The Importance Of Writing And Speaking Good English

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7412, 20 December 1930, Page 22

The Importance Of Writing And Speaking Good English

JOHN BUCHAN, CELEBRATED NOVELIST DENOUNCES VERBOSE SPEECHES

UCH reading of the newspapers reveals a pleasing fact that a good many people are anxious about the welfare of our mother tongue. Some regret that it is not sufficiently fructified with the bold novelties of the Elizabethan, and is tending to become a hortus siccus of withered metaphors. Some complain of the evils of “business” English and “official” English.

repetitions. They have no architecture, no clearness of tone. The points are not raised to a proper elevation, like hills upon a plain. And there is apt to be a distressing amount of what I have called “adipose tissue.”

One very able parliamentarian weakens the effect of his close arguments by a continual use of the meaningless “You see."

No doubt in oratory we must allow a certain amount of verbiage, for it is one of the conditions of the game. Empty phrases, like “Speaking as I do with a profound sense of responsibility,” enable an orator to marshal his thoughts.

Others point out that, both in our speaking and our writing, there is a terrible amount of verbiage which means nothing. It is a matter about which we do well to be anxious, for the English tongue is one of our greatest possessions. No more potent or more sensitive instrument was ever forged by man. One of its cardinal merits is its power of hitting a nail exactly on the head.

The greatest parliamentarians, like Fox and Pitt and Disraeli, condescended to them. But to-day I think this surplusage Is overdone, and anyhow we have not the time for it. Who to-day can put an argument with the succinct vigour of a Joseph Chamberlain or an Asquith? It is the same in conversation. We all know men who are no fools, but who are incapable of stating anything clearly, because their facts are so clogged with futile formulas. Every second sentence with such is “If you see what I mean,” or “What I mean to say is,” or “If you follow me.”

It should he a weapon of the most delicate precision. At its best it is a spare, athletic thing—“lithe” and “sinewy,” to use the epithets which Matthew Arnold detested. Therefore, the one fault which could be tolerated is an undue amount of adipose tissue. There is only one rule for good writing or good speaking—to make language convey your full meaning. If your meaning is simple your speech will correspond. If it is subtle, or imaginative, or charged with emotion, the style should reflect these qualities. There are no graces of style which can, so to speak, be tagged on with pins. Graces must be relevant to the purpose, and organic to the subject. The many outrages perpetrated on the English tongue to-day are clue to the neglect of this cardinal truth. We do not stop when we have finished. We cumber ourselves with a lot of stock phrases which mean simply nothing. Take our speech-making. I do not refer to the liopeleSk speaker who merely stumbles from one cliche to another, or to the obstructive member of Parliament who speaks avowedly to waste time; or to the embarrassed politician who doe 3 not desire to be explicit and uses words to conceal his meaning, not to reveal it. To such, verbiage is a natural ally. I am speaking about those who have

In the case of the written word the situation is better, largely because of the high standard of modern journalism. “Journalese” has ceased to imply a sneer, and has become almost synonymous with good EnglishI do not believe that ever in

our history has the standard of

writing in our newspapers been higher, and I often find it refreshing to turn to them from much self-conscions rigamarole which professes to be literature.

Nor am I greatly worried by the use of words and phrases which distress my more sensitive friends. Language is a living and progressive thing. The vulgarism of yesterday is presently admitted to the canon, and the neologism of to-day is the classic use tomorrow.

Still there is more room for improvement. The ordinary business letter is a disgrace to a great commercial people. It is a mosaic of bad, traditional cliches, which are inelegant, redundant, not simple, and often not clear. Such a style must ultimately provide more work for the law courts.

As to “official” English, we are all agreed on its surpassing vileness. Surely no body of men ever spent their lives wallowing in more unintelligible gibberish than the officials of certain Government departments. Compared with many of their communications the darkest things in Einstein are luminous.

Perhaps the fault lies not in the style, but in the confusion of the subject. A principal reason for the bad drafting of many recent Acts of Parliament has been the fact that the Governments responsible were not very clear about their own intentions. The putity and vigour of our mother tongue are more important than ever to-day when English has become the greatest of the world languages. Let the instrument by which our business is conducted be wholly apt for its purpose. The first requirement in every type of education should be the power to speak and write good English. And by good English I mean pure, simple and effective English.

really something to say and desire to say it effectively. Very few seem to know how to do it. Most speeches in Parliament are too long and too full of unilluminating

We must safeguard what Stevenson called a “piety of speech.”