§ 312. The kinds of words to be preferred for the sake of securing clearness, are

1. Such as are grammatical, in opposition to barbarisms;

2. Anglo-Saxon words;

3. Such as are not equivocal or ambiguous; and, 4. Simple and specific, in distinction from the more generic.

All the varieties of barbarisms enumerated in § 289, are to the popular mind generally obscure or unintelligible, just so far as not in use. It should be remarked, however, that whether barbarisms are clear or otherwise to a particular mind, depends on the circumstance of its having been familar with them or not. To the scholar, archaisms are not always obscure; nor to the man versed in a particular art or science are the technicalities of that art obscure. They may be to him, indeed, the clearest of all classes of words. But so far as discourse is intended for the popular mind generally, all barbarisms should, for the sake of clearness, be avoided.

When, on the other hand, the discourse is addressed to a particular class of minds, the words more familiar to that class are preferable as conducive to clearness. An address to sailors may, thus, consistently with clearness, abound with nautical terms.

The following sentences are faulty in respect to the use of this species of words:

"Tack to the larboard and stand off to sea,

Veer starboard sea and land." - Dryden's Æneid.

"He that works by Thessalic ceremonies, by charms and nonsense words, by figures and insignificant characterisms, by images and by rags, by circles and imperfect noises, hath more advantage and real title to the opportunities of mischief, by the cursing tongue." —J. Taylor's Sermons.

"God begins his cure by caustics, by incisions and instruments of vexation, to try if the disease that will not yield to the allectives of cordials and

perfumes, frictions and baths, may be forced out by deleterics, scarifications, and more salutary but less pleasing physic." — Id.

Anglo-Saxon words, as belonging to the original stock of our language and constituting the truly vernacular part of it, so to speak, are more significant and intelligible to the English mind than those of Latin or French origin, and are on this account to be preferred. Even radical words of Latin origin with Anglo-Saxon terminations are, often, more expressive and clear than those regularly formed with Latin terminations. Hence, perhaps, it is we find so many hybrid terms in our language, such as lucidness, passiveness, tardiness, instead of lucidity, etc.

It is to be observed, however, that in order to greater precision and exactness in the use of language, words of different stocks have become appropriated, respectively, to different shades or applications of the general idea denoted by the original word. Words of Latin derivation have, thus, in many cases, been introduced for the purpose of denoting only one specific shade of the general meaning which is expressed by the proper word, both in the AngloSaxon and the Latin language. Hence, inasmuch as precision is an element of clearness, a Latin word denoting such a particular aspect of the general idea may be more clear than the corresponding term of Anglo-Saxon origin. Thus the words human, humane, and manly have originally the same signification; so also, journal, diary, and daily; igneous and fiery.

In such cases, the Latin word will often be found to be most perspicuous.

Equivocal words are found in four different classes of words: 1. Primitives, to which use has somehow appropriated different significations, of which kind of words the number is considerable in all languages; as coin, which signifies a corner or wedge, and also a die, or money stamped by a die; helm, which denotes both a defense for the head and the instrument by which a ship is steered.

The relative pronouns who, which, and that are used both to limit and also to explain the word or words to which they refer. They are used in definitives or in epithet clauses, and are either definitive or explicative.

They are definitive or determinative in the following: —

The man that endureth to the end shall be saved.

The remorse, which issues in reformation, is true repentance.

They are explicative, that is epithets, in the following

sentences:

Man, who is born of woman, is of few days and full of trouble.

Godliness, which with contentment

present life and of the future.

great gain, has the promise of the

They are more or less equivocal in the following:

I know that all words which are signs of complex ideas furnish matter of mistake and cavil.

2. Derivatives and compounds; as mortal, which has both an active and a passive sense, as in the sentence, "As for such animals as are mortal or noxious, we have a right to destroy them;" consumption, as, "Your majesty has lost all hopes of any future excises by their consumption;" and in compounds, overlook, as, "The next refuge was to say, it was overlooked by one man, and many passages wholly written by another;" discharge, as,

"T is not a crime to attempt what I decree,

Or if it were, discharge the crime on me."

Dryden's Eneid.

3. Inflected words, or those which are equivocal in consequence of a similarity of inflection in different words; as, "She united the great body of the people in her and their common interest; "“I have long since learned to like nothing but what you do."

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4. Words which, unequivocal in themselves, become equivocal by their connection in the sentence, as in the following instances:

The argument is very plausible, certainly, if not entirely conclusive.
The lecture was well attended and generally interesting.

Equivocal words are either properly ambiguous, or homonymous. A properly ambiguous word is one which has come to be used in different significations, as, nervous, which means either of strong nerves or of weak nerves. Homonyms are words which, of a different origin, have accidentally assumed the same form, as mass, a heap, and mass, a Catholic religious service.

Individual and more specific words are to be preferred to those which are more generic, because individual and specific objects are more easily apprehended than abstract and generic.

§ 313. Clearness, as depending on the number of words, requires the least number that will fully express the thought.

While brevity in expression is thus favorable to clearness, as the mind more readily grasps what is presented to it in a narrower compass, still this principle is not to be accepted as of absolute and unqualified authority. While mere multiplication of words mere verboseness is opposed to clearness, expansion of the thought is not unfavorable, but often

1. Through want of copious and ample illustration, the thought is not held up sufficiently long before the mind for thorough apprehension; or,

2. For want of completeness, the whole thought is not presented.

Different minds differ much in regard to quickness of apprehension. The speaker should, therefore, inquire carefully of himself, whether through natural dullness of apprehension, or through want of familiarity with the subject, the mind addressed requires more or less time for contemplating the thought in order to apprehend it; and amplify or

expand it accordingly.

He should, likewise, consult the state of the hearer's mind at the time. When the mind is excited and attentive, the apprehension is quicker than when it is dull and uninterested. In the more animated parts of the discourse, accordingly, greater brevity is admissible. It is then less necessary to amplify the thought -to carry out Brief hints and the expression to perfect completeness. suggestions may be sufficient to put the hearers in possession of the entire thought.

Repetition is generally to be preferred to obscurity or ambiguity. Dr. Campbell exemplifies this principle by the following passage, in which the words his father are repeated three times without disagreeable effect: "We said to my lord, The lad cannot leave his father; for if he should leave his father, his father would die."

The following sentences are faulty in this respect:—

If he delights in these studies, he can have enough of them. He may bury himself in them as deeply as he pleases. He may revel in them incessantly, and eat, drink, and clothe himself with them.

How immense the difference between the pious and profane [instead of the profane].

§ 314. The representative imagery employed for the communication of thought should, for the purpose of clearness, be derived from such objects and truths as are familiar to the mind addressed, and also be in itself susceptible of a ready interpretation.

This element of clearness is founded upon the symbolical properties of language, § 281. From the very nature of language, regarded as symbolical or picture-like, it will be obvious that the symbol or picture itself must be known by the hearer or he cannot interpret it. Here the same observations apply to some extent that have been already made in reference to words of popular use. While all minds may be supposed to be conversant with the great phenomena of Nature that daily exhibit themselves to the senses, yet even