TECHNICAL TERMS.

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steed differ in rank.

Horse is the common word, steed

is the poetical word.

Nag means an inferior horse, or one spoken of familiarly, as of little esteem.

It is a profitable exercise to scrutinize words closely, and to note the different effect of a sentence if a few words are exchanged for others of a similar meaning.

27. Technical Terms.- Many technical terms, or words used in a very precise sense, in the description of the sciences and arts, have been introduced into the English language, mainly from the ancient languages. In this way our speech has been greatly enriched. No science or art can be studied, or even thoroughly understood, without a knowledge of its technical terms. The common English words nearest in signification to them are too elastic and changeable in their signification to answer the purpose of those who are describing the arts and sciences.

Thus, Grammar has such technical terms as participle, prosody, subject, predicate; Geography such as latitude, longitude; Astronomy such as nodes, parallax, transit; Geology such as silurian, carbonaceous, drift ; Metaphysics such as subjective, objective, nominalism, realism; Medicine, Law, Theology, Teaching, Painting, Sculpture, Navigation, War, Building, Mining, and all sciences and all practices, make use of a certain set of terms respectively, employed in a definite signification, and which, when used on other subjects, have generally a wider or looser signification than when employed technically.

28. Origin of Technical Terms.—While the technical terms of the natural sciences are mostly taken from

the Greek, those of war are derived largely from the French, those of music from the Italian, and.many others are from other languages, ancient and modern. In some instances, an English word is selected and closely defined in a treatise, and thus becomes technical.

29. How used.-No one should presume to write upon any particular science or art without an accurate knowledge of its technical terms; and it is well even in unscientific or popular productions to use such terms accurately, if at all. An excessive or unnecessary use of them, even in scientific writings, and still more so in those designed for general readers, appears pedantic, and should be avoided.

30. New Words.-From time to time new words spring up in the language, and old words die out or become obsolete. The scrutinizing observations of modern science are constantly discovering new objects, which must be named, and therefore scientific terms. are constantly added to the language. So new combinations of men, new actions, or circumstances arise, which demand either an old term used in a new sig nification or a new term. Such words as caucus, locate, donate, pre-empt, immigrant, skedaddle, telegram, freshet, sleigh, and many others were used first in America, and some of them are still confined to America. Wigwam, tomahawk, originated among the aborigines of North America; taboo, tattoo, came from the Pacific Islands. These are but specimens of the foreign words continually admitted into our language.

More will be said hereafter about the proper use of new words.

PAUCITY OF WORDS.

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CHAPTER VIIL

FAULTS TO BE AVOIDED.

31. THE faults to be avoided in the use of words are as follows:

(1.) Paucity.-To endeavor to speak or write without a good supply of words is as absurd as to endeavor to till the earth without the necessary implements of agriculture, or to build a house without sufficient material. We need not resume the inquiry whether thought can exist without language, for all will allow that Rhetoric demands words. A writer may endeavor to make a few words express much thought, and fail either to develop his own thoughts into fullness and accuracy, or to make any but the most indistinct and unsatisfactory impression upon others, for the want of a sufficient copiousness of words. In such a case, the same word, on the same page, or in one production, is made to bear more than one meaning, sometimes several meanings. The emphasis and gesture which might indicate the different meanings when uttered, can not be denoted on the silent, passionless page, and the reader, uninstructed and confused, pronounces the writer unskilled and feeble, and probably throws the book down in disgust. Speakers who have but few words can not interest sensible hearers a long

time. Always employ words enough to convey your meaning fully and perspicuously, and avoid the use of the same word in different significations.

The following may be regarded as examples of a violation of this rule:

"A right action being one conformed to the law, we may rightly say the actor had a right to perform it, i. e., the law given laid it upon him as a duty. And thus we come at once, as it were, abruptly to a right definition of duty, i. e., a thing due, which must be done -which the law requires me to do. Thus we reach the doctrine

that rights and duties are reciprocal."

The above is confused and obscure, if not illogical. Better thus:

"A right action being one conformed to the law, we may properly say that the actor has a right to perform it; and if the law-giver demands activity, he has imposed it as a duty upon the actor. Thus we come at once, and abruptly, to a correct definition of duty: it it is an action due, or that must be done; or, in other words, which the law requires an agent to do. Thus we reach the conclusion that

rights and duties are reciprocal."

The following passage is susceptible of great improvement:

"And yet, with so urgent a need to be free from every intemperate stain and weakness, is it not almost proverbially true that, in the ranks of nominal students, there seems to be an especial liability to fall into some form or another of sickly and enslaving indulgence; it seems often as though the soul made just effort enough to rise and be strong to show its weakness. Hence their restlessness oftentimes in their seeming attempt of divorce from the flesh; hence dramdrinking and sottish eating of precious good things; hence smoking and chewing, and all sorts of vicious and consuming lusts, so often appear, as it were, in very mockery and derision of the professed attempt of studious men to train up their souls in power and freedom, in reason as one with the end and substance of their noble being."

Strong as the above sentiment is, it seems to be

expressed in a kind of stilted simplicity. Would it not be more elegant and even impressive thus?

"And yet, with so urgent a necessity of being free from every stain and enfeebling influence of intemperance, is it not almost proverbially true that many who call themselves students are especially prone to fall into some enfeebling and enslaving indulgence? The souls of such men often seem to have striven to rise just enough to demonstrate their imbecility. Hence their restlessness often, in their abortive efforts to escape from their enslavement to the flesh. Hence dram-drinking, smoking and chewing of tobacco, and all sorts of vicious and destructive lusts so often appear to mock and deride those men who profess to be attempting by study to train up their souls in power and freedom in obedience to reason, as the very end and completion of their nobler being."

It is difficult to expose this defect except by rewriting and adding to those productions in which it appears to be exhibited. An abundance of words, properly used, indicates abundant thought.

Many speakers are doomed to inferior influence, many books pass rapidly into oblivion, from the want of a sufficiently extensive vocabulary.*

At the same time, the frequent repetition of a word in the same discourse, or even paragraph, is allowable for emphasis, as is illustrated by the use of the word hypothesis in the following extract from Professor Thomas H. Huxley:

"Do not allow yourself to be misled by the common notion that a

*It has been stated that inquiries made of telegraph companies in Great Britain have ascertained that the number of words in ordinary use for business purposes, by telegraph, is only about three hundred. Many speakers and even writers employ not more than two or three thousand. Milton employed in his writings eight thousand. The English Bible has six thousand, while Shakspeare uses about fifteen thousand.