THE WRITING OF ENGLISH

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 65, 18 March 1936, Page 16

THE WRITING OF ENGLISH

Mr S. P. B. Mais, in liis book, “ The Writing of English,” gives writers the benefit of his wido experience. Keferxing to “the employment of cliches, over-worked expression of opinion or outworn metaphors,” he says:— “It is only laziness that makes us continue to attach the same likeness every time we compare things. “ ‘Slow as a snail,' ‘quick as lightning/ and'‘happy as a sandboy' mean nothing at all. “The Americans are wiser. Thcii similes aro active. “ ‘Busy as a tick, on a turtle' is a good deal more vigorous than ‘ busy as a bee.' “ “Thick as the dust on a circulating library's non-fiction” ‘Cold as an Esquimo’s nose.’ That’s the way to use similes. Invent new ones or leave both similes and metaphors alone. “That bad English is simply laziness can be proved by listening to any two ordinary unintelligent people talking when thjey meet. “ ‘How are you, Mrs Brown?’ “ ‘Middling, thank you, and how are you, Mrs White?’ .“‘Oh! Mustn’t grumble, and how’s things, Mrs Red?' “ * Champion, thanks, and you, Mrs Blue?’ “‘Oh, nicely, thanks, and how’s yourself?' “And so it goes on, cliche upon cliche, with words tumbling out of people's mouths and nothing said. “Whenever I hear anyone say, ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather,' 1 Want to run as far as possible from their presence. They aro as bad ns the people who talk about ‘preserve’ when they mean jam, ‘give over’ when they mean stop, ‘perspire’ when they mean sweat, ‘close’ when they moan hot, ‘sufficient’ when they mean enough.” Mr Mais also makes reference to

Examples of Common Errors

overworked words which lose their original meaning. He says: — 4 4 They take on a totally different meaning. In the end they lose all meaning. 44 ‘Meticulous' is a much mis-used word. It doesn't mean careful. It means frightened. 1 44 ‘Nice' doesn’t mean pleasant. It means precise or exait. “ ‘Hectic’ means habitual, and ‘chronic’ means lasting, but both these words have beeu transformed to quite illegitimate uses. 44 ‘Aggravated’ has nothing to do with annoyance. It simply means to increase the burden. “ ‘lngenious’ is not at all the same word as ‘ingenuous,’ the first means skilful, the second almost the opposite, guileless or artless. “ ‘Sabotage’ means, as A. P. Herbert keeps on reminding us, the throwing of shoes by workmen into the machinery of their employers. “ ‘Transpire’ is a word to avoid. It does not mean ‘to happen.’ It means to breathe through, to emerge from secrecy to knowledge. “One word about punctuation. It is quite true that the change of a stop can make all the difference. You remember the classic example: ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is as bold as a lion.’ “Now try it this way:— “ ‘The wicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is as bold as a lion.’ “The simplest rule is to treat stops as time-pauses, one beat for a comma two beats for a semi-colon, three for a full-stop. “The old-fashioned colon has pret’ well been eliminated, and even the semi-colon seems almost to have hat' its day. “The best writing needs .the leas’ punctuation.”