Some Misused Words.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 300, 18 December 1931, Page 8

Some Misused Words.

** QLIVER TWIST” puts into effect an idea that has been turning over in " Touchstone’s ” mind for some time, namely, that readers of the “ Star ” might send in brief passages from favourite authors which they regard as gems of good English. He writes:— In a recent note to “ Touchstone,” I mentioned William Hazlitt as a writer who never failed to attract. I have since re-read his essay on Familiar Style, which is an anticipation of “ Touchstone’s ” credo by over a hundred years. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, writes Hazlitt, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. There is nothing that requires more precision and, if I may say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in copimon use. I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them circulation or value. On the choice of words Hazlitt says that “ the proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, but in their application. A word may be a fine-sounding word, of an unusual length, and very imposing from its learning and novelty, and yet in the connection in which it is introduced, may be quite pointless and irrelevant. It is not pomp or pretention, but the adaption of the expression to the idea that clinches a writer’s meaning. I hate to see a parcel of big words without any thing in them.” Of those who prefer the unfamiliar to the familiar, Hazlitt says: ‘‘There are those who hoard up and make a cautious display of nothing but rich and rare phraseology—ancient medals, obscure coins and Spanish pieces of eight. They are very curious to inspect; but I myself would neither offer nor take them in the course of exchange. Words, like old clothes, get old fashioned, or mean and ridiculous, when they have been for some time laid aside.” Readers who care to follow “ Oliver Twist’s ” example, briefly, will find a ready welcome in the “ Star.” TOUCHSTONE.