Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1901 — TOO MUCH FAULTY ENGLISH. [ARTICLE]

TOO MUCH FAULTY ENGLISH.

People Have Grown Careless in Their Rhetoric—Some 1-amiliar Errors. The books of rhetoric used to tell us that the great qualities of style were perspicuity, energy and elegance, or clearness, force and grace, and that as a means toward these and for other reasons it was important to be concise, to avoid needless words. Whether they no longer teach thus, or their pupils disregard their instructions, you can scarcely read a page or a column auyw'here without meeting words that add nothing to others with which they are immediately connected. Thus: Thought to himself. How else should he think? If he thought aloud you would have to say so. Either he “said to himself”—which Is another way of putting it—or he simply “thought.” Nodded his head. If he had nodded his legs or his elbows the case would be more notable. He might properly “shake his head,” for he could shake other things; but in the present state of language one can nod no other part of himself or of creation than his head. Together with. If John.went to town with his wife they went together; if they went together he was necessarily with her. Month of May, summer season, etc. Everybody knows that May is a month and summer a season. Rose up. If people were in the habit of rising down, or If it were possible to do so, this would not be tautological. It will not do to say that these specimens abound in the best writers, and are therefore justifiable. They are not the best writers when they write In this way, through pure carelessness, for they know better. Homer sometimes nods, but his nodding did not produce the “Iliad.” We want to follow the best writers in their excellencies, not* in their errors.—Frederick M. Bird in Literary Era.