Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20290, 27 April 1934, Page 6

Words and Phrases.

“ J>ROSE which is redundant is worse than prose which is economic in the use of words, simply because economic prose is the better statement,” writes Hilaire Belloc. “ Exactitude of word and idea makes better prose than the use of many synonyms and of vague terms, simply because it ministers to lucidity. A mass of adjectives or adverbs is usually (not always) ill in prose, because usually (not always) the idea which the writer has to express does not involve all these modifications: they onlv slip from his pen through laziness or through having heard them before. 44 It is obviously .better prose to sav * I w-as tired out ’ than to sav 4 1 was wholly tired out,’ unless for any particular reason you wish to express complete exhaustion. It is obviously better prose to sav 4 the sky ’ than 4 the blue sky,’ unless for any particular reason vou are concerned in your description with the colotir of the sky. 44 But the worst enemv of prose to-dav is the snobbishness of rules and forms, the mumbo-jumbo of hieratic prescription. The influence of these is a very good example of that excellent rule laid down by St Thomas Aquinas that all evil exists in mistaking. or misusing, the means for the end. This plague of pedantry does not rage quite as severely as it did when I was young, but it is still prettv severe. You are told that it is good prose, for instance, to have as few' adjectives as possible. That is nonsense. It is good prose to have a«= many adjectives as you need, and no more.” TOUCHSTONE.