, 1888-06-14
WORDS AND THEIR USES.


ing-LAzinessof Writers
Our language is overburdened and
ove-ridden by a horde of worthless tramps
and loafers of words and phrases which
are continually obtruding themselves on
your notice and dropping, quite without
invitation, into your letter. Such as
''pluvial dispensation" for rain, ~''lacteal
fluid" for milk, 'lachrymal flows" for
tears, entering into matrimonial bonds"
for getting married, ''shnfhing off this
mortal coil" for plain, simple dying.
''saccharine taste" for n sweet taste, "lurid
connagration" for red flames, ''the orb
of day" for the sun, the terrestrial
globe" for the earth, ''caloric" for heat,
''piscatorial sport for fishing, ''pedes-
trianism" for walking, ''labial oscillation"
foI plain kissing, the the herb that
cheers but not i~ntoxicates" for tea,
pedal extremities' for feet and ''hirsute
appendage" for hair.
These verbal tramps and idlers are con-
tinually increasing. If the unabridged
dictionary goes on swelling at the present
rate 1t will contain, fifty years hence,
onc-third more words han people who
have something else to do besides recol-
lcct them can afford to try to remember.
You ave observed that when q man
il in dead earnest and has really got
something to tell he uses the fewest pos
slide WORKS. If his house is on fire he
sings out ''Firel'' and nothing else. He
does not call out: my domicih is now
undergoing the process of combustion,
and is in great danger of destruction
from the d%evouring element" No; he
leaves that erudite sentence for the gram
mar bred, unabridged dictionary fed,
cIassically educated word piler, who
spent our years at college in learning
how thus to give the news of a fire.
But the greatest difficulty in writing is
to avoid saying the same thing over and
oven and to stop when you have really
finished. You may ave observed the
same habit when a lot of male or female
gussips are cackling together. They
don't cay so much as they say the same
hing over and over. It's the ''cut-cut-
ilda-cutl" Of the hen after she's accom-
pIished a successful egg laying. The
more tired a mans brain gets the greater
becomes the ''cut-cut- ca-da-cutf" pro-
%l,cnsity. It's this which spins out and
tlans out long articles, long sermons and
long speeches. AS an editor under whom
/ once served used to remark: 1.-The man
hadut time to write n short one" The
word and idea condenser will say: "John
smith killed himself with a pistol; the
non condenser and word pIler will write:
John Smith, that ubiquitous individual
ljolscl, committed the rash act of suicide,
blowing his brains out by putting a bullet
through his head from n six chambered
navy revolver" As regards John Smith
the general public don't care where the
bullet went in or where it came out, or
what kind of a pistol did it, or how many
chambers it had; and as for blowing his
brains out, not one successful suicide out
Of II hundred manages to drive his en-
tire corcbellum out of his skull by a sin
gle bullet.
Most of these words are the invention
Of p]elantS who had more book in their
heads tIian brains, and who would call a
k.ttcu n Juvenile feline" to show off
what they supposed to be learning. If
t,crc were xix known dead languages in
slea If Latin and Greek, we should
probably liaV four more words derived
from them TO apply to a cat and four or
five more to everything else that creeps,
crawls, walks, swims or flies. If things
20 on at this rate it will be cheaper by
and 10y not TO learn to write or even talk.
You don't want more than n pitch
fork in your barn at a time, do you2 Sup
posing, now. you went in some day and
found the stable crammed with pitch
forks, the manager with c~urrycombs and
the hay loft with hay rakes. How much
room would there be for the horses, car
riage, harness and hay2 Now, as one, OF
at the most two, p%itchforhs are better for
one barn, so, in the language, is n word
for one thing.
Long. far fetched and little used words
generally come of the writer's laziness.
Because lie happens to understand its
meaning he takes il for granted that
every one else does. One-third of your
readers at least bring up all standing
against n word or a phrase you've Dor
rowed from doctors talk, or chemists
talk, or scientific talk of some kind. 1t
carries nothing to their minds, and,
therefore, your writing doesn't interest
them. But this is of no consequence if
you are writing chiefly TO amuse your
self.
A quotation, say from Shakespeare or
Byron. was a clever thing for the man
who first launched it. But it isn't at all
clever for you to borrow, use and launsb
1t in your writing, and if you do it's be-
YOU brain isn't fertile enough to
give your own picture in your own words
to your readers Of what you want to rep
resent. You are then only a painter,
always copying other painters pictures.
New York Star.