Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-06-30

ana Is IN grsst danger of destruction
nom the devouring element r. No; he
leaves that erudite sentence for the gram
mar bred unabridged dictionary fed,
classically educated word piler, who
spent four years at college in learning
how thus 10 give the news Of fire.
But the greatest difficulty in writing is
10 avoid saying the same thing over and
over and Ia stop when you have really
finished. You may have observed the
same habit when lot Of male or female
gJssips are cackling together. They
don't say so much as they say the same
ching over and over. It's the ''cut-cut-
ca-da-cutw Of the hen after 'se's accom-
plished a successful egg laying The
more tired mans brain gets the greater
becomes the ''cut-cut-ca-da-cutw pro-
pensity. Its this which spins out and
tlsns out long articles, long sermons and
long speeches. As an editor under whom
once served used 10 remark: The man
hadn't time 10 write a short one. " The
word and idea condenser will say: "John
Smith killed himself with a pistol; the
non-c0ndenser and word pller viii write:
John Smith, that ubiquitous individual
Joke, committed the rash act Of suicide,
blowing his brains out by putting bullet
through his head from ix chambered
navy revolver" As regards John Smith
the general public don't ca'e where the
bullet went in or where i came out, or
what kind of pistol did il + how many
chambers il had; and as fui blowing his
brains out, not one successiL a suicide out
Of one hundred manages to orive his en-
tire cerebellum out of his skull by sim
gle bullet.
Most Of these words are the invention
of pedants who had more book in their
heads than brains, and who would call a
kitten Juvenile feline 10 show off
what they supposed to be learning. II
there were six known dead languages in
stead of Latin and Greek, we should
probably have four more words derived
from them TO apply 70 a cat and four or
five more TO everything else that creeps,
crawls. walks, swims or flies. IL things
90 on at this rate il will be cheaper by
and by not to learn TO write or even talk.
hu h1lA l "AllN l44blE AAAtllA AAtN liAtAAl-
fork in your barn at time, do your Sup
posing, now. you went in some day and
found the stable crammed with pitch
forks, the manger with currycombs and
the hay loft with hay rakes. How much
room would there be for the horses, car
riage, harness and hay? Now, as one, or
at the most two, pitchforks are better for
one bar.. so, in the language, is one word
for one thing.
Long. far fetched and little used words
generally come Of the writer's laziness.
Because he happens 20 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 a word or phrase you've bor-
rowed from doctors talk, or chemists
talk. OF scientific talk of some kind. IL
carries nothing 10 their minds, and.
therefore. your writing doesn't interest
them. But this is of no consequence II
you are writing chiefly TO amuse your
self
A quotation, say from Shakespeare or
Byron. w;ls a clever thing for the man
who first launched il. But il isn't at all
clever tor you to borrow. use and launch
il in your writing. and if you do it's be-
cause your brain isn't fertile enough to
give your own picture in your own words
10 your readers Of what YOU want 10 rep
resent You are then only painter,
always copying other painters pictures.
New York Star.