless he makes himself unmistakable says, “I won’t let any of them have the slightest excuse for any other interpretation; when I get through there will be but one interpretation and that will be mine.” The first one in sending a message to his commanding officer locates himself by putting in his heading, “Irrigation ditch 500 yards east of southeast corner of Catholic Church.” He notices another irrigation ditch fifty yards further to the east, but says to himself, “If my commanding officer measures the distance on the map he will know which one I mean.” The second man, upon looking about him and discovering the other ditch, does not accept the chance of letting his commanding officer confuse the two ditches by a possible difference of maps or measuring instruments. He investigates further. By moving a few yards to the top of a hillock he notices that the farther ditch is entirely a dirt construction whereas the one he occupies is a concrete one. He confirms this intelligence by looking at his map which shows the ditches to be as he has made them out. He, therefore, heads his message, “Concrete irrigation ditch 500 yards east of southeast corner of Catholic Church.” This is a case where an added word has made the meaning more proof against error. There are similar cases where a word taken away, or the change of a phrase, clause, or sentence, will make the recipient of the communication more sure of the true state of affairs.
To sum up as far as we have gone, we see that our object is to put military communication into proper form; that the failure to make our expression of the utmost brevity and clarity causes loss of efficiency, battles, and life; that a condition of inability to express ourselves exists widely; that by starting as early as we can to practice clear and brief form within the bounds of rhetorical and military rules (which, after all, are nothing more than those of common sense), we shall overcome this deficiency; and that for ourselves we are going to direct our course along two highways, viz.:
(1) To learn to find quickly expressions which will cover information and decisions that are trying to struggle into language; and
(2) To plant that information or decision in the recipient’s understanding exactly as it was rooted in our minds.
We have, so far, rehearsed the general attitude we must adopt toward conquering indefinite and lengthy expression. Because this weakness is so natural to us, we cannot afford to trifle with it if we wish to become a factor in battle. Positive decisions and information must be given in a positive way. Since no other kind of decision or information is countenanced in the military service, we must search for specific means of having our language stand sturdily by itself.
It must not choke our idea or our will, however little. Our decisiveness must reach our farthest superior or subordinate; and words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs are going to be our only representatives. They alone will stand for us. Every pencil mark on that paper will be a part of the photograph of our intelligence. Our phraseology will be ourselves. We shall be judged by it, and rightly so, at a time when we shall have no chance to offer an amendment, an excuse, or an I-didn’t-mean-quite-that.
Guide-posts must mark our highways, if we are in earnest about our destination of brevity and clarity. In the specific hints which follow as to what to do and what not to do, there will be no attempt to point the way to literary effects which have entertainment for their sole object. Our effort must be to find a practical and speedy outlet for military information and decision through the most unmistakable channels. But since we must be terse and clear even to entertain, most of the rules of English will apply here. So we must not betray surprise or anguish when we are beset on our way by some old enemies with whom we have wrestled in rhetorics. In meeting them again we shall become the stronger because of the exercise on new and professional ground. The effort to put facts into forceful and compact form now, will create for us such a habit of brevity and clarity that later on we shall have room in our natural language for only such ideas and decisions as are brief and clear.