Evening star., 1933-03-13
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

An earnest reader wants to know
what makes q certain sentence or para
graph quotable.
You read one quotation saying one
thing" he writes, and think 1t 4
good, then you read another saying just
the contrary, and 1t sounds Just a.
clever and Just as convincing.
So truth, as one sees 1t, isn't what
makes thing quotable. Is it Just q
clever arrangement of words that may
or may not hold up under close scru-
tiny?"
Perhaps nothing brings out the rela-
tivity Of truth more than q quotation
apt or otherwise.
It is not because Of the approach to
an expression Of truth, fixed and deter.
mined forever, that reader admires q
certain quotation. but mostly because II
fits the case, is well expressed, and be-
longs where it is used.
Otherwise, 1t Is dragged in by the
back Of the neck, as it were, forced to
do duty out of its natural setting, and
succeeds in offending more than II
pleases.
Truth Is only part Of the problem OF
any statement taken out Of its proper
setting. Sometimes injustice is done an
author by divorcing q part OF what he
has said from all that he has said.
Every one Is familiar with cases In
which a totally different meaning was
given when q single sentence was di-
vorced from other sentences.
A quotation, according to the diction-
ary, is that which Is quoted or cited
a passage referred to, repeated, or ad-
duced as evidence or illustration"
To quote. as commonly understood,
comes under three heads: /, to refer
to, repeat, or adduce a passage from
an author, by way of authority or illus
tration; 2, to name the current price of,
and 3, to set of by quotation marks.
What the dictionary fails to tell us,
however, Is the real gist Of the Ques-
ton.
Why is a certain passage quoted?
Surely it is. in most cases. not only
because 1t illustrates a point, but be-
cause 1t is well said.
Often it is better said than other
attempts to say the same thing.
This IS the crux Of the matter.
It is better said, or at least the user
thinks it is.
Whatever a quotation may be, 1t rep
resents the users idea Of something well
said.
Usually it is the users idea. also,
Of some facet of the truth, especially
If 1t tends to bear out, as so many
quotations do, the optnins Of the writer
or speaker.
There is q great deal of danger in
the use Of quotations.
This has never been better expressed
than In H. w. Fowler's Dictionary OF
Modern English Usage"
We quote him at length because he Is
worth quoting:
"Didactic and polemical writers quote
passages from others to support them
selves by authority or to provide them
selves with something to controvert; /;
critics quote from the books they ex-
anime in illustration of their estimates.
These are matters of business on which
no general advice need be offered.
But the literary or decorative quo
tation is another thing. A writer ex-
presses himself in words that have
been used before because they give his
meaning better than he can give il
himself, or because they are beautiful
or witty, or because he expects them tc
touch a chord of association in his
reader, or because he wishes to show
that he is learned or well read.
Quotations due to the last motive
are invariably ill-adviSed; the discern
ing reader detects it and Is contemptu-
Gus; the undiscerning is perhaps i'm
time repelled, pretentious quotations be-
ing the surest road to tedium; the less
experienced a writer is. and therefore
on the whole the less well read he Is
also, the more Is he tempted to this
orror. the exnerienced knows he had