In an attempt to exhibit their wisdom, some writers employ "six-syllable words" and ponderous phrases that stretch out into lengthy, involved sentences and paragraphs. One editor facetiously remarks that such writing carries with it "a faint odor of heavy formality and pompousness, exuding an aroma of stiff intellectuality." It is, however, a frustration of the true purpose of writing if we try to impress others with our learning or brilliance rather than with our message.
Whether we desire to entertain, inform, instruct, or convince, the objective of all writing is to reach other minds, and big words may defeat our very purpose. Sermons and articles have to be understood in order to send their message home. There must not be wastage of the reader's or listener's time or thought. After all, "There's no use trying to kill a fly with a steam roller." F. Sherman Baker remarks:
"The demands of a workaday world require that each thought be expressed in words suitable to the persons addressed. Simplicity has been lauded as a virtue; in speech it is often essential."
An English teacher says, "In Shakespeare's day, long, periodic sentences were in vogue, but today, terse, short, vigorous sentences predominate." Short, simple words and sentences will many times make your message far more forceful and understandable than a flashy, frothy, affected flow of words. "The natural tendency is to use sentences which are too long," according to Sherman Cody. "Every sentence should be a perfect and concise unit, and if its parts hang together at all loosely, it should be cut up into two or more separate sentences."
Above all, strive for clarity and sincerity. Avoid roundabout expressions, obscure meanings, and awkward, complicated constructions. The language of the Bible is the supreme example of simple, straightforward sentences without dramatic embellishment. Jesus' vocabulary was composed largely of one and two syllable words. In this connection it is interesting to note a statement made by a world traveler, a well-informed student of literature, not of our faith:
"Of all writings, ancient, medieval, or modern, there are no writings so full of beauty, so perfect in every way, so pure, and yet so simple, outside the Bible, as the writings of Mrs. E. G. White."
Of Guy de Maupassant, who has been called the most perfect master of the short story, it was said that he described nothing he had not seen, and was content to use the humblest word if only it conveyed the picture of the thing observed. The late humorist Will Rogers once made this witty observation on the value of simplicity of expression as contrasted with a grandiloquent, sonorous, ornate style:
"Of course the Greeks have a word for it, and the dictionary has a word for it, but I believe in using your own for it. The minute you put in a word that everybody don't know, you have just muddled up that many readers. Running onto a word you can't read or understand is just like a detour in the road. You will take a different road the next time. I love words, but I don't like strange ones. You don't understand them, and they don't understand you. Old words are like old friends. You know 'em the minute you see 'ern."
Margery Wilson, authority on charm, writes in the same vein, when she says:
"Express your thoughts directly and simply. Attempt at high-flown, long words not only is vulgar, but usually carries a little of the comedy effect of a Mrs. Malaprop. As the old man said, 'Whenever I hear a feller use a big word, I allus wonder kin he spell it.' "
On small words versus big words, we would quote from two more sources:
"Our language teems with small, simple words that convey meaning as well or better than many larger ones. And where they suffice, we all know that it is the better part of effective English and good taste to use them."—T. P. Ashlock, in Correct English, January, 1938.
"Pomposity in diction means the use of large words when small ones will express thought better, and the use of many words and of high-sounding phraseology when simpler and less pretentious language will be more intelligible and in better taste. The clown Costard in 'Love's Labor's Lost' . . . refers to such diction as the almsbasket of words, and then invents a term himself that supposedly 'outwards' all the attendants at the 'great feast of languages.' His words is honorificabilitudinitatibus. But there is many a Costard today who apparently must say . . . governmental domicile for State capitol, electrical Pyrothenic phenomenon for thunder and lightning. . . . Never use a big word where a little one will do just as well or better. Never use many words when a few will do just as well or better."—John B. Opdycke in "Get It Right," pp. 607, 6o8.
It would be well to remember some of these comments when tempted to use a "two-dollar word" instead of a smaller word that is readily understood by all. Let it not be said of your writing, as it was said of someone's speech, that it "left an impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea." It is of interest to note how few words we could actually get along with if necessary. In the book, "Get It Right," just quoted from; we find this information:
"According to Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly, [late] editor of 'The Practical Standard Dictionary of the English Language,' there are 700,000 reputable words in the English language. The average reader has a command, it is estimated, of 25,000 words, and the kindergarten child knows 2,000 to 3,000 words. But Professor C. K. Ogden of Magdalene College, Cambridge University, England, contends that a mere 850 words can be made to satisfy all ordinary speaking and writing demands, and thus extravagance of diction as well as pomposity may easily be obviated. . . .
"Through long and painstaking tests the experts have weeded out the superfluous verbs until only eighteen verb forms are left blooming alone. . . . The essential verbs in English are found to be be, come, do, get, give, go, have, keep, let, make, may, put, say, see, seem, send, take, will. Properly employed, they can be made to do the work of all the rest of the verbs in the fattest of dictionaries. . . . With 1,000 words, any field of knowledge is completely covered. . . The 850-word vocabulary, like a beef-tea cube, is a concentration of much in little." —Id., pp. 614, 63.3.
The foregoing principles are perhaps more applicable to writing for a nontechnical or layman's paper than for a technical or professional journal, where more elasticity of expression must of necessity be allowed.
In the next article we will consider brevity in writing, and its close companion, repetition.
M.A.H.