13

The Graces of Prose

There is a Debateable Land between the region governed by our numbered principles, those concerned with the secure conveyance of information, and the region governed by our lettered principles, those concerned with its graceful conveyance. For example, most cases of the use of obscure references, discussed under Principle F, also come under Principle 3, which concerns general unintelligibility of expression; and most cases of the circumlocution discussed under Principle G also come under Principle 20, which concerns irrelevancies. That does not trouble us. We have separated the two classes of principles because a failure to conform with the lettered ones is an offence against sensibility, rather than sense; whereas with the numbered ones the offence is against sense, rather than sensibility.

Principle A

Metaphors should not be mated in such a way as to confuse or distract the reader.

Metaphors are used more often in English than in most modern European languages, and far more often than in Latin or Greek. A metaphor is a condensed simile. Here are two similes:

‘Marriage is like a lottery—with a great many blanks and very few prizes.’

‘Our struggle against sin resembles a cricket-match. Just as the batsman strides out to the wicket, armed with pads, gloves and bat, and manfully stands up to demon bowling, with an adversary behind him always ready to stump him or catch him out … and when the sun sets, and stumps are drawn, he modestly carries his bat back to the pavilion, amid plaudits. So likewise the Christian … And when, finally, safe in the celestial pavilion, he lays aside the bat of the spirit, unbuckles the pads of faith, removes the gloves of doctrine and casts down the cap of sanctity upon the scoring-table,—lo, inside, is the name of The Maker!’

Examples of metaphors derived from these two similes are:

‘Poor Edwin has indeed drawn a blank in the matrimonial lottery.’

‘St. Paul, that great sportsman, faced the bowling manfully in the struggle against Paganism.’

When two unconnected similes are reduced to metaphors, and these are combined in the same sentence, the effect on the reader is to blur both of the mental pictures which the metaphors call up:

‘Edwin’s matrimonial record deserves our praise rather than our pity: he drew two blanks but on each occasion faced the bowling manfully.’

The mismating of metaphors is justified only in facetious contexts. For example, Mr. R. A. Butler, m.p., remarked in a Commons debate:

‘The Hon. Member for East Wolverhampton is to be congratulated on producing a very tasty rehash of several questions which have been fully ventilated in this House up to date.’

Here, the unpleasant implications of the word ‘ventilated’ were sure of a laugh. The columnist ‘Atticus’ often makes genial use of the mismated metaphor. For example:

‘Colonel Moore-Brabazon’s predecessor, Sir John Reith, continues on his Gulliver’s travels, and is now on his way to that distant land, the House of Lords, from whose bourne no traveller returns.’

But there is no facetiousness in this remark by Mr. Arthur Greenwood, m.p. (1939):

‘While we strive for peace, we are leaving no stone unturned to meet the situation should the fateful blow fall.’

In what conceivable circumstances could anyone turn up a stone to ward off a fateful blow? Mr. Greenwood meant:

‘We who strive for peace are seeking every means of warding off the fateful blow.’

The Archbishop of Canterbury in a pamphlet (1940):

‘But just as truly pioneers of that far-off age are those who accept the common obligations of men and strive to live in the spirit of Christ as they discharge them.’

One may be the pioneer of a new route to some far-off land; one may be the herald or harbinger of a new age; one may be the prophet of a far-off age. But ‘a pioneer of a far-off age’ is a difficult conception.

From a letter to the Press by Eden Philpotts:

‘Exorcize forever the vision of Germany as a bleeding martyr who calls upon civilization to cut the cancer from her bosom; since Germany is herself the cancer….

She penetrates web and woof, destroying the fabric of human society, pouring her venom through every existing channel of international relations, creating nests and pockets in the healthy tissue of her neighbours, fouling and destroying the forests of human kind that her own fungus breed alone shall inherit the earth and the fulness thereof …’

A ready test of the legitimacy of a metaphor is whether it can be illustrated even in fantastic caricature or diagram. Mr. Philpotts fails to pass the test here: it would puzzle the most ingenious and morbid-minded painter alive, even Salvador Dali, to show a seeming cancer, which is really a fungus in the world’s bosom, pouring venom through channels in the universal cloth fabric, at the same time creating nests and pockets in the healthy tissues of her neighbour fungus-cancers (?), and destroying forests of mankind.

There are many nearly dead metaphors in English; but they are apt to revive when two or three are included in the same sentence.

From a newspaper article:

‘The I.F.S. had held out the olive branch, but nothing of a concrete nature had come out of it.’

Principle B

Metaphors should not be piled on top of one another.

Constant change of metaphor is very tiring to the reader: the visualizing of metaphors requires a different sort of mental effort from that required for visualizing facts.

Here is an account from the American magazine Time of President Roosevelt’s electoral campaign in 1940:

‘No ivory tower held Candidate Roosevelt. He knew well that a candidacy should reach its crest on Election Day and not one moment before. But the Gallup Poll, giving him a terrific majority, left no option now but to go ahead and kill off Candidate Willkie, for any slip from that lead might still be fatal in a year as full of loose electricity as 1940. He decided to go ahead full steam.’

It would have been better to write this report in a simple sustained metaphor—for example, that of a boxer who has planned to win a match on points, intending not to go all out until the last round, but getting an unexpected chance to knock out his opponent in an early one. In the Time version the change from the electricity to the steam metaphor is particularly confusing.

‘Atticus’ sometimes overdoes his trick of mismating metaphors. An occasional mismating may be good fun, but an orgy disgusts.

‘After a series of punishing defeats the Premier’s son, Mr. Randolph Churchill, has won a bloodless victory and will now join the gallant six hundred at Westminster. No doubt he will have mellowed since the days when as a young politician he not only rode ahead of the hounds but in front of the fox.’

H. G. Wells is being solemn, not facetious, in this sentence from a newspaper article:

‘And the raw material, that hairy ape, is so made over that it is only in some moment of crazy lust, panic, rage or bestial vitality that we realize he is still the core, the blood injection at the root of us all.’

Mr. Wells tends to take a scientific view of language—that words are tools, and those with the strongest pictorial associations have the keenest cutting edge: if he wishes to express himself trenchantly, why should he not use ‘hairy ape’, ‘the core’, ‘blood injection’, ‘at the root of us all’? Because it is dangerous to play with edged tools.

Readers would understand and accept Mr. Wells’s meaning far better if he had written:

‘And the passionate material of which we all are made has been so carefully processed in the factory of our social habits that it is only an occasional crazy moment of lust, rage, or panic that suddenly recalls our bestial origin.’

Principle C

Metaphors should not be used in such close association with unmetaphorical language as to produce absurdity or confusion.

The principle is best illustrated by this short sentence from a melodramatic chapter in Graham Greene’s novel It’s a Battlefield:

‘Kay Rimmer sat with her head in her hands and her eyes on the floor.’

And her teeth on the mantelpiece? A slip like this will break the spell of a novel for any intelligent reader.

In the following quotation from J. N. W. Sullivan’s The Bases of Modern Science (1928), the fantastic metaphor in the first sentence is disconcertingly given an appearance of reality in the second and third sentences:

‘The principle requires us to believe that, to an observer mounted on such an electron, a ray of light would pass the electron with the speed of 186,000 miles per second, whether the electron was moving in the direction of the ray or whether it was moving in the opposite direction. We have said “to an observer”, but we do not intend to imply thereby that any merely psychological effect is involved. We may replace the observer by scientific apparatus making the necessary measurements automatically. What is essential is that the apparatus should be mounted on the electron.’

From the Minutes of a Municipal Council:

‘The sub-committee have reported that though every avenue has been explored, no street in the central district bounded by Station Road on the North and High Street on the South could be used as a permanent parking-place for cars without incommoding tradesmen and/or impeding traffic.’

There were no avenues in the central district—only narrow streets lined with shops.

Principle D

Characteristically poetical expressions should not be used in prose.

Except, of course, in quotations. When Daphne du Maurier writes in a pamphlet:

‘All that remained of the gallantry, the courage, the brotherhood and sacrifice, of four years in Flanders, were the graves of the fallen and the blown and scarlet poppies.’

the reader is entitled to make such burlesque variants on ‘the blown and scarlet poppies’ as ‘the infant and chestnut foals’, ‘the adolescent and Red Indian’.

Our phrase ‘poetical expressions’ includes such conceits as these from a novel by Dr. A. J. Cronin:

‘The force of the hurricane almost bowled him off his feet. The station was deserted. The young poplars planted in line at its entrance bent like bows, whistling and shivering at every blast. Overhead the stars were polished to a high glitter.’

Prose decency demands rather: ‘Overhead, the stars glittered with such brilliance that he fancied them burnished by the force of the wind.’ These are conceits in the French style. French is a less poetic language than English, since fewer liberties can be taken with it and possible meanings are therefore restricted. If, obeying the traditional rules of French, one attempts to write great poetry, the result, judged by English poetic standards, is at best merely magnificent verse. This is what André Gide meant when, asked who was the greatest French poet, he answered ‘Victor Hugo—hélas!’ Modern poets who are born French have despairingly cultivated an anarchic ‘disorientation of the senses’, following the example of Rimbaud, a true poet. Such characteristically French movements as impressionism, symbolism, and surrealism all began from disorientation. Impressionism is a hit-or-miss way of describing the general appearance of things without consideration of details; symbolism is a way of describing things with conscious disregard of how one intellectually knows them to be, for the purpose of emphasizing their emotional significance; surrealism is the realistic expression of disturbingly anti-conventional fancies.

Many feelings and scenes are extremely difficult to describe accurately in prose. Here, for example, is a description of a ‘damnable room’ by Rebecca West, in her novel Harriet Hume, as it looked when one Arnold Condorex switched out all the lamps but an alabaster urn on the chimney-piece:

‘The fluted pilasters, their grooves black with shadow, looked like claw-nails drawn down the walls, and the gold convoluted capitals might have been the claws that traced them. The painted lunettes on the panels and ceiling were black oily smears from which shone only the whiter details of a universe lackadaisically falsified, swan necks bent by angelic meekness to re-entrant curves, profiles so tense with nobility that the breath must rush forth from the nostrils like the shriek of a police whistle, forearms like fins with languishment.’

This reads queerly, but then, the room was damnably queer; and when one examines the words in detail there is not one to which one could justly take exception, except ‘like claw-nails drawn’ for ‘as though claw-nails had been drawn’: it is as intelligibly expressed as so difficult a scene could be. But in the same novel occurs another passage:

‘Tenderly he reflected that her little head, which was almost egg-like in its oval blandness, was as full as an egg is of meat with the desire to please. But for that his shrewdness rebuked him. There must be much else besides. She had mastered the shining black leviathan that just behind her proclaimed Bechstein its parent. Like him she had crawled up the dark tunnel which leads from obscurity to the light, and had performed the feat more expeditiously.’

This does not seem written in the same sensitive style as the other passage. Some sort of ‘ism’ pervades it. The reader feels that Rebecca West is trying to put something over on him, some sort of verbal hypnotism. When he examines the words in detail they do not answer for themselves in a commonsense way. Blandness cannot be oval. ‘But for that’ is ambiguous. ‘Shrewdness’ cannot rebuke; though a ‘shrewder self’ can. Bechstein was not a shining black leviathan who spawned other black leviathans and crawled up dark tunnels rather less expeditiously than Harriet.

Here is an example of impressionism from W. E. Woodward’s biography George Washington:

‘Writers, historians, philosophers and men of that tribe have more inner life than they really need. On the other hand, there are many people who could take on a larger amount of inner life without being harmed at all.

McMaster thought that Washington’s inner life had never been understood and probably never would be.

From him we get the impression of a great figure, sitting in dusky isolation, like a heroic statue in an empty plain. To reach it we must travel a road that has been worn so deep by McMaster, and Irving, and Sparks, and Wilson, and Lodge—and innumerable others—that we cannot see over its sides. It is cluttered with the prayer tablets of the pilgrims who have preceded us; and we are out of breath from climbing over the hurdles of reverence and fancy. We approach on tiptoe; we utter the sibilant whispers of awe.

No wonder Washington’s character appears elusive. Anybody’s would under the circumstances….

The background of elusiveness has been painted in the picture by biographers who have looked into Washington’s soul for the quivering inner life which they themselves possessed. When they did not find it there they lost their bearings and ran round in circles.

Washington’s mind was the business mind.’

This is a plausible argument and a sensible conclusion; but it would carry far more weight with the ordinary reader if written more soberly. It is not merely that the metaphors are mismated—one does not expect to find hurdles across a well-worn road, or a three-dimensional statue melting into a two-dimensional background; nor merely that the contrast between the crudely facetious ‘take on a large amount of inner life’ and the rhetorical ‘sitting in dusky isolation, like a heroic statue in an empty plain’ is shocking. The worst is that the reader feels himself written at, not written for—especially in the de Quinceyesque: ‘We approach on tiptoe; we utter the sibilant whispers of awe.’

Here is an impressionistic passage from a short-story by H. A. Manhood:

‘They kissed, and happiness was a singing colour in the stillness. They lay down, and their passion was an exquisite winging of time and beyond reason, a glimpse of harmony at its uttermost source, a moment of immortal growth. And, having raced to rapture and savoured all creation, they came laughing back like guests to sleep where sleep was known, lying close in a gracious half-state that made the final waking less like bruising, gave them time to secure memory for ever….

They never lost the first ecstasy. The richness and marvel of their oneness increased to a deep, sustained over-beat within them, a radiance which seemed larger even than death.’

These are wild words. How can a winging be a glimpse? How can a source be uttermost? How can harmony have even an original source? What is immortal growth? How can a glimpse be a growth? What is the meaning of even so apparently simple a phrase as ‘like guests to sleep where sleep was known’?—is the first ‘sleep’ a verb or a noun? ‘Half-smile’, ‘half-apple’, or ‘half-century’, yes!—but what is a half-state?—does he mean ‘intermediate state’?—if so between what extremes? How can an over-beat be a radiance, and how can a radiance seem larger than death?

Principle E

Except where the writer is being deliberately facetious, all phrases in a sentence, or sentences in a paragraph, should belong to the same vocabulary or level of language.

Scholars and clergymen are seldom able to keep their language all of a piece.

The following is from a newspaper sermon:

‘It is one of the mysteries of that inner life of man (one so replete with mysteries hard to accept or solve) that some of us are clearly, as it were, freeborn citizens of grace, whilst others—alas! many others—can only at great price buy this freedom. Of this there can be no doubt. The Gospel appointed for to-day reports to us, in the words of our Lord Himself, a story at once simple and mystifying, about day-labourers in an Eastern vineyard. Some of them had worked a full day, whilst others had only “clocked in”, so to speak, when it was nearly time to go. Yet each received from the employer the same flat rate of remuneration—a Roman penny. Our Lord said that was all right, which must be enough for us.’

It begins with ecclesiastical-scholarly language ‘whilst others—alas! many others—can only at great price buy this freedom’; gradually presses through the apologetically modern, ‘others had only “clocked in”, so to speak, when it was nearly time to go’, and the commercial, ‘each received from the employer the same flat rate of remuneration’; descends to the downright vulgar, ‘Our Lord said that was all right …’

Scholars are at their worst in translations, especially when trying to give antique work a modern flavour: over-attention to the Classics has blinded them to the moods of their own language. From Dr. Rouse’s translation of Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis:

‘Citius mihi verum, ne tibi alogias excutiam.

Out with the truth and look sharp, or I’ll knock your quips and quiddities out of you.

Contentus erit his interim convictoribus.

These boon-companions will satisfy him for the nonce.

Vosque in primis qui concusso

Magna parastis lucra fritillo.

And you, above all, who get rich quick

By the rattle of dice and the three-card trick.’

This is to dart about confusingly between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.

The same uncertainty of language-level is found in Michael Heseltine’s translation of Petronius’s Satyricon. Here there is an attempt at brisk modernity:

‘“Oro te,” inquit Echion centonarius, “melius loquere.”

‘“Oh, don’t be so gloomy,” said Echion, the old-clothes dealer.’

But there are sad lapses into the antique:

‘In pinacothecam perveni vario genere tabularum mirabilem. Nam et Zeuxidos manus vidi nondum vetustatis injuria victas.’

Mr. Heseltine’s translation is:

‘I came into a gallery hung with a wonderful collection of various pictures. I saw the works of Zeuxis not yet overcome by the defacement of time.’

This, to match the other quotation, should have read:

‘I visited the gallery. The exhibition of paintings there was most representative and contained some fine old-masters, among which I even found a few Zeuxises that had kept their original tones surprisingly well.’

Principle F

No reference should be unnecessarily obscure.

If everyone had to write for the stupidest reader, as a regiment on the march accommodates itself to the pace of the slowest soldier, literature would be as tedious as a tenpenny nail,¹ and since the precise degree of literary and historical education with which one’s public can be credited varies greatly with its estimated size, this principle is a difficult one to observe.

The Parliamentary Correspondent of a daily paper who writes: ‘The “’ouse couldn’t but do it” as Bunce remarked on a similar occasion’ is expecting too much of even his educated readers. A few of them will have read Trollope’s Phineas Finn, but of those not all will remember the minor character Bunce and hardly one of those who do will be able to recall the ‘similar occasion’.

From a detective novel by Dorothy Sayers:

‘“I feel,” said the lawyer, carefully stirring his coffee, “that … Mr. Arbuthnot is right in saying it may involve you in some—er—unpleasant publicity. Er—I … cannot feel that our religion demands that we should make ourselves conspicuous—in such very painful circumstances.”

Mr. Parker reminded himself of a dictum of Lord Melbourne. “Well, after all,” said Mrs. Marchbanks, “as Helen so rightly says, does it matter? …”’

The particular dictum of Lord Melbourne appropriate to this context cannot be unerringly singled out by any of Miss Sayers’s readers, who number hundreds of thousands, nor even guessed at by more than a dozen or so Melbourne experts—none of whom is necessarily a reader of Miss Sayers’s novels. That Mr. Parker, a police inspector, could recall a dictum of Lord Melbourne’s is not an indication, either, that he was an educated person: he might have come across it in a ‘Great Thoughts’ calendar or in a popular newspaper.

Malcom Muggeridge writes in his history, The Thirties:

‘In the restless determination to extract ever more material satisfaction from life to compensate for other satisfactions which were lacking, ever heavier drafts were drawn on the future. Expense of shame in a waste of passion …’

This crooked reference to the 129th sonnet of Shakespeare’s which begins:

‘Th’ expence of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action …’

seems to us indefensible. The line is first inverted, then misquoted, and in its new form does not explain itself as prose.

Principle G

All ideas should be expressed concisely, but without discourteous abruptness.

Circumlocution is one of the few bad habits in writing that has gradually gone out of fashion since the daily newspapers first set an example of snappy reporting of events. Yet there is still plenty of verbosity left over from the leisured days before the First World War when it was often considered a sign not of pomposity but of ingenuity to make five words, without irrelevance or repetition, do the work of one. Pontifical critics, who wish to fill up a column easily, politicians and retired Headmasters who wish to be regarded as men of letters, and officials who wish to be portentous for reasons of policy are, in general, the most verbose writers of to-day.

Victorian readers did not much mind having their time wasted; a few survivors still feel that they are not getting their money’s-worth unless, say, an article on modern novels in the leading literary weekly begins in the leisurely expansive style of the following (1940):

‘Nothing is vainer at the present time, of course, than prediction. But one broad conclusion seems reasonably safe. If, as is most likely, we come out after the war into rather a different sort of world, we shall almost certainly be getting a rather different sort of novel.

English fiction of the past two years throws little light on precisely what differences may be expected. So far, that is, the war has not stimulated any noticeable “new tendencies” in the novel; there is nothing to indicate the birth of either new ideals or new methods. But at the same time there is evidence, admittedly slight and possibly unreliable except in rough outline, of a deepening selectiveness among old ideals and methods. For what it is worth this evidence may supplement certain general deductions from the course of events since the outbreak of war that concern much else besides literature.’

This amounts to no more than:

‘Though the style of English novels is likely to change after the war is over, it is not safe to prophesy just how it will change. Fiction published during this war has shown signs, not of new ideals and methods, but only of what I, perhaps mistakenly, judge to be a more conscientious choice of old ones. I will relate this judgement to certain general deductions from events of the last two years.’

From the Minutes of a Debating Society:

‘It was proposed by Mr. J. H. Dix and unanimously carried: that whereas discussions in this Society are not liable to end in the breaking of furniture or fixtures, so long as they are checked when they become too noisy; and whereas discussions unwisely conducted endanger the peacefulness of this Society; and whereas discussions that go on under the chairmanship of Mr. E. B. Silvoe sometimes end in the breaking of furniture or fixtures; and whereas discussions in this usually peaceful Society are, if wisely conducted, always checked when they become too noisy—Mr. E. B. Silvoe be not again appointed to take the chair at a meeting of this Society.’

This can be reduced simply to:

‘It was proposed by Mr. J. H. Dix and unanimously carried: that whereas, when Mr. E. B. Silvoe is appointed chairman, the discussions of this usually peaceful Society are not always checked before furniture or fixtures are broken, he be not again appointed.’

Verbosity, as in the last example, is often due to over-conscientiousness; in the following instance, from a Head Warden’s circular, it is due to embarrassment at having to point out something obvious:

‘With the coming of the longer periods of darkness the possibility of enemy action is increasing and it is necessary that all steps should be taken by the civilian population to minimize the dangers attendant on the falling of bombs, by organizing themselves into stirrup-pump parties, and so face up to the war.’

This would have been put more simply as:

‘As the nights draw out, civilians must face the increased danger of enemy bombing, by forming stirrup-pump parties.’

This, from Professor A. N. Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World (1925), is probably also written in an embarrassment similarly caused.

‘The inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness.’

Since destiny is by definition inevitable, this reduces to:

‘Human destiny can be exemplified only with unhappy instances.’

Principle H

The descriptive title of a person or thing should not be varied merely for the sake of elegance.

Elegant variation of names and titles is a common French trick, derived from Latin verse. A Latin poet, writing about the God Bacchus, for example, or the God Jupiter, would have thought meanly of himself if he could not present the God under ten or twelve aliases, each recording a part of his legendary history and attributes. The French novelist Balzac, similarly, used as many as six different descriptive identifications of the same person at the beginning of successive sentences. Mr. Philip Guedalla emulates Balzac. Here is a passage from his Mr. Churchill: a Portrait:

‘… he prepared a discourse, learned it off, and established himself in his father’s seat. His predecessor in debate was a Welsh Radical, a few years older than himself, who had been ten years in the House already, and, courageous in his criticism of the war, emulated Winston Churchill’s escape from Pretoria in a Dutch pastor’s hat by escaping from a hostile audience at Birmingham Town Hall in a policeman’s helmet.

The black-haired orator resumed his seat, and Mr. Churchill followed Mr. Lloyd George. It was an unimpressive little speech … Though he managed to be loyal to the Government, the new member’s tone about the Boers was a shade unusual….

The ordeal was over; and when someone introduced him to Lloyd George, the fervent Welshman told him that he was “standing against the light”. The Tory novice answered that his new friend seemed to “take a singularly detached view of the British Empire”.’

Anyone who read this passage hurriedly would imagine that at least four or five people, not two, were involved in this historic meeting.

An official leaflet, E D L 66, circulated by the Ministry of Labour to women who registered under the ‘Registration for Employment Order, 1941’, contains this paragraph:

‘Women are wanted for the work of supplying the Forces with aeroplanes, guns, shells, and all the munitions and equipment that they need. Large numbers are also required in the Women’s Auxiliary Services—the W.R.N.S., the A.T.S., the W.A.A.F., … The Nursing Services also require a great many additional recruits. More women are wanted by the Women’s Land Army and N.A.A.F.I. There are also many other essential industries and services which must be maintained.’

This constant change of formula is unnecessary, confusing and invidious. The paragraph would have read more persuasively as follows:

‘Large numbers of women are needed in industry, especially in the factories that supply the Forces with aeroplanes, guns, tanks, ammunition and equipment. Large numbers are needed also in the W.R.N.S., the A.T.S., the W.A.A.F., in the Women’s Land Army, in the N.A.A.F.I., in the Nursing Associations—these and many other vital services must be maintained.’

From an historical article on the American War of Independence:

‘When news of the disaster came, Cornwallis sought to retrieve it by cutting off Morgan, but that general had dropped back with such celerity that the force sent out was too late, the troops being detained by torrents of rain which made the creeks almost impassable.’

‘That general’, ‘that gentleman’, ‘that worthy’ are never either neat or necessary substitutes for ‘he’. The author should have written something of this sort:

‘When news of the disaster came, Cornwallis sought to retrieve his position by cutting General Morgan’s line of retreat. But Morgan moved quickly and the force that Cornwallis sent out arrived too late [at the Dan River], having been detained by torrential rain which made the intervening creeks almost impassable.’

Expressions such as ‘the former, the latter’, ‘the first, the second’, should be used as seldom as possible: they are invitations to the reader’s eye to travel back—and it should be encouraged always to read straight on at an even pace.

An Air Ministry announcement was phrased:

‘One of our fighters attacked and destroyed three enemy bombers in as many minutes.’

This is a device for avoiding the repetition of ‘three’. But why trouble to avoid it? Why ask the reader to work out an equation sum—which is not even amusingly complex?

An American magazine takes this device a stage further into absurdity:

‘For the second time in as many months the panic was on.’

Principle I

Sentences should not be so long that the reader loses his way in them.

A sentence may be as long as the writer pleases, provided that he confines it to a single connected range of ideas, and by careful punctuation prevents the reader from finding it either tedious or confusing. Modern journalists work on the principle that sentences should be as snappy as possible; they seldom, therefore, use colons or semi-colons. Historians and biographers have learned to be snappy too. Here is H. C. Armstrong writing about Mustapha Kemal Ataturk in his Grey Wolf:

‘Enver was always inspired by great ideas, by far-flung schemes. The big idea absorbed him. He cared nothing for details, facts or figures.

Mustafa Kemal was cautious. He was suspicious of brilliancy. Big, vague ideas did not rouse him. His objectives were limited, and undertaken only after long and careful consideration and calculation. He wanted exact facts and figures. He had no sympathy with and no ability at handling Arabs or any foreigners. He was a Turk, and proud of being a Turk….’

A biographer of the old school would have fitted these ten sentences into a single one, connected by a semi-colon at the place where Mr. Armstrong has begun a new paragraph.

Sentences by eighteenth-century authors sometimes continue for a page or more, yet are not allowed to get out of hand. Here, however, are a couple of modern instances where even a seven-line sentence is too long.

From an article by D. R. Gent, the sporting-journalist:

‘I spent many hours dipping into Rugby books of all kinds, and two especially suggested lots of subjects that, I think, will interest my readers these days, when we can face up to the strenuous times we are living in, even more bravely when we can refresh ourselves occasionally with memories of great days behind us, and especially days on the Rugby field or watching glorious matches.’

This would have read better if he had broken it up into three sentences, in some such way as this:

‘I spent many hours dipping into a variety of books about Rugby and two especially interested me. I think that they would have interested my readers too, for they concerned great events in the history of the game. In these strenuous times we can face up to our trials and responsibilities more bravely if we occasionally refresh ourselves with memories of the glorious matches which we have witnessed or in which we have been fortunate enough to take part ourselves.’

This is from an article by Ernest Newman, the music critic:

‘Berlioz’s faults as a composer are obvious, but not more so than those of many other composers who, however, had the good luck to have their misses counted as hits by umpires whose sense of values had been perverted by too long a toleration of bad art so long as it was bad in the orthodox way, whereas Berlioz’s directest hits were often debited to him as misses.’

This is too long a sentence only because it is mismanaged. Commas are not enough to separate so many complex ideas into properly related parts of a single argument. We suggest this alternative version:

‘Berlioz’s faults are obvious to us modern listeners, as are those of many other composers who in their time fared far better with the critics than he did: their misses were often counted as hits, his most direct hits as misses—merely because musical standards had been perverted by a long toleration of work which, though bad, was not eccentrically so.’

This is from an article by Arthur Krock in a New York newspaper (1941):

‘It is Morava-Varda that is the military stake for which Hitler is playing in his game of high-tension diplomacy with the Yugoslavs. Should he be confined to the Struma because of unwillingness or inability to add to his enemies the Yugoslavs massed against a Salonika front which would be the result if the people and their government fulfil the expectation noted above, Hitler’s designs would be obstructed.’

The second sentence is too long only because too many ideas have been tied to one another in a bundle. They should have been separated in this sort of way:

‘If the people and government of Yugoslavia, fulfilling my expectation of them noted above, decide to forbid Hitler the use of the Morava-Varda valleys, and if he is unwilling or unable to add them to his enemies, he will be unable to approach Salonica except by the Struma valley and his designs will thereby be obstructed.’

Principle J

No unnecessary strain should be put on the reader’s memory.

Some writers think in far longer stretches than others: they start an essay or article with some unobtrusive point and, after introducing a whole new body of argument, slowly circle round and pick the point up again two or three pages later as if it had only just been made. They should remember that most people, though they may be expected to retain the general sense of any paragraph until the end of the chapter, will forget a particular phrase in it (unless heavily accentuated) after three sentences and a word (unless very remarkable) as soon as they have finished the sentence.

Here are examples, from two leaders by J. A. Spender, of excessive strain put on the reader’s memory:

‘There could, for example, be no better contribution to “Federal Union” than the pooling of resources for mutual defence recently achieved by the United States, Britain and Canada. Here, for the first time, is shown the way to break down the obstacle of “sovereignty” which worked so disastrously before the war to isolate and divide the smaller nations and leave them at the mercy of the Dictators. Lord Lothian, who has long been a student of this subject, brings back this sheaf with him on his visit to London.’

The phrase ‘this subject’ in the third sentence presumably refers to ‘Federal Union’; and ‘this sheaf’ to ‘the pooling of resources for mutual defence’. But because of the intervening sentence few readers will have been able to identify these references without a quick look-back to the first sentence.

‘Our habit of taking the whole world into our confidence about our casualties and the damage done by German raiders to our buildings and property is, I am sure, well justified. A free and self-respecting people needs to be assured that nothing is being concealed from it, and that there will not some day be a sudden shock of discovery when concealment is no longer possible. Yet contrasted with the grim silence of the dictators about what is happening in their countries, it produces a one-sided psychological effect which needs to be corrected by some effort of imagination.’

Here, the ‘it’ of the third sentence is separated from the subject to which it refers by a longish sentence. Few readers will have been immediately able to identify the ‘it’ with ‘our habit of taking the whole world into our confidence about our casualties and the damage done by German raiders to our buildings and property’.

The Archbishop of Canterbury writes in a pamphlet (1940):

‘Especially we must remember that it is very hard to extract justice from strife. The passions evoked by war blind the vision and distort the judgement. We dare not hope to make our victory result in pure justice. We can, indeed, make it result in something far nearer justice than a Nazi domination; that alone would justify our fighting. But we must not ignore the perils inseparable from our enterprise; and we must steadfastly determine that we will resist, so far as by God’s help we can, these corrupting influences, so that if He gives us victory we may be found faithful to the principles for which we have striven.’

Here, similarly, the ‘corrupting influences’ in the last sentence are not easily identified with ‘the passions evoked by war’ mentioned three sentences previously: most readers will be able to think back only as far as ‘a Nazi domination’.

Principle K

The same word should not be so often used in the same sentence or paragraph that it becomes tedious.

For emphasis it is legitimate to go on using the same word or phrase time after time:

‘The crow has been peculiarly my bird ever since I can remember. Indeed, my earliest recollection of childhood is a crow perched on my nursery window-sill. On my third birthday a crow came to my party and helped himself to my birthday cake. On my first journey to school I was accompanied by a crow. A crow perched on a tree outside the room where I sat for my first successful examination. A crow was the cause of my meeting my first wife; a crow attended our wedding; a crow nested on the chimney of my first freehold house. Finally, a crow gave the alarm when I was drowning in the Regent’s Canal in June 1886. It has always been a crow, not lark, robin, blackbird, raven, owl nor lapwing—no other bird but a crow!’

Or:

‘Fethi had this tradition from the sage Abdul ibn Rashid, who had it from the sage Daoud ibn Zaki, who had it from his father who was a judge in Horns, who had it from his brother Ali the Copyist, who had it from Mahomed the guardian of the Mosque of Tarjid, who had it from his predecessor of the same name, who had it from [etc. etc.] who had it from Ali, the muezzin of Al Ragga, who had it from his father Akbar, the saddle-maker, who had it from the lips of the blessed Prophet Himself!’

But here are instances where the continued use of the same word becomes tedious. From a ‘lay sermon’:

‘I admire the man who is man enough to go up to a man whom he sees bullying a child or a weaker man and tell him, as man to man, that he must lay off.’

This should read:

‘I admire the man who is courageous enough to go up to someone whom he sees bullying a child or a man weaker than himself, and tell him plainly that he must lay off.’

The word ‘of’ is often a difficulty. From a report on broadcasting by the Committee of Convocation (1931):

‘There has been … an honest dread on the part of many of the popularization of a form of godliness that lacked its power, of the substitution of an emotional appeal at the foreside for the organized fellowship….’

This should have read:

‘Many have honestly dreaded the popularization of a form of godliness that lacked its power, the substitution of an emotional appeal at the fireside for organized fellowship….’

The word ‘in’ is often a difficulty. From an agricultural report in a newspaper:

‘In fact, in countless villages in England in this war and in a variety of ways, there has been a most astonishing adaptation of local products to war needs.’

This should have read:

‘In countless English villages during this war, and in a variety of ways, there has been, indeed,’ etc. etc.

Principle L

Words which rhyme or form a jingle should not be allowed to come too close together.

Though modern prose is intended to be read silently and two or three times faster than at the ordinary speaking rate, some people read with their mental ear not quite closed. Obtrusive accidental rhymes or jingles are therefore avoided by careful prose writers, as possibly distracting their readers’ attention.

The terminations ‘otion’ and ‘ation’ are often a difficulty:

‘The need of registration or re-registration at this station of all workers on probation is to be the subject of examination by the Administration.’

There is usually a way out—here, for example:

‘The Administration will examine the need of registering or re-registering at this station all probationary workers.’

The termination ‘ing’ is often a difficulty. This is from a Gossip column (1940):

‘I have heard something interesting which, anticipating the approaching ending of the Peiping Puppet Government, illustrates popular feeling in Northern China to-day.’

The way out here was:

‘I have heard an interesting piece of news which illustrates popular feeling in Northern China to-day and anticipates the early collapse of the Puppet Government at Peiping.’

This is from English Villages, by Edmund Blunden:

‘Our great game is cricket; our summer is incomplete without its encounters … and however the actual process of play may seem to the uninitiated visitor, the centre scene … with pigeons flying over and cuckoos calling across, and now and then the church clock measuring out the hour with deep and slow notes, cannot but be notable.’

To avoid the jingle with ‘notes’, ‘notable’ should have been ‘memorable’.

Terminal ‘y’ is often a difficulty. From an article by Hilaire Belloc on air-superiority:

‘We have established, and are increasing, our superiority in quality, while time makes steadily for ultimately establishing superiority in quantity as well.’

The way out was:

‘We have established and are increasing our qualitative superiority, and are making steady progress towards the ultimate establishment of quantitative superiority as well.’

The persistent recurrence of the same vowel-sound is often very ugly. For example, this sentence from an article on the Baconian Theory:

‘But my main contention is that, though great claims may be made for the name of Bacon, “Shakespeare’s plays” remain unchangeably the same.’

Many of these ‘a’ sounds can be removed:

‘But my chief contention is that, however strongly it may be urged that Bacon was the author of “Shakespeare’s plays”, this cannot result in the slightest textual alteration in them.’

Another example, from an article by Herbert Read:

‘… Art as we know it now will have disappeared in the flames like so much plush, …’

Or like so much crushed, mushy, touchwood.

Principle M

Alliteration should be sparingly used.

The use of alliteration need not be altogether discarded. Indeed, when one writes with feeling in English there is a natural tendency for words to well up in a strongly alliterative way; and this should be checked only when the emphasis seems too heavy for the context. The foregoing sentence, for example, has got one ‘w’ too many in the middle of it: on reading it over we should naturally have changed ‘well up’ to ‘start up’, had we not seen that it illustrated our point.

In the following passage from a newspaper article, Mr. J. B. Priestley might well have cut out five of the eight ‘w’s’ and two of the four rhymes in -ore.

‘The world before the war produced the war, and we want no more such worlds. But we want …’

He could have written:

‘There must be no more worlds like that which produced this war. Instead, there must be …’

The B.B.C. news-bulletin editors might well have trimmed off a few ‘p’s’ from the following item (1940):

‘A feature of to-day’s news has been important public pronouncements on peace by the Pope and President Roosevelt.’

They could have written:

‘Important declarations on peace are a feature of to-day’s news: they have been made by the Pope and by President Roosevelt.’

Principle N

The same word should not be used in different senses in the same passage, unless attention is called to the difference.

If one searches in the kitchen-cupboard for a missing egg-cup and does not find it, though it is there, the chances are that it is doing duty as a mustard-pot—the eye refuses to recognize it as an egg-cup. Similarly, if the same word is used in different senses in a passage, the reader’s eye will often fail to recognize the second word—it cannot grasp, as it were, that an egg-cup can also be a mustard-pot.

Here are examples. From a pamphlet by Dr. Hugh Dalton, m.p.:

‘I have already said that Britain holds the key to this key-problem of Franco-German relations.’

The word ‘key’ is here used in two different senses. A key-problem is a metaphor derived from the key-stone of an arch; the key to a problem is a metaphor derived from unlocking a chest.

From a newspaper leader (1941):

‘Roumania must remember that though she has now chosen to take what she believes to be the safest course, namely, to range herself with Germany, the range of our heavy bombers based on Greek aerodromes constitutes a serious threat to her oil fields.’

From a newspaper report:

‘The mob of frightened little children reached the fire-alarm, but were unable to reach it.’

The probable meaning is:

‘The mob of frightened little children arrived at the fire-alarm, but none was tall enough to reach the knob.’

From the organ of the International Brigade Association:

‘A few letters written in July have reached this country from German and Polish International Brigaders, interned at the concentration camp of Le Vernet. Two hundred prisoners still remain there. All efforts should be concentrated to save them.’

The odium in the word ‘concentration camp’ should have made the writer avoid using ‘concentrated’ in a good sense.

Principle O

The rhetorical device of pretending to hesitate in a choice between two words or phrases is inappropriate to modern prose.

Many orators have built their reputations on passages such as this:

‘Mr. Hacksaw—oh, I beg his pardon, our friend served two whole days in the State militia, so I suppose I ought to call him Captain Hacksaw—well, this gallant Captain was born in Clay County getting on for thirty years ago, I reckon. His father was a dishonest, possessed Baptist minister—forgive the slip of the tongue, I should have said “an honest, dispossessed Baptist minister”—from a wretched living near Taunton, Conn. Well, this Rev. Jackstraw—I should say Chopstraw—oh, the devil take it, Hacksaw—was a sheep-stealer, or if that sounds too blackguardly, let us say he was a man who used to rob his fellow-ministers of their flocks and rush them down to the stream to be dipped….’

Prose writers, however, are assumed to be able to correct their first inaccurate remarks before publication; so that their play with second thought is not amusing, but indicates mere indecision between two ideas.

From an article by Brigadier-General Morgan, k.c.:

‘When the great explosion of 1914 occurred, the doctrine was there ready to the hands of the German armies to justify, or rather to excuse, every outrage they committed.’

From an article by Negley Farson:

‘This might all be fruitless were it not that, in his self-overhaul, the Englishman has begun to question some of his traditions, or (let us call them correctly) his obsessions.’

From a woman’s column in a weekly paper:

‘Typewriting, from the very beginning, has been a woman’s means of earning a livelihood—or, more correctly, a girl’s perhaps because women, taking them all round, are nimbler with their fingers than men.’

From Sir Walter Citrine’s My Finnish Diary:

‘Below us were masses of trees fringing tracts of snow, which quite possibly were small lakes, or to put it more correctly, perhaps, creeks.’

(Or shall we say ‘fjords’?)

In each of these cases, if second thoughts were best, the writer should have expunged the first.

Principle P

Even when the natural order of its words is modified for the sake of emphasis, a sentence must not read unnaturally.

The three following examples of inversion suggest too-literal translations from a foreign language:

From a note by ‘Atticus’, the columnist:

‘Colonel Bishop became a truly remarkable shot and the higher his score of victims amounted the more his china-blue eyes grew humorously pensive.’

(Here ‘amounted’ is probably a slip for ‘mounted’.)

From an article by Ivor Brown:

‘News comes of the death of a clown absolute … one of a dynasty adored … The clown absolute is quite a different person from the actor-droll.’

(Yes, quite a person different.)

From an unsigned book review:

‘That till he had installed himself at Ferney never, surely, in his whole life had he been so much of his fate the master, this was the burden, or under-song, of all Voltaire’s later writings: …’

From an American news magazine:

‘Unhappily, the Rome radio admitted: “There is a possibility of our having to yield some further points”.’

The effect in this last instance is ambiguity. The writer did not mean that he was made unhappy by the admission, but that the Rome radio was unhappy.

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¹ We use this to exemplify the sort of incidental expression that one should avoid. A ‘tenpenny nail’ is an old-fashioned school reading-book, but (except in Scotland) the phrase has been a hundred years out of fashion.