Arizona republican., 1905-02-06
Newspaper English.

The impatience of school teachers
 with what is known as newspaper English" will never subside, we sup
 pose. It is not newspaper grammar
 so much as newspaper style" that they find objectionable. And nearly all graduates of the high schools, as we'll
 as most college graduates, taking the getting rid of the belief that every ar
 ticle should end with a "climax." A few days ago a college senior asked the New York Evening Post: twill not writing for a newspaper ruin ones style?" Doubtless his question was addressed to the Post because that pa per justly enjoys a reputation for be- ing edited with unusual care. He must have been surprised, accordingly. when the New York paper failed to give an affirmative answer to his question.
 ''We sympathize thoroughly with the amateurs dread of that day when writ ing under pressure for sordid dollars shall vitiate his taste shall make him so careless in choice of words and structure of sentences that he can no longer rank with Stevenson and Pa ter" replied the Post. We admire his lofty ideals. and we regret that he can not dwell forever in such a para disc of preciosity as college journal ism was when we still had a style to be spoiled. Yet there are certain falla- cies into which undergraduates are sometimes led. They are likely to be courtesies between their professor of rhetoric and the busy editor. The tale begins: "Gentlemen, let me caution you once more against too much read ing of newspapers. To fritter away your valuable time over the trivialties of the daily press will not only sap your intellectual vigOr. but will hope lessly spoil your style The editor. who is so often accused of being less than human. is naturally provoked in to rendering railing for railing. There is not he says in his haste, a teacher of composition who can write an inter- esting article. By a malign fate, the dullest writer in a college faculty is al- ways chosen professor of rhetoric. He is pedantic and frigid, incapable of anything but quibbling and hair-split- ting. I thank heaven I have forgotten all he tried to teach me- Both the professor and the editor, we regret to observe, have been betrayed into ex- treme utterances.
 "To the doubting senior who will trust his pretty style to our rude mer- cies," continues the kind but firm edf- tor. i've extend a hearty welcome. When he has written a subject to the dregs, sprawled over inordinate space and buried his interesting points under a heap of dry detail, he will be vast precision with which the skilled copy reader picks from the sad stuff the vital features, plays them up and throws away the rest. The senior him self will soon learn to display his sa- lient facts in the opening sentences, to arrange paragraphs so that in a squeeze on the makeup the less inn portant may be quickly dropped out, and to cut a tiresome story of two thousand words into one of five hun dred that from beginning to end is alive. He will discover that there are many things never dreamt of in the philosophy of the theorists who at col Iege corrected his themes in red ink; and if learning these lessons spells | ones style, his worst fears may be realized"