Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-03-02

Speakers and Writers Have Sometime
difficulties tp Er..ra

Speakers and Writers Have Sometimes
difficulties to- Face.
One Of the queernesses with which
writer's have to contend is an occas,
ional puzzie-headedness over q per-
fectly well known point Of orthogra-
ply or grammar. A word that one
has probably spelled correctly all
ones life suddenly swerves over into
the doubtful photography column
Is it ''ingulf, ".sengulf'' or .'engulph?"
one queries, with pen poised. Is it
''aDpal" or s.appallo" Fantasy" or
''phantasye" and so on, indefinitely
To be sure, there is the dictionary,
but who wants to learn his A, b. C's
over again, or to look up the spelling
of everyday words?
1t is curious fact that. left to them
selves, the fingers will generally
spell a word correctly. It is in the
hesitation that the certainty il lost,
There can be no doubt that the fin
gers OF a writer acquire a sort of
automatic education. Even when a
doubt as to the right spelling of a
word has crossed the mind the hand
will usually bring the letters into
form if given its course. 1t is as if
it consciously reasoned. ! have al
ways driven the pen so and SO, hav-
ing begun so. But once hamperel
by the spirit of investigation the res
olute hand inclines toward the una
bridged.
Inc matter is worse where parts OF
speech entangle themselves Rules
and regulations fatten themselves
out, and only a helpless foundering
around pronouns, antecedents and
,orrelatives seem for the time pos
;ible. In one of Wilkie Collins pub
ished letters he writes: For the
asst week, while | was finishing the
ltory, | galloped along without feel.
Ing it, like the old post-horses. Do
you remember how the fore legs of
those post-horses quivered and how
their heads dropped when they came
to the journeys end?n That's me, my
dear, that's me-. Good God! Is me-
grammar? Ought it to be sI?' My
poor father paid 600 year for my
education, and | give you my sacred
word of honor | am not sure whether
it is me- or t."
Probably Wilkie Collins could have
made a pretty straight guess on this
point, but these little alterations
come upon us sometimes, when we
should be slow to stake anything upon
our correctness, though another per-
son laundering in the same way would
be instantly arraigned before the bar
OF our correct and scandaIized judg-
ment, just as we serve merited con-
demnation upon fellow .mortals who
display the Identical faults of which
we are ourselves guilty..
Voluble speakers and voluminous
writer's probably experience little of
this trouble. The spouting geyser of
words never fails them, and for this
they are to be congratulated; vet it is
a consolation to those of less oratori-
cal ability to know that great writer's
and speakers learn to curb their
flowing speech rather than give vent
TO it. Professor Shedd states that in
the last half of Mr.. Webster's public
life he learned to reject the vague
words that came thick and thronging
when the mind is aroused. He grew
more select and precise. and present.
ly, as one said, ''every word weighed
a pound" This style of speaking Or
writing cannot be driven through
with the velocity enjoyed when one
is more careless of results. The
word fifty chosen is the word to be
striven for, and such is the pervers-
ity of inanimate things, it is the
word that sometimes fails to come.