CHAPTER XIII CHOICE OF WORDS Small Words Their Importance The Anglo-Saxon Element

CHAPTER XIIICHOICE OF WORDS
Small Words Their Importance The Anglo-Saxon Element In another place in this book advice has been given to never use a longword when a short one will serve the same purpose. This advice is to beemphasized. Words of "learned length and thundering sound" should beavoided on all possible occasions. They proclaim shallowness of intellectand vanity of mind. The great purists, the masters of diction, theexemplars of style, used short, simple words that all could understand;words about which there could be no ambiguity as to meaning. It must beremembered that by our words we teach others; therefore, a very greatresponsibility rests upon us in regard to the use of a right language. Wemust take care that we think and speak in a way so clear that there maybe no misapprehension or danger of conveying wrong impressions by vagueand misty ideas enunciated in terms which are liable to be misunderstoodby those whom we address. Words give a body or form to our ideas, withoutwhich they are apt to be so foggy that we do not see where they are weakor false. We must make the endeavor to employ such words as will put theidea we have in our own mind into the mind of another. This is thegreatest art in the worldto clothe our ideas in words clear andcomprehensive to the intelligence of others. It is the art which theteacher, the minister, the lawyer, the orator, the business man, mustmaster if they would command success in their various fields of endeavor.It is very hard to convey an idea to, and impress it on, another when hehas but a faint conception of the language in which the idea is expressed;but it is impossible to convey it at all when the words in which it isclothed are unintelligible to the listener. If we address an audience of ordinary men and women in the Englishlanguage, but use such words as they cannot comprehend, we might as wellspeak to them in Coptic or Chinese, for they will derive no benefit fromour address, inasmuch as the ideas we wish to convey are expressed inwords which communicate no intelligent meaning to their minds. Long words, learned words, words directly derived from other languagesare only understood by those who have had the advantages of an extendededucation. All have not had such advantages. The great majority in thisgrand and glorious country of ours have to hustle for a living from anearly age. Though education is free, and compulsory also, very many neverget further than the "Three R's." These are the men with whom we have todeal most in the arena of life, the men with the horny palms and the ironmuscles, the men who build our houses, construct our railroads, drive ourstreet cars and trains, till our fields, harvest our cropsin a word,the men who form the foundation of all society, the men on whom the worlddepends to make its wheels go round. The language of the colleges anduniversities is not for them and they can get along very well without it;they have no need for it at all in their respective callings. The plain,simple words of everyday life, to which the common people have been usedaround their own firesides from childhood, are the words we must use inour dealings with them. Such words are understood by them and understood by the learned as well;why then not use them universally and all the time? Why make a one-sidedaffair of language by using words which only one class of the people, theso-called learned class, can understand? Would it not be better to use,on all occasions, language which the both classes can understand? If wetake the trouble to investigate we shall find that the men who exertedthe greatest sway over the masses and the multitude as orators, lawyers,preachers and in other public capacities, were men who used very simplelanguage. Daniel Webster was among the greatest orators this country hasproduced. He touched the hearts of senates and assemblages, of men andwomen with the burning eloquence of his words. He never used a long wordwhen he could convey the same, or nearly the same, meaning with a shortone. When he made a speech he always told those who put it in form forthe press to strike out every long word. Study his speeches, go over allhe ever said or wrote, and you will find that his language was alwaysmade up of short, clear, strong terms, although at times, for the sake ofsound and oratorical effect, he was compelled to use a rather long word,but it was always against his inclination to do so, and where was the manwho could paint, with words, as Webster painted! He could picture thingsin a way so clear that those who heard him felt that they had seen thatof which he spoke. Abraham Lincoln was another who stirred the souls of men, yet he was notan orator, not a scholar; he did not write M.A. or Ph.D. after his name,or any other college degree, for he had none. He graduated from theUniversity of Hard Knocks, and he never forgot this severe  Alma Materwhen he became President of the United States. He was just as plain, Ijust as humble, as in the days when he split rails or plied a boat on theSangamon. He did not use big words, but he used the words of the people,and in such a way as to make them beautiful. His Gettysburg address is anEnglish classic, one of the great masterpieces of the language. From the mere fact that a word is short it does not follow that it isalways clear, but it is true that nearly all clear words are short, andthat most of the long words, especially those which we get from otherlanguages, are misunderstood to a great extent by the ordinary rank andfile of the people. Indeed, it is to be doubted if some of the "scholars"using them, fully understand their import on occasions. A great many suchwords admit of several interpretations. A word has to be in use a greatdeal before people get thoroughly familiar with its meaning. Long words,not alone obscure thought and make the ideas hazy, but at times they tendto mix up things in such a way that positively harmful results followfrom their use. For instance, crime can be so covered with the folds of long words as togive it a different appearance. Even the hideousness of sin can be cloakedwith such words until its outlines look like a thing of beauty. When a bankcashier makes off with a hundred thousand dollars we politely term hiscrime  defalcation  instead of plain  theft , and instead of callinghimself a  thief  we grandiosely allude to him as a  defaulter . When wesee a wealthy man staggering along a fashionable thoroughfare under theinfluence of alcohol, waving his arms in the air and shouting boisterously,we smile and say, poor gentleman, he is somewhat  exhilarated ; or at worstwe say, he is slightly  inebriated ; but when we see a poor man who hasfallen from grace by putting an "enemy into his mouth to steal away hisbrain" we express our indignation in the simple language of the words:"Look at the wretch; he is dead drunk." When we find a person in downright lying we cover the falsehood with thefinely-spun cloak of the word  prevarication . Shakespeare says, "a roseby any other name would smell as sweet," and by a similar sequence, alie, no matter by what name you may call it, is always a lie and shouldbe condemned; then why not simply call it a lie? Mean what you say andsay what you mean; call a spade a spade, it is the best term you canapply to the implement. When you try to use short words and shun long ones in a little while youwill find that you can do so with ease. A farmer was showing a horse to acity-bred gentleman. The animal was led into a paddock in which an oldsow-pig was rooting. "What a fine quadruped!" exclaimed the city man. "Which of the two do you mean, the pig or the horse?" queried the farmer,"for, in my opinion, both of them are fine quadrupeds." Of course the visitor meant the horse, so it would have been much betterhad he called the animal by its simple; ordinary name, there would havebeen no room for ambiguity in his remark. He profited, however, by theincident, and never called a horse a quadruped again. Most of the small words, the simple words, the beautiful words whichexpress so much within small bounds belong to the pure Anglo-Saxon elementof our language. This element has given names to the heavenly bodies, thesun, moon and stars; to three out of the four elements, earth, fire andwater; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer and winter. Its simplewords are applied to all the natural divisions of time, except one, as day,night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, mid-day, midnight, sunrise andsunset. The names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet,thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form thecomponent parts of the beautiful, as expressed in external scenery, such assea and land, hill and dale, wood and stream, etc., are Anglo-Saxon. Tothis same language we are indebted for those words which express theearliest and dearest connections, and the strongest and most powerfulfeelings of Nature, and which, as a consequence, are interwoven with thefondest and most hallowed associations. Of such words are father, mother,husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, home, kindred,friend, hearth, roof and fireside. The chief emotions of which we are susceptible are expressed in the samelanguagelove, hope, fear, sorrow, shame, and also the outward signs bywhich these emotions are indicated, as tear, smile, laugh, blush, weep,sigh, groan. Nearly all our national proverbs are Anglo-Saxon. Almost allthe terms and phrases by which we most energetically express anger,contempt and indignation are of the same origin. What are known as the Smart Set and so-called polite society, arerelegating a great many of our old Anglo-Saxon words into the shade,faithful friends who served their ancestors well. These self-appointedarbiters of diction regard some of the Anglo-Saxon words as too coarse, tooplebeian for their aesthetic tastes and refined ears, so they areeliminating them from their vocabulary and replacing them with mongrels offoreign birth and hybrids of unknown origin. For the ordinary people,however, the man in the street or in the field, the woman in the kitchen orin the factory, they are still tried and true and, like old friends, shouldbe cherished and preferred to all strangers no matter from what source thelatter may spring.