Written word

“ All over the world, then, people are speaking words or writing words, and other people are hearing or reading these words and trying to understand the thoughts intended to be expressed by them. We have various words to express combinations of spoken or written words, such as talk or conversation, speech, oration, address, lecture, sermon, letter, telegram, essay, novel, poem, and very many others. ”

“ Recollect, my good Sir, that every thought I think is thought, and every word I write is writing, and that thought tells and that words take room, and that though I make the Introduction the whole book, yet a book it is ”

“ Having pointed out the importance of correct grammar and the right choice of language, I wish now to furnish you with some practical suggestions for the construction of sentences. Remember that a good thought often suffers from a weak and faulty expression of it.
Your sentences will certainly shape themselves after the structure of your own mind. If your thoughts are vivid and definite, so will be your language; if dreamy and hazy, so will your composition be obscure. Your speech, whether oral or written, can be but the expression of yourself; and what you are, that speech will be. ”

“ The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to his sentences. I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a book. Cut these words, and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive. ”

“ If, then, you feel like confidential writing, what may your subjects be? Essayists have written about three main classes of subjects: first always, people, their glory, their pathos, their sadness, and their whims; second, nature as it appeals to the writers in a personal way, reflecting their joys and sorrows, or contributing to their sense of pleasure, beauty, and companionship in the world; and third, matters of science, industry, art, literature, as the essayists think these affect the emotions of humanity. ”

“ Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts—the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other. ”

“ Our limited powers are similarly perplexed and overtaxed in reading the inexhaustible pages of nature, for they are written over and over uncountable times, written in characters of every size and color, sentences composed of sentences, every part of a character a sentence. ”

“ The whole process of speech is a long series of exhilarating discoveries, whereby words, freed from the swaddling bands of their nativity, are found capable of new relations and a wider metaphorical employ. Then, with the growth of exact knowledge, the straggling associations that attended the word on its travels are straitened and confined, its meaning is settled, adjusted, and balanced, that it may bear its part in the scrupulous deposition of truth. ”

“ Attend minutely to your style, whatever language you speak or write in; seek for the best words, and think of the best turns. Whenever you doubt of the propriety or elegance of any word, search the dictionary or some good author for it, or inquire of somebody, who is master of that language; and, in a little time, propriety and elegance of diction will become so habitual to you, that they will cost you no more trouble. ”

“ Use Words that suggest most. As a principle in composition, it may be said that the more a word or phrase can be made to imply or suggest, while at the same time expressing all that the writer wishes to say, the more valuable does that word or phrase become. ”

“ He possessed it as every one who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished from the vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose: I mean, such expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake for spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charméd for charm’d, and thousands of others. ”

“ Some one unknown to us, sometimes speaking an incomprehensible language, hundreds of miles away, has drawn on paper various combinations of a score or so of signs, which we call letters, and when we look at them, we strangers, remote from the creator of the book, mysteriously perceive the meaning of all the words, the ideas, the feelings, the images; we admire the description of the scenes of nature, take delight in the beautiful rhythm of speech, the music of the words. ”

“ These principles pertain to diction, structure, matter, and spirit or purpose. No one will deny [4] that the diction should be well chosen; that the structure of the sentences should be correct and clear; and that, in the case of poetry, the laws of versification should be observed. These elements contribute to excellence of form. In addition to these external elements there should be unity of thought, symmetry of presentation, truth of statement, and sincerity and self-restraint in sentiment. These elements give substantial worth to the matter or content of literature. ”

“ They cover an immense variety of topics; they are written in a clear, concise, at times almost epigrammatic, style; they are packed with matter; and now, as when he wrote them, they, to use his own words of them, "come home to men's business and bosoms." ”

“ Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take twelve men and tell to each one word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let each think of his word as intently as he will: nowhere will there be a consciousness of the whole sentence. ”

“ To follow such a comparison is to understand Wordsworth by sympathy; it is to understand also the difference between poetry and formal verse.
THE POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. As the reading of literature is the main thing, the only word of criticism which remains is to direct the beginner ”

“ Again, of the arts which spring from the composition of language. Here the art of logic, aiming solely at conviction, addresses the understanding with cool deductions of unvarnished truth; rhetoric, designing to move, in some particular direction, both the judgement and the sympathies of men, applies itself to the affections in order to persuade; and poetry, various in its character and tendency, solicits the imagination, with a view to delight, and in general also to instruct. ”

“ Thus it is, that from principles so few and simple as about six or seven and thirty plain elementary sounds, represented by characters still fewer, we derive such a variety of oral and written signs, as may suffice to explain or record all the sentiments and transactions of all men in all ages. ”

“ To be compelled to shape the course of remark so as to suit a sentence which is by and by to come, or to introduce certain expressions which are waiting for their place, is a check to the natural current of thought. ”

“ If, however, the thought of a writer takes fire, and instead of the cold, unimpassioned phraseology of the logician, glowing images crowd up, and phrases tipped with fire, then figurative language best suits the thought,—indeed, it is the thought. ”

“ Attention to the above rules, and a few trial sentences in the different moods, tenses, numbers and persons, ought to make the selection of the proper word so simple, that persons should seldom make mistakes. ”

“ The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to the words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition. ”

“ The vitalising power is in the rhythm of the sentence, the turn of phrase, the knowledge of idiom, and of, beyond all, the attitude of mind. A laborious system of spelling exasperates the reader, jades the eye, and fails to convince the ear. ”

“ Not only the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, but the ability to distinguish between what is entirely true and what is half true, between the appearance and the essence, between the spirit and the letter. ”

“ If he wishes to express a thought out of the common, or a complex idea, he dives into his store of recollection and quotes a word or two from the sayings of some ancient sage which are suggestive rather than perspicuous. ”

“ For the practice of poetical composition, while it cultivates the sentiment of beauty in thought and feeling, is probably the best of all exercises in the art of writing correctly, grammatically, and expressively. ”

“ that is, prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order. ”

“ A large part of our thinking consists of furnishing specific instances to illustrate general ideas which arise. Since the language we use is but the expression of the thoughts we have, it happens that many of our paragraphs are made up of general statements and the specific instances used to illustrate these statements. When the topic sentence is a general statement, we naturally seek to supply specific instances, and the writer will most readily make his meaning clear by furnishing such illustrations. ”

“ But after all that I have said, with the view of exhibiting the characteristics of this work, I am sensible that such general description can, at best, afford but inadequate ideas of the spirit and style of an author, so peculiar in his manner. There is in good writing, as in the human countenance, an expression, which mere words cannot depict. There is a penetrating savour,—a diffusive spirit, which takes hold of the feelings of the reader, and for the time, assimilates his emotions and sentiments to those of the writer. ”

“ To this, in addition to such answer as is included in what I have already said, I reply in the first place, Because, however I may have restricted myself, there is still left open to me what confessedly constitutes the most valuable object of all writing, whether in prose or verse, the great and universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of their occupations, and the entire world of nature, from which I am at liberty to supply myself with endless combinations of forms and imagery. ”

“ Walk through the world with your eyes and ears closed, and embody the negative results in a story or a poem. As to Poetry, with a fine instinct we generally begin by writing verse, because verse is the last thing that the public want to read. ”

“ But Man, by means of words, has widened the scope of his thinking, remembering, has created philosophy, literature, poetry, painting, has made possible civilization, the industrial era. Vocabulary—the ability to fix his reflex actions into coherent speech—has crowned him supreme among animals. ”

“ The great simplicity of your manner of writing, I may say of your mind, which appears in your writing, particularly suits the scientific sublime—which would be destroyed by what is commonly called fine writing. ”

“ Through lack of such discernment, gross faults are very often committed. For neither to all ranks, fortunes, and ages, nor to every time, place, and auditory, can the same style either of language or of sentiment be adapted. In every part of a discourse, as in every part of life, we must consider what is suitable and decent; and this must be determined with reference both to the matter in question, and to the personal character of those who speak and those who hear."—CICERO, Orator ad Brutum. ”

“ Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides, and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line. ”

“ What we are concerned with is, how each word was originally made, how the first impulse to speech was given, what were the rough materials out of which words were shaped, how words assumed different meanings by becoming specialised or generalised, or by being used metaphorically—how, in the end, some words became purely formal, and served as the grammatical articulations of human speech. ”

“ The art of clear speaking or writing consists in so making up the picture that the right meaning is surely suggested for each part, and directly suggested, without requiring any conscious process of deliberation and choice. ”

“ Kinds of Composition.+—When considered with reference to the purpose in the mind of the writer, there are two general classes of writing,—that which informs, and that which entertains. The language that we use should make our meaning clear, arouse interest, and give vividness. ”

“ But, of all the means of adorning and enlivening a discourse by words, which are infinite, and perpetually grow upon us, as our knowledge of the tongue, in which we write, and our skill in adapting it to the ends of poetry, increases, there is none that pleases more, than figurative expression. ”

“ He learns new words and comes to feel the importance of accurate definition. Words are the tesseræ of thought. Their arrangement in patterns is thinking. The mosaic of words shows by its richness or its poverty, its boldness or its uncertainty, its simplicity or its confusion and redundancy, the quality of thought. Expressing is thinking. ”

“ Body of the Story.—In writing the body of the story, the first thing to strive for is proper coherence with the lead. This caution is worth particular heed when the lead contains a single-sentence quotation, an indirect question, or a paragraph of direct statement from somewhere in the body of the speech. Few things are more incongruous in a story than a clever epigrammatic lead and a succession of quoted statements following, none of which exhibits a definite bearing on the lead. ”

“ His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic periods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously accompanied by its epithet; grand pompous words peal like an organ; every proposition is set forth balanced by a proposition of equal length; thought is developed with the compressed regularity and official splendour of a procession. ”

“ Let us keep in mind value, selection, subordination, proportion, emphasis, as a second group of terms for principles involved in writing. We may also wish to give our subject further elements of appeal through what may be suggested beyond the telling, through the melody and rhythm of the words, or through a quickening of the sense of the beautiful. Suggestion, melody, rhythm, beauty, are to be included, then, in a third group of qualities that may contribute to the effectiveness of what we write. ”