and emphasis to thought. It is for this reason that the short sentence can be used to such good advantage as the subject-sentence of a paragraph, and as the summary sentence of a paragraph, the sentence, that is, which sums up the thought of a paragraph, and which appears, if it appears at all, at the end of the paragraph. Short sentences following one another lose the individual prominence that comes from the contrast in sentence length, and can no longer be used to give force and emphasis to thought. A succession of short sentences, nevertheless, may produce other effects quite as desirable, such as swiftness of movement and intensity of passion in narration, and a rugged directness in other sorts of writing that may be both simple and natural. As it is not an easy matter to give coherence to a multitude of short sentences, a writer is sometimes betrayed by short sentences into a choppy, jerky style that is as unpleasant to a reader as the lumbering gait of a mob of ill-ordered long sentences. The long sentence, since it leaves room for the expression of a thought together with its essential modifications, is superior to the short sentence for the unfolding of thought. A long sentence can therefore be used to advantage in explaining or in amplifying a thought stated in a preceding, or summarized in a following, short sentence. Long sentences in succession add dignity and impressiveness to matter, and a rhythm to writing, that make them well adapted for producing the higher effects of prose. Long sentences, however, require exceptional skill in handling, else they may result in an obscurity and an overponderousness that are illy suited both to the reader's understanding and to his entertainment. Exercise 49 1. The following selections will give abundant material for the study of sentence length. Let the work be to point out the effects produced by short sentences standing by themselves, by long sentences standing by themselves, by successions of short and of long sentences, and by short and long sentences used in conjunction: Exercise 23 (second selection), Exercise 25, Section 14 (the short sentence as subject-sentence), Exercise 28 (first and last paragraphs), Exercise 32 (last selection), Exercise 36, and Exercise 42. 2. If you find among the paragraphs you have written one in which the sentences seem unduly short, rewrite it, increasing the sentence length. If you have written a paragraph in which the sentences seem unduly long, rewrite it likewise, decreasing the sentence length. 3. Choose one of the following subjects, and, after you have gathered your material, determine some effect you can produce by writing a paragraph of short sentences. Write the paragraph without paying any attention to sentence length, and then revise it with a view to the effect you wish to produce. Choose another subject from the list, and, using the same method as before, write a paragraph of long sentences. Choose a third subject from the list, and, still using the same method, write a paragraph in which you use both long and short sentences: 1. A cyclist's camping outfit. (Tell what you would take with you on a cycling and camping-out trip.) 2. The autobiography of a second-hand book. 3. Lining up for the start. 4. Moving sidewalks for cities. 5. When trains run one hundred and fifty miles an hour. (This speed has already been attained in Germany by an electric motor.) 6. A true wolf story. (One that has been told you, if you have none of your own to tell.) 7. Heroes who fight fires. 8. How to put the shot. 9. How to take care of house plants. 10. The butterfly's ball. (An imaginative story; tell about the guests, who they were, how they danced, what they had to eat, how they were dressed, etc.) 11. The fairies' masquerade. (Read Hawthorne's Howe's Masquerade, and write a story in which the most common fairies appear in some such way as the ancient worthies appear in Hawthorne's story.) 12. Birds as symbols. (The owl, the eagle, the raven, the dove, the peacock, the kingfisher, etc.) 13. Animals as symbols. (The hog, the ox, the dog, the horse, the fox, the bear, etc.) 14. Trees as symbols. (The palm, the laurel, the oak, the cypress, the olive, the willow, etc.) 15. One of the national flowers. (The rose, England; the thistle, Scotland; the shamrock, Ireland; the lily, France; the marguerite, Italy; the stephanotis, Austria; the chrysanthemum, Japan; the cactus, Mexico; etc.) 16. How to make cider. 17. Which of the Chinese virtues has been of greatest value to the human race? (The Chinese virtues are sympathy, justice, politeness, knowledge, and uprightness.) 18. Breaking out roads in winter. 19. Why a gardener dislikes dogs and cats. 20. What makes a good letter. (The sort of letter you like to receive.) 21. A rabbit trap I once made. 22. " Spreads." 23. How to tell one of the wild flowers. (So that one who has never seen it can recognize it.) 24. What had a boy best do to make a living? 25. What had a girl best do to make a living? SECTION 39 Variety in Sentences The best writers vary their sentence structure. There is a twofold reason for this. A paragraph or so of any one kind of sentences, unvaried in length and in structure, is likely to be monotonous, and monotony kills interest. Then, too, thought is infinitely varied, and sentences, if they are fitly to express the thought that is put into them, must follow the various turnings and windings of a writer's thought. The best sentence is the sentence that most closely fits the thought it expresses. You practise making now periodic sentences, and now complex sentences, not because you are to write whole paragraphs of periodic sentences, or whole paragraphs of complex sentences, but because in this way you are to learn to write periodic sentences and complex sentences with some degree of facility. Having learned to do this, you will, when your thought demands expression in a periodic or in a complex sentence, almost spontaneously set down the proper form. And so it is with the other types of sentence structure. No one type of structure is always to be preferred to another. One type of structure has one value, and another type has another value. To fit these types of structure to your thought, is the end and aim of sentence building. CHAPTER IV WORDS SECTION 40 Good Usage IN your choice of words1 you are governed by good usage. Good usage, as the term is here employed, is nothing more or less than the general agreement among the best writers and speakers of a language as to the meaning and the standing of words in that language. All words are arbitrary symbols. In the nature of things, there is really no reason why the word "eye" should mean to us what it does. The word, as it appears on this page, is nothing more than a conventional group of peculiarly shaped black marks. As far as these pecul iarly shaped black marks are in themselves concerned, they might just as well have another sound and another meaning. The only reason the word "eye" means to us what it does is that the people who use the English language agree in the meaning they assign to it. The people who use the French language have a quite different word for the same object. The people who use the German language have still another word for it. Other peoples have still other different words for it. To speak and 1 In your grammar, also, you are governed by good usage, but that matter cannot be treated here. |