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How toWRITEJ

SPEAKJ

and THINKmore effectively

BY Rudolf Flesch

(J)A SIGNET BOOK

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

COP,{lUOIIT@1946, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1960 BY RUDOLF FLE$CILCOP'{lUOUT 1950, 1951 uy PRlNTU'S INK: PUDLISIUNO CORP.

All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may beused or reproduced in any manner whatsoever withoutwritten pennisslon, eJl:ccpt in the case of brief quotationsembodied in critical articles and reviews. For informationnddres! Harper & Row, Publisherll, Inc.,10 Enst 53 Street, New York, New York 10022.

1Ms Is an authorited reprlnl oj a hardcover edition publlshtdby Harper &; Row, Publishers. Inc.

This book includes material from The Art oj Plain Talk,The Art oj Readable Writing. The Art of Clear Thinklflg.How to Test Readability, and A New Way to Beller English.Grateful acknowledgment is made to Printer's Ink forpermi5SiOll to use "How to Say It with Statistics" and"How to Write for Today's BWlY Readerll."

SKlNBf, SIGNET ClAssIC, MEm'OR. ONYX, PutME, MER:mv.H M'DNAL BOOKSate published by NAL Penguin Inc.,1633 Broadway, New Yori", New YOJt 10019

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Introduction

I. Let's start with Chinese

2. Listen to pbin talk3. Sentences come first4. Gadgets of bnguage5. The grnmmaf of gossip

6. Live words

7. Crowded words8. 111e glamour of punctuation9. Call science be explained?

10. l} fOf readability11. Degrees of plain hl.lkI Z. 11lose unpredictable readers13. Are words nCttSS:lry?H. How to operate a blue penel15. How to be a Ouent writer16. First person singular

17. To be exact18. Quote ... unquote

v

Contents

vii

PART 1, LESSONS

1322324148576470788594

101IIIll7126140152165

vi COl'-"'TENT3

19. How to write like a pro20. Dangerl Language 3t work21. TIle pursuit of translation22. \Vhyarguc?23. Legal rules and lively cases24. Enler 3 bright idea25. How 10 solve :I puzzle26. Animal, vegetable, or miner.Jl27. The more or less scientific method28. The harnessing of chance29. How not to mel: your br:lin30. Freedom from error?

178193201209217226237246257265273281

PART 2, HINTS AND DEVICES

31. How to write for busy readcrs32. How to So1Y it .....ith statistics33. How to tcst rcadability34. How 10 rnise readability35. A quick self-test

Index

290291298319311

346

Introduction

Tliis book will do for you exactly what its title promises: Itwill help you write better, speaK. beuer. and think belter.

As you'll see, it is diOerent from otller sell-help books inthtse fields. Books on wriling usually concentrate on spelling,grammar, usage, vocabulary, and composition; books onspeaking USlUJIIy stress sel/<onfjdence in front of on Qudience;Qnd booh on thinking usually tell you to uad the classicsfilletn minutes a day.

You'll find none oj theSt! things here. Instead, thIs bookC1Vl~.r you Q scientifically tested system designed to improveyour tllree moin menIal activities-your writing, your speak­ing. ollll your thinking. Writing, aller all, is nothing but speak­Ing on paper, speaking is nothing but thinking out loud, andthink/ne is nothing bllt sUent speech. You connot http tlrink­inc in words; you write-or shouid writ~thl! way you talk:olld YOU tolk according to the WQ)' ideas come to your mindond spring to your lips,

I admit I didn't quite rtalize this simpll! truth when 1 startedmy WiNk in this /itld almost lWtnty years ago. A t that time­back in 194D----tJIJ 1 was looking for was a scitnti/ic WQ)' ofmeasuring tht ...·rtadability.. of a given piecl! of writing. I didfind such a formula and afttr a Il!w yetUs I published my firstbook, "Tht Art of Plain Talk."

T/lat was in 1946, Since then. my readability formulas haveptlltlraud illto scllools of journalism, adveTlising agtndu,ltxtbooks on business writing, and many otlltr phJCts. Grad·

viii ]z.,'TRODUCTION

lIally, III~ contribu/ed to a tremendous change In news writ­ing, business writing, and practical wriling in general. so rhattoday's average newspaper or blUiness letter I.s measurablydiDerent from what il was lourteen years ago. What was anovel approach in 1946 lias become Ihe accepted practiceamong prolenional writers.

But in all Ihose years 1 was mainly inleresled in somelhingelse. I had hoped that my sciell/ipc writing lormula wouldbecome known among the general public rather than remaina specialty of the prolessionals. So I kepI on simplilying theformula and wrote books and articles trying 10 sllow Ihe ap­pllcalion of my technique to everyday problems.

Even/ually my fJllblisl!cr.f came liP willt the idea of eXlract­Ing Ille gist 01 my books and articles amJ /lllllillg it alltogclherin one volume. As soon as 1 drew up Ihe ollliine lor Ihis book.I reaUted tllal I had done al IWI what I should have doneyears ogo--I had compiled, in one book, a sysumalic way 01improving Ihe mind. As you read ParI I from Ihe openingwords of Chapter I to Ihe IWI words of Chapter 30. yOll gothrough a step-by-step sequence 01 lessons designed to giveyou a diDerent set of menial habits.

What exactly is il tllal you'll learn7 Tile quick self-Ieslformula atlhe end 01 Part 2 spells il out. II lesls two elt'menU0/ wriling, and two dt'nrt'lllS only-/lle puncwation devicesthat show the extent of YOllr contact wilh your audience. andthe names. dates, places, numbers. elC., 'Ilat show whelheryour tMnking is based on facu and el'e"'s. WIlY? Becausegood ,hinking never loses 101iCh with 'he people and the worldarollnd yall. It is /ike Ihe 'hinking of a .fciemisl, who is Irainedto publish 0/1 Ire finds 011/ and to dOCI/IIICnl cvery idea wir/I

laclual evidcnce. 111 fhe same 'way, tltis book tcaches yOll 10tMnk as If yOIl had to explain all your Ideas in public andillustrate each onc of them by a concrcte example.

Tilis I.s the 'hread IhO/ runs Ilrrollgll tire whole book. Part Ibegins with chapterJ from my older books on writing, thennvilches 10 chaplers from a later book on English. and windsup with a series 01 chapters from a book on thinking. As yougo aiong. you'll see that wllat applies to writing also appliesto speaking, and 'hat tlie principles oj good thinking art' onlyapplications 0/ tile rules lor exprening your thougllts. You'lllearn '0 write beller by training yourself in taiking '0 yourreaderJ on paper; you'1/ learn 10 speak belter by consistentlyreminding yoursell of lite principles of readability; and you'lflMrn to think be/ll!r by carrying yOllr ,ltw mtnMf lIabits over

INTRODUCfIOS- ix

into )tOflr silt!nt convt!rsntjoM wilh yourst!lf.Nalurally, Iht! OrlS of writing. spt!aking, and t1l1nking can

only be It!OTned by constanr praclice. You'll find uercist!Sat lhe end of sevt!ral chapters. and you'/1 profil from 111e bookmore if you do all those t!.rercises con.scientiolul)·-parliclI­larly Ihe continuing ut!rcise on page 137. Beyond Ihat, studycarelully Ihe many uamples thai are analyud for their read·ability, especially tl/Ose on pages 314-338.

Final/y, keep on applying Ihe quick self-test IOrl/1IIIa onpagel 339-353. Set up a continuing Iraining program lor YOllr·self so that tvenlualJy eDectjve thinking and wriling willbecome second nalllrt! to yOIl.

You'll know thai you have achitved your goal when youunconsciowly do all YOllr writing, speaking, and tllinking insimp/t!, convt!rsational English, Qnd feel an irrepressible urgeto spell out t!ach idea in concrele, praclical terms.

Don't SlOp practicing IInlii you'vt! reached lhat point.

R.F.

The 25 rules of

1. Write about people, things, and facts

2. Write as you talk

3. Usc contractions

4. Use the first person

5. Quote what was said

6. Quote what was writt'en

7. Put yourself in the reader's pl:Jce

8. Don't hurt the reader's feelings

9. Forestall misunderstandings

10. Don't be 100 brief

11. Plan a beginning, middle, and cnd

12. Go from the rule to the exceptjon, from thefamiliar to the new

effective writing

13. Use short names and abbreviations

14. Use pronouns rather than repeating nouns

15. Use verbs rather than nouDS

16. Use the active voice and a personal subject

17. Use small, round figures

18. Specify. Usc illustrations, cases, examples

19. Start a Dew sentence for each new idea

20. Keep your sentences short

21. Keep your paragraphs short

22. Use direct questions

23. Underline for emphasis

24. Use parentheses for casual mention

25. Make your writing interesting to look at

PART 1Lessons

Ch3pter One

LET'S START WITH CHINESE

)f you had a smattering of Chinese, you could leach yourselfsimple' English in no time. You could apply the Chinese wayof talking 10 your own language, and without much effort youwould fonn the habit of terse, clear, picturesque talk.

But aU you know about Chinese, 1 take it, is chow mein andchop suey, and you probably dOll'! care much about adding toyour Chinese vocabulary. Thcrdore-and because I don'tknow any Chinese either-we shall do the.next best tbing: weshall study Chinese from the outside, so to speak, just to gCIa rough idea of how it is put together. Even that will bring usa long way nearer plain English.

That may sound odd to you. Chinese, 10 you, is an exoticlanguage, written in quaint Oriental characters and spoken ina sort of singsong. Besides, the Chinese cila't pronounce randsay things like "velly ploud" instead of "very proud."

True, some of them do; it so happens that their languagedoes not have the r sound. It's also true that the meaning ofspoken Chinese words depends on musical "tones," whichmakes it bard for us to learn spoken Chinese. What's more,their writing is based not on the alphahet hut on graphic sym·boIs that stand for whole words. which again makes it hardfor us to Jearn written Chinese. In other words, Chinese ishard to approach; it has a son of Chinese Wall around it.

BUI if you look behind that wall, you find thai Chinese isreally simple. Think of other languages, and what makes themdifficult: conjugations, declensions, irregular verbs, ablatives,subjunctives, aorists-nighlmares that plague every student

13

14 How TO WRITIl, Srup;, AND THINIt' MOM EPFI!CTIVELY

who sets out to learn French, German, Latin, Greek, not tospeak of Russian or Sanskrit. I don't have to tell you that whatmakes a Innguage difficult is grammar.

Chinese, however, is known as a "grammarless" tongue. Thelist of the Ihings it docs not have is nmnzing: il has no inflec­tions, no cases, no persons, no genders, no numbers, nodegrees, no tenses, no voices, no moods, no inlinitives, noparticiples, no gerunds, no irregular "erbs, and no articles.There arc no words of more than one syllable, every wordhas only one form, nnd all you ho.vc to learn is how to putthese one-sytlo.ble words in their proper order. To make it stilleasier for you, this proper order is lhe same ns the usual orderin English: subject, predicate, object.

You may wonder how it is possible to talk in such a ktn­guage so that other people understand you; and maybe youthink this mllSt be the most primitive, uncivilized language ofthe world. It would be a common error: up to about fifty yearsago all language experts agreed that Chinese is the "baby lalkof mankind." They were wrong: it is the most grown-up talkin the world. It is the way people speak who started 10simplify their language thousands of years ago and have keptat it ever since.

For, thanks to research, we know now that thousands ofyears ago the Chinese language had case endings, verb forms,and a whole arsenal of unpleasant grammar. It was a cumber­some, irregular, complicated mess, like most other languages.But the Chinese people, generation after generation, changedit imo a streamlined, smoolh-running machine for expressingideas. This isn't just a figure of speech: the main principleof modern Chinese is exactly the same as that of modernmachinery. It consists of standardized, prefabricated, func­tionally designed parts.

In other words, Chinese is an rtssembly-linc language. Allthe words are stripped to their essential meaning and purpose,and put together in 1\ fixed order. Word order is as all­important as the order of operations on the assembly line: ifyou line it up in any other way it doesn't work. For instance,lake the famous sentence "Dog bites man" that is not newsbut becomes news whcn it is turned around 10 "Man bitesdog." Here, word order is as important in English as it is inChinese: it makes nil the difference. In classical Latin, how­ever, if you wnnt to tell nboll! the dog biting a man, youhave to say something like "He-Ihe-dog bites him-the-man."Now try to turn it around: "Him-the-mnn bites he-the-dog."No difference whatsoever: still no news. You see, the aocient

LET'S START WiTIt CmNEsl!. 15

Romans hadn't found out yet about the assembly-line prin­ciple.

lees look closer at this example. In Latin you have to talkabout "he-tne-dog" and "him-tne-mnn." Why? Because theword and tbe case ending are fused together and you can'tsay "man" or "dog" without also saying "he" or "him," what­ever the case may be. The reason is that Latin, like otherdifficult languages, expresses almost all grammatical relation­ships by endings (suffixes), or sometimes by prefixes at thebeginning of a word. The significant thing about these prefixesand suffixes-the grammarians call both of them affixes-isthe syllable "fix." They arc fixed, firmly attached, stuck. If youtry to use word order-the word-assembly-line-they get inthe way. What you gel in the end is not the striking headlineyou were after but "Him-the-man bites he-the-dog."

So what did the Chinese do after they had got bold of theassembly-line idea? Simple: they threw out all the affixes. Itwas the logical thing to do. Soon-that means in Chinese aftermany thou~ands of years-they got rid of everything that fillsour grammar textbooks and were left with a few thousandlittle syllables and rules for putting them in order. Now, if theywanted to say "A man bites a clog" they said "Man,bite dog";for "Two men bite two dogs" (hey said "Two man bite twodog"; for "Two men bit two dogs," "Two man finish bite twodog"; and so on all through the language.

That was long before the time of Confucius, 500 11.C. Eversince, no Chinese school child has been plagued by grammar.In fact, the Chinese never knew that there was such a thingas grammar until they heard about il from us. All their lan­guage teachers ever did was to sorl out full and empty wordsand let it go at (hat.

Now you will ask, What arc [ull nnd empty words? H youlook at words elosely, the answer is easy. Full words say some~

thing, empty words do not. They arc jusl the~e to tie the fullwords together-language tissue that is' necessary but doesn'tconvey any menning. If somebody started talking to you andsaid: "Besides, however, nevertheless, as it is, with regard to,inasmuch, hence, indeed, but ..." you would look at him inamazement and think, When will he start saying something?Up to now, he used only empty words.

Possibly this one-and-only feature of Chinese grammar mayseem pointless to you. But the Chinese knew how to use it.After they had successfully stripped tneir language of all theunnecessary affix underbrush, they naturally wanted to gofurther in the process of streamlining. So they discovered thai

16 How TO WRrrl!, SrEU:, AND TlllNX MORI! EPFECTlVI!LY

they could do without many of the empty words, and out Iheywent. Why should anyone say "A dog is an animal," if thesame idea can be expressed by "Dog: animal"? Anicles haveno place in an lUSembly-line I:mguage. Neither has Ihe verb10 be wherever it is just filling the space between subject andpredicate,

Dut 311 this wns just Ihc first step in simplification. You hnveto think Ihis thing through 10 really understand what il means.You have to imagine a 13aguage where Ihere is a difference be­tween full Qnd empty words bill no other distinction betwu/lWOrt/s, The Chinese never heard nbout nouns, verbs, and ad­jectives. To them, a word is just a word, and you use it whereit fits in and mak~ sense. If II Chinese says "Sun shine," hemay mean "sunshine," or '"The sun is shining," or ''The sunis bright tlIld shiny." Or, to be more exact. be doesn't meanany of these things, because his language doesn't work thatway; he means tbat the Slm (subjeel) has something to do withslline (predicate). and that's all. You may understand me bet·ter if I give two examples in English where a word has amenning regardless of its grammatical function. IJ you say:"Oat your hnir cut?" you don't think or care whether theword CUI is a noun, n verb, or nn adjective, Neither docs thefellow who h3d, or had not, his hnir cut. Still, hoth of youknow what you arc talking about. In the same way. if youread a headline nIl! AXIS SI'LIT. you don't care about tbegrammatical function of split, but you are not in doubt whalil means. Now imagine, if you can, a language that consistsonly of words like cut or split in these examples, and you willget some notion about Chinese.

H you started to talk. and write in such a language, you.....ould soon notice that it forces you into plain talk by variousmeans. Try, for instnnce, to use complex sentences, or qualify­ing clauses nnd phrases. You wi11 find that Chinese makes ithard to be hard, Can you st3r1 a scntence like Ihis: "Biting adog, a man. , ,"? You can't. You have 10 stick. to the good oldassembly-line word order and say: "A man bit a dog. Then he..." Or how aboul the passive voice: "A dog, binen by aman ..."1 Not in Chinese. Back to the assembly linc; "A manbit a dog. The dog. , ," So you see, fancy language doesn'twork in Chinese. Suppose you give that famous news story theworks and write a headline like this;

TRAMI"S DI!:NTAL ATTACK ON

WI!:STClIllSTER l'EKINOllSE REI'ORTED

LET'S START WTTR CmNnse 17

In Chinese you could use neither affixcs nor the passive voiceand you couldn't tack on reported at the cnd. You would haveto stan out with something like

THEY SAY TRAMP-MAN TOOTH-HIT

PEKINC-TYPE. DOG IN WESTCHESTER

and in no time you would be back at the old

MAN BITES DOO

But even that is not alL Chinese does more to you than justsimplify your constructions. It simplifies your ideas. In otherlanguages, Ihe affixes are a splendid means of gctting awayfrom reality into vague generalities and abstractions. For in­stance, in English you have the simple word sign, meaning "a

,mark." Now you add an affix to that word and you get, signify, "to make a mark." Next you ndd another affix, and you

arrive at significant, "making a mark." Now you add a pre­fix for a change, and you have insigllificant, "making nomark." Finally you add another suffix, and you comc outwith insignificance, "the making of no mark." What did youdo? You took a simple noun, and made it successively intoa verb, an adjective, another adjective, and again a noun.You have added no meaning but just four empty syllables.Now you can be serious and philosophic and talk about the"insignificance of man." A Chinese would say somethingabout "Man no mark." So, while you give in to the tempta­tions of English affixes and fill your talk with masses ofempty syllables and words, he keeps his fect on the groundand says everything in the most concrete, specific words. Hehas to; there are no olher words in Chinese.

Not only that, Chinese never loses the human touch. Re­member that in Chinese you always have to express subjectand predicate, otherwise the words make no sense. Also, thereis no passive voice. Therefore, in Chinese, you have to sayclearly Who did What. You cannot say things like "It is re­ported by reliable authorities ..." You havc to say "PeopleI rely on say ..."

If you think, however, that Chinese has no way of express­ing abstract ideas, you arc wrong. Remember, the Chinesewere talking and writing about religion and philosophy longbefore our own civilization started. If they had no exact wordfor an abstraction, they used the concrete word. or words,that came nearest to the idea. So, naturally, instead of using

18 How TO WRrrn, SPEAK, AND T'lrrNx MORE EFFECTIVE.LY

words like inslillllio/lulization or amiprogressivism, as ourthinkers do, they formed the habit of expressing ideas bymetaphors, similes, and allegories, in short, by every knowndevice for making a thing plain by ·comparing it with some­thing else. This is the feature of Chinese that is almost im­possible to explain without going into the language itself; it'sthe flavor, the ovenoncs, that are usually lost in translation.However, you may gel the idea if I tell you lhat Chinese is fullof lhings like

He who raises himself on tiptoe cannot stand firm; hewho stretches his legs wide apart cannot walk.

0'

Do not wish to be rare like jade, or common like stonc.

And maybe you will understand why I have gone into allthis and started a book on plain English with a chapter onChinese, jf you look at two passages I found on the samenewspaper page. They arc from two war communiques. One isthe United Nations communique: cold, abstract, impersonal,official. The other is the Chinese communique (translatedfrom a broadcast in the Mandarin language): it is concrete,human, grimly tnuching. Somehow you gel the feeling that theIWO communiques arc about different wars. ours about WorldWar nand Ihe Chinese about some other distant, medieval,heroic war. YCt it's the same war, all right; thc same bombs,the same tanks. TIle difference is not between Tommies ordoughboys nnd Chinese soldiers; it is between Ihe English lan­guage and Mandarin Chinese.

Here lire the two reports:

UNITED NATIONS

Enemy resistance in certainsectors of the Fiflh Armyfront was strong, but furtherprogress was made by ourtroops. The imporlunt roadcenter of Teano was· captured,and elsewhere on the frontmore ground offering goodobservation was taken.

The recent heavy rains nrc

CHINESE

On October 25 our forcC$engaged the enemy in a fiercebailIe in the vicinity of Chiu­chiwu. The encmy troopswere driveD off and the areaof Chiuchiwu wus laken byour troops.

With encouragement fromthe excelleDI results in killingIhe enemy, our forces bravely

making movement very diffi­cult in the coastal sector.

LETs START wtTR CHTNEsE 19

launched several morethrusts. and more of theenemy troops were killed.During that engagement, theenemy commanding officer ofSiaofeng was killed by ourforces. ..

The total number of theenemy soldiers and officerskilled amounted to more than1,300. That was only thenumber of corpses found inthe field. The enemy remnantsfled to Siaofeng in a chaotiemanner. Our troops followedthe victory and continued tonllack,

You will feel the difference even beller if you try to imag­ine what the Chinese communique was like in the original.It must have sounded somewhat like this:

October 25. Our force meet enemy. Fierce battle ncarChiuchiwu. Our force drive off enemy troop; take Chiu­chiwu country.

Kill enemy good work: courage to our force. Launchsome more brave thrust. Kill more enemy troop ...

And so on; you can figure out the rest for yourself.1 am sure you will admit al this point that Chinese is a

simple languaSe. But, you will say, what has all thaI to do withplain English? You arc already wondering whether I am go­ing to make you write sentences like "Kill enemy good work";and you don't particularly care for being quaint.

Don't worry: this book is about plain talk, and I mean plaintalk. All we arc going to do wilh our new nodding acquaint­ance wilh Chinese is 10 k~p its two main principles firmly inmind: firsl, get rid of empty words and syllables and, second,stick to thc subject-predicate·object order. That's how theChinese simplitfed Iheir langullge, and thaI'S how we cansimplify ours. All the rest follows: simple sentences, con­creteness, the human lOuch.

And now you can already sian with your first

20 How TO WlllTt!. SPEAK, ANO TIIINK MORI! EI'FECTlV1!.tY

EXERCISE

Translate tho following passage into English lhal sounds likeChinese:

An indigenous American faith in the desirability andnecessity of applying the democratic principle to theintellectual life continucd to bulk large among the forccsback of all the emphasis on popularizing knowledge. Thelyrical faith in education as the best means of promotingequality of opportunity was a main cause for the increas·ing public responsibility for schools and for the vastexpansion of other agencies for popularizing knowledge.The traditional argument that mass education was neces­sary for intelligent participation in political democracyand that it must extend beyond the common school washeard in discussions regarding high schools, libraries, andChautauquas. The growing complexity of American lifeand the recognition that this imposed new burdens ondemocratic political machinery were additional argu·menlS {or spreading knowledge through every possiblechanncl.

In this exercise you h:lve to throw oul affixes :lnd empty wordsand rewrite the sentences in subjcct.predieateoobjeci order.Then I:lke the basic word meanings, stripped of all affixes, andline them up in order. Finally, build simple English sentenccsfrom these elements: you will get II free translation of theoriginal paragraph into Chinese·navored English.

Here is the first sentence as a sample. First, the word rootslisted in order:

Born-America-believe-wish-want-people-mind-life-stuy-big-force-drivc-people-know

Now let's make this into a sentence:

Born Americans believe they wish lind want mind·lifefor the peoplc; this belief stayed; a big forcc in the driveto make people know.

LET'S START wrm CmNI!Sn 21

Do the rest of the paragraph in the same fashion.(If you would rather skip this exercise to read on, turn to

the next chapter. But don't forget 10 go back to it if you want10 get out of this book everything that's in il.)

CIlapter Two

LISTEN TO PLAIN TALK

After reading so much :lbout Chinese. you may think thatsimplified langu:lge is a Chinese specialty. Of course, that isn'tso. All peoples simplify their languages. Whenever scientistshad a chance of comparing an old language with its modcrnoffspring, they found that inflcctions and irregularities hadbeen dropped in the course of the centuries. No wonder: no­body uses a lot of difficult grammar if he can help it. I amsure you know plenty of people who keep on speaking brokenEnglish all their lives simply because they have found outtbey can get along; in the same manner nations use brokenlanguages b~ause it's ensier to talk that way. Chinese issimpler than most other languages only because the Chinesepeople happened to be earlier in the gamc; the diffcrence isreally in time,

Among the world's great languages, the runner-up toChinese is English. lt's simpler, more flexible, more practicalthan any other Western language beeause it has gone funhestin losing inflections and straightening out irregularities. Wesay today nQm~d for what was in Old English gencmnodc;aDd we say had for what was in Gothic Irabaidedeima. Wehave almost no inflections or irregularities left now; in otherwords, we lire approaching the poinl Chinese reached sometime before 500 B.C. You would think we might cnteb upwith them in n few thousand years.

But this will never happen. We lost our chance in the racewhen we became a literate people. For languages change onlyin the mouths of illiterate:!; if you stan 10 teach children thethree R's you SlOp them from simplifying their parents' lan~

guage. If all Gothic boys and girls had learned how to spellIloboidedeima generation after generation, they would neverhave got it down to had,' billions of wriuen and printed

'2

LISTEN TO PUIN TALK 23

habnidult!imtu would have been in the way. You have to takea language wilh an alphabet and a wriuen literature as is; ifyou want to change tht!atrt! into Iht!Qtt!r it takes decades ofcrusading. (The Chinese, of course, had the added advantageof never baving used an alphabet but a system of word sym­bols; so they could streamline their words without changesin spelling. Chinese just doesn't spell.)

That does not mean, however, that a literary language doesnot cbange at all. It does; but the ,changes are not in grammarand spelling but in style and expression. English sell led downto its present spelling and gramm3r 3rountl 1600; but theprose style of thaI time was very different from ours. It waselaborate and slow; ours is informal and fast. Read, for in­stance, tbis sentence from Milton's AuopQJ;ilica, wriuen in1644:

For if we be sure we are in the right, and do not holdthe truth guiltily, which becomes not, if we ourselvescondemn nOI our own weak and frivolous teaching. andthe people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout,what can be more fair, than when a man jUdicious,learned. and of a conscience, for aught we know, asgood ns theirs that taught us what we know. shall notprivily from house to house, which is more dangerous,but openly by writing publish to the world what hisopinion is, what his rensons, and wherefore that which isnow taught can not be sound.

This is beautiful: but the point here is thnt nowadays no­body writes like that. If one of our own literary people hadwritten that passage, it would rcad somewhat like this:

Supposedly we know and don't purposely suppress thetruth, our education is neither inefficient nor irresponsi­ble, and there is no rampant ignorance and irreligion.Consequently, whoever is intelligent, educ:l1ed aQd pre­sumably honest should in all fairness be allowed topublish his arguments against currenl doctrine.

The main difference between the two versions is thai amodern writer feels unable to take a long bre:uh like Milton.He thinks he must condense everything important into fewwords and short sentences. and leave out everything else; nomodern reader would SlllOd for Millonian periods.

That is true. But our modern authors have jumped out of

24 Row TO WRfT1!. SreA1C, .u.-n T1m."X MORE EFFECI'1YE1.Y

the frying pan into the fire; their sentences Olre faster thanthose of the Eliznbethans but less readllblc. Milton, in all hisst:iteliness, is simpler reading than most modern literary prose.Instead of simplifying our written language, we have madeit more complex.

So, if we look for a recipe for modem p!:lin English. wefind ,ourselves in 11 peeuli:l.r Spol: we could try to imitatescventeenth-eentury English, but that would sound im~ibly

old-fashioned; or we could try to approach some future"Chinese" English, but that would sound impossibly modern­istic. We have 10 take our language as il is toda}' lind findsome compromise solution.

But where is the problem? you say. Doesn't everybodyknow the trouble wilh difficult English is those big five-dollarwords? Can't we just use plain one-syllable or two-syllablewords instead and there we are? Can't we find the vocabularyrange of our audience and then use only the words theyknow?

Unfortunately, we can'l. There is no way of saying, Thisman has a vocabulary of 10,000 words, that one has a vo­cabulary of 10,001 words and so on_ And even if we couldsay that, we couldn't go on and say, The one word Man No,2 knows but Man No. I doesn't know is I,i,sute; thereforewe can use hirslI/e with Mlln No.2 but not with Man No. I.That's all very ridiculous; but it's the logical conclusion towhat most people think about plain language. To them, it'ssimply a vocabulary problem.

It's no vocabulary problem al all. In the first place, every­body recognizes words he never uses in talking. ThaI's whyyou can safely lalk about irreligion to people who wouldnever say irreligioll in their lives. In the second plo.ce, every­body is able to undersland an unfamiliar word if only thecircumstances make clear what it means. If I said 10 you, outof a clear sky, "Barberiana," you wouldn't understand. Itmay mean 3. Latin-American dance, or anecdotes about thebte Professor Roderick W. Barber, or whatever. But if youhad passed the barbershop in Rockefeller Center, and hadseen in the window an exhibit of shaving mugs, barber'sbasins, and paintings of people who are having their h:lir cut,with a big sign undemeilth: BARnt!nIl,NA, you wouldn't needan explanation. And now your vocabul:iry has 27,394 wordsinstead of 27,393,

Anyway. if you ever tried to write within a limited vocabu­lary, you would know Ihat it can't be done. There are alwayswords you specinlly wan! to usc, and other words you have

LISTEN TO PUtN T ,\t.X 2S

to use. For instance. in Ihe firsl chapler of Ihis book I usedtho: word aorist. Possibly you don't know what an aorist is;or maybe you have juSt a vague idea that it is something inGmt. grammar you are glad you forgot. Splendid: that'sexacl1y what I wanted you to know or guess about the word.I didn't use it for its p~cise meaning; J used it for the un­ple3Sltntness il stands for. If it had been fully familiar to you,it wouldn't have been as frightening as I meant it to be.

Or, to take another exnmple. I used the word affix inChapler I, and I am going 10 keep on using it in this book.In facl, I couldn't write this book wilhout using the wordaffix because that's what much of it is about. You may nothave heard it before; so I have tried 10 give you a goodexplanation, and I hope that by now affix is part of yourvocabulary.

In other words, to limit one's speaking and writing vo­cabulary is unnecessary. on the one hand. and impossible, onthe other. True, lhe big five-dollar words are stumbling blocksfor your audience; but now. in the middle of the twentiethcentury, there is almost nothing you can intelligenlly speakor write about without using those key words. For instance,there wouldn't be much poin! in talking about our form ofgovemmen! without using the word dtlllocracy.

Well, then, you will say. if simplified grammar is out, andslow-paced sent.ences are OUI. and limited vocabulary is out.bow can we simplify our prose style? How does anyoneachieve plain talk anyllow?

For, strange as it may seem to you at this point, peopletalk plainly as long as they don't think about il. In conversa­tion. without rehearsal or preparation, they somehow manage10 express themselves so clearly that nobody asks for anexplanation. How do they do it?

The solution to this puzzle is easy: they use big words,and a fast pace. and the ordinary rules of grammar. bm theygive Ihe otlltr fellow time 10 understand. They pause betweensentences; they repeat themselves; Ihey use filler words betweenthe big important ones; they space tbeir ideas. The secret ofplain talk is in-between space.

That sounds simple; in fact. it is simple. Everyone does itevery day. OUi when it comes to writing. or to formal speak­ing. we forget about the in·bctw~n space. It doesn't seemright to fiJI pages with filler words or repetition, and that sortof thing doesn"t go with oratory. So we compress and eon­dense; we make one word out of three, llnd lellve out lenmore that seem irrelevant. Tbey are irrelevant; but withOut

26 How TO WRI'T1!, SPEAE. ""''D Tlln« MORE EFFECTTVELY

the:m, your reader or listener has no time to understand therelevant words. You have to use small talk in between ir youwant your big lalk to go over, What you say may be clearfor anybody with average intelligence:; but don't rorget Ihatyou roree that avcmgc.intelligent man 10 make an effort torollow you. Maybe he has other things on his mind; maybehe is tired; or maybe he simply i! not interested enough tomake that effort. If you fill in space, )'ou won't add anythingto what you say; but you will put your audience at ease.

To give you nn exact idea or colloquial prose, I reprinthere two rather long pieces that are as accurate reproductionsof conversation as Clln be round. They are nol perrect; but 1hope they will give you the right idea.

The first excerpt is from a story by Dorothy Parker, en­titled "Too Bad." Two gossiping women serve as a sort orGreek chorus, interpreting the story to the reader; andDorothy Parker is remarkably successrul in making gossipsound like gossip:

"My dear," Mrs. Ame:s said to Mrs. Marshall, "don'tyou re311y think that there must h3ve been some otherwoman?"

"Oh, I simply couldn't think it was anything like that,"said Mrs. Marshall. "Not Ernest Weldon. So devoted­home every night at half-past six, and such good com­pany, Ilnd so jolly, and all. I don't see bow there couldhave been."

"Sometimes," observed Mrs. Ames, "those awfullyjolly men at home nrc jLlst the kind."

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Marshall suid. "But not ErnestWeldon. Why, I used to say to Jim, 'I never saw such 11

devoted husband in my life,' I Aid. Oh, not ErnestWeldon."

"I don't suppose:' begnn Mrs, Ames, and hesitated."I don't suppose:' she went on, intently pressing the bitof sodden lemon in her cup with her teaspoon, "thatGrace-thnt there was ever anyonl>-Or anything likethat?"

"Oh, Heavens, no." cried Mrs. Marshall. "Grace Wel­don just gave her whole life to thnt mnn. II was Ernestthis lind Ernest that every minute. 1 simply can'l under­stand it. U lhere was one earthly reason-if they everfought. or if Ernest drank, or anything like that. Butthey gOt along so beautifully together-why, it just seemsns if they must have been erazy to go and do a thing

LISTEN TO PLAIN TALK 2.7

1il::e this, Well 1 can't begin 10 tell you how blue ifsnt:lde me. It seems so (lwful!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Ames, "it certainly is 100 bad."

The other bit of conversation is not gouip but talk aboutcurrent affairs between men; and il is not fictional but real.I! is from a transcript of The People's Platform, a radiodiscussion program in the fonn of an overheard dinner-tableconversation. These broadcasts were unrehearsed and spon­taneous. I think thc transcripts are the nearest Ihing 10 actunl­cOnversation shorthand notes that elln be found. Of course,the broadcast dinner guesls knew they were on the air: butthey talked 10 each other and not 10 their audience.

This panicular program was aboul Russia. The chairmanwas Lyman Bryson: the gueslJl. Walter Duranty, Louis Fischer,and Max Lerner. Listen:

FISCHER: ••. Of course, when Churchill nnd Roose­velt meel . , . they incvilnb]y discuss the Pacific whichis such an important phase of the whole war, but .. _

BRYSON: And to RU5Sia also?FISCHER: And to Russiil, of course! But the Russians

have been invited to previous conferences where thePacific was also discussed, bUI they were not invited tothis conference and I think they were not invited 10this conference because Russia is being discusseo interms of Russian demands and the Russians want to knowthe answers.

LERNER: I don't know, Bryson, whether Fischer orDuranty, which of them is correct about this, but there'sone observation I'd like to mnke about the whole thingand that is this seems to indicnlc what is 10 me the mostserious problem in Ihe relations of the Allies, and thatis America and Brilain are always meeting about some­thing and Russia isn'l meeling with thcm, There seemsto have beCI;1 developing a rifl within the Uniled Nations•.. wc're becoming almost a house dividcd ngainstitself, At lenst there is a danger thnl we may bccomea house divided or . , •

FISCHER: Well, isn't it true, Lerner, that Stalin hasbecn inviled several times and has not seen fit or notbeen able to come?

LERNER: I don't know, Fischer, I have been told that.FISCHER: Well, we have been told that oilieially and

28 How TO WRITE. S""....K. AND TlIrN'K MORe EFFP..CTTVELY

Roosevelt said only the other day at his press conferencetlUl.1 he would have been glad to meet Stalin....

LERNER: Well. may r just say this and Ihat is that justthis morning we had reports of an editorial published ina Russian semiofficial magazine asking for a meeting ofthe three powers. Now, it's very difficult to reconcilethnt with Ihe statement thnt Sialin had repe:uedly beeninvited to such a meeting nnd had not taken part.

FISCIIER: Oh, he might have refused it in the past andsees the wisdom of it now.

LERNER: That's possible.DURANTY: Yes. Well, you speak, Lerner, of a rift be.

tween Russin and the Western powers ... has it grownup recently? Isn't it really more true that there has beenconcealed distrust and misunderstanding between Russia.and the Western democracies ever since the foundationof the Soviet Republic and thlll actually today we aremerely witnessing a progression of that and a continu·ation of it. and what's more, .•

LERNER: It's geHing worselDURANTY; I say it's not gelling much better because

in many ways Ihe situation is acute. For instance, thisvery question of the second fronl llnd other questions. Ithink on the whole it is probably getting better, but ina sense sharper at this time. And that, after all, manypeople in Germany and olltside Germany have an in­terest in elttending this squnbble, or prelending it is aquarrel where it is not, perhaps even somewhat un­consciousl}'.

LE.llNER: Yes, because r ngree, Duranty, that this dis­truSI is an old thing and one of the interesting things isthat this distrust has not been destroyed by Russianbravery and Russian military ,lccomplishmenl and by ourco-operating with the Russians, our Lease-Lend. Distrustis rarely destroyed between nations nnd it seems to bereally rechanneled ... iI's nnw seeking underground,subterranean methods of showing itself ... in an enor­mous amount of rumormongering on both sides and thesuspicions thaI the Russians have of us, in our tendeney,as I say. to act with the British but not 10 act with theRussians so that I would suggest thnt one of the Ihingsfor us lIS Americans us Americans to think about iswhat can we do 10 well, shall we say . _ . destroythis distrust on our side?

PISCHER.: Well, I think we can.•.. The first thing we

LISTilN TO Pu.m TALK 29

can do is to try to understand why it is sharper today,as Duranty says, than it has been throughout Soviet his­tory, and I think that the reason is ... lies in thenature of this war, , ,

Now if you read these two conversation pieces carefully,you will notice how the speakers make themselves understood.They repeal phrases ("I don't suppose. , , I don't supposc"­". , • they were not invited 10 this conference and I thinkthey were not invited to this conference because, , ,"); theycorrect themselves (", , , that Grace-that there was everanyone .. ,"-", , . whether Fischer or Duranty, whieh ofthem is correct. , ,"-". , , the reason is ... lies in thenature of this war ..."); they repeat ideas in differentwords (", , , a progression of that and a continuation of it, • ,"-", , ' our co-opemting with the Russians, our Lease­Lend"); they even contradict their own statements ("I sayit's not gelling much beller, , , J Ihink on the whole it isprobably getting better, ' ."),

Sometimes the speakers use sentences of Chinese simplicity("It was Ernest this and Ernest that every minute,"-"Ameri­ea and Britain arc always meeting about something andRussia isn't meeting with them"), At other times they useold-fashioned slow-moving sentences-but with the differencethat they don't say Ihem in one breath but break them intopieces ("If there was one earthly reason-if they ever fought,or if Ernest drank, or anything like thaI. But they got along sobeautifully togethcr_"_u... just this morning we had re­ports of an editorial published in a Russian semiofficial maga~

zine asking for a meeting of the three powers. Now it's verydifficult to reconcile that with the statement thai Stalin hadrepeatedly been invited to such a meeting and had not takenpart").

Important key words arc being used where they seemnecessary, but always with some illustration or rephrasing todrive the point home ("So devoted-home every night athalf-past six, and such good company, and so jolly. and all."-". , , a rift within the United Nntions , . , we're becomingalmost a house divided :tg:tinst itself.'·_u.. , it seems to bereally re-channcled , , . it's now seeking underground, SUb­terranean methods of showing itself .. :.).

Everything is put in personal terms ("Why. I used to say10 Jim, , ."-"1 can't begin to tell you how blue it's mademe:'-"... what is to me the most serious problem _ . ,"­"•• , we have been told that, , ,"-", , , I would suggest that

30 How TO WRITI!. SPUK, AND Tlllmc MORE EFFEC1TVELY

one of the things for us as Americans , , , us Americans tothink about, ..").

Filler words are fr~ly strewn about ("Oh"-"yes"-"wby"-"Heavens, no"-"wcll"-"of coursc"-"thnt is"-"weU"­"now"-"oh"-"yes"-"I snY"-"l think"-"well, shall wesay"-"well").

And finally there is one element you can't s~ on theprinted pagc: betv.een the words and with them there aregestures and looks nnd intonations and pauses and silences.

So here we have the secret of plain conversational talk: itis not difficult ideas expressed in easy language, it is ratherabstractions embedded in small talk. It is heavy SlUff packedwith excelsior, If you want to be beller understood yOIl don'thave to leave out or change your important ideas; you justusc more excelsior. It's as simple as that..

EXERCISE

Translate the following passage into eonversatiotul1 talk, asif it were spoken across a dinner table. Be sure to use all theideas that are there, but provide space betweeo them. Do ootadd aoy new ideas of your own.

Perhaps the toughest job of thinking we have to do inthis matter of European reconstruction is to realize thatit can be achieved through nonpolitical instrumentalitics.Reconstruction will not be politics; it will be engineering.

h witl be possible to operate Europe's primary eco­nomic plant directly, not through political controls. It ispossible to make bargains with cartcls and trusts, withtrade unions and co-<>penltives, with farm unions andprofessional societies, without sending a single demarchethrough a foreign ministry or memorandum Ihrough aDepartment of the Interior. For a year or more aftcr theFint World War many cities and districts in central andenstern Europe provided for their immediate needs whiletheir paper governments issued decrees and proclama­tions that meant exactly nothing. So long as food can beprocured, politicians ate expendable. And so long nsthe Commission can provide the minimum suppliesneeded to sustain local life it can mate trains run, andships sail, and oil wells spout, and factory chimneyssmoke.

Why it will often have to deal directly with non·

LISTIlN TO PUIN TALK: 31

political bodies should be fairly clear. Unless a totali­tarian police power is to administer everything (and itis unthinkable that our armies should provide :md subsi­dize such forces) there can be in the more chaotic parISof Europe no responsible and effective o3.tional politicalauthority for a long time.

k a sample, bere is my own conversational version of thefirst paragraph:

Well, there is quite a laugh job ahead ... the toughestof them all, I think, liS far as this maller of Europe-ofEuropean reconstmction is concerned. . . . Yes, thetoughest job we have to do in this whole maller, andit·s a job of thinking-of realiz.ing how it can be done­bow it will be done, I should sIlY.... It will be donesomehow, but not by politics. No, reconstruction inEurope won't be politics at all.... What I mean is this:it will all be nonpolitical. Nonpolitical bodies andngencies and bureaus-nonpolitical instrumenlalities ofnil kinds. You see, it will be nn engineering job. Likebuilding a bridge. that's the way I look at it.... NopoWics whatsoever, mind you, just plain nonpoliticalengineering.... Yes, that's the way you have to realize-to visualize this reconstruction job.

Now do the rest of the passage in the snme manner.

Cllaptcr Tllrce

SENTENCES COME FIRST

Perhaps by now you have a general idea of what simplifiedlanguage looks like and how ~ople go about making Ihem­selves underslood in conversation, Plain talk is mainly aquestion of language structure and of splicing your ideas.Now leI's gel down to work and learn how to do this,

We shall Slart with senlences, for tbe simple reason thatlanguage consists of senlences. Most people would say olIhandthat Inngu3ge consists of words rather thnn sentences; butIhars looking at it Ihe wrong way, We do not spe3k by form­ing one sentence afler another from words we have stockedsomewhere back in our brains: we try 10 say whal we havein mind :md lell il in sentences. This obvious fact is con­firmed by what we know nbout the language of primilivepeoples, where the issue is not confused by grammar anddictionary knowledge. Here is, for instance, whnt Frank C.uubach, the famous teacher of iIIiterales, had 10 say aboutthe Maranaw language: "When we lried to wrill~ the .....ordswe henrd, nobody could lell us where one word began andanother ended! If I asked Pambaya, 'What is the Maranawword for go?' he did not know. BUI if I asked how to say'Where are you going?' he answered al once, 'Andakasoong,'By many Irials and errors we discovered that (mdtl was where,kn was yOIl, lind soollg wltl go--'Where you go?' ..

Of course, English has advanced far beyond Maranaw; butthe principle still holds Ihal words are discovered hy lakingsentences aparl, and th31 the units by which we express ideasare senlences ralher than words. So, to learn how to saythings simply, we have 10 stan by sludying sentences,

Now, what is n senlence? Let's take our deOnition fromFowler's Dictionary 0/ ModUli English Usage, (This is Ihemost famous elbow book for English wrilers. Incidentally, it's

"

SENTENCES CoME FIRST 33

fun to rend.) "A sentence means a sel of words complete initself, having either expressed or understood in it a subjectand a predicate, and conveying a statement or question orcommand or exclamation." Fowler adds, and this is im­portant: "Two sentences (not one): You COIll",am/~d and 1obeyed." Naturally, it would also be two sentences if youwrote; "You commanded; J obeyed."

So you see Ihat ordinarily a sentence expresses one thoughtand you need two sentences to express two thoughts. You can,however, work one sentence into another in place of a nounor adjective or adverb: it then becomes a clause and theother sentence a complex sentence. You can also work moreideas into 11 sentence by putting in more phrases or words.

Every word you set into the framework of a sentence hasto be fitted into its pallern; it bas to be tied in with invisiblestrings. In a simple sentence like Man biles dog there is onesuch string between man and bites and another between bilesand dog, and thai's all there is to the sentem:e pattern. But if asentence goes beyond the subject-prcdicate-object type, it isliable to become a net of crisscrossing strings that have to beunraveled before we can understand what it says.

Take for instnnce this sentence from a recent book onRussia:

Here is Edmund Burke, the eminent British Liberal,than whom no Europcnn statesman was more horrifiedby the outrages of the French Revolution.

As you sec, the clause is tied to the main sentence by theword whom, from which an invisible string leads to Burke,five words back. To reach whom, however, we have to jumpover Ihan which in turn is tied to mOfe horrified, five wordsahead. In shon, the sentence is a tangle and should have beenrevised to read:

No other European slatesman was more horrified bythe outrages of the French Revolution than EdmundBurke, the eminent British Liberal.

Old-fashioned grammarians would point out that the mainidea should never have been expressed in the subordinateclause; but that rule of thumb is pure ~uperstition. The im·portant thing is that the t.ies within the sentence should notrun in different directions but slraightforward so that the

34 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND THINR MORE EI'PI!CTJVE.LY

readl!r can read along. Here is a good eumple of what Imean (from the theater section of The New Yorker):

In an otherv.'ise empty week, we might as well givethe piny our attention, if only as nn almosl perfcci ex­ample of how a script of no conceivable merit managesto get CtlSt, rehearsed and finally produced at someexpense without anybody connected with it being awarethat the whole enterprise is a violent nnd bally flight inlhe face oC providence. In Ihis case, of course, Mr_ Paleyhas put on his own work, but it slill seems incredible Ihalnobody once look him aside and explained thai even inthese queer limes there is no reliable melropolitannudience Cor ammeur theatricals.

These sentences nre not hard 10 rend in spite of their com­plexity. The trouble is, you have to be a skillful Yo'Titer totum litis Irick. Ordinarily, a sentence will gel tangled up assoon as you start filling it up with ideas. If you rememberwhat I snid in the last chapter about spacing idell5, you willunderstand that the best plan is to write short sentences sothat the render, or listener, gelS enough chances Cor breathingspells and doesn't gct caught in invisible strings betweenwords.

That sounds elementary; <Ind you may wonder why youfind so many long sentences in books, magazines, and news­p:lpers. The explanation, to the best of my knowledge, i!simply that those sentences are written, not to make it casyfor the re:lder, but to cnsnare him, catch him like a fly onflypaper, or bUlIonhole him to nuention. There nrc reasonsfor doing this; somctimes even good reasons. The most com­monplace is the let-me-finish-my-sentcncc feeling oC the ra­conteur, the storyteller who doesn't wlInt to let go of hislIudience. Here is a simple example oC the raconteur·sentencefrom a story by Damon Runyon:

Well, Charley takes the dice and turns to a lillIe guyin a derby hat who is standing next to him scroochingback so Charley will not notice him, and Chllrlcy lirlSthe derby hilt 01I the little guy's head, and rnules thedice in his hand lind chucks them into the bat lind gocs"Hahl" like crapshooters alw:lYS do when they arerolling the dice.

Such 11 sentence is very loosely lied togcther; besides, it iJ

SF.NTENCI!S CoME FrRST 35

really two sentences joined by alld. If we Want \0 disentangleii, we can rewrile it easily:

Well, Charley takes the dice. He turns to n lillIe guy ina derby hat who is slanding next to him scrooching backso Charley will nOI nolice him. Charley lifls the derby haloff the linle guy's head, raulC.'l the dice in his hand,chucks them into the hal and goes "Hah!" Crapshootersalways do thai when they arc rolling the dice.

Now listen to n charming literary raconteur, AlexanderWoolleott:

If this report were to be published in its own England.I would have to cross my fingers in a linle forewordexplaining Ihal all Ihe characters were ficlitious-whichslern requiremenl of the British libel law would em­barrass me slightly b~ause none of the characters isfictitious, and lhe story-told to Kalharine Cornell byClemence Dane and by Katharine Cornell to me­chronicles what. to lhe best of my knowledge and belief,actually befell a young English physician whom I shallcall Alvan Baruch, b~ause that docs not happen to behis name.

This is already more difficult to unravel, but here we go:

If this reporl were to be published in its own England,I would have to cross my fingers in a lillie forewordexplaining that all the characters .....erc fictitious; andIhat stern requirement of the British libel law wouldembarrass me slightly because none of the characters ;$ficlitious. The story was told by Clemence Dane toKatharine Cornell and by Katharine Cornell to me: itchronicles what, 10 lhe best of my knowledge and be.lief, actually befell :I young English physician. I shallcall him Alv:ln Barach because thai does not happen tobe his name.

Similar in purpose 10 the raconteur-sentence is the news­paper lead-sentence. The reporter, (ollowing a hoary rule ofjournalism, !ties 10 get everything important into the firstsentence so that the reader whose eyes happen to get caughlby the headline starts reading and cannot slop unlil he knowsthe gist of the Slory. This system gets lhe news down the

36 How TO WRJ'T'E. SPUI. .0:1) T!nNx MORE EFF£CT1VELY

reader's throat whether he wants it or not, but it m3kesnewspaper re3ding a very unpleasant job. This is what youare likely to get with. your breakfast:

The German! hnve complell~d a mine belt three mileswide along the west coast of Jutland in Denmark as partof their invasion defenses, and preparations to meet theAnglo-American onslaught (rom the west have been re.viewed in Berlin where Adolf Hitler and Field MarshalGen. Wilhelm Kdtel, chief of staff of the SupremeCommand, met Field Marshal Gen. Karl· von Rundstedt,commander of the Wehrmacht in France.

Or. translated from tapeworm English into plain language:

The Germans hnve completed a mine belt three mileswide along the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. Thisis part of their invasion defenses. Adolf Hitler, FieldM3rshal Gen. Wilhelm Keitel (chief of staff. to theSupreme Command), and Field Marshal Gen. Karl vonRundstedt (commander of the Wehrmacht in France)met in Berlin. They reviewed preparations to meet theAnglo-American onslaught fronl the west.

Scientists, eager to win their argument, also often button­bole their readers with. long sentences. For instance:

Learning a language need not be dull, if we fortifyour caom by scientific curiosity ~boul the relative de­fects and merits of tbe language we are studying, aboutits relation to other languages which people speak, andabout the social agencies which have affected its growthor about circumstances which havc molded its char­acter in the course of history.

Maybe the argument would sound even marc convincinglike this:

Lcllming II language need nOI be dull. We can fortifyour efforts by scientific curiosilY about the langullge weare studying: What are its relotive defects and merits?How is it rclllted to other languages people speak? Whatsocial agencies have affected its growth? What circum­stances have molded its character in Ihe course ofhistory?

SI!NTENCes CoMI!: FIRST 37

The most notorious long-sentence writers are the lawyers.The reason is again similar: they won't let the reader escape.Behind each interminable legal sentence seems to be the ideathat all citizens will turn into criminals as soon as they finda loophole in the law; if a sentence ends before everything issaid, they will stop reading right there and jump to the chanceof breaking the rule that follows after the period.

Well, that's questionable psychological doctrine; what iscertain is that legal language is hard even on lawyers. Hereis a mild example:

Sick leave shall be granted to employees when theyarc incapacitated for the performance of their duties bysickness, injury, or pregnancy and confinement, or formedical, dental or optical examination or treatment, orwhen a member of the immediate family of the employeeis affected with a contagious disease and requires thecare and attendance of the employee, or when, throughexposure to contagious disease, the prescnce of the em­ployee at his post of duty would jeopardize the healthoLothers.

Now I cannot believe that sick leaves would generally increaseor decrease if this were formulated as follows:

Employees shall be granted sick leaves for these fourreasons:

(l) They cannot work because of sickness, injury, orpregnancy and confinement;

(2) They need medical, dental or optical treatment;(:3) A member of their immediate family is affected

with a contagious disease and needs their care and at­tendance;

(4) Their presence at their post of duty wouldjeopardize the healt.h of others through exposure to can.­tagious disease.

Finally, long sentences can be used for artistic reasons.Marcel Proust, the sreat French writer, built his novels froIUnever-ending sentcnces-with the effect that the reader feelsmagically transposed into a world of dreamy memories andintense feelings. This is hard to describe; but you lUay wantto taste just one sentence:

38 How TO WRITE, SPE.A", AND 1'lIINll: MORE EFPECTIVELY

But now, like a confirmed invalid whom, all of asudden, a change of air and sUrToundings, or a newcourse of treatment, or, as sometimes happens, an or·ganie change in himself, spontaneous and unaccountable,seems to have so Car recovered Crom his malady that hebegins to envisage the possibility, hitherto beyond allhope, of starting to lead-and beller lale "than never­a wholly different life, Swann found in himself, in thememory of the phrase that he had heard, in eenainother sonatas Ihat he had made people play over 10 bim,to see whether he might not, perhaps, discover his phraseamong Ihem, the presence of one of those invisiblerealities in which he had ceased 10 bclicve, bUI to which,as though the music had had upon the moral barrennessfrom which he was suffcring a sort of recreative in­fluence, he was eonscious once again of a desire, almost,indced, of the power 10 consecrate his life.

I am not going to translate this sentence into simple prose,first, because, in cold print. this would look like an insult toProust's memory and, second. because this will be an excel­lent exercise for you nHer you finish this chapter. I amafraid it will keep you busy for a while.

Meanwhile you may ask, what is the moral of all this?Shall we write nothing but short, simple sentences? Shall wedissect every long sentence we find? Is there any rule?

No, there is no rule. But there are scientific facts. Sentencelength bas been measured and tested. We know today whataverage Americans read with case, and what sentence lengthwill fit an audience with a given reading skill. So you get nota rule but a set of standards.

To understand the table that follows, remember twothings:

First, sentence length is measured in words because theyare the easiest units to COUnt: you just count everything thatis separated by while space on the page. But don't forget thatyou might just as well count syllables, which would give youa more exact idea of senlcnce length: a senlence of twentyone-syllable words would then appear shorter than a sentenceof ten one-syllable words and six Iwo-syllable words. Keepthat in mind while counting words.

SC1:ond, remember Fowler's definition of a sentence. Counttwo sentences where there are two, even if there is no periodbelween them but only II semicolon or colon. BUl don't

SEl'J'TI!NCI!$ Co"m FIRST 39

bother about sorting out sentences with conjunctions betweenlbem: the difference is not worth the added effort.

Now look at the table:

A verage sentence lengthVERY EASY

eASY

FAIRLY us'!STANDARD

FAIRLY DIFFICULT

DIFFICULTVERY DIFFICULT

in words8 or less

III.17212529 or more

Iust what EASY and DIFFICULT menn on this table J shallcxplnin in detail later (see p. 302). For the moment, noticethnt an average reader will have no trouble with an averagesentence of 17 words. (In a book or article, shorter sentenceswill, of course, cancel out the longer ones.) Easy prose isoften written in S·word sentences or so. Such writinll consistsmostly of dialogue and. as everybody knows, a book with alot of dialogue.is easy to relld. On the upper half of the scale.literary English runs to about 20 words 11 sentence, andscientific English to about 30 words.

So, if you want to rewrite or edit something for peoplewho are just about average, measure il against the 17·wordstandard. If the sentences are longer, look for the joints intheir construction and break them into smaller jlieces untilthey llre of the right average length,

As an

EXERCISE

as I said before, you mny try your hand at the Proust passage.U this seems too forbidding, here is another newspaper lead­sentence for you to dissect:

Because Allied postwar planning groups like theUnit~d Nalions Relief and Rehabilitation Administra­tion realize the chaotic conditions with which they willbe confronted by legally unidentifiable persons followingthe German collapse. leading British and Americanarchivists are here on a tour lhal will prohably lead (0

redefinition within the framework of military necessity

40 How TO WlltTl!. SPEAII::. AI'JD TIlINK MOllE EpPF.CT1VULY

of a system of handling damaged or newly occupiedproperties, it was learned today.

Rewrite this in easy 11·word sentences.

CJI3pter Four

GADGETS OF LANGUAGE

Now that we know what to do abOut sentences, the nextquestion is, of course, what kiod of words to put in them.This is the main topic of all books on how to write and 1cannot stan this chapter bener than by quoting the beginningof the best of the lot, Fowler's The King's English (where youcan study systemalically what is arranged by the alphabet inhis Dictionary oj Modern English Usage): "Anyone whowishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before heallows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, tobe dircct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid. This generalprinciple may be translated into practical rules in tbc domainof vocabUlary as follows:-

Prefer the familiar word to tbe far-fetched.Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.Prefer tbe single word 10 the circumlocution.Prefer the short word to the long.Prefer the Saxon word 10 the Romance.These rules are given roughly in order of merit; the last is

also the least."Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in bis Cnmbridge lectures On

the Art of Wriling. adds one more rule: "Generally use transi­tive verbs, that strike their object; and use them in the activevoice, eschewing the stationary p3S5ive, with its little auxiliaryis's and was's, and its pnrticiples getting into the light of youradjectives, which should be few. For, ns a rough law, by hisuse of the straight verb and by his economy of adjectives youcan tell a man's slyle, if it be masculine or neUler, writing or·composition·...

This is, io a nutshell, the best advice you can get anywhere.If you look at these rules closely, you will find that thoseabout short and Saxon words are admittedly not worth much,

41

42 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND THINK MaRl! EFFECTIVELY

and that Quitler.Couch's rule start!J with an arbitrary prefer­ence {or transitive verbs-as if lay were a better word thanlie. You will also see that the first rule about familiar wordsdepends not on your own familiarity with words but on yourreader's, which is hard to guess. And you will realize that tb.eexcellent mle about the single word being better than thecircumlocution is unnecessary as long as you stick to whatyou learned {rom the last chapter and use ns few words aspossible in your senlences.

This leaves us witb. Fowler's second rule: "Prefer the con­crete word to the abstract." Very good. Plain talk, as we allknow, consiSlS of concrete words; that's practically a defini­tion of it. But which words are concrete and which abstract?You think you know? Well, is apple a concrete word? Ofcourse, you say: you can look at apples, smell them, touchthem, eat them. BUI how about the concept apple? Isn't it truethat the word apple also stands for what all the apples in theworld have in common, for their "appleness"? Isn'l that ab­stract? How can you tell obout any word whether it is abstroctor concrele?

Actuol1y, it is 0 queslion of meaning nod of degree. Somewords, like democracy, cnn safely be called abSlracl since theynrc used chieny with abstract meaning; others, like apple,arc relt to be concrete because thcy usually apply to concreteobjects. It is possible-l have done it ooce-to draw up along list of the most common abstract words and then cbeckthe abstractness of writing by the proportion of those words.But Ihi.s is a cumbersome thing to do. You can get the sameresult in a far quicker and easier way if you count tbe lan­guage gadgeu.

For longuage consisls of two parts: the things we say andthe machinery by which we say them. To express our thoughls,as we have seen, we use sentences; 'and we cannot express athought by ony single word unless it is able 10 do the workof a sentence if necessary, So we can tell the meaningfulwords apart from thc mere language machinery by the sen­tence lest: if n word can form a sentence, it refers to some­thing oUiside language; if it cannot, it is just a languagegadget. This has nothing to do witb nbstro.ctness and con­creteness; il is a linguistic difference. For instance, the abstractword sin can be used as a sentence, as in the famous answerto the queslion "Wh31 was the sermon about?" Dut the nextquestion, "What did tbe preacher say?" had to be answeredby a whole senlence: "He was against II." AgflillSt by itselfwouldn't do as an answer; neither would dis· for "He dis-

GADGBTS op LANGUAGE 43

approved of it." That's because against lind dis- are examplesof language gadgets; Ihey have no meaning except combinedwith meaningful words in a sentence.

Now, tbe point of all Ibis is th:1I difficult, complex, ab­stract language is c1ullcred up with gadgets. If we stick tothis purely linguislic test, we can measure difficulty by count­ing gadgets, and we can simplify our speech and writing bythrowing them out.

Language gadgets, as you have seen, arc of two kinds:words by themselves, like Qgaimt, and parts of words (affixes),like dis-. The more harmful of the Iwo for plain talk nrcthe affixes, since Ihc rcadcr or hearer cannot undersland whalthe gadgct docs to the sentence before he has disenlanglcdit from the word it is attached to. Each affIX burdens hismind wilh two jobs: first, he bas 10 split up the word inlOits paris and, second, he has to rebuild the sentence fromthese parts. To do this does not even take a split second. ofcourse; but it adds up.

If you want to measure word difficully. therefore, you haveto count affixes. Here is what you do: You count every affixyou find in your text. every prefix. suffu, or inflectional end­ing. with the exception of -s at the end of a word, -en in chil·dren. oxen elc., and .<J or -t in could, did. had, mighl. ought.should. stood, went, would. Some words have two affixes,like dis-op-prove, some have three, like dis-op-prov-ing. Someseem 10 have nothing but affixes like phifo-soph-y; discountone in such words. When you have finished counting, figureout bow many affixes there are per 100 words; or, of course,you can take a lOO-word sample 10 begin with. Then youcan cheek the result against this table:

Nllmber 01 affixes per 100 lVor(/~

EASY 22 or less2631374246S4 or more

VERVEA'VPAuu.y EASY

STA!'o"DARO

PAIRLY DIFFiCULTDtFFICULTVERY DIFFiCULT

Again, for the time being, the average.reader standard of37 is most imponant for you 10 know. The best example ofVERY EASY prose (about 20 affixes per 100 words) is theKing James Version of Ibe Bible; literary writing tends 10 bePA1RLY DIFFICULT; scientific prose is VERY DIFPICULT.

44 How TO Warm, SPEA!t. AND TulNX MolU! EFl'ECTlVEL'I

To simplify a given passage, count first the number ofaffixes; then replace affix words systematically by root words,or at least by words with fewer affixes, until you :frrive atthe level you want to reach. The translating job is sometimesdifficult and a dictionary with simple definitions will help.(A good dictionary of this type is the Tllorndlke-BarnhartHigh School Dictionary, published by Doubleday & Com~

pany.)Let me show you how it is done on a passage from Refl~·

lions on the Revolulion oj Our Time by Harold I. LasklLaski, a leading British Socialist, wrote well, and his topicwas exciting; but unfortunately, he was a professor by tradeand his language was pure academic jargon. Here is a keypassage that seems worth translating into plain English:

What is the essence of fascism? It is the outcome ofcapitalism in decay. It is the retort of the propertied in~tereslS to a democracy which seeks to transcend thorelations of production implied in a capitalist society.But it is not merely the annihilation of democracy. Itis also the use of nationalist feeling to justify a policy offoreign adventure in the bort, thereby, of redressing thegrievances which nre the index to capitalist decay. Wher­ever fascism has been successful, it has been built upona protest by the business interests against the increaseddemands of the workers. To make that protest effective,the business interests have, in effect, concluded an alli­ance with some outstanding condotliere and his mer­cenaries who have agreed to suppress the workers' powerin exchange for the possession o£ the state. But as soonas the condouiere has seized the state, he h3S invariablydiscovered that he cannot merely restore the classicoutlines o£ capitalism and leave it there. Not only hashis o.....n army expectations. Having identified himselfwith the state he hilS to use it to solve the problemsthrough the existence of which he has been able toarrive nt power. He has no renl doctrine except hispassionnle desire to remain in authority. His test o£ goodis the purely pragmatic test of success. And he findsinvariably that success means using the state-power overthe nation partly to coerce and partly to cajole it intoacquiescence in his rule. Thnt acquiescence is the solepurpose of, and the sole justification for, the methodsthat he uses. The only values he considers are thosewhich seem likely to contribute to his success.

OADGnTS op LANGUAOI! 45

Now Ihis has S6 affixes per 100 words and rates VERY DIFFI­CULT, The followiog translation has 32 and should read fairlyeasily:

What makes fascism? Tt comes from capitalism iodecay, It is the rich people's answer when democracytries to go beyond the capitalist way of running pro­duction. But it docs not stop at wiping out democracy.It also plays on the people's love for their country toput over dangerous plans against Olher countries andso, they hope, to set right the wrongs capitalism in decaybrings about. Wherever fasetsm has been successful, ithas been helped at the start by businessmen trying 10

keep Ihe workers from getting more. To do this, Ihebusinessmen have, in fact, joined up with some out­standing gang leader and his hired soldiers who havemade a bargain to put down the workers' power andbecome owners of Ihe state in return. But as soon asthe gang leader has seized the state, he has always foundthai he cannot just bring back the standard forms ofcapitalism and leave it there. Not only docs his ownarmy wait for rewards. Now that he and the state arcthe same, he has to use it to solve the problems thaimade the businessmen put him in power. He has nobeliefs except his strong wish to stay in power. His lestof good is Ihe test of success. And he always finds thatsuccess mellns using state-power to force or coax thepeople 10 yield to his rule. This is Ihe sole purpose orreason for his methods. He has no usc for anything thatdoesn't seem likel)' to add to bis success.

YOII will notice thai some of the key words have been leftuntouched, like fascism, capitfllism, democracy, production.Other affix words, like decay, problem, success, methods,did not seem worth translating since they are easy to under­stand for every reader and would be hard to replace io thispassage. Remember that whenever you try 10 limit yourvocabulary rigidly, you become artificial and maybe un­English. If you want to achieve plain talk, you have to avoidthat mistake.

Another feature of the translation is thai it is much shorter,not only in syllables but also in words. Ordinarily, if youreplace afllx words by rool words, you will have to use morewords. But it so happens that there is a lot of deadwood inthis type of academic jllfgon that naturally falls by the way-

46 How TO WRI11!. SPBAIC, Ah'D TIIll'lK. MORB EFPECT1VELY

side once you start rewriting. He has no real doctrl'ne becomesHe has no belie/s, and the methods that he uses, his methods.

I admit that it is not easy to write about economics orpolitical scicnce in easy language. Gifted writers are rare inthis field; and a truly readable book like Bernard Shaw'sInte/licent Woman's Guide to Socinfis/ll ami Capitalism is agreat exception. Let me quote to yOll, as contrast, how Shawbegins his "Appendix instead of a bibliography":

This book is so long that I can hardly think Ihat anywoman will want 10 re.1d much more about Socialismand Capitalism for some time. Besides, a bibliographyis supposed to be an acknowledgment by the author ofthe books from which his own book was compiled. Nowthis book is not a compilation: it is all out of my ownhead. It was started by a lady asking me to write hera leller explaining Socialism. I thought of referring herto the hundreds of books which have been written onthe subject; but the difficulty was thnt they were nearlyall written in an academic jargon which, though easyand agreeable to students of economics, politics, philoso­phy, and sociology generally, is unbearably dry, mean­ing unreadable, to women not so specialized. And then,all these hooks are addressed to mcn. You might reada score of them without ever discovering thnt such acreature as a woman had ever existed. In fairness letme add that you might read a good many of them with­out discovering that such a thing as a man ever existed.So I had 10 do it all over again in my own way andyours. And though there were piles of books aboutSocialism, and an enormous book about Capitalism byKarl Marx, not one of them answered the simple ques­tion, "What is Socialism?" The other simple question,"What is Capital?" was smothered in a mass of hopeless­ly wrong answers, the right one having been hit on (asfar as my reading goes) only once, and that was bythe British economist Stanley levons when he remarkedcasually that capital is spare money. I made a note oftbat.

This is splendid wntmg, excellently readable for peoplelike you and me. (It IllIs 38 affixes per 100 words.) It justso bappens th:1! Shaw seems unable to write like this:

TIle extensiveness of the present volume is such tbat it

GADG£TS OF LANGUAOE 47

appears almost inconceivable that female readers shoulddesire to prolong the study of Socialism and Capitalismfor an additional period of time. This circumstance npart,a bibliogrnphy traditionally is supposed to serve as anllcknowledgmcnt offered by the author of the originalsources that contributed to the genesis of his compila­tion. In contrast, howevcr, to this usually followed pro­cedure. the present volume differs radically from acompilation inasmuch as it was solely and entirelyconceive~ and executed by the aulbor himself. ..•

And so on. Translating normal English into affix Englishis easy; with thc help of RogCt's rhestlllrus it's no work nt all,Moral: if you wnnt to write plain English, don't use yourRoget.

EXERCISE

Translate into FAtRLY EASY English (30 affixes per 100words) the following passage from Laski:

All governmenl arises became men move in opposedways 10 their objectives; no one but lin anarchist woulddeny that its existence is, under any circumstances wecan foresee, a necessary condition of peaceful social rela­tions, But the argument Ihat, especially in the economicsphere. we are overgoverned. is not one with which itis easy to have plltience. Less government only meansmore liberty in a society llbout the foundations of whichmen arc llgreed and in which lldequate economic securityis general; in a society where there is grave divergence ofview about those foundations, nnd where there is theeconomic insecurity exemplified by mllss.unemployment,it means liberty only for those who control tbe sourcesof economic power.

Chapter Five

THE GRAMMAR OF GOSSIP

Time magazine prides itself Ihat "our subscribers can under­stand Ihe event in terms of the personality who caused it.(Joe SIal in drinks his vodka strniBht. Admiral Turner of lheCentral Pacific delights in Browing roses. Air Marshal Harris'men love him because he is 'so bloody inhuman.')"

I wonder whether personalities really cause events andwhether Time readers understand the event beller be­cause they are told aOOm Stalin's vodka and Turner's roses.But there is no doubt about one thing: human interest make"for easier reading. Sciemific tests have shown that people arebetter at reading about other people than about anything else.

Why is this so? Probably because man knows nOlhing sowell as man. His lhinking and his bngunge started out assimple lalk nbout what he lind people around him were doing;and primilive man did not doubt that there was a person be·bind every event nnd behind every tree and mountain. Ourmodern Innguages, of course, have gone a long way towardabstraction; but most of them SIW keep male and fema.legenders for names of things, nnd in German. for instance,the answer to the question "Where is my coat?" is "He hangsin the closet."

So it seems to be naturally ellsier to read nnd understandS/(l/in drillks l'odk(l thnn Vodkn c(l/lmitlS nlco/wl. To use oncemore my comparison between language and a machine shopwhere thoughts are prepared for the trade: think of yourentering such an emply shop and bdng barned by it. and ofyour relief when you al last find somebody to guide you. Thisis what lhe name of a person in a sentence does to Ihe reader.

Therefore, after you have shortened your sentences andthrown out bothersome affixes, you bave to do one more

"

THE GRAMMAR Of> GOSSIP 49

thing to make yourself well understood: you have to keeptalking about people.

How can you do this, you ask. Many of the things you haveto talk and write about just don't have any human interest;you cannot properly discuss the situation on the stock marketby telling stories about two Irishmen. The human touch inplain talk is not a question of language, you say, but of subjectmatter.

1£ you look closely at the way the human clement is used inspeech and writing, you will find that this is not so. Peoplecome up in our sentences and· paragraphs not only whenwe are gossiping but in discussions of everything under thesun. Time magazine, whose journalistic formula is built uponhuman interest, is of course full of good examples. Here isbow various techniques arc used for various subjects in IIrandom issue:

The classic newspaper device, the eyewitness report, isused for a war story:

It was three days after the major part of the battlc hadended and we were out a few miles from the islandpatrolling our lillie sector of the ocean, swinging backand forth in huge figures of eight. The noise and colorsof battle were gone. The bombing had ceased llnd thebig guns on the ships were silent.

Now there was only a little smnke on the islllnd llndthough we could sec occasional puffs from the guns ofthe one destroyer which was still firing, the sound didn'tcarry 10 us...• A few of us were standing by Ihe railthinking our own thoughts when someone called atten­lion to some objects in the water.... There were threeof them, a hundred yards or more apart, and as we camecloser we could sec that they were men and that theywere dead.•••

The interview technique is used for a bit of foreign news:

Everyone in Helsinki tells me Ihal the Finnish foodsituation is now substantially better than it was twelvemonths ago.... As far as most ordinary Finns can seeboth on the front and in the rear, Finland is a defeatedcountry in which wartime life is difficult but by no meansinlolerable.

The impression of most observers in Helsinki whom1 have talked to is-in any ease the Government should

50 How TO WllrT1!, SPEAK, AND THINK MORe EFFECTIVELY

no! close the doors for further negotialions with theRussians, but should try to get beller tenns than thosewhich arc now being discussed. Most Finns want peaceunder. conditions which would assure Finland libertyand independence, but many doubt whether the presentRussian proposals guarantee these to Finland.

A local story from New York is presented in the thriller­fiction manner:

At 4:50 A.M. the elevator signal buz.zcd in InternationalHouse, the massive IJ-slory lodging place built by JohnD. Rockefeller for foreign students. The elevator manhad a blind right eye, but tiS he stopped the car heturned to look at his lone passenger. She was ValsaAnna Mattbai, 21, n pretty Indian girl from Bombay,n Columbia University student. She was not wellring theIndian sllri pulled over her hair, but a bright kerchief;and as she walked out of the empty, lighted lobby, theoperator noticed she wore a tan polo coat, dark slacks,and sport shoes. She had no bag. The street lights alongRiverside Drive mnde pale yellow pools on the driftedsnow, but beyond, Grant's Tomb and the park slopingdown to the Hudson River were lost in gloom. That wasthe morning of Mnrch 20.

A speech is reported so that the reader never forgets theperson who is talking:

The U.S. heard some plain talk last week on recon­version. It came from War Mobilization Director JamesF. Byrnes in II speech before the Academy of PoliticalScience in Manhattan. His most significant point: theharsh realities are at hand; big war plants are going toclose down; in the next 20 months war production willbe cut back some $16,150,000,000 at JellSt; another$1,402,000,000 will be slllShed from the spare parts pro­gram of the Army & Navy by the end of this year. ThenAssistant President Byrnes warned:

"The Government must lake a firm stand and closeplants no longer needed in the war effort. From civicgroups and (rom men in public omce, there will comethe cry: 'Woodman, spare the plant!' But we must realizethat Santa Claus has gone."

THE GRAMMAR OF GOSSIP 51

Then Jimmy Byrnes came to grips with the questionof dismissal pay for war workers...•

A dramatic slOry like a Congressional committee hearingis written up as stage drama:

At commiuee hearings the people's representativescan give the admirals some uneasy moments.

One of these moments came when Vermont's Repre-­sentalive Charles A. Plumley found an item of 57,000,00010 build a stadium al Annapolis. That did not seem toMr. Plumley 10 be essential to Ihe war. Ernie King'sdeputy, Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne (nol Ihe leastof whose qualifications is his abililY to get along withCongress), quickly admitted Ihat the item should nothave been put in the bill. ''The bureau chiefs are here,and I Ihink you are going to give them a btld quarterof an hour," said wry Admiral Horne.

For Mississippi's Jamie Whitten that dodge was notenough 10 excuse pillshy requesls for appropriations.Said he: "We just had Admiral King in here, and Ad­miral King stlys: 'I have to pass il right baek to AdmiralHorne'j now we have Admiral Horne here and he says 'Ihave to depend on the bureau chiefs,' and Ihen thebureau chief says 'I have to depend on the men underme,' and it goes right down 10 the fellow who is at theAcademy and wanted the stadium." Out went the sta­dium. Declared Jamie Whitten: "II takes a mighty smallilem 10 make you suspicious of Ihe big ilems."

And. of course, no issue of Time is withollt its biographicalprofile, skillfully woven together out of lillie anecdotes:

All his life Jack Curtin, 59, had never felt the need tosee the non-Australian world. Years ago, Vance Marshall,an Australian laborite now living in London, visited Jackin Perth. "I'm on my way to England," Marshall said...."Australia's in the backwash. It's back of beyond of eventhe fringe of things that matter. 1 want to be wherebislory is wrillen."

Jack reached for his well-worn hat, suggested a "walk­about." They walked all afternoon, coming 10 theEsplanade beside the leisurely, looping Swnn River atsunset. Said thoughlful Jack Curtin: "Vance, you shouldhave said where pasl hislory is wriUen. This is where

52 How TO WRtTI!, Sf'I!AK, AND THINK MORB EPFEC'TIVRLY

history is going to be written. Why don't you stay lindhelp write it? Australia's big, Vance, not England.There's room to breathe here, to grow, to live."

Stmight biography is aha part oC the profile:

Jack Curtin was an A\lssie who had to do things-­and 10 have a cause for doing them. His cnure wasSocialism.

He started out in staid and proper Melbourne-in IheMelbourne Club, smoking in the dining room is stillprohibited-but he started as II lowly printer's devil. Inno time lit nil he was holding office in a union. Soonhe was haunting Socialist Hall (smoking permitled) inExhibition Street, wRtching the great orators sway theirUUdiences, learning their tricks...

And here is n close-up portrait:

In the Prime Minister's office, a cool room with blueleather and a blue rug, a couple of etchings and a map,Jack Curtin affects a huge unclUllered desk. A reservedman, shunning formnl gntherings, he nevertheless likesto cock one fool on the desk. and lalk at length. Hesmokes incessantly-through n bamboo .holder-anddrinks tea without pause....

Time's buman·interest devices are, oC course, not nil thereare. Argument, for instnnce, lends itself very well to Ihe dis­cussion form-invented two thousand years ago by Plato.Scientific research is often made exciting as a sort of indoorsadventure story. Edueationnl material is best wrillen by direct­ly addressing the reader. (A handy example is the book youarc reading now.) And there arc many other ways of briDg­ing in people.

But all these tricks do not help much if you want 10 makea given piece of impersonal prose humanly interesting with­out doing a complete rewrite job. What then? Is there anyeasy way out?

The thing to do in such a siluntion is to go through thetext sentence by sentence and to look for the logical-nol thegrammatical-subjcct. After a while you will discover thatthe Jogienl subject is always a person amI thnt every sentencecan be wrillen so that tbis person is mentioned. Let's try

11m GRAMMAR OP GOSSIP 53

this with another item from the same issue of Time whichhas, on.the surface, almost no human interest:

Du Pont this week announced a new product ns highlypotential as its nylon. It is wood impregnnted withchemicals which transform it into a hard, polished ma­terial. Engineers call it "compreg."

The treatment makes pine as bard as oak, oak as hardas ebony. Wood so treated docs not warp, split, swellor shrink appreciably. It resists fire, rotting and termites,can be made as strong as many metals. It can be dyedany color so that it never needs painting or refinishing.If the surface is scratched, its glossy finish can be re­stored by sandpapering and huffing. Impregnated woodmakes possible among other things, doors, windows,and drawers that do not stick or gel loose.

Look at these sentences one by one. "Du Pont this weekannounced a new product as highly potential as its nylon."Du Pont? The corporation? Certainly not: the announcing wasdone by Mr. So-and-so, their public relations man. Howabout "The Du Pont people nnnounccd ..."?

Next: "It is wood impregnatcd with chemicals whichtransform it into a hnrd, polished material." Who impregnatedthe wood? The Du Pont people. Therefore: "They have im­pregnated wood with chemicals .•." "Engineers call it 'com­preg.''' That is: "Their engineers call it 'compreg,' "

"The treatment makes pine as hard as oak, oak as hard asebony." Treatmenl by whom? Why not "With this treatmentthey can make pine as hard as oak, oak as hard as ebony"?

"Wood so treated docs nOI warp, Split, swell or shrinkappreciably." To find the logical subject in such a sentence,you have to ask, How do you know? Well, how docs nnyoneknow a scientific fact? By testing. Every such stntement canbe reduced to a test somebody made nt some time. (This iswhat philosophers call operationism.) So let's rewrite: "Theirtests show that wood so treated docs not warp," etc.

"It resists fire, rotting nnd termites, can be mnde as strongas many metals," The first half of this scntence refcrs againto tests; nnd the passive "can bc madc" traoslntcs easily into"They can makc it ..." Ncxt: "It can be dyed any colorso that it never needs painting or refinishing." Who wouldhave to do tlle painting and refinishing? This is where thereader comes in: "... so that yOIl never nccd to paint orrefinish it." And again: "H tbe surface is scratched, its glossy

S4 How TO WRrrB, SPEAK, AND TI~ MORE EFFr:.CTtvELY

finish can be restored by sandpapering and buffing." Thisrefers to anyone who is interested in the practicnl use of"compreg," and certainly also to the reader. Therefore: "Ifyou scratch the surface, )'011 can restore its glossy finish .• :'

And now the last sentence: "Impregnaled wood makes pos­sible among other things, doors, windows and drawcrs thatdo not stick or gel loose." Possible for whom? For thc public,the reader, you. "Among othcr things, impregnated woodwill make it possible for you to have doors, windows, anddrawers that do not stick or get loose."

Here is the whole passage with all personal references intheir proper places:

The Du Ponl people announced Ihis week a newproducl as highly potential as their nylon. They haveimpregnaled wood with chemicals nnd transformed itinlo a hard, polished material. Their engineers call it"eompreg."

With this treatment, they can make pine as hard asoak, oak as hard as ebony. Their tests show that woodso trealed does nol warp, split, swell or shrink apprecia­bly; it resists fire, rotting and termiles. They can make itas strong as many metals Ilnd dye it any color so thatyou never need to paint or refinish ic If you scralch thesurface, you can restore its glossy finish by sandpaperingand buffing. Among other things, impregnated wood willmake it possible for you to have doors, windows, anddrawers that do not stick or gel loose.

Naturally, this version is nol liS readable as if the storyof "compreg" had been told by a dramatic description of itsdiscovery; bUI even the few t"eirs and )'OIIS serve to pointup the human interest that was buried in the original story.

The difference, as you see, is linguistic; and it can bemeasured by simply counting the proportion of ,heirs nnd )'OliSand other references to people in the text. A practical method10 do this is the following:

First, count all names of people. If the name consists ofseveral words, count it as one, e.g., "Vice Admiral Frederick

.J. Horne." Next, count all personal pronouns except thosethai refer to things and not to people. Then count the human­interest words on this list:

Man, woman, child; boy, girl, baby; gentleman, lady; sir,mister, madam (e), miss; guy, dame, lad, lass, kid.

THE GRAMMA'" OP GOSSIP 55

Fmher, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband,wife, uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece; family;parentj sweethe3rtj dad, daddy, papa, mamma.

People (not peoples), folks, fellow, friend.

Count also combinations of these words with each otherand with grand-, great-grand" step- and -in-Inw, and familiarforms of them like grQlldpa.

When you have found the number of these names, prl>nouns and human-interest words per 100 words of your text,you can check the degree of human interest against this table:

Number oj personal rejUe1lCes per 100 wordsVERY EASY 19 or moreEASY 14FAIRLY EASY 10STA!'1DARD 6PAIRLY DIFFiCULT 4DIFFICULT 3VEAY DIFFICULT 2 or less

The standard of 6 personal references per 100 words Ufound, (or instance, in (eature articles in popular magazines.Very easy prose, for instance love stories in pulp magazines,runs to about 20 such words in 100: that me:tns, every fifthword in such fiction refers 10 a person. Very. difficult scientificm:tterial, of course, may be written without mentioning anypersons at all.

EXERCISE

Rewrite the resl of the article on impregnated wood 10 thehum'tIl·inlerest standard of Time (about 8 personal refcrcncesper 100 words):

The product developed from research begun by theU.S. Forest Products Laboralory. The impregnating ma­terial, called metbylolurea. is made principally from twocheap, plentiful chemicals-urea and formaldehyde­which are synthesized from coal, air and water. In theimpregnating process, wood is pressed and soaked inmethylolurea solution, which is converted by the wood',acids inlO hard, insoluble resins. The wood becomesbrittle, but this disadvanlage cnn be parliy offset by im­pregnating only the oUier part of Ihe wood, leavinga resilient core.

56 How 'TO WRITE, SI'nAK, ANn Tnrm: MORI! EFFECTtVELY

Impregnated wood is so cheap and versatile that OnPont claims it will compete with the much more ex·pensive plastics and light metllis. Moreover, the processwill make usable vast resources of lillie-used soft woods-maples, poplars, gums. etc. The impregnation processsimplifies the making of veneers anu plywoods, becausepressed and impregnated layers of wood need no glue.

Chapter Six

LNE WORDS

You now know the recipe for simplicity: talk about peoplein short sentences wilh many root words. Here is an easytrick for killing these three birds with one stone: Use verbs.Let me repeat thai: Use verbs.

Nothing is as simple as a brief three-word sentence thatfollows the paUern: somebody does something. It is the verbthat gives life 10 any sentence; it Iilerally makes the sentenceg••

But we have setn that in Chinese, the simplest of alllanguages, there is no such thing as a verb (or noun oradjective, (or that matter). How, then, do the Chinese maketheir sentences go? Well, lhe explanation is simple: one wordin each sentence serves, so to speak, as its motor; for thisparticular sentence, it works as a verb. If a Chinese says"Man bite dog." the word bite, otherwise unclassified, servesas a verb; that's why it has been put after man and before doC.

ln modern English, which gets more and more "Chinese,"we do that all the time and "appoint" a word to do verbservice by puning it in a certain place in a sentence. Wecan say "Raise your (acc" or "Facc your raise"; "Ship abook" or "Book a ship"; "Spot the cover" or "Cover the SPOI:'There is 00 question that each of lhesc sentences has averb in it, and no question which is the verb.

The point of all this is, of course, that I am talking hereonly of those words that are used as verbs in 11 senteoce. Theyare what the grammarians call the "finite active verb forms"and they are the only ones that have life io them. Hearingof verbs. you probably think of passive participles and in·finitives and gerunds and all the other fancy vnrieties thatbave plagued your grammar-school days. Well, forget nboutthem: for all practical purposes they are not verbs, bUI nouns

"

58 How TO WRITI!, SPEAr, AND THINK MORE EpPEcnYELY

or adjcctivcs-lifeless words that won't make your scntcnccsmovc. The verbs you want to use arc those that arc in activebusiness doing verb work; if you usc a verb in the passivevoicc or makc 8 participlc or noun out of it, you havc lostthe most valunble pari in the process: it's like cooking vegc­tables and throwing away the water with all the vitamins in it.

If you go through any newsp3per or magazine and look forllctive, kicking verbs in the sentences, you will realize that thislack of well-uscd "erbs is the main troublc with modernEnglish writing. Almost all nonfiction nowadays is wriuenin a SOrl of pale, colorless sauce of passives and infinitives,motionlcss and flat as paper. Listcn to tbis, for instance (froman essay by Paul Schrecker in the Saturday Review):

Maybe the gradual actualization of this solidarity W:1Sthe result of scientific and bence technological progrcsswhich caused distances to shrink and required ever­exp3nding markets. But it is a preconceived and en­tirely unwarranted idea to believe this technologicalunification to have been a primary cause, and hence tooverlook the fact that its triumphant 3ppearance on thcworld scene would' not have been possible without theprior existence of a potential world-civilization, TIleever-cxpanding sphere of influence of literaturc, science,and works of art, which rarcly respccts any national orregional boundaries, cannot bc accountcd for by theintroduction of faster :md easier means of communica­tion or by the improved tcehnological mcthods of manreproduction. The phenomenon rcvcals mankind's pre­plIredness to respond prompdy 10 incentives emergingfrom the ficlds of knowledge and the ans, irrcspcctiveof their national and rcgional origin.

Or how about this (from "Mary Haworth's Mail"):

Morbid preoccupation with thoughts of sex gratifica­tion, alter one has att.lined tbe IIge of reason, is not asign of emotional precocity, as some may supposc; butjust the opposile. namely: evidence of II definitely in­fantile type of emotional egocentricity; wbat the psy­chologists call a state of arrestcd devclopment. Theuncomprchending inarticulate infant's sense of well-beingis wholly relatcd to bodily feelings,-of being well fed,comfortably clothed and bedded, fondly caressed, etc.His sole concern, insislently registered. is with physical

LtvS WOJU)S 59

gratification. because instinct tells him that pleasurablesensations, at his helpless level of development, aresynonymous with a reassuring sufficiency of creature careand bealthy survival.

Now, if you look closely, you will notice that the only active,finite verbs in the first passage are cous~d. r~quir~d. r~sp~cts,

and r~,,~ols; four mildly active verbs matched by 27 passiveforms, infinitives, participles, verbs made into nouns, andforms of the auxiliary verb 10 b~. In the second passage. wehave suppose, co/l. and tells, against 32 inactive verb formsof various types.

And now Ie! us look at the language of Shakespeare or theBible, for contrast. Here is a speech by Brutus:

No, not an oath; if not l:he face of men,The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse-­If these be motives weak, break orr betimes,And every man hence to his idle bed;So let high-sighted t}'Tl1nny range on,Till each man drop by lottery. But if these.As r am sure they do, bear fire enoughTo kindle cowards, and -10 steel with valourThe melting spirits of women; then, countrymen.What need we any spur, but our own cause,To prick us to redress? what other hand,Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,And will oat palter? and what other oath,Than honesty to honesty engag'd,That Ihis shall be, or we will fall for it?Swear priests, and cowlU'ds, and men eautclous,Old feeble carrions and such suffering soulsThat welcome wrongs; u_nto bad causes swearSuch creatures as men doubt; but do nol stainThe even vinue of our enterprise,Nor the insuppressivc mettle of our spirits,To think that or our cause or our performanceDid need an oath; when every drop of bloodThat every Roman bears, and nobly bears,Is guilly of a severnl bastardy,If be do break the smallest particleOf any promise that halh pass'd from him.

And these are words of Job:

60 How TO Warrs. SP!!.U". "1'01) 1'n1la MaRl! EPFECT1\"ELY

Wherdore do the wicked live, become old, yea, aremighty in power?

Their seed is establisbed in their sight with them, andtheir offspring before their eyes.

Their houses nre snfe from feu, neitber is the rod ofGod upon them.

Their bull gendercth, and faileth not; their cow calvetb,and casteth not ber calf.

They send forth their little oncs like a flock, and theirchildren dance.

They lake the timbrel and bllrp, and rejoice at tbesound of the organ.

They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment godown 10 the grave.

Therefore lhey say unto God, Depart from us; forwe desire nOt the knowledge of thy ways.

What is the AlmighlY, that we should serve him? andwhat profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

La, their good is nOI in their band: the counsel of thewicked is far from me.

How oft is the candle of the wicked put out! and howoft cometh their destruction upon theml God distributelbsorrows in his anger.

They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff thatthe storm carrieth away.

Clearly, most of the power, movemenf, and beauty of thesepassages comes from the succession of active verbs: Shake­speare makes tyranny range, men drop, and 11 cause prick liS

10 redress; the Bible makes a bull gender. a cow calve. andchildren dance: There are 19 live verbs in the Shakespearepassage against 11 passive verb forms, verbal nouns, eIC.;in the Bible passage the ratio is 20 10 II.

Maybe you will say Ihat I am unfair in using Ihe Bible andShakespeare as examples. After all, newspapers and magazinearticles are written to meet a deadline, by writers who don'tdream of being literary geniuses; so why compare their stylewith all-time masterpieces? I admit I am a little biased here;but anybody can try 10 use aclive, working verbs whereverpossible. It won't make him a Shakespeare but it will milkehim write good. plain English. Here is, for instance, onemodern example [rom Ernie Pyle:

The company I was wilh gOI its orders to rest about5 one afternoon. They dug foxholes along the hedgerows,

LIVE WORDS 61

or commandeered German ones already dug. Regardlessof how tired you may be, you always dig in the first thing.

Then they sent some men with cans looking for water.They got more K rations up by jeep, !lnd sat on theground eating them.

They hoped they would stay there all night, but theyweren't counting on it too much. Shortly after supper alieutenant came out of a farmhouse and told the ser­sellOts to pass the word to be ready to move in 10 min­utes. They bundled on their packs and started just beforedark.

Within half an hour they had nln into a new fight thatlasted all night. They had had less than four hours' restin three solid days of fighting. That's the way life is illthe infantry.

There are 16 working verbs there and not a single verbform or noun that could, or should, be turned into an active,finite verb. And now compare it with this sentence from apopular article on economics:

In somewhat over-simplified techniclll terms, innlltionis cllused by the existence, at any given time in aneconomic system, of an aggregate of eOective purchasingpower greater than the aggregate of the goods and serv·ices for sale.

What a definition! "Innation" is caused by the existence ofan aggregate thllt is greater thun another aggregate. Thisshows clearly how impossible it is to describe a process­something happening-without· using a single active verb. Ob­viously the writer reali:z.cd that himself, because the neusentence reads like this:

, .. When we ndd up the amounts of cash and creditof nil kinds at the disposal of evcrybody who is ready tobuy something, nnd find that the sum is larger than thesum of all the things to be bought at existing prices,thcn prices arc likely to go up.

Now the verbs are in thcir proper ploces, and everythingbecomes crystal·elear: First we add somclhing, then we findthat it is larger than something else, nnd then prices willgo lip. This is tbe classic type of scientific cxplanation: If youdo X and Y, what bappcns is Z. (Or, in the De Kruif man·

62 How TO WllrTe, Srn.u:. AND TlllNX MORE EPFECTIVElY

ner: The great scientist did X and Y, and whal happenedwas Z.)

And now, let's get down 10 work and trY 10 rewrite a""verbless" passage ourselves. Here is another bit from theliterary essay I quoted on page 58:

Integnued into Ihe circulation of national life muchmore complcldy than any othcr modern literature,American belles-lettres also give a much more faithfuland adequate picture of the entire civilization to whichthey belong than literature abroad, whose very com­pliance with-or willful opposition to-traditions thathave long lost their anchorage in the depths of theirrespective national civilizations, renders them unable tokeep abreast of the rejuvenated spirit of their epoch.

Here is the same sentence with the nouns mnde into verbs:

American helles-letlTes circulate in Ihe nalional lifemuch more than other modem literatures do; they pic­ture the entire civilization 10 which they belong moref:lithfully and adequalely. 1be spirit of the times hlUbecome young agAin, and literaturCJ abroad cannot keepabreast with it because of certain tradilions they complywith or willfully oppose. These traditions were once an­chored in the depths of their national civilizntions, butbave lost that anchorage long ago.

And now r expect yOIl to go ahead and pepper your speechand writing with active verbs. But before you start using thisrule of thumb. let me warn you. There is one plnce where itdoes not work: in wrillen dialogue. You know tbe son ofthing I mean:

"Shc is, I think, a lady not known to Monsieur,"murmured Ihe valct ...

"Show her OUI bere, Hippolytc." the Comte com~

m:mded ..•"My descenl upon you is unceremonious," she began

"Out Ral yourself, I beg of you, MademoiRlIe," criedIhe ComIc ...

"BUl yes," she insiSled .••"Cenainly people ure wrong," agreed the Comte •••

LIVI!. WORDS 63

"Perhaps," he murmured .••"The jewels!" she breathed •••

Fowler, in his Dictionary 0/ Modtrn Engli.~1t Usage, saysthat Ihis mannerism was slarted by George Meredith; wher­ever it comes from, it is nowadays an excellent means to tella bad novel from a good one. Apparently all bad writers doit and all good writers don·t. Look at the fearless way inwhich John Hersey repeats the word $oid in A Bell/or Adana:

Zilo said: "What is lhis Liberty Bem"Major Joppolo said: "It is the bell the Americans rang

when they declared themselves free from the English."ZilO Said: "The idea is good. BUI would America be

willing to part with this bell for Adana'?"Major Joppolo said: "We would have to get a replica.

ZiIO."Zito said: "Describe this bel!."Major Joppolo said: "WeJl, it hangs in a tower in

Philadelphia. I think ..•"

Imagine Ihis with Zito ventured and Major loppolo remt­nisced ...

And now for your

EXERCISE

Translate the two passages on page 58 into plain English bymaking as many words as possible into active working verbs.Or try your hand at this second quote from "Mary Haworth'sMail":

As nearly as r can make out, Ihis is n case of deferredadolescence. Mentally you are abreast of your years ormaybe a bit beyond. But emotionally or psychologically,you are slill the fledgling 14 which you assiduously ex·emplify in your chosen garb. The commdrum is whetheryour unseasonable green-gourd personality is directly re­lated to organic or glandular subnormality,-which isstaying your physical development more or less Ilt childlevel,--or whether it is, rather. the oUlpicturing of sub­conscious stubborn reluctance to grow up and thus takelasting leave of the special prerogatives and adulationyou may have enjoyed as a Charming child prodigy.

Clulptcr Seven

CROWDED WORDS

Voltaire once said: "The adjective is the enemy of the noun,"This sentence is one of the most famous epigrams about lan­guage; many young journalists have been started off with itand t3ught to hunt adjectives in their copy.

It's a good rule, but a little confusing, The fact is, gram.rowans stiU can't agr~ on what an adjective is. If you say,for instance, "A ravishing math teacher;' some of them willtell you tbat ravishing and math are adjectives; some will saythat ravishing is a verb form; some others will insist that mathis n noun (if they admit it is a word at all). The best thing(or us is to leave grammalical labels bebind and see wbat thewords do in and to a sentence, Then, at once, we see thatmalh defines teacher, and that ravishing is a commenl on themath teacher, Ln other words, there are two kinds of so-calledadjectives: commenting nnd defining, Now we can see whatVoltairo meant: obviously he didn't mean that a definingadjectivc is the cnemy of the noun, because it rcally belongsto the noun (What is she teaching?-Math) in fact it is II. partof the noun and you could just as well write math-teacher,with 8 hyphen. On the other hand, the commenting adjectiveis hostile to and literally kills the following noun: wbat weremember is that she is rnvishing, Dot that she teaches math.IT we want to "s:1ve" the noun from the commenting adjecth'e.we have to write this description in two sentences: "She isrovishing, She is teaching math."

As you see, the trouble with comment-whether adjective,adverb. or anytbiog else-is that it raises havoc with a sen­tence where it doesn't belong, In really simple language allsenlences are just subject-predicate sentences: "Man bite dog.""Man short," "Dog lolL" If you mllke one sentence out ofthree 8.Dd stick two comments into the first simple sentence

64

CROVfDEO VVORDS 65

("Short mAn bite tall dog"), you arc already on your waytoward difficulty and sophistication. You force the reader, orlistener, 10 lake in three ideas in onc sentcncc and you makeunderstanding just so much harder. (James Joyce went evcnfurther and packed several ideas into one word, like "brooder­in-low" or "I was just thinking upon that.")

So our rule for plain talk is: Don', try to save a sentenceby sticking a comment into another. Reason: Two short sen­tences are easier 10 understand than one long one, with extrastuff in it.

I said in the beginning that newspapermen are now beingtaught that adjectives are Bad. The trouble is, they are alsobeing taught to save words and so, aher a while, they forgetall about adjective bunting and become sentencc stuffers. Hereis a mild case:

Married, he lives with his wife And three sons in NewJersey.

What be means is: "He is married and .. ,"Sometimes the two id£as don't match:

The 53-year-old cornment;ltor left high school to carrycopy on the Brooklyn Times.

Or:

Kyser, bespectacled, was born thirty-eight years ago inRocky Mount, N.C.

Some writers habitually fill their sentences up to the brim.Here is an extract from a book review by Harrison Smith inthe Salllrdtly Review (I have put all the comments in italics):

The two sisters, island aristocrats, whose lijelong fatewas sealed when they saw one morning in Saint Piure ahandsome boy oj thirteen. whose ja/her, an IIn/idy but aheart-oJ-gold physician, had illS/ retllmed a witlower tohis native town. Margucrite, tile younger oj tlte sisters, ahappy, bllle-eyed, blomle child, wins his lovc; Mariannc,dark, passionate, sel/-willed, determinedly molds his lifeuntil he leaves the island, a fierl/enan! in the Royal Brit­ish Navy, bound Jor Ihe Cl,ina coast. The young ladiessit behind and wnit jrigidiy for over ten years for wordfrom him. William, in the meantime, had been lured by

66 How TO WlUTI!, Spnn. AND TIIlNl: Moall EFFECTIVELY

a half-caste girl in a Chinese pOrt into losing his ship andone morning, penniless, hal/-naked, and drugged, findshimself aboard a dipper ship, bound lor New Zealand,an exile.

Sorted out, this rcads:

Marguerite and Marianne were sisters. They wereisland aristOCrlllS. Marguerile was lhe younger; she was ahappy, blue·eyed, blonde child. Marianne was dark,passionate and self-willed.

One morning, in Saint Pierre, they saw a handsomeboy of thirteen. His name WllS William nnd he was Iheson of an unlidy physician with a heart of gold. Hisfather had just become II widower and relurned to hisnative town.

ThaI moment sealed lhe lifelong fnte of the sisters:Marguerite won the boy's love, Marianne molded his life.

Then, one day, William left the island. He had joinedthe Royal British Navy and become a lieutenant. Now hewas bound for tbe China coast ... etc. cle.

Or leI's havc n look at our friend from the lasl chapter,Mary Haworth:

Is il fine phl1osophic restraint or is it craven expediencyto 'adtly anent. as )'ou have done so far, to your wifc'sollfre performance, when you are confident it is part of apallem of' infidelity? If it were in truth the large reaetionof a nobly magnanimous mind, would it be accompaniedon the other hand by Ihe primitive male-egoist emotionll.1attitude that the marriage is wrecked for you, if she isindulging in a passing fnncy, as you believe?

Have you fenred sllbconrciollsly to force and fnee nshowdown lest the resultant disseclion of the marital rela­tionship nnd her possible countcr-eharges confront youwith a shrewd and merciless delineation of yourself asone pallidly devoid of safient "airs of thorough mllS­eulinily?

Nearly all lhc key ideas have been put into commentingadjeclives and adverbs. Here is another, more sophislicated ex­ample (from a film review by James Agee in The Nation):

Very belatcdly I want to say thai ''Thc Watch on the

CROWDED WORf)'l 67

Rhine" seemed much betler on the screen than it did,almost identically, on the stage-though I still wishedHenry James might have wril/en itj and thar f join withanyone whose opinion oLPaul Lukas' performance issuperlnlive. Also that a simple-hearted friendliness gen­erated ·between audience and screen at "This Is theArmy" made that film happy to see even when it wmotherwise boring; though I am among an apparentminority which feels that Warner Brothers' cuddly­revercn/(altreatmcnt of President Roosevelt-in "Missionto Moscow," "This Is the Army," and the forthcoming"Princess O'Rourke"-is subject to charges certainly ofindecent exposure and, quite possibly, of alienation ofaffection.

If you read this without the italicized words, you will seethat it still makes sense; but the real point of [he whole passageis expressed in those casually tucked-in adjcctivcs likc "simple­hearted" or "cuddly-revcrential." Mind you, 1 don't say thattbis is bad writing; but it isn't plain talk either, by a long shot.

Bue bow about descriptions, you say; How can you describeanything-a city, a landscape-without using descriptivc, com­menting adjectives? How can you get away from the pattern of"the nowery summer meadows, the lush cow-pastures, thc quietlakes and the singing streams, the friendly accessible moun­tains"? Simple: put your description in verbs, in predicates, indefining adjectives; don't commeut but describe what happens;report, don't analyze.

Here is a description of America (from II New York Timeseditorial) :

It is small things remcmbcrcd, the Iittlc cornet'll of tholand, the houses, the people that each one loves. We loveour country because there was a little tree on a hill, andgrass thereon, and a sweet valley below; because thehurdy-gurdy man C:lme along on a sunny morning in acity street; because a beach or a farm or a lane or abouse that might not seem much to others was once, foreach of us, made magic. It is voices that arc rememberedonly, no longer hcard. It is parents, friends, the lazychat o[ strcct and store and onice, and thc ease of mindthat makes life tranquil. ...

It is slories told. It is the Pilgrims dying in their firstdreadful winter. It is the Minute Man standing his groundIlt Concord Bridge, nnd dying there. It is the army in rags,

68 How TO WRrrn, SPIlAK, AND Tmm: MORE Et'l'ElCTlVlU.Y

sick, freezing, starving at Valley Forge. It is the wagonsand the men on foot going westward over CumberlandGap, floating down Ihe great rivers, rolling over the greatplains. It is the settler hacking fiercely at the primevalfor~t on his new, his own lands. It is Thoreau at WaldenPond, Lincoln at Cooper Union, and Lee riding bomefrom Appomattox.•••

In short, if you wont to give descriptive detail In plain lan­guage, dcscribe what you see, even using adjectives if youmust; but don't stuff your descriptions down the reader'sthroat, whether he wants them or not, by filling all the oddcorners nnd empty spots in your sentences with little dabs ofobservation.

Which brings us, of course, to Time magazine. As youknow, the little descriptive adjcctives-"beadY--cyed, thin­lipped"-lue the hallmark of Time; its editors say that theyhelp the reader get a better picture of wbat's going on in theworld. Well, Ict's have a look:

Devin v. Devon

Ernest Devin, the bull elephant of Dritish labor, lastweek sal bulkily silent, beadi/y watch/ill, in the back rowat a caucus of Parliament's Laborite members. The pro­posnl: to expel from the Party his homonym-pink,grizzled Welshmall Aneurin Bevon. The crime: LaboriteDevan's revolt against Labor Minister Devin in the Houseof Commons.

At tbe tense and trollbled meeting, Aneurin Bevan re­fused to recant. He argued thnt if he were bounced, 15other Laborites who sided Wilh him would also have togo. All over Britain, he warned, labor unions were risingagainst tOllgh, truculctlt Ernie Bevin's Defense Regulationl-AA (five years in prison for strike fomenters).

A!i Aneurin Bevan talked, Ernie Bevin restlessly shiftedhis weight, impll1;eatly nung his larm-hardened bandsabout in ge.f/llre.f Ire had long IIsed 10 brush aside op­ponents, sOllntJlessly worked his pudgy lips..••

This is the first part of a story about a British antistrikeregulation. But, because of the Time formula, the reader is al­lowed only a quick glimpse at the topic in a brief parenthesis.What he really learns from this first third of the story is thatDevin and Devan have similar nalnes (this is made the head-

CROWDED WORDS 69

ing) and thnt Bevin, in contrast to Bevan, is a heavy man(this he gets from four commenlS, with slight variations uponthe theme, plus two photographs of Devin and Bevan to showwhat tbey look like). What the trouble is about, or what thearguments are on each side, he cannot even guess at this point.

Now, psychologists have found that one of the main troublesin reading is the "overpotcncy" of ccrtain words. Since we al­ways rend a few words lit n time, those that are specially elfec~

live or colorful tend to blot out the others. The result is oftenthat we get 11 wrong impression or, at lensr, read an emphasisinto the text that isn't there. So it's quite obviow that T;n~

renders are apr to leam n lot about the face~ figures. bands.lips and eyes of world lenders, but nre liable 10 misread or slipwhat these people do,

So, for plain talk, here is a special rule about Timestyleadjectives: Don't use uny, People will get you better withoutthem.

And now, as your

E~'ERCISE

Rewrite, without commenting words, the rest of the passngeon page 6S nnd the passages on pages 65 nnd 66.

Cllaptcr Eight

THE GLAMOUR OF PUNCTUATION

Some time ngo, Sylvin P. Porter, the financial reporter. wrotea Reeder's Digest :Lrticle on the income-tax nightmare. Amongother things, she said. "there's an improvement upon whichall agree. And that is exiling from Washington forever thewriters of the incredible thing called income tax prose andmaking it mandatory for the new authors of tax instructionsheets to use (I) short words, (2) short sentences. (3) nosemicolons and (4) no parentheses."

The first two of these points are fine, of course; but the lasttwo just go to show that the average writer considers punctua4tion marks no invention of the devil that makes everythingmore complex and harder to understand.

That's nn odd idea. After all, wben people started writing.they just put one word after the other; as for punctuation, tbereader was on his own. Only latcr writers marked their copywith little dots and dashes and stnrted to give the reader abreak. And now people complain that punctuation makesreading barderl

I think the reason must be tbat punctuation. 10 most people,is a set of arbitrary and ratber silly rules you find in printers'style books and in the back pages of school grammars. Fewpeople realize that it is the most important siogle device formaking things easier to read.

When we are talking. of course, we don't use any punctua·tion marks. We use a system of sborter or longer pauses ~Iween words to join or separate our ideas, and we raise orlower our voices to make things sound emphatic or ensunl. InOlher words, we make ourselves understood not only by wordsbut also by pauses llIld by stress or pitch.

Punctuation gets pauses and stress (but not pitch) down 00paper. The system is simple to get the hang of:

70

Normal pauseSnorter pauseLonger pause

Normal stressUnstressedStre~ed

ThE GUMOUR OP PUNCTUATION 71

Be/ween Words Between SentencesWhite space PeriodHyphen Semicolon (or colon)Dash Paragraph

Normal type (or writing)Parentheses (or two dashes)Italics (or underlining)

Let me e:tplain this little table: As long as you use normalpauses and normal suess in talking, don't use anything butperiods and commas in writing. When you run two or morewords together with almost no pause between them (becauseyou use them in that sentence as one word), hyphenate them.When you usc a longer pause-Watch out for the next word!-make a dash. Same with sentences: When you run two ormore senlences together (because you use a string of sen­tences as one), use a semicolon or, if the fIrst sentence in­troduces the second, a colon. When you usc a longer pause­Now comes something else!-make a paragraph. And don'tforget to use itulics or parentheses for emphasis or casualmention.

When you put plain talk in writing, two punctuation marksare particularly imponant for you; hyphens and semicolons.The reason)s this: The fewer empty words you usc and themore you rely on word order, the more important it is for youto show which words belong closely together; this you do byusing hyphens. On the other hand, in plain talk you often usetwo or morc shon sentences instead of one long one and showthe connection by semicolons.

Here is for instance a collection of hyphenated e:tpressionsfrom a colloquial piece on Wendell )Villkie:

•.. this now·you-see-it-now-you-don't impression •••no Landon-like also-ran obscurity ... the big-shaggy-bearmanner ... the verbal give·and-take of a lawyer ... pag..sian for face-to-face debate ... the halcyon, high-wide­and-handsome days of Wall Street ... a financial-districtDemocrat ... n Willkie-packed audience ... Steve Han·nagan of bathing-beauty fame. :. tailoring his words tohis on-the-spot listeners ... it was a hcads-I-win-tails­you-lose proposition ... his forty-ninc-day junket aroundthe globe ... slow, unglamorous. personal-conlaet stuff•.. a lwenticth-cenlUry Henry Clay •.•

72 How TO WRIT!!, SPEAK, AND TmNlC MORE EpPIJC'T'IVeLY

As you see, hyphens come in handy when you want just tohint at a general idea or quickly describe an impression, Hereis a good example from Westbrook Pegler:

• , , one of those eontinued-among-the-leather-belting­ads analyses in Fortune, , •

Another from a Harper's article on de Gautle:

Churchill apparently succeeded in explaining away theno-longer-a-great-power clause in the Smuts speech andat the same time persuading de Gaulle that it was to hisinterest to suppOTt the bloc-of·Western-Europe policy itannounced.

And, of course, this just-to-give-you-the-idea device is a boonfor reviewers. Here are two examples from David Lardner'sfilm reviews:

• , , the old invisible-man setup , •. one of those lost­patrol affairs. , •

And three from Wolcott Gibbs's theater reviews:

Mr. Hammerstein is dealing in basic humor, an exten­sion of the snowball-and-silk-hat principle. , ,

, .. Mr. Hart.put heroism on a lheirs-but-to-do-or-diebasis, .•

• .. there is some conversation of a gallant, rueful, nndwon't-you-sit-down nature ...

The semicolon also has its special uses. Since it wiclds sev~

enl facts inlO a single event, it is one of Ihe favorile lools ofthe news digester. Here is John Lardner writing about GeneralMonlgomery in Newsweek:

I saw him in Reggio the first day I spent in Italy; sawhim 100 miles up the road talking to troops in a wood thenext day; and the day after that his cllr SUddenly pulledup 100 yards from my; [nIck at a point 30 miles 10 Ihecast.

And this is a typical bit from Time:

Tile GLAMOUR OF PUNCTUATION 73

No V-day?

Untie thos~ whistles; tak~ those boards off the shop~

windows; disband tnose parnd~s; put that bOllle of bour~

bon back on the shelf-there may be no V-day.So said the War & Navy Departments last week in an

OWl statement: V-day may be spread gradually ov~r daysand weeks. No general surrender of the German Armi~s

is expected; they may gradually disintegrate and surrenderpiece-meal. And the Allies' policy is not to accept sur­render from any hastily contrived substitute GermanGovernment; the Allies arc not looking for lIny NaziDadoglio; the war with Germany will be finally over onlywhen all Germany has been occupied, town by town.

Also, semicolons, the short-sentence mortnr, are the trade­mark. of a good popularizer. For instance, Microbe Hunter1by Paul de Kruif literally teems with semicolons. This is thepattern:

Pasteur sl:uted hunting microbes of disease andpunched into a boil on the back of the neck of one of hisassistants and grew a germ from it and was sure it was thecause of boils; he hurried from these experiments to thehospital to find his chain microbes in the bodies of womendying with child-bed fever; from here he rushed out intothe country to discover-but not to prove it preciscly­that earthworms carry anthrax bacilli {rom the deepburied carcasses of callie to lhe surface of the fields....

· .. Th~ time for the falal final test drew ncar: the veryair of the little laboratory beCllme finicky; the laut work­ers snapped at each other across the Bunsen flames ..•

· .. One dead child after another Loeffier examined; hepoked into every part of each pitiful body; he stained ahundred different slices of every organ; he tried-andquickly succeeded in-growing those queer barred. bacillipure ...

· .. They went at it frantic to save lives; they gropedat it among bizarre butcherings of countless guinea-pigs;in the evenings their laboratories were shambles like thebalilefields of old days when soldiers were mangled byspears and pierced by arrows ...

· .. He shot his mixture into new guinea-p~gs; in three

74 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TUrNK MORE EPFiOcrIVELY

days they grew cold; when he laid them on their backsand poked them with his finger tbey did Dot budge.

However, not all popularizers agree on this point. One ofthem, Walter B. Pitkin, the author of Lite Begins at Forty,always wrote extremely short sentences, from six to ten words.Since he despised semicolons, his style read like this:

In J919 I began to work with sheil-shocked Armyofficers who were having n tough time returning to theworld of business. Here wns one who had broken almostevery bone in his body and had lived to resume his oldjob with hardly any mental upset. Here was anotherwhose injuries were trivial. If he carried a cane he couldget around easily. But he loathed the cane. He seemed toregard it as a public confession of weakness. He was for­ever trying to do without it. Worse yet, he strove to walkwithout a limp. The strain was teITible, He insisted thatlife was empty for a cripple. Within twO years he killedhimself.

I reached two conclusions. Many people arc better offwith grave handicaps than with trifling ones. The gravehandicap releases copious energies. The trifling handicapseems to slir the person too feebly to open up the bigvalves of nervous and mental power. Then, too, peopleoflcn try to mask lhe pClIy handicap, which leads tofurther complication of the personality,

Now let's put in semicolons; colons, dashes, and paragraphs:

In 1919 r began 10 work with shell-shocked Armyofficers who wcre having a tough time returning to theworld of business. Here was one who had broken almostevery bone in his body and had lived 10 resume his oldjoh with hardly any mental upset. Here was anOlherwhose injuries were trivial: if he carried a cane he couldgel around easily. BUI he loathed the cane----he seemedto regard il as a pUblic confession of weakness. He wasforever trying to do withoul it; worse yet, he strove 10walk without a limp. The strain was terrible; hc insistedthat life was empty for a cripple; within two ycars hekilled himself.

I reached two conclusions:Many people arc betler olT with grave handicaps than

with trifling ones: lhe grave handicap releases copious

TilE GLAMOUR OF PUNCTUATION 7S

energies, the trifling handicap seems to stir the person toofeebly 10 open up the big valves of nervous nnd mentalpower,

Then, too, people often try to mask the pctty handicap,which lends to further complication of the personality.

See the difference?In fact, without colons and semicolons no one could imitate

spoken language in print. As nn example, listen to a little eye·witness account from a detective story by the British poct CecilDay Lewis (Nicholas Blake):

"I knows my way about here in the dark like a mole.)'d a torch, of course; but I didn't want to usc it in case itshould give away my position to Ihe enemy. A propernight attack-that's what I wanted to spring on theblighter. See? Well, I came upstairs quiet. and just as Irounded the corner lit the other end of Ihis passage 1 sawsome one outside the door of Mr. Dunnett's room.There's a hit of light comes in through the skylight justabovei not what you'd call light but not as dark as thestairs: just enough for me to see a son of figure. So Iclicks on my torch: only, me standing close against thewall, the movement hit the torch against it about a secondbefore the light went on: the bUllon's a bit stilT, you see,The blighter heard the sound and it gave him lime to nipround the corner and be off; moved like a bleeding streakof lightning, he did. If YOU'll pardon the expression, justsaw his tail light whisking olI, as you might say. I goesafter him. thinking he'd be bound to run out by the frontentrance, but seems like he didn't."

So, punctuation marks are handy gndgets in writing plainlanguage. If you want to, you can even go further and explorethe fromiers of punctuation, so to speak: new punctuationmarks are .always cropping up. Here is one that seems to havea future: figures for enumeralion. Of course, figures have al­ways been used in outlines and so on; but nowadays you canwatch them becoming a punctuation mark proper. Time is aninveterate numberer:

Britain's adherence 10 unconditional surrender is basedon; l) Ihe determination to reform and re·educate Ger­many; 2) the equal determination to avoid any truckwhatever with Hitler and his gangi 3) the acceptance of

76 How TO WRITE, SI'l!AK, AND Tlllm MORn EFFECTIVELY

the argument that a war between ideas means a Europeancivil war rather than one between nations, ..

. . . But the Nazis did have the sense to install as theirNo. I puppet a Slovak who commands a real following: acanny, bullet-headed nnlionalist and priest named JosephTiso. With political craft and German aid, Tiso has: 1)fed his countrymen relatively well; 2) provided statejobs; 3) promoted Slovaks in government service; 4)suppressed pro-Czechs, by deporting them or threateningto. "

•. , Costa Rica's Presidential campaign, so bitler thatit threatened civil war, ended last week in a comp'arativelypeaceful election (two were killed in an interior village).The winners: I) Teodoro Picado. candidate of incumbentPresident Rafael Calderon Gardia's Republicans and ofthe Leftist Vangllardia Popular; 2) Costa Rica, whichkept its status as the only democracy in dictator-riddenCeolraJ America, , .

EXERCISE

Here is, without punctuation, a picce from Leo M. Cherne'sThe Rest oj l'our Lile:

The United States will not suffer a serious postwar in~

flation because slowness of reconversion unemploymentboth business and public uncertainty will work againstthe dissavings that economists fear so mucb. we wonthave innation because everything that will happen to youwill compel you to hold on \0 your money rather thanspend it here is tI preview of the kind of denationary de~

velopments that will occur fim of all there will be termi~

nation unemployment secondly theres the absoluteeerlainty that take home pay will fall youll hold onto your savings much tighter when your weekly pay en~

velope is thinner nnd thinner it will be because of thereduction in hours lInd overtime third YOllre going to waitfor prices to come down wartime conditions Corced pricesup youll be saying 10 yourself and youve waited so longyou can wait a lillie longer fourth youl! be waiting forthc new products that you read about and bavent seen inthe shop windows why rush oul and get a radio whenthat swell FM television standard short wave combina~

TlII!. GUMOUR OP PUNCTUATION 71

tion may be just a few months away fifth and most im­portant theres the basic fae! of what !he war economydidnt do to you it didnt tighten your belt too uncom­fortably and there will be no real pressure for you to slipthe strap out of the buckle immediately you havent beenstarved enough so that youll want to rush out madly andbuy if you had been going without shoes in p:ltched uppants in a calion overcoat as our allies have been doingthen certainly youd let loose in the greatest buying spreeof your life but no mailer how long the W3r lasts youwont be brought to desperation furthermore however in­sufficient our future production you will go into thestores and shops certain that you will be able to get allyou need for your bodys comfort even if you cant get allyou want for your hearts desire no we will not be exclaim­ing after the war good grief how the money rolls outpeople will not be leUing go instead of a flight from thedollar we will have a desperate clinging to the dollar untilemployment begins to pick up again and job tenure beginsto look more real

Looks like a page from a stream-of-eonseiousness novel thisway, doesn't it? Now translate it into a sanc economic argu­ment by punctuating it up to the hilt. Herc are the first fewlines as a starter:

The United Stales will nOI SliDer a serious postwar in-fla/ion because:

(1) slowness of reconversion;(2) unemployment;(3) both business and public IInccrlainty-

will work ogainst the "dis-savings" thnt economists fearso much.

We won't have inflation because evaylhinR Ihat willhappen to yall will compel you to hold on to yOllr mOlleyrather tlian sp~nd il.

Here is a preview of the kind of "de-flationary" de­velopments that will occur:

First of all, there will be /ermination IInemploy­,nent •.•

Cllrlpter Nine

CiIN SCIENCE BE EXPLAINED?

When people talk about something Ihal's difficult to read,they are apt 10 say it's "too technical." The ordinary person,when he gets bogged down in a hook or article, wouldn't thinkof saying, ''The author of this can't write"; he will say, "A lay·man like me wiU never understand this" lind let it go at that.In other words, most people think Ihal some subjects arc easyand some difficult and it hardly matters what language is usedin explaining them.

I don't agree with those people. The principles of simple Jnn­guage arc just as important, or maybe more so, in explaining,say, biochemistry, than they are for a news broadcast. Theonly difference is this: When you use simple hmguage for any­thing that is not scientific or technical, you Clln explain it toanybody; but when you simplify science, you will find thatonly part of it will be understandable 10 the layman, and an·other part, however simply stated, will be clear only to peoplewho have some training in thai brnneh of science. There is noscientific discovery or theory thai cannot he populariz.ed-upto a point; the important thing is to know just what can beexplained to the ordinary person and what can·t.

Let me show you an example of what I mean: Some timeago International Business Machines Corporation working withDr. Howard S. Aiken of Harvard Unive.rsity developed a so­called mathematical robot, that is, an automatic calculatorthat can solve tremendous, otherwise insoluble mathematicalproblenu. Now bow can anybody explain this incredible ma­chine to n laym:m? At first sight, you would think it's impos­sible; but thaI isn't so. In facl, the machine i~ being operatedby laymen; they get a code book prepared by a mathematicianand all they have to do is to follow the code and punch. holesin a tape. So tbe opcrazion.'i of the mnchine can be explained

7B

CA.N SCIRNCE BE EXt'LAlNl!D? 79

very simply; the book probably says something like "Firstpunch bole A6; then punch hole C3 t" and so on.

But you can also go one step further and explain to a lay­man what mM ond Dr. Men were about when they werebuilding that machine: you can tell what tbe problem was,for what purpose the machine was going to be used, whattheory they had in mind and how they put it into practice,and finally what tests they used to be sure the monster~gadget

worked. All this can be told in simple, ordinary language, andif it's properly dramatized and made interesting, it will go along way toward explaining the meaning of this scientific de­velopment: not exactly what was done, but why and how itwas done. It will give the layman an explanation he can under­stand, and usually that will be all he wants.

There is, of course, a third kind of explanation, a mathe­matical explanation of the machine for mathematicians. This,too, can be put in simple language, that is, short sentences,simple words and so on, and that will save mathematicianstime and effort in reading their professional journals. But­let's face it-the layman will ncver understand the formulasand graphs, To understand exactly what IBM and Dr. Aikenhave done, you bave to have so-aod-so mnny years of higbermathematics, and tbat's that.

Or let's take another example that happens to be handy,How can the scientific yardstick formula of this book be ex­plained? The answer is exactly the same. Again, there arethree levels of explanation, two for laymen, one for scientisl5only. First, there is the operation of the formula: that can beexplained by the simple set of directions which you will findin the back of the book. Second, there is the meaning of theformula: to explain that propcrly, I would have to go intothe history of language simplifying, the relationship betwccnlanguage and understanding, the readability formulas that weredeveloped by other researchers, the differences between thoseformulas and this onc, and so on, Then I could dramatize thewhole story and that would probably give most people all theexplanation they want. However, there is still the third level,that of the :icienti/ic explanation; and here I would have toget into statistical regression formulas nnd multiple corrclationnod whatnot, and nobody who hasn't had a course in statisticswould know what I am talking about.

Now let's see how the principles of language simplifyingapply to these three types of scientific explanation. First, let'stake a look at the language of operation sheets, dircctions,shop m:lOuals, popular mechanics. lbe literature that tclls how

80 How TO WkIT1l, SI'I!AX, AND TIIINK MaRS EpPECTIVELY

to do a technical job. Here is an example I picked at randomfrom II book on papermaking::

In the event of there being more than one screen serv­ing the machine (as is usually the case) it is necessary towatch carefully the operation of the screens with refer­ence to the stock supplied them, and each valve 'houldbe opened or closed in proportion to the capacity of thescreen it is feeding. If there is any difference in the capaci.ties of the screens, it is probably due to the cams or toe­blocks being worn, or some other thing affecting theoscillation of the diaphragm.

Now obviously this is not very readable. Dut what are theobstacles the reader has to face? Certainly not the technicalterms; in facl, any reader interesled in papermilking machinesis apt to know what a cam or a toe-block is. and tf not, willhave no trouble finding out. But Ihat technical knowledgewon't make it any easier for him to work his way through"in the event of there being" or "with reference to the stocksupplied them" or "in proportion to the cllpacity." The simplefact is that people who know something about certain techni­cal operations are usually those least equipped for writingabout them or explaining what they know to somebody else.

Not so long ago a New York Tima Slory described theexcellent instruction manuals put out by Bell Telephone Lab­oralories for the Army and Navy. Let me quote one sentence:"The company has discovered that il is easier to hire a quali­fied editor and teach him what he needs to know about thetechnical terms involved than it would be to lake II qualifiedengineer and teach him what he would need 10 know aboutthe art of editing ..."

If those pnpermakers had followed the same principle, ourpassage would probably read somewhat like this:

Usually the machine is served by more than one screen.If so, wntch carefully how much stock goes through each.To keep the flow even, just open or close the valves. (Ifyou want to make the screens work evenly, look first forworn cams or toe·blocks. Most often thnl's what makesthe difference.)

In Olher words, all writing of the operalion·sheet type shouldaddress the render directly, and should tell him step by stepwhat to do. It's as simple as that. Anybody who writes how·1o-

CAN SCIIONCB BE EXPUINED? 81

do prose sbould start off by reading a good cookbook; here,for instance, is a model paragraph from Fannie Farmer:

Apple Pic,Line pie plate with pastry. Pare. core, and cut apples in

eighths, put row around plate Jh incb from edge, andwork towMds center until plate is covered; then pile onremainder. Mix sugar, nutmeg, salt, lemon juice, andgrated rind, and sprinkle over apples. Dot over with but­ter. Wet edges of undercrust. cover with upper crust. andpress edges together. Prick several places with fork. Bake.

Anybody can understand that. and anybody can understandany kind of technical directions that are written in the samestyle.

When we come to the second level of scientific explanation,we find, oddly enough, that there is also one single standardformula. The reason is simple: Since the meaning of anymodern scientific fact can only be explained by the method ofits discovery, and since the scientific method is tbe same in allbranches of science. any such explanation will be the storyof a scientist. or several scientists, going through the classicfour stnges of modern scientific method: observation, hy­pothesis, deduction, and experimental verification. So thistype of popularization will show how a scientist got curiousabout certain faclS, thought up a theory to explain them.devised experiments 10 prove the tbeory, nnd finally tested itand found that it worked. If two scientists working on thesame problem cnn be shown, so much the better: this willmake the reader appreciate not only tbe scientific method, butalso the fnct that modern science ·is never none-man nffair.

Popular science written by this standard formula is prob­ably the most educational type of writing there is: it's the onlyway of making laymen appreciate scientific method. But let'Snot get into this; let me rather show you n classic example.This is from a Reader's Digest article on penicillin by I. D.RaiCliff:

The story of penicillin begins in 1929, when Dr. Ale",·ander Fleming ... was examining n glass culture platemilky with millions of bacterin. His sharp eye detectedsomething. There was n neck of green mold on the plnte,and around this fleck wns a hnlo of cleM Iluid. Sometlling

82 How TO WJ.JT'E. Sl'EAC. AND TruNK MaRl!. E!PPI!.CTlVI!.LY

war dtstroyinC the bacterial A mold that had dropped infrom the air was cawing their sudden death on an un­precedented scale ..•

Dr. Fleming fished out the mold but research on itstood still for ten years.... Then the sulfa drugs camealong to reawnken interest in this field.

The sulfa drugs were amozing perConners against somebacterial diseaSC!; sorry failures against others. Somethingbt:tter was needed.... Dr. Howard Florey of OxCord re­membered Fleming's work. Thai green mold was poisonto bacteria on culture plales. Might it not also work inthe bodies of men?

Florey and his colleague! .•. deeided to investigate••. They set to work at the tedious. task of growing thegreen mold in eanhen-wnre flasks. When the mold hudgrown into a hard, rubbery mllt the chemists took over.Hidden somewhere in the mold wus a bacteria killer.

By' a stow process of elimination, the cbemists dis­carded chemical components of the mold that had noantibacterial elTeet. In the end they turned up with theminutest pinch of a yellow-brown powdery stuff. Thismight be the bacteria murderer.

The first trials of the yellow powder were run in testtubes. It appeared Ihat as linle as one pan in 160 millionwould slow the growth of bacteria! ••. This lookedsplendid. But there was still a big hurdle to overcome. TIlestuff somehow poisoned microbes. Might it not alsopoison men?

Florey and his helpers ... shot huge doses of surestreptococcus. death into SO mice. Then the mice weredivided into two groups of 2S cacho One group would getno further attention; the other would get penicillin.

Within 17 hours nil the unprotected mice were dead•• • . Hundreds of other mice trials followed, with similarlyfavorable results.

At lasl Florey was ready 10 carry his work from miCeto men..••

And 50 on. This is science for laymen at its best, and it',written in typical ReDder's Digest manner, so that an averageperson CllI1 understand it. But I hope you realize that it is apiece of what might be called science appreeilltion, not ofscientific explnnntion. It does not even have the chemical

CAN SCIENCE De EXPLAINED? 81

fonnula (or penicillin in it. In short, (rom a scientist's pointof view, it offers no explanation at all.

To explain science fully, as I said before. you will have touse a third level of explanation, and this is where the laymanwill never be able to keep up with you. Suppose, for instance,you are asked for an eltplanation of what retene is, and !.he5nc)'c1apaedia Britannica gives you the following clue:

RETENI!, an aromatic hydrocarbon occurring in wood tarsIUld obtained by distilling resinous woods. Il crystallises incolourless plates melting at 98.5 0 C and boiling at 3940

C. Chromic acid oltidises !.he hydrocarbon to retenequinone (an ortlrodiketone) and permanganate oxidisesthe quinone to 1-hydrolty·jsopropyldiphenyl-l: I ':2'­tricarboxylic acid. These reactions show that retene ismethyl-isopropylphenanthrene, ClllHu , with !.he adjacentstructural formula.

Plainly, there is no way of really telling n layman whatrelene is. To understand it, with or without simple language.you have 10 be a chemist, and Ihat's that.

There is only one bit of advice 1 can offer in this businessof giving laymen an exact scientific explanation: don't try.It is far beller to be as frank as Bertrand Russell in his popularexplanation of the relativity !.hoory, who says at one point:

• . • this part can be expressed by the method of"tensors.'; The importance of this method can hardly beexaggerated; it is, however, quile impossible to explainit in non-mathematical terms.

Or, if you arc unfortunate enough to be assigned to suchan impossible job, you might add some sort of apology, theway Gave Hambidge did in lhe 1941 Yearbook 0/ Agricul­ture:

•.. The editor would like to point out that to visualizeeven the more elementary aspects of atmospheric circula­tion over tbe earth is not easy, since you have to imaginethat you arc a mile or lWO up ill the air, on your stomachwith your head toward the North Pole, n clock nearbylying on its back so you can readily tell which is clock­wise and which counter-clockwise rotation-also a mirrorso you can see bow everything would be reversed if you

84 How TO Warm, Sp~. AND Tnrm: MORE EP'PI!.CllVELY

were in the SoUlhem instead of the Northem Hemisphere,and you have to remember COMlantly that a south windis a northward-moving wind, an east wind 11 westward­moving wind, and vice versa.

Cllapter Ten

.Il FOR READABILITY

And now lei'S get down to brass lacks.Suppose you are facing somc bread-and·buller writing job

-like the Employee ManuIII of the Wondrous Widget Com­pany-and you wllnt 10 apply wbat I've lold you so far in thisbook.

Here is what you do:First, make sure you know for whom you arc writing. Ha.ve

8 look at your prospective readers. Talk to Ihem. Find outwhat they know, what they don't know, and what they want10 know. Take your own private opinion poll on the queslionsand answers they have in their minds. Use the results: wrileCor your readers and nobody else.

Now collect your material. Get allihe information you need;pay special attention to lillie tbings that will add color andbuman inte~st. Look out for human louches like the fact thatold Christopher Crusty, the founder of the fum, was laid upwith poison ivy when the millionth Wondrous Widget rolledoff the assembly linc.

Then, when you have n11 the Sluff you need, SlOp for a whileand do something elsc. Calch up wilh your cor~spondenceorwork on anQ(her nssignment for II couple of days. Give yourunconscious a chance.

When you are ready to start writing, you will probably haveat least one idea for an "angle" or a "piaL" Maybe you canbuild your manual around the life of Matthew Mumble, whobas just finished his fiflieth year as assislant bookkeeper; oryou can describe the first day at work of Belly Brandnew whohas just been hired as a typisl. Or mnybe that sort of thingdoesn't suit your purposc; but rome kind of bnsic structurewill. There must be n way for you to write something peoplearc going to read-not just a heap of facts.

8S

86 How TO WIUTt!, Srux, .um TUINe MORIl EFFECTIVELY

Once you have gotten that far, it will be easy to figure outwhat should come ftrst llnd what last. Don't make that oldmistake and start your Employee Manual with four pages onhow the company got off to a slow slart in 1853. Start withsomething interesting and promising; wind up with somethingthe reader will remember.

As you write, make sure there's plenty of narrative and II

good deal of dialogue. There should be live people in yourbooklet. When you talk about the company, say we; when youtalk about the employee, say YOII. There's no excuse for theIt·is-expected-that-Employees-of-the-Company-shaU school ofmanual writing.

And now do something about your sentences and words.Short sentences are easy to write. Remember that compoundsentences-thosc with ands and buts-are not so bad; go afterthe complex sentences. Look for the joints where the conjunc.!ions arc--il, becallse, 41'. llnd so on-nnd split your sentencesup. If you feel this makes your style too choppy, change thepunctuation. There's a lot that can be done with semicolons,for instance. "I have raised the semicolon to its zenith,"AlCJl:ander Woollcoll once wrole. Clln yOll say the same?

Short words arc harder to manage. Again, it's not the longword that's the trouble, but the complex word. Look out forprefixes and suflixcs-syl1ables like pre. re, or de, and ality.Ollsness. or ization. Words with these syllables arc those to splitor replace. Do it consistently and you'll be surprised nt theresults.

Prohably it won't be easy for you to express yourself inshort, simple words. You :ray them every day, but they don'tcome to you when you sit down to write, This is where youneed help--deviccs, tricks, rules. Here are a few:

First of all, get yourself a dictionary of 'simple synonyms. Idon't mean an ordinary book of synonyms, nnd I certainlydon't menD Roget's Thesaurus. (If you pick synonyms oul ofRogel, you will poison your style in no time.) What I meanis a dictionnry where words are explained by the simplest pos­sible definitions. Ordinary dictionaries don't do that; the one Irecommend 10 you is the Thomdike-Barnharl High SchoolDictionary.

Let's say you want to usc Thorndike 10 improve this sen­tence in your manual: "The Company cncoUnlges the con­tinued education of staff members of all ranks to supplementthe practical training and experience acquired during officehours."

R FOk READARIUTY 87

Look up the key words in this sentence in Thorndike. Youwill find:

~ncOUTag~ urgecontinue keep upsupplelnent add 10acquire gel or gain

Now use Ihese simpler words with we and )'OU: "We uraeyou to keep up your education and add to the practical train·ing and experience you get during office hours."

This gives you a fair idea what Thorndike will do to im·prove your style.

But you don't even have to use Thorndike to find simplDsynonyms. I shall give you 11 sort of miniature Thorndike rightbere llnd now.

My simple·word·finder comes in three parts-three lists ofwords. If you use these three lists conscientiously and fully,your slyle will soon lose its heaviness and begin to look likethe girl in a Success School advertisement otter.

The first list consists of "empty words." These arc panicles-prepositions. conjunctions. adverbs. elc.-thal belong to theSlnlcture of the language. When you remember that tbesewords make up more than 50 per cent of all the words youusc, you will understand that it makes a tremendous differencewhether they are simple or elaborate. Follow the rule that ingeneral one "empty" word is better than two or three. and ashan one is beller than a long one. If you can get rid of the"empty" word altogether, so much the better, of course. Hereis my Jist:

Too bell\-")' prepositions and conjunctions

olong the lines 0/: likeas to: about (or leave out)lor th~ purpose 0/: forlor Ih~ retuon 11101: since, becausefrom tile point of view 0/: forinasmuch as: since, becausein favor of: for, toin ordu to: 10in accordance w;t": by, underin the case 0/: ifin tlte evenl tltal: ifin t"e flalUre 0/: likein '''e neighborhood 0/: about

88 How TO WRITE, SPEAJ:, A!'o1) nlfmc MaRl! EFFECTIVELY

in terms of: in, for (or leave out)on Ihe basis of: byon tile grollnds Ihat: since, becauseprior to: beforewith a view /0: towith reference to: about (or leave out)wilh regard /0: about (or leave out)with Ihe rCJ1I11 thai: SO that

Too heavy connectives

accordingly: socOlIScqllently: 50

for this reason: sofurthermore: thenhence: soin addition: besides, alsoindeed: in factlikewise: and, alsomort! specifically: for instance, for examplemoreover: now, nextnevertheless: but, howeverthat is 10 :ray: in other wordsthllS: soto be SlIre: of course

And here are three more words that are almost always super~

fluous:

concernedillvolvedrespectively

(Example; "The employees concerned should consult thesupervisors involved, respectively.")

My second list consists oC auxiliary verbs. This one works onthe principle that the more naturnlllnd idiomatic English gelS,the more it expresses ideas by auxiliary verbs, Take, for in·stance, this passage from an employee manual: "With a view10 broadening the indh'iduar5 training and increasing hisknowledge of the Company's organization, operations andservice, members of lhe stall are selected periodically for ad­vanced training. These lraining programs arc designed to givethe individual an opportunity, . ," etc. What you would say~ something like this: "We'd like to help )'011 add to your

B FOIt RUDJr.DIU1Y 89

training and get to know the company better ... Our advancedtraining programs are meant 10 give you Ihe opportunity ..."etc. So you see that ordinarily you use a 10l of such words aslike 10, Bet 10, and m~an 10. Here is my list:

aim 10b~ apt tobe bound tobe known 10be supposed tocare 10claim /0gel to (got to)happen 10hate 10have to

help --ingkup --inglike tomean tomind-ingpfan toseem 10SlOP --ingIISt(d) towant 10

My third list is the longest. Maybe it needs a little explana­tion. It's a list of simple verbs thaI describe movemen\S of thehuman hody, with a lisl of adverbs that cnn be combined withthem. Verb-adverb combinations are a specillity of the Eng­lish language; it's whnt the language naturally uses when itneeds a new e:tpression for a new idea. Think of the war andof breaklhroughs, blackouts and pinup girls. Or think ofsports and of line,"p, strike-out, and louchdown. Or think oftryout and standin, walk-on and close.up, checkoD and S;I­

down.Of course all kinds of verbs can be combincd with all kinds

of adverbs, but most important are a group of short Anglo­Saxon verbs thaI deal with movements of Ihe human body.They llt"e the mOSt idiomalic words in the language; Ibere is atheory that they are also the oldest-those all others stemfrom. \Vhetber that's true or nol, the fact remains that prac­tically all abstraci ideas can be expressed by one of theseverbs, either by itself or combined with an adverb. Translatingbigh-sounding abstractions into such words as set up or 1011through is a fascinating game.

My list conHlins fifty verbs and twenty adverbs. Not everyverb can be combined with every adverb, or coursc; but whatwith different meanings in different contexts, the lisl coversabout a thousand abstract ideas. So it really is a miniatureThorndike dictionlit)'.

90 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, ~ND TIIlNK MORI! EpPECTNELY

Verbs Adverbs

bear CO slip ahom forthblow llimg split across ill

break hold stand ahead oUbring keep slay along 00call loy Slick opuff 0111carry '" slfike around over,~, look take aside throughcalch make talk away logethercome pick tetlf hack IInder

'a' pull throw down opdo PllSh liedraw pm touclldrive rlln flITndrop '" walkfail shake wearC" show workgive skip

This list will nOI only make your words s'impler but willforce you to streamline your senlences loa. You'll learn torely on verbs rather than nouns and adjectives. Psychologistshave used the nllio between adjectives nnd verbs for years 10measure the forcefulness of writing; writing ICllchers have beenpreaching the gospel of thc active verb ever since anybodycan remember.

The main trouble with most current writing is thai it con­sists of nothing but nouns and adjectives, glued together withprepositions or with is, was, are, and were. Here are a fewrandom examples:

A historian: "His [Charles A. Beard's) atlack on the conse­quences of intervention is not accompanied by any demonstra­tion of the feasibility of isolation."

An economist: "A problem which has deadlocked top cor­porate and union officials with no prospect of satisfactorysolution is the determination of the appropriate subjects forcollective bargaining and the definition of spheres of authoritywhich are of sole concern to management. Rulings of theNational Labor Relations Board have not been helpful indrawing a line of demarcation between those matters whichare bargainable and those which remain the sole function ofman:lgement."

An English teacher: "Marcel Proust's vivid description of

n FOR READADrLITY 91

the long train of recollections invoked by the taste and smellof a little cake dipped in tea, in Remembrance of TlIingsParI, is the ultimate expression of the tremendously importantrole played by associative processes arising from re-experienc­ing a sensory impression which was originally associated witha powerful emotion."

A biologist: "Modem taxonomy is the product of increasingaWllJ'eness among biologists of the uniqueness of individuals,and the wide range of variation which may occur in anypopulation of individuals. The taxonomist is, therefore, pri.marily concerned with the measurement of variation in serie!of individuals which stand as representatives of the species inwhich he is interested."

(This last example is taken from the Kinsey report SexualBehavior in Ihe Human Male-which seems to prove that itwasn't exactly readability that made it a best-seller.)

Now let me do a little translating with my verb·adverb list:"He lakes a sland against intervention and what il bringsabout, but be doesn't show bow we could have gal along wilhisolation."-"Management and labor have been trying to setdown rules for what should be worked OUI by collective bar­gaining and what should slay under the authority of manage­ment alone. But they are deadlocked and it doesn't look as if areal solution is going to turn liP soon..•." etc.

H so happens that these four passages also contain excellentexamples on two other points. One is the question of thepreposition at the end of the sentence. Take "the species inwhich he is interested." People don't talk that way. They say"the species he's interested in." Putting prepositions at theend of sentences is one of the things that will unfailingly turnstiff prose into idiomatic English.

The preposition at the end is one of the glories of Englishprose. Originally it was attacked by grammarians for the sillyreason that preposifio, in Latin, means something that "comesbefore"; and when people realized that Latin rules don't al·ways work in English. they defended the old rule for theeqUally silly reason that a preposition gets too much emphasi5at tbe end of a sentence. The truth is, of course, that the Eng­lish language is capable of fusing a preposition and anotherword together whenever they arc closely joined by the mean­ing of the sentence. The word in, in the sentence [rom tbeKinsey report, may be grammatically part of the phrase inwhich, but for the speaker of the sentence it is part of theexpression interested·in.

Which is why the President of the National Council of

92 How TO WIlI11!t SPEAK, M1l TulNX MORB EpPI!CTfVIlU'

Teachers of English recently called a p~posilion "a good wordto end a sentence wilh" and why Winston ChurchiJI, whensuch an "error" was poinled out to him, answered: 'This isthe Iype of arrant pedllnllY. up wi!b which 1shall not pUL"

And what would English prose be without senlences like Hewas an executive who knew whal he war talking about. Hecould tllus be argued with, not mutlered at or The averageAmerican har a fixed idea that liver and iron are substancuhe ought to be getting more of?

The fOUf passages on pages 90, 91, are also good ell:amplesfor Ihe difference belween thaI tlOd which. There are eightwlllchn in Ihose senlences-all of them misused. In good,idiomatic English it should be A problem that has deadlockedand spheres 0/ authority rlwt ore and those matUrs that areand those tllat remain and a sensory impression tll"ot was andIhe wide ranee 0/ wJriation tltal may and individuals thatslnnd and, of course, the species he is interested in. The ruleis this: Which should be used in a "non·restriclive" clause tbatcould, without damage, be lefl OUI or pUI between p3fcmheses;whenever you can't do that, !be clause is ..~tricti,·en aod youshould use that.

Now you will say that after ridiculing other grammaticalrules I suddenly turn into a stickler for tbe that-and·whichrule. But wait a minute. That's exactly tbe mistake the "pro­gressive" gnunmari4tU are mmng. They see th:n which isused instead of lhat all over the place and so they proclaimthai the rule should be thrown into lhe ashcan with all theother outmoded rules.

DUI the situation here Is quite different. This isn't a cllse of ngrass roots movement agllinst n strict grammlllical rule. It'sexactly the other way round. The natural idiom is to use tllalfor "restrictive" clauses; il always has been and still is. Theuse of which instead of that has been dragged into the lan­gullge by the writers, Ihe literati, lbe clerks. Jes~rsen, in hisEssentials 0/ English Grammar, says: "Which, .. has beengaining ground at the expense of that, chiefly in lbe IllSt fewcenturies and in the mon: pretentious kinds of literature. QDeof the reasons for this preference was prob:ably th:at [which]reminded classical scholars of the corresponding Latin pro­noun. When Addison in the Spectator complains of the injurydone recently 10 .•. which by the 'Jacksprat' lhat, he turnsall historical truth topsy-lurvy, for lllat was re:ally the favoriterelative word in literature from the Middle Ages on; but indeference to his erroneous view of the historical development

R FOR READABIUTY 93

he corrected many a natural rhat into II less natural which,when he edited the Spectator in book-form."

When I read this, I naturally looked tbe matter up in Ad­dison. Sure enough, Jespersen was right: the original versionssound more natural in every single case. Here is one example:

A screeeh-owl at midnight has nlllrmed a fllmily morethan D. band of robbers; nay, the voice of n cricket hathstruck more lerror than the roaring of a lion. There isnothing so inconsiderable that may not appear dreadfulto an imagination that is filled with omens and prognos­tics.

That's the way it originally appeared in the Spectator: in thebook edition Addison left it imagination that is filled butchanged it to tzothil11: so inconsiderable. which may not appeardread/ufo He shouldn't have; the sentence was perfect as itstood.

Addison, however, WliS an exception. Usually writers. likethe authors of the four examples J quoted, pepper their sen­tences with unnatural whiehes right from the start. When theydo find out about the distinction. it is often a real revelationto them and they tum into determined wllieh-hunters andthat-fans. Wilson Follelt, for instance, who once ran a columnon '1be State o[ the Language" in the Atlantic. wrote thathe was a which-writer until lale in life, when he was "con­verted" and "saw Ihe light." And H. W. Fowler tells us thatLord Morley, when he prepared a revised edition of his works,"was particularly keen on having the word which, whereverthere was the possibility, exchanged for that . • ,"

After reading all this, you will sturt wllicll-lmnting yourself,I hope. You will find it a pleasant and rewarding indoor sport.

Chapter Eleven

DEGREES OF PLAIN TALK

Popularizalion is ... myslerious business.In November, 1941, the JOllrnal 0/ the American Medical

AssocIallon printed a paper by Drs. Rovenstine ond Wertheim,in which the aUlhors reported on a new kind of anesthesiacalled "therapeutic nerve block." This was obviously of inter­est to doctors, but nobody bothered to tell the general publicabout iL The nerve block was not then considered news.

Six years later, the popular magazines broke out intn a rashof nerve-block articles. On October 25, 1947, Tire New Yorkerbegan a three-pan profile of Dr. Rovenstine; two days later,LI/e published a four-page picture-slory of his work. Othermagazines followed. Suddenly, the nerve block bad becomesomething everybody ougbt to know about.

I came across this mystery when I was looking for a goodexample of what populariUltion does to language and style.The nerve·block articles Bre perfect specimens. On its wayfrom the A.M.A. JOllrtlnlto Li/e lind The New Yorker, thencw method of anesthesia underwent a complete change ofcoloring, lone, and style. A study of Ihe three llrticles is acomplcte course in readability by itself.

On the following pages are excerpts [rom the three articles.Nothing has been changed: but to show clearly the differencesin sentence length, I have put I between the sentences, and toshow the differences in human interest, I have put the '·~r.

sonal words" (see page ]O]) in boldface and the "personalsentences" (see p. ]04, 30S) in italics. (You will notice. thedifference in word length without my pointing it up.)

This is the beginning of "Therapeutic Nerve Block" byE. A. Rovenstine, M.D., and H. M. Wertheim, M.D. (Journal01 the Amtrican Medical Assocja/Ion, vol. 117, no. 19, Nov.8,1941):

94

DECiRl!ES OF PUtN TAU 95

"Therapeutic nerve block" is but one of the manyramifications of regional analgesia.! The hislory of theintroduction and development of perineural injections ofanalgesic and neurolytic agents for therapy coincides withthat of similar types of injections to control the pain as­sociated with surgical procedures.! The use of surgicalanalgesic nerve blocks has eclipsed by far similar pro­cedures employed to cure or alleviate pain or symptomsresulting from disease or injury .. J

The paper ends as follows:

The mosl interesting and probably more promising nndfruitful results from therapeutic nerve blocking are thetechnics for interrupting sympathetic pathways withanalgesic or neurolytic solutions.! This reeeot practicehas already gained wide application and produced manyfa.vorable reports.! A comparison of the value of thechemical destruction of sympathetic pathways or surgicalsection cannot be made nccurately with present knowl­edge and experience, but there are indications tbat formany conditions the former are to be preferred.!

Interruption of the sympathetic pathways al the stellateganglion is used 10 cure hyperhidrosis of Ihe upper ex­tremity.! It i5 useful 10 relieve sympathalgia of the faceand causalgia.! It has been employed successfully to treatposHraumatie spreading neuralgia, the pain of amputa­tion stumps and vasomotor disturbances.! The treatmentof angina pectoris after medical remedies have failed 10relieve pain is now conceded to include alcohol injectionsof the upper thoracic sympathetic ganglions.! The sameprocedure has been effective in controlling or alleviatingthe distressing pain from an aneurysm oC the arch or thedescending aona.!

Interruption of the ¥tmbar sympathetic pathways is in­dicated Cor conditions in the lower extremities similar tothose enumerated for the upper extremities.! This thera­peutic nerve hlock has been employed also to treatthrombophlebitis of the lower extremity.! The resultsfrom these injections have been dramatic and largely suc­cessrulJ Not only is the pain relieved immedialely butthe whole procCS! subsides promptly.! This remedy repre­sents so much of an improvement over previous thera­peutic efJons that il sbould be used whenever thecondition develops.!

96 How TO WRI'I'E, SPEAK. AND TlIINK: MORE EFFEcnv.ELY

In Life (October 27, 1947) the article about the nerveblock carried the heading

PAIN-CONTROL CLINIC

New York doctors ense suDering byblocking 00 nerves wi/h drugs.

Eight pictures were accompanied by the following text:

Except in the field of surgery, control of pain is stillvery much in the primitive stages.! Countless thousandsof patients sufTer the tortures of cancer, angina pectorisand other distressing diseases while their physicians arcbelpless to relieve tJlem.! A big step toward help forthese sufferers is now being made with a treatmentknown as nerve-blocking.! This treatment, which con­sists of putting a "block" between the source of painand the brain, is not a new therapy.! But its potentiali­ties are just now being realized.! Using better drugs anda wider knowledge of the mechanics of pain gained dur­ing and since the war, Doctors E. A. Rovenstine andE. M. Papller of the New York University College ofMedicine hnve been able to help two-thirds of the patientsaccepted for treatment in tJleir "pain clinic" al BellevueHospital.!

The nerve-block treatment is comparatively simpleand does not have serious aftereffects.! It merely involvesthe injection o[ nn anesthetic drug lllong the path o[ thenerve carrying pain impUlses from the diseased or in­jured tissue to the bmin'! Although its action is similarto thai of spinal ane'sthesia used in surgery, nerve blockgenerally lasts much longer and is only occllsionally usedfor operations.! The N.Y.V. doctors have found it er·fective in II wide range of diseases, including anginapectoris, sciatica, shingles, neuralgia llnd some forms orcancer.! Relief is not always permanent, but usually theinjection can be repeated.! Some angina pectoris patientshave had relief for periods ranging from six months totwo years.! While recognizing Ihat nerve block is nopaDllcea, the doctors feel that results obtained in caseslike that of Mike OBlrQich (next page) will mean a muchwider application in the near future.!

DEGREES OF PU,rN T....u: 97

The New Yorker (October 25, 1947) in its profile of Dr.Rovcnstine describes the nerve block like this:·

.... Recently, he [Rovenstine} devoted a few min­utes to relieving a free patient in Dellevue of a pain inan arm tbat had been cut off several years before.! Thevictim of this phantom pain said that tbe tendons achedand that hi, fingers were clenched so bard be could fcelhi. nails digging into hie palm.! Dr. Rovemtine'. a,s..

sistant, Dr. E. M. Pllpper. reminded Rovenstine that abundred and fifty years ago the cure would have been todig up the mao'l :um, if its burial place was known, andstraighten out tbe hand.! Rovenltine smiled.! "/ tellyou," he said.! "We'll use a two-per-t;cnt solution 01procai~, and if it works, in a couple 0/ wuks we'U goon with an alcohol solution.! Procaine, you know, lastsa couple 0/ weeks, alcollol six months or 10llger.! Inmosl cases 01 Ihis sorr, [ lise tile nerve block originatedby Labal around 1910 and improved on in New Orleansabout ten yean back, plus one or two improvisations 0/my own.'" (Nerve blocking is a method of anesthetizinga nerve thai is transmiuing pain.) Rovenstine does littleanesthetizing himedf these days, except when be isdemonstrating hiB methods at hie lectures.! He carriesonly a small practice outside Bellevue.! If be is called inon routine cases, be asks extremely high fees.! He pro­ceeds on the principle that a person who wanls bim tobandle a routine operation ought to pay well for bim.!If he is asked to apply hiB specialized knowledge to anunwual case, lie doesn't care what the fee is.! Like agreat many other doctors, he feels that only millionairesand indigenls get decent medical care.! People of thesetwo classes are Ihe only ones who feel that they can callon tbe leading surgeons and Rovenetine.

The mon with the pain in Ihe non-existcnt hand wasan indigent, and Roven&line was working before a largegallery of student anesthetists and visilors when be ex­orcised lhe ghosts that were paining him.! Some of thespectators, though they felt awed, also felt inclined togiggle.! Even trained anesthetists sometimes gel into thisstate during nerve-block demonstrations because of thetenseness such feats of magic induce in them.! The pa-

• From an Brticle by Mark Murphy in The New Yorlur. Copyriahl1941 ThB New Yorker Mll.8wne Inc.

98 How TO WJ.JTE. SPEAI, AND Tnn.'l: MoRS. EFFECTMU.Y

tient. thin, stark·nalced, and an obvious product of pov­erty and cheap gin mills, WIl5 DervOUS and rather apolo­getic wben be WIl5 brought into the operating: theatre.!He lay face down on the operating table.! R017enstinllhas an easy manner wilh patlent$, and (U his thick, $tubbyhands roamed over the man's back, he gently asked,"How you doinlJ?"/ "My hand, it u 0/1 dosed togetller,Doc," Ihe man arr.rwered, $tarzled and evidently a littleploud 01 the attention he Wtu senins./ "You'U be O.K,soon," RoveTUtine $oid. and lurned 10 the audience.!

"One 01 my greotest contributions to medicoi $ciencehas been the use 01 'he ~ebrow pencil," he $Qid./ Betook one foom the pocket of bit white smock and madea series of marks on the patient'S back, Dear the shoulderof the o.mputated o.rm, so Ihal the spectators could seeexactly where he was going to work.! With a syringeand needle be raised four smo.lI weals on the man'R backand then shoved long needles inlo the weals.! The manshuddered but said be fclt no pain:/ RovenBtinc thenattached a syringe 10 the first needle, injected the pro-­caine solution, unfastened the syringe, attached it to thenext needle, injected more of the solution, and so on.!The patient's face began to relillt a little'! "Lord, Doc."he said. "My hand is loosenins up a bit already."/ "You'llbe all rishl by tonisht, J tlJink," Rovelutinc said.! Howa<.

That the language or the three articles is different, every·body can see. But it's DOt so easy 10 tell how different. Forthat, let's look at a few figures (see lbe readability test formulaOQ pp. 296-306):

AM.A.Journal Lile New Yorker

Average sentence lengthin words 20.5 22 18

Average word length insyllables (per J00words) 194 165 145

Per cent "personalwords" 0 2 II

Pcr cent "personalsentences" 0 0 41

What has happened is this: Lile magazine naturally bad to

DEGR.I!.ES OF PLAIN TALI: 99

be more readable lhan the AM.A. Journal. So it avoidoowords like anolguic and ,hromboph/~bilis and otherwisepresented Lbe facts in more or less newspaper fashion.EHeet: The words in Lift: are IS per cent shorter than thosein the A.M.A. Journa/. (The sentences would be shorter tooif Drs. Rovenstine and Wertheim hadn't wrinen exceptionallyshort sentences to begin with-for two doclors, that is.) ButLife didn't bother to dramalize Ihe facts and make themhumanly interesting. (Probably the magazine relied on its pie­tures [or that; I'll get to that question in Chapter 13.) TheNew Yorker began ils popularization of the nerve block whereLife left off: its sentences nre a good bit shorter Ihan those inLlje'(19 pcr cent), and aside from that, therc's a story, there'sdrama, there's something that·s interesting to read. The nerveblock has become an experience to the reader.

This giVe! us a good clue to the haming question of whatreadability means. In most dictionaries, readablt: is defined as"easy or interesting to read." (It also has another meaning,I~gible. but we'll skip Ihat here.) Actually, to most people,readability means ease of reading pillS interest. They want tomake as little effort as possible while they nrc reading, andthey also want something "built in" that will automaticallycorry them forward like an escalator. Structure of words andsentences has to do with one side of readability, "personalwords" and "personal sentenccs" with the other.

That's why. in this book, a piece of writing is given nol onereadability score but two: a "reading ease" score and a "bu·man interest" score. Length of words nnd _senlences arc

Reading Ease Scorel100-100

Human Interest Scorel100 - 100

+-66 New Yorker ---53~

+-46---.-·-- Ufo ••••7~

0_:22

-•• A.M.A. Jo,mol ----01.0

100 How 10 WRm!., SPEll, AND l'HINg MOils EPFECTlVELY

combined into one, "penonal" words and sentences into th"other. (If you want to learn how to figure a score, see pages296-306.)

Working out the scores of our three articles on nerve block­ing, we get this picture:

Life is much easier to read tban the A.M.A. Journal, butgels hardly "off the ground" with bumllO interest; The NewYorker is still easier than Life, and, in addition, is as inter­esting to read ns fiction._

All this doesn't mean, of course, that tho writers for Lifeand The New Yorker consciously did something about theirsentences and words. Naturally not. But if we want to findout something about any an or skill, we must analyze the workof leading performers, and then laboriously imitate their ~m­ingly effortless performance. There's no guar:rntee that wellever become champions this way, but at least we can try.

Cllapter Twelve

THOSE UNPREDICTABLE READERS

Put this book down for a minute lind think of whnt you dowhen yOll read. How does it work? Your eyes look at printedsymbols on paper and your mind thinks the thoughts of theperson who wrote the words. How does this miracle happen?

It is a miracle, all right. I won't go into the long history ofthe invention of writing and the alphabet; let's just look at youwith the letters on a page in front of you. Scientists knowpretty weU what goes on in reading-up to II point; but whenwe have learned all about fixations, regressions, spans of recog·nition, and so on, the miracle is greater than ever.

U you think you just pick up the meanings of words oneafter the olber, you are wrong. Language is not as simple asthat. What you do is this: Your eyes move nlong the printedlines in rhythmic jumps. After each jump they rest for a shortwhile, focus on a word or two, and move on. From time totime, when you unco~sciously feel the need of checking back,your eyes move back. And that's the pattern: rhythmic move­ments, brief fixations on a word or two depending on yourspan of recognition, irregular regressions. All this at the rateof about 250 words a minute if you are an average personreading nverage writing-with your eyes taking about one­third of a second to do their work between movements. Andin this third of a second, they take in, on the average, morethan one word.

But that's not tbe whole story. Words don't mean anythingby themselves or even in groups of two or three. Words gettheir meanings from the context-from the sentence they arein, or even the whole paragraph. So after your eyes haveseen the words, your mind assigns to these words a provisionalmeaning, "good only until further notice." Then, when theend of the phrase, sentence, or paragraph is reached, your

101

102 How TO Wlln1!,. SI'£U, Al<m TulNIC MORE EFFECTIVELY

mind r~llIi"ks the words in the light of what came after,Rending is really a miracle: Your eyes piek up groups ofwords in split-second time and your mind keeps these wordsin delicate balance until it gets around to a point where theymake sense.

Take the first sentence of this chapler, for instance, In slowmouon, bere is how you probably read it:

Put this(No meaninB yct)

book down(You didn't put the book down at this point, did you? Youwaited wilh your decision until you had rcad a lillie more.)

for a minll\e(You still didn't.)

and think(1)

of what(1)

you do(1)

when you(1)

read,

(Now at last you wcre reasonably sure of wh3t each wordmeant in this sentence. Bu, you didn't pUI the book down althis point either. You wailed until you knew bow serious Jwas with my suggestion.)

And that's the way we read: we race along, making quickguesses at the meanings of lillie bunches of words, and quickcorrections of these first guesses afterward. To anyone whoknows the process, it's a wonder we ever read anything righL

What all this means to a writer is obvious, A writer mustknow how people rcad, what are the main sources of readingerrors, and what can be done to' possibly forestall them.

The commonest reading error, of course, is mistaking oneword for another, As [ said, our eyes take in a word or morein one-third of a second. That means that wc don't have time10 read words letter by letter; we look at the general .shape ofa group of letters and take them in as a wllole, This is whygood proofreaders are so rare: in ordinary reading we don'tnotice such things as typographical errors but take them in ourstride,

Tuos'l! UNPREDICTABle RUDEIIS 103

For example, take the following passage from a sloryabout prize fights by John O'Hara, which I read recently:

".see what I mean, Anhur? He knows when Ibe fix wasin. And of course ring stragedy. Does he know ringstrngedy! •• :'

It so happens Ihat slroGedy was Ihe only word in that SIOrythat was deliberately misspelled to indicate the Ch31'acler"slevel of speech. When I read it the first time, I /hol/ght I wasreading the correct spelling strateGY. (Maybe you did 100,)Only when I cnme to the second strogedy did I catch on toMr, O'Hara's excellent transcription of spoken English.

Or take the following from a book review:

Man has a brief memory for the gadgets he contrivesto give him comfort and convenience in the world. Heeasily 'forgets, too, the ffie,nns by which be labors toloose his spirit from the lJesh •••

When I had read up to this poinl, I realized that J had t'Cadfirst to lose his spirit; then, aCter having read from the flesh,J looked baek and, for the first time, saw the second 0 inloose. At first sight, I had taken it for granted that the sen­tence dealt with the common kind of spirit that is being lostand not with the rare kind Ihat is being loosed.

Or, 10 take a rather outrageous example, consider what hap­pened to me once when I tried 10 read Toynbee's Study 01His/ory late at night after II tiring day, I held the book in mylap, vainly struggling against intense drowsiness, when sud­denly I was pulled up wide awnke by n word Ihat simplydidn't belong in Toynbee. The word was horseradish.

This couldn't be. I reread the passage nnd this is what Iread:

Perhaps we can discern this even in the reactions ofthe Chrislianiud Celts of Britain under Roman rule. Weknow very little about them. but we know that tbey pro­duced. in Pelagiw, n heresiarch who mnde a stir through­out the Christian world of his day.

So that was it. My eyes had encountered heresiarch. a wordJ had never seen before. nnd had conveyed 10 my mind theonly word I knew thai could possibly produce a similar gen­eral impression: }lOrserofllsJ,. My mind hll"d been willing 10

104 How TO WaITE, SPEAI", AND Tmm: MORI!. EpPECTIVELY

put up with something ludicrous rather than believe the evi­dence before my eyes that such a word IU heresiarch existed,

Moral of all this: Don't use unfamiliar spellings or strangewords. People's eyes will reCuse to read them.

Another source of trouble is little words. Sinee we usuallyread two or more words at one glance, it's the little words­lil:e 01, in, iI, that-that we read out of the corners o[ oureyes, 50 to speak. In fact, we ordinarily don't retld them atall but simply assume they are where they belong. This is theprinciple of much rapid-reading Icaching-where people nrctrained to skip over particles-and ifs also the basis of tbatmoney-saving language, cab/cse,

Jf you have never seen cablese, here is Ii nice example:

OTTAWA MACKENZmlUNG TUESDAY EQUALLED WALPOLERECORD FOR LENGTII SERVICE AS rRIMfNISTER BRITISlICOMMONWEALTH COUNTRY

RESOUI'o'DING DESJC TJlUMPlNO FROM ALL CORNERSCHAMBER GREETED PJIJMINISTER AS HE TOOK SEAT SM.tL~

JNo BROADLY

SINCE ELECTION 29/12 1921 MACKE.'lZJEDNG BEEN'CANADAS NATIONAL LEAOER 7629 DAYS

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE PRIMINIST£R BRITAIN SAME NUM·BER FROM 3/4 1721 TO 11/2 1742

MEMBERS ALL PARTIES JOINED SPEECIlES TRIBUTE

The words left out here-ol. of a, of Ille, the, Ids, his, lu11,lor, war, of, the, of, in, of-are exactly those that we are aptto skip over in reading ordinary writing, We know we don'tneed to read them to get the meaning.

But that's where the trouble starls. Quite often the littlewords are important and by skipping them we are apt tomisread the senlence. Here nre a few lrivial examples frommy own reading:

The fact that the more sensitive and subtle writing is,the more difficult it is to analyze, is significant of theintricacy o[ the an of the narrative.

(When 1 came 10 is significant, 1 had to start the sentence allover again. What I had first read was this: "In fact, the moresensitive and subtle writing is, the more difficult it is toanll1yzc. , , .")

Another man told me that shortly after the United

THOSE UNPREDICTADLE READERS lOS

States entered the war, be wanted a garbage can of n cer­tain size, but because of priorities he was unable. to locatewhat he wanted.

(I don't know at what point 1 realized here that 1 bad skippedthe fifth word, that.)

When that kind of talk got to Washington, it, of course,sounded like ridiculous--even dangerous-nonsense.

(The first time 1 read tbis, 1 simply didn't see the it.)Or take Ibe following excerpt from a bill of lading:

If this bill of lading is issued on the order of theshipper, or his agent, in e:o;ehange or in place of anotherbill of lading, the shipper's signature to the former bill oflading as to Ihe statement of value or otherwise, or elec­tion of common law or bill of lading, shall be consideredn part of this bill of lading as fully as if the same werewritten or made in or in connection with tbis bill of lad·ing.

This excerpt was given to 250 college students as part of apsychological test in reading comprehension. To make surethey knew the vocabulary, two words were specially el(­plained to them: shipper ("one who ships or sends goods")nnd bill of lading ("an account of goods shipped by anyone,signed by the agent of tbe transportation line, thus forming areceipt for the goods"). Then they were asked the followingquestion:

A bill of lading has been copied from a signed originalbecause the shipper's copy is worn and torn and he wantsn fresh copy, Must the shipper sign this new copy?

The right answer is "No." But one out of five studentsgaye the wrong answer. Why? Pan of the reason, it seems tome, is that you have to focus sharply on the little words if youwant to gel the right meaning out of all that legalistic jargon.Probably most students would bave given Ihe right answerbad the little words been emphasized this way:

If this bill of lading is issued. , , in place of another• , " the shipper's signature to the former bill of lading

106 How TO WRlT'B, SPEAK, AND THINK MORn Ef'l'EC11VELY

•.. shoJI be considered a part of tlris bill of lading .••as il .• , written .• , in , , . Ihis bill of lading.

There are two things you can do to avoid this kind ofreading mistake: Either make the particles less impnrtant byrewriting your sentences or, if you feel you have to stick toyour sentence structure, underline (italicize) the particles,(If you don't like underlining, make them long enough tocatch the eye: write however instead of hilt, and bllt only ilinstead of il.) •

The classic paper on mistakes in reading was written byProfessor 1l10rndike more than 40 years ago, in 1917. Heanalyzed children's mistakes in reading and discovered animportant principle: Words and word groups may have somuch meaning for a reader that they blot out the meaning ofother words around them. Thorndike called this the "over­potency" of words. For example, one of his test passagesdealt with school attendance in the town of Franklin, Butsome of the children couldn't resist the strong connotationsof the word Franklin and said the passage dealt with BenjaminFranklin.

Another of the test passages read as follows:

John had two brothers who were both tall. Theirnames were Will and Fred. John's sister, who was short,was mimed Mary. John liked Fred better than either ofthe others. All of these children except Will had redbair. He had brown hair.

When the children were asked "Who had red hair'" one­fil/h of those in grades 6, 7, and 8, and Iwo-fil/IIS of those ingrades 3, 4, and 5, gave the wrong answer. The word-eombi­nation Wi/J "at/ ref/ hair was too strong for them.

1 have no doubt that this important principle applies toadult readers as well as to children. In fact, I have twO piecesof evidence from my own reading. Here they are, for whatthey are worth:

10 Time's Music Department I read this:

To most U.S. music listeners, Milton Katims is not afamiliar name, but it soon may be. No one else his age(38) has managed to link his career with the top namesiD two musical fields: Toscanini and the Budapest StringQuartet. This week for the firSt time he conducted Tos-

TIiOSE UNPREDICTABLIl RJ.!ADERS 101

canini's NBC Symphony Orchestra in the fint of twoSunday broadcasts.

He bas fashioned his career as carefully as Amatifashioned violins. A$ a violist, he bows to few besidesWilliam Primrose. His m:ording with the Budapest StringQuanet of the Mozart C Maior QI/intet was chosen, byfive U.s. music critics in the Review 0/ Recorded Music,as the outstanding chamber-music album of J946.

(Reading this, I first thought that Mr. Katims had been aviolinist. TIle Amati violins had blotted out the comparativelyrare word violist.)

In the Sawrday Review I came upon this:

Dr. Darr resigned as president of St. 10hn's College inDecember 1946 to stan a new college in Stockbridge,Mass., but was forced to abandon the project because ofconstrUction costs. He originated the radio program"Invitation to Learning," and has been on CBS's adulteducational board since 1928. Fired by Clarence Streit'S"Uninn Now," he ..•

(At this point I had the impression that the Union Noworganization had dismiued Dr. Barr. No wonder: The writerof the paragraph, with his over-polent words resigned andabandoned, had given me the impression of a record of failure.So, naturally, J gave the word fired the meaning that fitted in.Dut I was wrongl)

Fired hy Clarence Streit's "Union Now," he became adireclor of the movement and served aboul a year ascontributing editor 10 Freedom and Union.

There is no perfect remedy for tbis son of thing, but itwill help your writing if you watch out for pairs of "con·tagious" or "allergic" words--like violins and violist, orruisned and /ired. Incidentally. there are two words in theEnglish language that are constantly misused and misunder­stood because of such a situation: pr~sendy (which is "aller­gic" to present) and scan (which is "allergic" to skim). Pru­ently means soon (excepl in archaic English) and to scanmeans to read care/ully. The dictionaries are beginning 10yield to the universal mistake and to list presently (in cunentuse) as now, lind /0 scan as to slance at.

A very conunon source of misreading, as everybody knows.

108 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND 1'mNK: MORI! EFFECTIVELY

is the usc of the negative. This is so generally recognized thatalmost all languages provide for an emphatic double negativeto make sure of understanding. In English, however, thedouble negative is frowned upon as illiterate, with the effectthat practically every negative statement is open to error andmisreading.

Part of the reason is that nl1t is a short word-one of Ihosewe don't focus on or don't read at all. The Army llnd Nnvybad Ihe sensible rule to use NOT REPEAT NOT in all telegrams.And a good idea it was, 100.

Another reason is that the double negative comes natural­ly-sometimes even to educated people. Witness the followingtwo sentences from the usually grammalical New York Times:

This is only one of the pictures which never wouldhave been made IIIl/en the enterprising, tireless Rndoften audacious [Clarence 5.1 Jackson had not roadethem. ~

And:

The house [the Duke and Duchess of Windsor rentedon Long Islandl is approached by way of a narrow,inconspicuous driveway Ihal runs parallel with the reorentrance to the Cedar Creek Club and would not benoticed only by persons looking for it.

Or this from a court decision:

In respect 10 the other quantity discounts, it does notllppear Ihat the differentials resulting from Ihe discountsarc not based upon or related 10 due cost allowances inthe manufacture, sale and delivery of these products.Neither is there testimony to lhe contrary.

What people don't realize is thai every negative word willturn a sentence upside down-not just /lOt, never or nothing,but also unless, neither, refllu, dec:line, lack, failure. unable,belie, and hundreds of others. Read Ihe following sentencefrom a reccnl dispatch and understaorJ it withoul rereadingif you can:

NEW YORK, April 8 [1948J-A spokesman for HenryA. Wallace denied today that Wallace had messaged theItalian Foreign Ministry disavowing authorship of an

Tllosl! UNPREDICTABLI! READERS 109

article front-paged in Rome last Friday by the Com·munist organ Unita.

If you want still more evidence, this little news item is to thepoint:

CoLUMBUS, Ga., April IS [1948l--Embarrassed cityanomeys today discovered one of their legal fences con­tained a "not bole."

The city had haled n contractor into court on charge3of failure to procure a license.

The contractor pointed out the law which said nolicense was required if the construction job "exceeds 11

sum of $500,"The city hastily dropped the charges and corrected the

typographical error. making the law read that no licenseis required if the project "does not excecd a sum of$500:'

My point i5 not that these illogical negatives don't makesense. On the cantmr}', the intended meanings were so cleMthat proofreaders and countless readers read them into theitems without noticing what was actually there in black andwhite.

Which brings me baek to the underlying theme of thischapter: Readers are apt to read word! that aren't there.Sometimes, as I have shown. such mistakes can be predictedand avoided but often they cannot. There is nothing you cando about the kinds of mistakes Freud describes in his Psycho·pathology of Everyday Life:

Both irritating an'd laughable is a lapse in reading towhich I am frequently subject when I walk through thestreets of a strange city during my vacation. I then readANTIQUES on evcry shop sign that shows the slightestresemblance to the word; this displays the questing spiritof the collector. I

Or:

One woman who is very anxious to have children al­ways rcnds storks instead of slocks.

Another cnse of misreading was reportcd by n psycbologistwho referred to Sha.kespc:l.re's Rel}lY YllJ in one of his books.

110 How TO WRITe, SPEAK, AND TUINIC MORE EFPECl'IYIlLY

What appeared in print Was a reference to "Shakespe3re'sEdword VIl/"-in spite of the fact Ihat the author, his wifc,his collaborator, and a proofreader had each seen the falsereference in first galley proofs, second galley proofs, lind pageproofs. The explanulion for this astonishing case of multiplemisreading is simple: nil this happened in the fall of 1936,when the front pages and people's minds were full of KingEdward VIII.

Finally, here is n possibly Freudian case that concerns nnegative. William Empson tells it in his book Sl!'vcn Types 01Ambiguity:

Misreadings of poetry, as every render must havefound, often give examples of the plausibility of the op­posite term. I had at one time a great admiration for thatline of Rupert Brooke's about

The keenImpassioned beauty of a great machine,

a dating but successful image, it seemed to me, for thatcontrast bctwcen the appearnnce of effort and the ap­pearance of certainty, between forces greater than hu­man and control divine in its foreknowledge, which iswhat excites one about engines; they have the calm ofbeaulY without its complacence, the strength of passionwithout its disorder. So it WitS a shock to me when Ilooked at one or the quotations of the line one is alwaysseeing about, and found that the beauty was Impassioned,because maCflilll!'S, as nil good nature-poets know, haveno hearts. I still think that n prosaic nnd intellectuallyshoddy adjective, but it is no doubt more intelligiblethan my emendation, and sketches the same group offeelings.

II seems clear to me that in (his case the reader, WilliamEmpson, was a better poet than the writer, Rupert Brooke.But the trouble is that you can't count on that kind of cre­ative misreading: for every William Empson, who will readunpassioned machines into impa.tsioned macllilles, there arethousands like you nnd me, who will read 11 hcresiarch intohorseradisll.

Chapter Tllirteen

ARE WORDS NECESSARY?

"Easy writing's vile bard reading," wrote Sberidan, The re­verse is equally true: e3S}' reading is difficult to write, In faCI.it seems to be so difficult that most people would rather tryanything else but write when they face a job of simple ex­planation. They escape from words into pietures, symbols,graphs, charts. diagrams-anything at all as long as it's"visual." They point to the movies, the comics, the picturemagazines, Obviously. they say, the trend nowadays is awayfrom reading, People would rather just look,

That may be so; but unfortunately the idea that you canexplain things without ~plaining them in words is puresuperstition. A favorite proverb of the picture·and-diagramlovers is "One picture is wonh more th:m a thousand words,"It simply isn't so. Try to tcach people with a picture and youmay find that you need a thousand words to tell them exactlywbat to look at and why,

]( that surprises you, look at the evidence, Therc's thepsychologist, for instance, who tried to find out whether chil­dren understood the charts and diagrams in the BritannicaJunjor Encyclop~dia, It lumed OUI thai they did not, Most ofthe devices used blithely by the encyclopedia writcrs were wayover the hend! of the children, They had been taught how 10read, but nobody had ever bothered to tell them anythingabout how to look at flow charts, statistical graphs, processdiagrams, and the like. (Unfortunately, the experiment didn'tshow whether a normal child, reading an encyclopedia, wiUeven stop and look nt a diagram, 1 suspect he won't: thetemptation to skip what is b:illling is too great.)

Another psychologist tested growDups-soldiers and collegestudents--on their undemanding of graphs and charts. Theresults were even more startling, The vast majority were un·

111

112 How TO WRITB, SPEAK, AND TInNie MORE EFFECTIV£lY

able to see what the charts and grtlphs were supposed toshow: they couldn't even grasp general facts or spot basictrends. Again, the reason is clear: people need training tolearn from visual aids. Usually, they don't have that training.In fact, the less education they have, the less they are able toprofit from these "helps to readers." Let me quote the ex­perimenter's conclusions: "It is not often sufficiently recognizedby those who :'Idvocate visual methods of presentation thatthe graph and the chart are no more immediately representa­tional and no less symbolic of the information they are in­tended to convey than are verbal and mathematical statements.But whereas nearly everyone in the course of their upbringingacquires some facility in making verbnl statements of ideasand meanings. only the specially educated learn to interpretgeneral factual information from gfllphs and charts."

Naturally, thnr doesn't mean that you should never illus­trate visually what you have to say. Not at all: anythingpictnrial nr graphic does help as long as there is enough textto back it lip. I don't mean captions; I menn that the runningtext has to tell the reader what the illustration means, how beshould look at it. and why. Tell the reader what to see. Re­member that grnpb·and-chart reading is not one of the threeR's.

Let me give yotl an example. Some time ngo Time maga­zine told its readers about a Harper's article by C. HartleyGrattan. entitled "Factories Can't Employ Everybody." Timesummarized the article in three paragraphs plus the followingehart:

The caption under lhis chart rend: EXrANDlNG SERVICB

INDUSTRIES NOW PROVIDE NEARLY HALl' 01' U.s. JOIlS.

Now what did you get out of this chart? What do you­think a Time re:lder gOI from it (if he bothered to look at itway down al the bottom of the page)? Certainly not more

AIlE WORDS NECESSARY? 113

than what the caption says: olmost balf of the now employedwork in service industries.

But Mr. Grattan in his original Harper's Ilrticle meant totell much more wilh his Ihree pie chaMs. And be did, bytying them inlO his running text like this:

Look first Ilt this slatistical pie, which shows the pro­porlions of Americans engaged in various main occupa·tions in 1870:

YCIU will see thai more than half of all Americanswho were classified as working in 1870 were in agri.culture (with which we have included forestry and fish­ing); that a little over:l fifth were in manufacturing (withwhich we have included mechanic:ll occupations andmining); and that a liule less than a quarter were inthe service industries.

By 1920 a vast change had taken place. The agricul­tural slice of tbe 1920 pie had shriveled; both the manu­facturing slice and the service slice had swoUen. Here islhe 1920 pie:

Now look at the 1930 pie. and you will nOle II. curiousfact. Not only has the agriculturol part of the pie under­gone further shrinkage; the manll!acWrinc part has also

114 How TO WaITe, SP£U, AND TJIR\"I: MOilS EFFECTTVEL't

$hrunk a little, relfltivt:ly, while the service industries'slice has grown still more:

Why this change? The best answer has been givenby two British economists, Allan G. D. Fisher and ColinClnrk. They have shown that a comparatively primitiveeconomy has a large proportion of its people engaged infarming; that as it develops, more and more people moveover into manufacturing; but that in a really advancedeconomy, the proportion of people engaged in the scrv~

ices gains at the expense of both farming and manu/at:.turing.

You see? Mr. Gratlan used his charts 10 make a specialpoint but was wise enough to explain the explanatory chartswith 227 words of text He Wllll obviously a(uid that eventhe educated reoders of Harpu's magwoe wouldo't get hispoint from the charts alone (although it's all there in blacknnd white). There's hardly any doubt that he was right.

A second drawback in using visual aids is this. People notonly don't know what 10 look for, their eyes also have II WllY

of being caught by the wrong things. Take a dozen peopleand let them look at n picture in Li/e. Chances are that eacbooe of them will focus on 8 different set of details.

It's an old story that pictures can be interpreted in differentways. l1Iustrations like this one

WHAT'S HAPPININCrTO WHERE YOU LIVE

In 1890

BV RAV 8ITHERS

116 How TO WRITE, SPE,U:, AND nrna MORB Ef'FEC'TIVELY

are old standbys in psychology texts, (You can "sec" thecubes from above or from below.) There are even a nwnberof widely used tests Ihat are based on the faci that no twopeople will see the same things in inkblots or simple pictures,It's literally lrue that you can't lell whot a given illustrationwill mean 10 a given reader,

Of course, even the most imaginative reader won't be ableto do much with such simple charts as those used by Mr.GrAllan. Dut as soon as you lldd a bit of decomtion, you areApt to gel into trouble, There is even some danger in the so­called pictorial statistics with their rows of little men or coinsor bags or boals: chances are Ihat your symbols for "onemillion unemployed" will remind at least one reader of hislate uncle who was a millionaire.

Let me try to make my point by a little experiment. Onpage 115 you will find some census statistics as illustrated byMr. Ray Bethers and printed in This Week magazine-exceptthat I have left out the captions under the pictures and oneline of explanatory text below.

Now look at this series of pictures and ask yourself whatit suggests to you. Does it lell you what it is supposed to tellyOU-bOW the ratio between city and country population haschanged? Does it (eU you anything more? Whal else do Ihelittle pictures suggest?

When you have answered these questions, turn to page 118and look at Mr. Bethers' lillie picture slory the way it ac·tunlly appeared. All you see, the point is thai the countrypopulation has dropped from 95 per cent to 43 per cent, andthe city population bas risen from 5 per cent to 57 per cent.And there is that very imporlant last line: "Cities and Townsare defined as baving 2500 population or more." You couldn'tpossibly have guessed all thai by just looking at the pictures;in fa!:t, you probably were misled by the six-story apartmentbUilding under TODAY which made you think of a big metro­polit.1n city rather than a sma.ll town. (At leasl that's what 1thought at first.)

Mind you, 1 don't mean to disparage Mr. Betbers' pleasantand instructive piece of work. On the contrary, I think it showswell that the better aod more imaginlllive the art work, theless it will be able to tnke the place of verbal explanation.If yeu want 10 give YOllr reader something to look at, welland good; but jf you have to tell bim something, tell him.

In other words, nothing is self-cxplanatory-it's up to youto explain it. And you'll hav!: to do jt in words.

Chapter Fourteen

HOW TO OPERATE A BLUE PENCIL

I don't know whether efficiency experts ever made time andmotion studies of the work done hy copy editors in a publish­ing house. If they did, they must have found that editorsspend 90 per cent of their time crossing oUt words in manu­scripts and shifting around those that are left. Look over anyeditor's shoulder for a while and you'll see that 1 am right.

It's hard to remember this when you are your own editor,revising something you have written yourself. Let's face it:Those words you liked so well when you wrote them willprobably have to be cut in h31f and completely rearranged.

Go to a library to get practical advice on writing and you11find that nothing has been recommended so often and sowarmly. as cutting. Two thousand years ago Pliny the Youngerwrote: "1 apologize for this long letter; I didn't have enoughtime to shonen it." (This has also been attributed to a dozenother great writers.) Dr. Samuel Johnson's only rule forwriting was: "Read over your compositions, and when youmeet with II passage which you think is particularly fine, strikeit out." This was echoed by the late Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch:"If you require a pnl.cticaJ rule of me, 1 will present youwith this: Whenever you feci an impulse to perpetrate a pieceof exceptionally fine writing, obey it-whole-heartedly-anddelete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murduyour darIincs."

In other words, whenenr you write, you are templed 10use expressions of which you are fond and prOUd. Usually itwill be just these words :lnd phrases that will stop the re.:lderor throw him off. While you are writing }'OU clm't spot them;you are too strongly :lUnched 10 what has just sprung fromyour mind. But in the cold light of "the morning after" youare able to look at them with a detached reader's eye.

117

WHAY'S HAlt'ININ6'0 WHIRl YOU LIVa

90'" 01 __ ..... .....,'O~ IOCI"""d "' e--,- .. Cllioto Dad 10....

. • 11 I

••••.., .00'

65" 01 ... -.... .....~S".-.......""'c-.,- .. Cloln .... ,_

TODAY ~

~G9tuow, 41" .... In hllo 57"- ...... e-...,- CJlIon .... ,_

IV IUHttS __• u .. a__••, e-o-OoI.o r_ ...~~ ......... '_I'¥".., _

How TO OPERATE A BLUC PEr-:C1L t 19

The need for transposing may be harder to see. Somehow,at first writing, we don't always hit on the best arrangementof words for emphasis. The rule is simple enough: The placefor emphasis is at the end. But while we write, we have atendency to overlook the reader's need for sentence rhYthmand buildup, .

Newspaper lead senlences, with their perverse deliberateanticlimax, are fine material for anyone who wants to learntraosposing. For example:

VANCOUVER, Wash., March 24, t948-Death insteadof help came to all but two survivors of an Army planecrash in the snoweapped mountains north of here despitetheir frantic attempts to signal sean:h planes,

Did you feel the emphasis on hdp, two, and search planes?The pull of the natura! rhythm of the sentence is so strongthat it's almost impossible to get the meaning without reread­ing. Let's do a little transposing:

VANCOUVER, Wash., March 24, 1948-North of here,in the snowcnpped mountains, nn Army plane crashed,The survivors tried frantically to signal search planes;but when help came, all but two hlld died.

Here is another gem-a typical press-release lead:

An incn:ase of nearly SO per cent in the reliance ofAmerican business on professional industrial designers togive their products consumer appeal from 3n art, engi­neering and merchandising standpoint was indicated in asurvey by the American Managemenl Association in col­laboration with the Society of Industrial Designers. re­leased yesterday.

Transposed, this reads:

Yesterday the American Ma.nagement Association andthe Society of Industrial Designers released a survey. Itshowed that American businessmen want to give theirproduct consumer appeal from the standpoint of mer­chandising, ensineering and art: their usc of professionalindustrial designers bas increased SO per cent.

Of course, newspaper leads are notoriously Qnticlimactic.

120 How TO Warm, SPEAX, AND TlIlN1C MORI!. EPFECTIVEL¥

For a pleasant change, let me show you n lead paragrnph inwhich me emphasis is jusl right. It's from Th~ N~IV Yorker­a bit of reporting by one of its stars, lame! Thurber:·

In the intolerable heat of last August, one Ezra Adams,of Clinton, Iown, strode across his living room andsmashed his radio with his fists, in the fond hope ofsilencing forever the plaintive and unendurable chatterof one of his wife's favorite afternoon programs. He wasfined ten dollars for disturbing the peace, lind Mrs. Adamslater filed suit for divorce. I have no way of knowinghow many similarly oppressed husbands may haveclapped him on the back or sent him greetings and cigars,but I do know that his gesture was as futile as it wascolorful. He had taken a puny sock at a tormentor ofgreat strength, a deeply rooted American institution oftowering proportions. Radio dnytime serinls, known tothe irreverent as soap open, dishpan drama, washboardweepers, and cliffhangers, have for years withstood anarray of fnr more imposing allacketS, headed by Dr.Louis I. Derg, a New York psychiatrist nnd sonp opera'sEnemy No. I,

This is worth rereading for its perfectly balanced rhythm­from the languid beginning "In the intolerable heat of lastAugust, one Ezra Adams, of Clinlon, Iowa, strode across hisliving room" to the whiplash ending "soap opera's EnemyNo.1," Each sentence leads the reader up to something, withjust the right number of words to give him the right impres·sion. (There is notbing wrong with a sentence average of 33words if you are tiS readable as Thurber.)

As I said, you will have done most of your revision jobwhen you have cut your original. copy to pieces and turnedthe sentences upside down. The rest of your morning-afterwork is hardly more than odds nnd ends.

There is punctuation, for one thing. Since you will shortenyour sentences, you'll make many commas into periods. Othercommtls you'll take out since the beller sentence rhythm willmake them unnecesstlry. You will tie some of your shortsentences together by using semicolons instead of periods be·tween them--or colons, if the first sentence serves as a curtain­raiser to the second. You will improve the paragraphing-

• By permission. Copyright 1948 JamC$ Thurber. Orillinally publishedin Th~ N~w Yorkr.

How TO OP£JlATE A BLUE PENCIL 121

usually by breaking longer paragraphs into two or threesmaller ones. Your shoner sentences will foree you intoshoner paragraphs; there is a natura! relation between the two.

You will use more punctuation for emphasis. You will un­derline (italicize) words and phrases to be stressed, and putplll"Cnth= around those you Willi! to de-emphASize. You willhelp tbe rhythm of your sentences hy wing a dash here andthere-like this.

In short, you will try at thi, point to see )'our words as thereader will sec tbem. Jf your writing is to be printed. this willme;ln tbnt you have to visualize it in type. You'll need toknow thcse basic rule! about readable typography:

(I) Any type size under 10 point is hard 10 read.lhis is 10 point type.This is 8 point type.Thll II , tlOl"t t)'f*,

This book is printed in 9 point type.(2) Anything printed in an unIamiliar type face is hard

to read.(lmllgine D whole book prinled In this

advertJslng display type.)

(3) Jf I.here is no leading (white space) between the lines,lines looger than 40 characters and spaces are bard to read.The printers' rule of thumb is "onc-and-3-half alphabets"(39 characters or spaces) per line. (This book is printed withabout 62 characters per line, but has 2 poioa leading betweenthe lines.)

(4) Headings printed in capitals only nrc hard to read. Itis easier to read hendings in capitals and lower-case letters,pnrticularly if printed in bold face.

You will also try to usc the arrangement on the page 10make reading and understanding easier. This will mean thatyou will tabulate information rather than bury it in runningparagraphs. The remainder of the press release 1 just quotedis a good example: .

Designers. it was leamed, are employed by more than90 per cent of companies manufacturing consumerproducts who responded to the poll. They are also em­ployed by 80 per cent of companies manufacturingpackages or products sold in packages and by 70 percent of concerns manufacturing industri:lI goods. About2S per cent of the companies producing consumer goodsdepend for their designs entirely on consultant designees.

122 How TO WR1TI!, SPEAK, AND TmNll: MORl! EFFECTIVELY

The survey also disclosed Utat decision on designs isII function of top management in II majority oc'l33 com~

panies that provided information and more than half ofthe companies surveyed use consultant designers ex­clusively or in addition to full-time staff designers.

In more than one-third of the companies surveyed thedesign of the product is recognized as so important thatthe choice of the designer and the supervision of hiswork arc made the responsibilily of the president orolher senior administrative officers. An additional fifthof the companies assigned responsibility for design policyto committees on which all dcpanments are represented,which is "roughly cquivalent to leaving design policy totop management," the report stated.

Statistics are almost impossible to understand if presentedin this fashion. Maybe you will say that you can't give IInewspaper reader stAtistical tables or grllphs. Of course nol.But there is a middle way:

According 10 the 133 companies thaI answered thopoll, consultant or staff designers are now used by

70 per cell! of_the industrial-goods manufacturers;80 per cent of the package or packaged-goods

manufacturers;90 per cent of the consumer-goods manufacturers.

More than half the companies use consultant de~

signers, either exclusively or in addition to full-time staffdesigners. One-fourth of the consumer-goods manufac­turers use consultant designers exclusively.

In most companies decisions on design arc a functionof top management: in more thun one-third of the com­panies designers arc chosen nnd supervised by the presi­dent or a vice-president, and in another 20 per cent byinterdepanmcntal committees.

All this, of coursc, belongs to the garden variety of editingBnd revision. As 1 said, it's the kind of editing any ordinaryperson could or should do the morning after he has committeda piece of writing.

Things are different when it comes to tricky business likedigesting or abstracting. Such editorial handicraft is beyondthe cnll of duty of the ordinnry person; but it's worthwhileto know something aboul the basic principles.

Tbe first thing to understand is that abridgments arc of

How TO OPERATl! A BLUe PENCIL 123

two kinds: the Chemical Abstracts kind and the Reader'sDigest kind. One boils things down for the hurried informa·tion-~ker, the other puts it in convenient shape for the readerwho is faced with an empty little chink of leisure time. Thedifference, of course, lies in the principle of selection: in onecase you look for the inner core of facts, in the other, forthe tastiest bilS of reading mnller.

Since most writing consist.! of n struclUre of faclS and ideascovered with digres.sions, comments, and illustrations, thismeans that the same piece of writing may be shortened intwo directions, so to speak, with entirely different results. Thesame scientific anicle may be digested one way for scientistsand anOlher way for laymen. On the face of it, it may lookimpossible that botb versions were dcrived from the samematerial: but each may be just right for its readers.

Nowadays, the Reader's Digest type of condensation isfamiliar to everybody; the other type is familiar to the scientistor professional worker, but usually unfamiliar to the generalpublic. In recent years, however. one such abridgment hasbecome a national best-seller: D. C. Somervell's one-volumeedition of Arnold J. Toynhee's six-volume Swdy 01 History.It is a perfect specimen of it.! kind: While Toynbec's originalwork is a fascinating maze of digressions and historical illustra­tions, thc abridgment resembles, as one revicwer wrote, "ntree in winter." It present.! Toynbee's map of world historywithout taking the reader On any of the author's delightfultrips,

While I was reading SomerveU's one-volume Toynbee, thequestion occurred to me what a Reader's Digest cdilor wouldhave done with the same m:llerial. So, just for the fun of it,I took a random passage in the Somervell volume, looked upthe corre.sponding half dozen pages in the six-volume originaln.nd then worked out a reasonable facsimile of a "Reader'sDigest condensation" 01 tlte same pages. Here is the result,

Tb.is is the passage I found in Somervell:·

Perhaps simplification is not quite an accurate, or atleast not altogether an adequate, tCTln for describingthese changes. Simplification is a negative word n.ndconnotes omission and elimination, whercas what hashappened in each of these cases is not a diminution butan enhancement of practical efficiency or of aesthetic

• From It Study 0/ fll.llol)' by Arnold J. To)'ll~, IlbrJdged by D. C,Somervell. Copyright 1946 by Odord Unive~ity PteSS, New York.

124 How TO Warre. SPeAK. AND Tuua: MOM EPFECTIVILY

satisfaclion or of inlelleclUal grasp. The re.sull is nOI aloss bUI a gain; and !his gain is lhe outcome of a processof simplification because lhe process IibcraleS forcesthai have been imprisoned in a more material mediumand thereby sets them free to work in a more etherealmedium with a greater potency. It involves not merelya simplification of apparatus but a consequent Iransferof energy, or shift of emphasis., from some lower sphereof being or o[ action 10 n higher. Perhnps we shall bedescribing the process in a more illuminating way if wecall it, not simplification but elherealization.

And here is my own corresponding "R~Qdds Digutarticle". t

About !he middle of Ihe 191h century, in the days oflhe Industrial Revolution, Ihere was an English sailingship that used 10 make the voyage to Chinn, year by year,with the same English crew and finish by going up theYangtse, three days' sail upstream, with Ihe same Chinesepilot.

One year the owners scrapped the old sailing ship andsenl their men out in a new-fangled steamer. All the wayout the crew speculated about the impression the steamerwould make on the Chinese pilot. Their curiosilY wastitillated. N they approached the point off the China.coast where the pilot always came on board they had atense feeling of expeclancy.

At last the pilot stepped onto the sleamer's deck, madehis cwtomary salutation 10 the Captain, and walked tothe wheel. "Now he will have his surprise," thought !heEnglishmen, ''when he finds Ihe ship moving forwardwith not a sail bent on the yards." But when the enginesstarted, they were astonished to see that not a musclemoved on his face. He kept his place al the wheel with­out utlering a word.

"Well," Ihe crew said, "his mind works slowly. He'llruminale all day and lell us his thoughts in the ev~ning."

BU! th~ day passed, and the evening, and the nigbL Thepilot said nOlhing, kept his place at the whcel, and quietIydid his business as always. The second day and nigbtpassed likewise, and the third and last day arrived-theday on which he W3S to lake his leave.

t Abridged rcam A Stud), 01 History, 3rd vol. Used by pecmWlon.

How TO QPERATB A Burn PENCIL 125

At this point the Englishmen forgot their resolution toleave it to the pilot to break the silence first. They askedhim what impression their ship bad made on him. "'Ibisship?" the Chinese said. "Why, once upon a time weused to make ships like this in China too. Gave them upsome time ago, though. Must be about two thousandyears since we used them last."

The Chinese had only contempt for a steamship, ornny other piece of clockwork. His own people, be meantto say, had anticipated the Western "Barbarians" inexploiting physical nature but had learned many centuriesago that this material world was not the place wherehuman beings sbould lay up their treasure. So they hadshifted their interest and energy from industrialism toa different sphere.

What does this comparison prove? That Toynbee's originalwork should have been used as the basis for a differentpopulnr version? That Somervdl's one·volume edition isunreadable? But if that's true, you will say, how did it manageto slay on the best..seller liSLS for such a long time? Doesn'tmy little experiment prove just the opposite from what it W83

aupposed to prove?Well, I wonder. Compnred with the millions who read and

enjoy the R~ad~r's Digut and similar magazines, the thousandsof readers of even a nonfiction best-seller are only a drop inthe bucket. And how many among those who bought theToynbee nbridgment ever got beyond the first hundred pages?

Chapter Fifteen

HOW TO BE A FLUENT WRITER

Some time ago I talked to a friend of mine who, like myself,had for years been teaching' an evening class in writing. Beingcompetitors, we decided to compare notes on our experiences.

"What's your main problem?" I asked him."'My main problem," he said, "is always the same. I get

swamped. During the whole period of the course, I spendevery weekend buried under a mountain of papers. It's aterrific chore."

Nothing could have surprised me more. Not only were myweekends happily free of papers 10 correct, but on the con­trary I always had just the opposite lrouble: I could nevermanage to get my students to write enough. They just didn'tproduce. I tried this and tb:l.t, I begged, I co:ued, I imploredthem-it was no use. I had long ago come to the conclusionthat the average sludent would do anything rather than write.

Whal was the explanation for Ihis enormous differencebetween our two writing courses? Obviously this: My friendtaught creative writing and I taught the other, practical kind.People who take crenlivc.writing courses htlve an urge towritc, pcople who take praclical-writing courses have a writ­ing phobia.

Naturally, there are exceplions 10 Ihis basic rule. Aboutonce every year, there appeared among my students a speci­men of the "creative" type and I was handed long, wordyslices of autobiography, ficlionalized experien~, and essays00 philosophical themes. Thinking back over the years, I ar­rived al the conclusion Ihal about onc out of fifty adultAmericans suffers from graphomania-which is defined inWebslt'r's UMbridced Dictionary as a "morbid desire ormania for writing." The remaining forty-nine are victims of

126

How TO BE A FLUENT WRIT£R 127

the much more common ailment of "graphophobia"-whichis not listed in Webster's but certainly ought to be.

There is some stntistical evidence for what I just said. In1949 someone took a public-opinion poll in the city of Louis.ville, Kentucky, and found that 2.1 per cent of the votingpopulation ''wanted 10 write." I don't doubt that this figureis roughly true for the country as a whole. There are about2 per cent graphomnniacs among us-people who have deskdrawers full of stories and essays and unfinished novels, pe~pie who fill evening classes in creative writing, people whohave the diary habit-in short, people whose nervous systemscrave the activity of putting words on paper, just as thoseof alcoholics crave llquor.

Of course, among those 2 per cent there arc a few that aresuccessful and have made n name for themselves as authon.But they too can be classified as neurotics, just like theirmore unfortunate fellow writen wbo get nothing for theirefforts but rejection slips. Dr. Edmund Sergler, well-knownpsychiatrist and author of the book The Wriur and Pry­choanolysiJ. stales catcgorically that he has never encountereda normal writer. either in his office, or in private life, or inexamining the liCe histories of writen. There is no such thingas a normal writer. he says; normal people just don't feelimpelled 10 write.

I could illustrale this verdict with literally dozcns of state­menls by famous writers who have described their neuroticattitude toward writing. I'll just quote one, which struck meas unusually pathetic when 1 read it. This is from the essay"Voyage with Don Quixote" by Thomns Mann, the InteGerman Nobel prize winner, written during a slow boat tripacross the Atlantic:

May tw~ntleth. I ought not to do what I am doing: sit­ting bent over to write. It is Dol conducive 10 well-being.for the sea is, as our American table-mates say, "a littlerough," and though r.. agree that our ship moves quietlyand steadily, yet her motions are more fdt up here onthis desk where the writing-room is thm they are below.Nor is looking through the window advisable, for therising and falling oC the horizon attncb the head in nway well known from an earlier experience but forgottenuntil now. AJso it is not very healthy to gaze down uponpaper and script. Curiow!y, obstinately persevering isthe old habit of scttling to composition so soon as break-

128 How TO WRlTI!, SrUIC, AND TIIINJC MORB EpPECfIVBLY

fast and lb.e morning stroll 8rc over, It persists undcrthc most contrnry circumstances,·

Isn't that pitiful? Here is Thomas Mann, sixty years old andworld-famous, and yet unable to enjoy bis ten days' trip toNew York without the daily dose of bis writing drug. (Havingno other project on band, he decided to rerend Don Quixoteand write a long essay on thaI.)

However, this is not a book for or Ghout "creative" writen.Chances are--about fOMy-nine to one, as I said----that youare not one of them, that you ne\-er felt "driven" to writingand can't understand the slate of mind of a person who is.You don't keep a diary, you hate writing letters, and it wouldnever OC1;ur to you 10 submit 11 slory or aMide to a magazine.You are just an ordinary Americlm. suITering Crom grapho­phobia like practically all the resl of us.

One of my most important jobs in this book is to prescribe11 remedy for Ihis graphophobia of youn. Here it is:

Do each writing job as if il were an informal talk to YOllrreader. Don', Slart wi/hom notes-or at least specific ideas­on what you art! going /0 say. Ami don't SlOp be/ore you havesaid it.

That's all, Do this a thousand times and you'll be a sea­soned professional wriler. Do it for practice cvery day fora month or two and you'll be on your way toward getting ridof your graphophobia for good.

Let me go into a few details. As you can see, what I amtrying to do here is to leach you writing by following thepattern of a course in public speaking. The most importantelement in such a course is the extemporaneous speech, madeby one member of the group in fronl of the rest, who forma critical :l.udien~. The student learns public speaking bydoing somelhing he has never done before.

Take a typical sludent in a public-speaking course. Whatdid he do before when called upon 10 address a group? Doubt­less, whenever he was faced by such an emergency, be care­fully prepared his speech in advance and read it to hisaudience. mortally afraid of injecling even one word orphrase inlO his prepared script.

This, in public speaking, is the number-one fault: tbepreparation of a speech in advance, robbing it of all personal

• From "VO)'llle v.ith Don Quixote" in EnD)'1 oj Th,~~ Dutul~1 byThomas Mann, tnmslnted by 11. T. Lowe·Porter. Copyright 1947 byAlfred A. Knopf. Ine.

How TO BI! A FLUm-. WlUTEJI. 129

flavor and naturalness. The same applies to writing. Youhave to begin by changing your b3sic habit, which, as ofnow, corresponds cxactly 10 the prepared script and thespeech that is not spoken but read aloud. If I am righe-and1 know 1 am-you go about any writing job piecemeal, slow·Iy formulating a senlence and putting it down on paper, thenstopping and thinking, preparing Ihe next sentence in youemind, pUlling that down on paper, pausing again 10 think ofwhat to say next, slowly formulating anolher idea, writing itdown, stopping again, rereading what you have wriuen, work­ing up to the neXt sentence, thinking it over, searching for atransition, hesitating, inserling a qualification, writing again.stopping, thinking, searching for a word ... etc., etc., adinfinitum. It's writing, after a fashion. but it's as ditTerentfrom the ~al Ihing as drafting a speech silting alone at youedC:ik is from addressing a roomful of people.

So you have to get used to the idea of "prewriting"--doingresearch, taking nOles, organizing your material-and thenwriting, lit 3n even speed, keeping up 3 flow of talk to yourreader without any awkward pauses or hesitations,

How fast should you write? That's hard to say. Just to giveyou a standard-or rather an ideal to aim nt-I'll tell youthat a competent newspaperman, neeording 10 one estim:lle,averages aboUl 1,000 words an hour. This checks wilh apassage from the autobiography of Anthony Trollope, theVictorian novelist, which has become rather famous amongprofessionnl writers:

All lhose 1 think who have lived as lit~rary men­working daily as literary laborers-will agr~c with methat Ihree hours a day will produce as much as a manought to write. But lhen he should so have trained him­self that he shall be able to work continuously dur·ing those three hours-so have tutored his mind that itsholl not be necessary for him to sit nibbling at his pen,and gazing al the wall before him, till he shall have foundthe wordll with which he wanls 10 express his ideas. Ithnd al this lime become my custom-and it slill is mycustom, though of laic I have become a little lenient tomyself-to write with my walch before me, and to re·quire from myself twO hundred and fifty words everyquarter or an hour. I have found thai the IWO hundredand filty words have beeD forthcoming as regularly asmy wntch went.

130 How TO Wllrm, SrE,4,,,, AND TmNJ: MOIll! EFFECTIVELY

If you write double·spaced on ordinary typewriter-size pa­per, you'll get about 250 words on one page-just aboutTrollopc's output in a quarter of an hour. This, of course,as I said, would be top professiona.! speed; you'll probablywork considerably slowcr---eveo if you are a fast typist orjf you dictate. However, the speed isn't too important; what'simportant is, as Trollope points out, the stcady work and theabsence of pauses for slaring into emply space.

Why is this so? Because good writing must read like theauthor talking to thc reader; and to rend like that, il must bewrittcn likc that. If Ihe author has stopped in his writing fortwo minutes and has Slit, thinking, with a vacllnt look on hisface, then thc rClider is bound to feel it somehow. Thcre isnOlhing on paper to show this: interval, but it's there never­theless, disturbing the communication between their minds likeslatic. It's as if a speaker should suddenly SlOp talking andtreat his audience 10 IWO minules~ of utter silence while he isthinking of what 10 say next.

This sense of the writer talking without a break to hisreader, Ihis invisible mark of an easy flow of words is themost important thing there is about writing. It is there andwill come through if you know what you are going to saybeforehand and put on paper in one go, simply talking toyour reader on paper; il isn't there if you write in any otherway. It cannot be faked; and there is no substitute method ofwriting that will have the same effect.

Lei'S look at what this means practically. It means that ifyou do this talking-to·your-reader-on-paper at the top, orTrollopc, speed of 250 words in 15 minules, you'll produce in15 minutes what the average American reader will read inabout a minute and a quarter. (American adults read at about150 to 200 words 3. minute. This is praclically identical withthe average speed of talking, which is about 180 words aminute; it therefore corresponds to the average speed of lis·lUling to conversation or to an informal speech.) In otherwords, a good professional writer will lake about 15 minutesto write something thai will be read in a minute and a quarter.If he docs it in the way I have just described, it will be aseasy to read as onlinary conversation is 10 listen to.

Now the amateur writer, who hasn't gained this feeling ofthe basic relationship between writing time and reading time,will invariably try to stuff his writing with too much materia.!-too many facts, too many ideas, too many qualifications,too many adjectives, 100 many "extras." The pro, who knowsin his boncs that his fiflcen minules of writing time means

How TO BJ! A FLUI!t-.'T WRITI'.R 131

a minute and a quarter of reading time. will 3utomaticallygive tbe reader just as much as he can take; the amateur willfull into the trap of that blank page before him and fill itup to the brim with stuff to read. Readers like things to bebrief. he tells himself; so let's condense, Let's fill every nookand cranny. in each sentence with a descriptive adjective hereand an allusion there; let's fit in lidded facts, historical side­lights. wry comment-it·s amazing how much you can getinto a single paragraph if you just try.

There is a kind of writing-done not by amateurs but bytop professionals-where this type of condensation is doneon principle and for a reason: I mean the news magazines.Look at a random sample from Time as an illustration:

Setting down at New Delhi in a nOAC Britannia lateone morning last week, Britain's Harold Macmillan foundUnion Jacks fluttering over India's capital in festivedisplay for the first time since the British Raj moved outin 1947. Out at the airport to greet the only BritishPrime Minister ever to visit India while in office was anarray of notables headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and backedup by thousands of cheering citizens.

In the four days that followed, Harold Macmillan­who plans to visit five Commonwealth nations in as manyweeks--donned festal garlands, shucked off his shoesbefore placing a wreath on Mahatma Gandhi's shrine.ceremonially visiled the spot from which British forceslaunched their final assault on Old Delhi during theIndian Mutiny in 1857. ' •.

I take it that you rend this el(cerpt at your usual readingspeed. Were you able to take it all in? Clln you answer a setof lest questions nbout it? When did the Dritish move OUI ofIndia? When was the Indian Mutiny? How long is Mr. Mac­millan's trip going to take? What kind of plane did he travelon? Was he the first Prime Minister cver 10 visit India? Orthe first since India gained independence? Or the first what?How long did he stay in Ncw Delhi? How long in Old Delhi?Where did he put on a garland? Where did he take off hisshoes? Did he arrive in the morning? At noon? At night?

If you can answer all these questions without looking backnt the excerpt from Time, then you nrc a very good readerindeed. Most p,cople can't. They would relld such a paragraph,gening the general sense, bUI forgelling most of the detailsas soon as they had read them.

132 How m WIUTF., SPI!A". AND TiUN" MORe EpFeCTIVELY

ln other words, they read wilh the same degree of effortand auention they ordinarily put into listening. Now justimagine what )IOU would get OUI of il if Ulmeone lold you, alnormal conversational speed: ''Sening down at New Delhiin a BOAC Britannia late one morning lasl week, Britain',Harold Macmillan found Union Jacks flutlering over lndia',capital in festive display for the first time since the IlritishRaj moved OUI in 1947. Out al the airporl 10 greet the onlyBritish Prime Minister ever 10 visil Indin while in office _..,.etc. (Of course, it's almost impossible 10 imngine that, sinceno one evcr talks like lhat, every sentence S1arting with IImodifying Clause, and dOlens of ilems of information tuckedcarefully into all available spaces.)

And now compare Ihis compact, slnff-researched nnd starr~

written piece of writing with the opposite kind: a piece ofwriling researched by one person and wriuen by the sameperson in one uninterrupted flow. This is a sample from "In­side Fashion" by Eugenia Sheppard, II woman's column ap­pearing in the New York Herald Tribune:

Anybody who is anybody seems to be gctting a lift­by plaSlic surgery-these days. It's the new world-widecr32C Ihat combines the satisfactions of psyeho3nalysis.mass.age. and a trip to a beauty salon. The same girlswho used to make a life study of detecting dark bairroots lire now aUlhorities on olher girls' face repairs­how much and how oftcn. ("I know positively. rveseen the tiny scars behind her cars.") Plastic surgery isin llboUI the same SlalC of repute as hair dyeing wastwenty years ago, approved by the avant garde but sniffedat as slighlly unholy by the conservatives. Look at whathas happened to hair dyeing. Anything goes nowadays.• . . High price5 of plastic surgeons and hospitalizationseem to be what's holdillg back the mass appeal ofplastic surgery in this country. Itli benefits are covetednot only by women who want to look younger but byyounger women who ror some mysterious rellSOn allwant 10 look alike. Fashion models are consulting plasticsurgeons to erase under-eye circles and up Iheir bosomlines. Over in Paris the trend is more advanced and thetariff said to be IcS!. While 1 WllS reporling Ihe Pariscollections, I r:ln into an old friend who had just been"done." She spoke o( it wilh the rapture or a convertto a new faith....

How TO DE A FLUENT WRITI!R 133

This, I think, is a fair example of writing with enough sub_Slance to be imcresting btll not so much as to overWhelm thereader. You'll find this sort of relaxed and leisurely writingin almost aU the columns-they wouldn't be widely syndicatedif they didn't have this quality of easy readability. You'll findit in all magazine articles-they wouldn't otherwise be ac­cepted by Ihe editors. And you'Jl find it in all books, fictionand nonfiction. that manage to become popular best-sellers.

A good place to look for masterpieces of this kind ofseemingly efforlless prose is in the books written by famousauthors toward the end of Iheir career-at the slage whenthe business of talking to a reader has become second natureto them and when the last Iraces of nervousness and self­consciousness have long ago disappeared. Here, for instance,is Stephen Leacock, seventy·three years old and writing histwenty-sixth book, How 10 Write:

Suppose a would-he writer can't begin, r really believethere arc many excellent writers who have never wrillenbecause they never could begin. This is especially the caseof people of great sensitiveness, or of people of advancededucalion. Professors suffer most of all from this inhibi­tion, Many of them carry their unwritten books 10 thegrave. They overestimate the magnitude of the task; theyoverestimate Ihe greatness of the final result. A child ina "prep" school will write "The History of Greece" andfetch it home finished afler school. "He wrote a fine His­tory of Greece the other day," says his proud father.Thirty years later the child, grown to be' a professor,dreams of writing the History of Greece-the whole ofit from the first Ionic invasion of the Aegean to thedownfall of Alexandria. But he dreams, He never statts.He can'l. It's too big,

Anybody who hus lived around a college knows thepathos of these unwritten books. Moreover, quite apartfrom the non-start due to the appalling magnilUde ofthe sUbject, there is a non-start from the mere trivialdifficulty of "how. to begin" in the smaller sense, how toframe the opening senlences. In other words how do youget started? .

The best practical advice that cnn be given on thISsubject is, don't $/art. That is, don't start anywhere inparticular. Begin at the end: begin in the middle, butbegin. If you like you can fool yourself by prelendingthat the start you make isn't really lhe beginning and

134 How TO WRIT1l, SPEAK, Am> TUlNK MORE EFFECTIVELY

that you are going to write it all over 3gain. Pretendthat whal you wrile is justll note, 11 fragment, a nOibing.Only get started.

This is ~aUlifully rehu:ed "'riling. Look :tr the wonderfulllrtistry wilh which Leacock produces the quol:trion "He wrotea fine History of Greece the other day." There it is, in themiddle of a par:lgCllph, having just popped out of nowhereinto Stephen Leacock's mind and llsed immediately to brightenthe whole page. Imagine yourself trying to "work in" suchan anecdote. You would take three paragraphs for it, awk­wardly beginning with "This reminds me of .. :' :md windingup with a lame "Thus we see...."

Or look at Ihe content of these three parngrnphs. If youSlOp to analyze it, Leacock was actunlly sidctracked. He startedto give advice on how to begin, then got off on a tangentabout his academic frienth who drenmed of vast scholarlyprojects. and thcn had 10 backtrack to his originnl subject.But does it mailer? That's Ihe way the old man would hnveexplained the business 10 an amateur writer who had cometo see him, and his rambling three paragraphs on how 10 starta piece of writing arc still meatier and more valuable thananything ten limes as compact that you would find in a text­book.

For still another example, here is seventy-three-yenr-oldMark Twnin. writing, writing, wriling, filling his autobiographywith whatever happcn5 to interest him. One part of it iscalled "Is Shakespcnre Dead?" and deals with the perennialquestion of who wrote the plays. Mark Twain was convincedthnt Shnke~pcare did nOl. Here is one chapter of his argu­ment. (This will be the longest quotntion in Ihis book, but Ifeel it's worth while to give you a few pages of Mark Twain.To learn the an of leisurely writing, you oughl 10 do. someleisurely reading.)

When Shakespe:tre died. in 1616, gTCal lilerary pro­ductions anribuled 10 him as author had been before Ihelondon world and in high favor for twenty-four years.Yet his death was nOI an evenl. It made no stir, it at­tracted no anemion. Apparently his eminent literarycontemporaries did nOI realize thai a celebr<l!ed poet h:tdpassed from Iheir midst. Perhaps they knew a play-ac:orof minor mnk had disappeared. bllt did not regard himas the authOr of his Works. "We are justified in nnum·ing" Ihis.

How TO BI! A FLUENT WRITER 135

His death was not even an event in the little town ofStratford. Does this mean that in Stratford he was notregarded as a celebrity of all)' kind?

"We are privileged to assume"-no, we are indeedobliged to assume-that such was the case. He had spentthe first twenty-two or twenly-three years of his lifeIhere, and of course knew everybody and was knownby everybody of thai day in the town, including the dogsand the cats and tbe horses, He had spent the last fiveor six years of his life there, diligently trading in everybig and lillIe thing tbat bad money in it; so we arc com.pelled to assume that many of the folk Ihere in thosesaid laller days knew him personally, and the rest bysight and hearsay. But not as a celebrity? Apparentlynot. For everybody soon forgono remember any conlactwith him or any incident connected with him. The dozensof townspeople, still alive, who had known of him orknown about him in the first twenty-three years of hislife were in the same unremembering condition: if theyknew of any incident connected wilh that period of hislife they didn't teU about it. Would they if they had beenasked? It is most likely. Were they asked? It is prettynpparent that they were not. Why weren't they? It isa very plausible guess that nobody there or elsewherewas interested to know.

For seven years after Shakespeare's death nobodyseems to have been interested in him. Then the folio waspublished, and Ben Johnson awoke out of his long in·difference and sang a song of praise and pUI it in thefront of the book. Then silence fell again.

For sixty years. Then inquiries into Shakespe:Jre'sStratford life began to be made, of Str:Jtfordians. OfSiratfordians who had known Shakespeare or had seenhim? No. Then of Stralforclians who had known orseen people who had seen Shakespeare? No. Ap­parently thc inquiries were only made of Stratfordianswho were not Stratfordians of Shakespeare's day, butlater comers; and what they had learned had comc tothem from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; andwhat they had learned was not claimed as lacl, but onlyas legend-dim and fading and indefinite legend; legendof the calf-slaughtering rank, and not worth remember­ing either as history or fiction.

Has it ever happened bcfore-or since-that a cele­brated person who had spcnt cxactly half of a fairly long

136 How TO WRIT!>, SPEAK, AND TJllNIC MORI! EFFI!CTIVI!ty

life in the village where he was born and renred, Wll!l

able to slip out of this world and leave that villngevoiceless and gossipless behind him-utterly voiceless,utterly gossipless? And permanently so1 I don't believeit has happened in any case except Shakespeare's. Andcouldn't and wouldn't have happened in his case if hehad been regarded as a celebrity at the time of his death.

When I examine my own case-but let us do that, andsee if it will not be recogniznble as exhibiting a condi·tion of tbings quite likely 10 result, most likely to result,indeed substantially sure to result in the case of a cele-­hrated person, a benefactor of the human race. Like me.

My parents brought me to the village of Hannibal,Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, when I wastwo and a half years old. I entered school at five yearsof age, and drifted from one scbool to another in thevillage during nine and a half years. Then my fatherdied, leaving his family in exccedingly straitened cir~

cumstances; whereforc my book-cducation came to /l

standstill forever, and I became a printer's npprenticc,on board and clothes, and whcn the clothes fniled I gota hymn-book in place of them. This for summer wear,probably. I lived in Hannibal fifteen and n half years,nllogether, then ran away, according to the custom ofpersons who arc intending to bccomc celebrated. [ neverlived thcre afterward. Four years latcr 1 became a "cub"on a Mississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and NewOrleans trade, nnd after a year and a half of bard studyand hard work the U.S. inspectors rigorously examinedme through a couple of long siltings and decided thatI knew every inch of the Mississippi-thincen hundredmiles-in the dark and in the day-as well as a babyknows the way to its molber's paps day or night. Sothey liccnsed me as a pilot-knighted me, so 10 speak­and I rose up clothed with authority, a responsibleservant of the United States Government.

Now then. Shakespeare died young-he was only fi{ty­tv.'o. He had lived in his nalive village twenty-six years,or aboul that. He died celebrated (if you believe every~

thing you read in lhe books). Yet whcn he died nobodythere or elsewhere took any notice of it; and {or sixtyyears afterward no townsman remembered to say any~

thing about him or about bis life in Stratford. When theinquirer came at last he got but one fact-no, Icgend­nnd gOlthat one at second hand, {rom a person who bad

How TO BE. A F1.UI!NT WI\ITEJl 131

only heard it as a rumor and dido't claim copyright init as a production of his own. He couldn·t, very well,for its d:1te antedated his own birth-date. But necessarilya number of persons were stiU alive in Stratford who,in the days of their youth, had seen Shakespeare nearlyevery day in the lasl five years of bi, life, and they wouldhave been able 10 tell that inquirer some first·hand thingsabout bim if be had in thD5C last years becn a celcbrityand th~efore a person of interest 10 the villagers. Whydid not the inquirer hunt them up and interview Ihem?Wasn't it worth while? Wasn't the matter of sufficientconsequence? Had the inquirer an engagement to see adog-fight and couldn't spare the time?

It all seems to mean tbat he never had any literarycelebrity, there or elsewhere, and no considerable reputeas actor or manager.

Now then, I am away along in !ife-my seventy.thirdycar being already well behind me-yet si~uen of m}'Hannibal schoolmates are still alive loday, and can tell­and do tell-inquirers dozens and dozens of incidents oftheir young lives and mine together; things thai hap­pened to us in the morning of life, in the blossom of ouryouth, in the good days, the denr day" "the days whenwe wenl gypsying, a long time ago," Most of themcreditable to me, too. One child to whom I paid counwhen she was five years old and I eight still lives inHannibal, and she visited me last summer, traversing thenecessary ten or twelve hundred miles of railroad with­out damage to her patience or 10 her old-young vigor,Another little lnssie to whom I paid lluention in Hannibalwhen she was nine years old and I the same, is still alive-in London-and hale and hearty, just as I am. Andon the few surviving stearnboats--those lingering ghostsand remembrancers of great fleets thnt plied the hig riverin Ihe beginning of my water-eareer-which is exactlyas long ago as the whole invoice of the life-years ofShakespeare numbers-there are still findahle two orthree river-pilots who saw me do credilable things inthose ancient days; and several white-headed engineers;and several roustabouts and mates; nnd several deck·hands wbo used to heave the lead for me and send upon the still nigbt air the "Six-feet--scQntl" that mademe shudder, aod the "M·a-r-k-twainl'" Ihal took theshudder away, and presently the darling "By the d-e-e-p-Iourt" that lifted me 10 heaven lor joy. They know

138 How TO WRIT!!, SPEAK, AND TUINK MaRl! EfFECTlVELY

about me, and can tell. And so do printers. from St. Louisto New York; and so do newspaper reporters, fromNevada to San Francisco. And so do the police. IfShakespeare had really been celebrated, like me, Stratfordcould have told things about him; and if my experiencegoes for anything. they'd have done it.

Isn't this beautiful? Do you understand now why I calledit a prose masterpiece? Did you notice how the old man goeson at his own measured pace, slowly setting forth his argu·ment, seemingly wandering from the point, rambling, digress.ing, reminiscing. and yet nailing down his argument so that itbecomes enormously powerful? When he is through buildingup his case, he simply stops and starts 11 new paragraph.Instead of worrying about a smooth, elegant transition, hesimply says: "Now then." Later, he has to start llDother para·graph, containing the climax of his argumelll, and again hesays: "Now then." That's all; but the reader is right therewith hint, taking in every word that is there, listening to whatthe old man bas to say, and-perhaps-getting convinced.

Now then (to borrow a phrase). What I tried to show youwith these examples is the essence of the natural. "spoken"style of writing, the kind that is produced by simply talkingto your reader across the sheet of paper between you-talkingslowly, leisurely, but without awkward silences, without goingback to reformulllte II sentence, without ever losing touchwith the reader at the other end of the line of communication.This is the kind of writing you have to learn, and you can'tlearn it as long as yOll a~ shy, nervous, inhibited. afraid ofputting your ideas on paper.

So you'll have to practice. You can overcome these inhi·bitions of yours only by practice in writing, just as you canlearn public speaking only by practice in speaking. The exer­cise that follows is therefore abso/luely essential if you want toget full value out of this book. -

EXERCISE

This exercise will be the framework for the next exercisesin this book.

During the period of one month (two months would beeven better) write a daily SOD-word letter to a close friendor relative. Pick someone who lives at a distance and is willingto help you improve your writing-your mother, brother,

How TO BE A FLUENT WRITER 139

aunt, ex-roommate, or whoever else is the most obviouschoice. Write to that person and tell him or her about thisdaily-letter plan. so that you'ij be committed to it. (Don'tsubstitute make-believe letters or diary entries for this exer­cise; it is essential that you actually send off leiters to someoneelse.)

Here arc the rules of the game:1. Write at least 500 words every day. At first, count the

words; later you'll be able to estimate the number of words oneach page,

2. Set yourself a time limit of half an hour, Make everyeffort to write your 500 words during that half hour. Thatmeans, do not stop to tllink.

3. Know what you want to say before you start writing,You can think of what should Bo into your lettcr at odd mo­mcnts during thc day. Make sure you have enough materialbefore you begin. As a rule, report on the events of the day.

4, Always write infonnl1l1y. Usc as many contractions a!

possible. Underline freely for emphasis. Use parentheses forcasual mention.

5. Don't be afraid to digress,

Cllapter Sixteen

FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

One of the most important events in the history of writinghappened on February 28, 1571. On that day Michel deMontaigne, a 38-year-old French nobleman who up to thattime hadn't shown any signs of unusual literary ambilions,suddenly quit public life, left Paris and the Royal Court forgood, and retired to the library of his COUntry house 10 devotethe resl of his life to writing. Thai country house with itslibrary still stands and, for all I know, tourists can go theretouny on sightsccing buscs, There they can look tit an inscrip­tion on the wall that reads (in Lntin): "In Ihe year of ourLord 157 I, at Ihe age of Ihirty-eighl, on the last day ofFebruary, being the anniversary of his birth, Michel de Mon­taigne, long weary of the service of Ihe Court and of publicemployments, while still in his full vigor, betook himself tothe bosom of the learned virgins; where, if the fates permil.he may pass. in calm and freedom from all cares, whal littleshall yet remnin of his allotted lime now more than half runout, This his ancestral abode and sweet relreal he-has con­secrated to his freedom, tranquillity, and leisure."

Why was this such an important event? Because Montaigne,in the book Ihat he proceeded to write, picked a subjecl thatnobody in Ihe whole history of literature had lackled before.Montaigne's Essays, to the ulter astonishment of his con­temporary readers, dealt with--of nil things-Montaigne him­self.

He knew very well that this wns unheard of. "Beeause [found 1 had nothing else \0 write about," he said, "I presentedmyself as a SUbject. When 1 wrote of anything else, I wanderedand lost the way.... If the novelty nnd strangeness oC myidea don', save me, I shall never come off with honor in IhisCoolish attempt. It is tbe only book of its kind in the world.•••

'40

FIRST PERSON" SINGut.,\R 141

It is so fantastic and extraordinary that perhaps it will pass.· .. , have no other aim but to reveal myself. However in­significant these essays of myself may be, 1 will not concealthem any more than myoid bald pate•...

"Custom has made it a fault to speak of oneself, and ob-­stinately forbids it, in hatred of the boasting which alwaysseems to attach itself to self· testimony.... My unde andun is to live my life. He who forbids me to speak of it ae­cording to my understanding, experience, and habit, may aswell expect an architect to speak of buildings, not as be him­self regards them. but as his neighbor docs, not from his ownknowledge, but from another's."

And so Montaigne proceeded to write about himself­three volumes of essays about his boybood, his family, hiseducation, his house, his travels, his books, his illncsses, hisfriends, his dreams, his interests, his habits, his experiences,his opinions, his religion, his sex life-a huge random collec­tion of everything that occurred to him, put down withoutany sequence or plan, just as it passed through his mind. Asthe years went by, this continuing self-portrait got steadilymore intimate, more dctailed, more microscopic. By lholime he was fifty.five and wrote his last essay, Montaignorambled on like this: '" cannot, without trying myself, eithersleep by day, or take snacks between meals.... I could dinowithout a table-cloth, but vcry uncomfortably without a cleannapkin.... I nevcr dine before cleven nor sup till after six.• •. J like to sleep hard and alone, even without my wife, inregal style, and rather well covered up. • . . I prefer to rest,either lying or sitting, with my legs os high or higher than myscat. ... , mostly scratch the insides of my ears, which areat times liable to itch.... I prefer bread with no salt in it.· .. It tires me and disagrees with me to talk on a full stom­nch.... My teeth have always been exceptionally good...•I am not excessively fond of salads or fruit, with the exceptionof melons. , .. I eat greedily. I often bite my tongue in myhaste, and sometimes my fingers."

Probably this doesn't sound to you like one of the greatclassics of world literature. And yet it is. More than that, ithas set a pattern for writing that has persisted {or almost fourhundred years and is today stronger than ever before. SinceMontaigne, every essayist has followed in his footsleps andwritten frankly about himself. The word I made ils appear­ance in literature and remained there to stay. After Ihe essay­isIs had taken up the first-person-singular style, the humoriststook it up, and finally practicnlly all popular nonfiction writers

J42 How TO WIl.ITI!., SPEAK, AND TIUNK MORE EFFECTIVELY

of nny kind. There is n long line that stretches from Mon­tnigne to tbe nineteenth-century Engli~b essayists-Lamb,Hazlitt. De Quincey, Leigh Hunt-to America.nJI like Thoreauand Mark '!Wain, to the Inter English essayists like Max Beer­bohm, E. V. Luell3, and J. B. Priestley, and to twentieth­century American humorists like Stephen Leacock and RobertBenchley. Today there is hardly a popular nonfiction bookthat isn't written in the first-person style. There is virtuallyno newspaper column or magazine article without it. Asidefrom newspaper reporting, which still sticks to the traditionalimpersonal method, there is very little professional nonfictionwriting tbat doesn't give the reader frequent personal glimpsesof the author. {There is even a trend in this direction in re­porting: as soon n.s a reporter graduates to a byline, he begimto rediscover the word I. As the years go hy, his writing takeson more and more of a personal flavor.}

J hadn't rewed myself to what extent this is true todnyuntil I carried on a little experiment. I went up to the attic andpicked up a random copy of the Saturday Evening Post,dated December 15, 1956. It contained two serials, four shortstories, and seven articles. I analyzed the seven articles andfound that five of them were written in the first-person-singu­lar style. The remaining two did not contain the word 1,but their style was so personal that this seemed to be more byaccident than by design.

J repeated my little experiment with dozens oC articles,tnkeD from many different magazines. The result was alwaysthe same: the standard magazine article in the United Statestoday is written in the first person. Even articles based 00long interviews with nonwriters arc DOW usunlly bylioed "DyA. B. [tbe source of information who can't write] as told toX. Y. [the professional who can]."

Clearly, if you want to learn 10 write like a professlonal.just about the first thing you have 10 do is get used to thefirst person singular. Just plunge in and write "I" whenever"I" seems to be the word that is called for. Never mind thesuperstitious nolion that it's immodest to do so. It just isn'tso. Professor Bergen Evans, in his Dictionary 0/ ContemporaryAmerican Usage, puts "it well when he snys: "Anyone whois interested in the person he is speaking or writing 10 mayuse the word I as onen as he likes, No one will ever seennything egotistical in I like what yOIl did and 1 wish youwOllld tell ml! how I can pay yOll 10f it."

However, there is a calch to this. You have to learn 10refer to yourself wilhout any awkward inhibition or shyness,

FIRST PERSON' SINGULAR 143

but you must also learn never to be pompous either. Mostpeople, whenever they venture onto a piece of paper withtheir ego exposed, try to cover it up quickly with some dignityor authority, or anyway something thnt will make them ap­p<:ar competent, well informed, and superior. You mny bean ignornmus, a bumbling fool, a pretty misernble specimenof humanity, but you certainly can't be induced to put thatin writing, for everyone to read.

Or can you? Cnn you train yourself to do just thnt, tosacrifice your pride and admit all your mistakes and fnultsand shortcomings, your ignorance, your weakness, your pov­erty, your irresponsibility? Can you, in other words, writeaboul yourself like n professional writer? Like Montaigne,like Charles Lamb, like Hazlill, like Mark Twain? Could youbring yourself to write down things like these?

Montaigne: "I was born and bred in the country andamong fjeld-laborers; I have been in the business of husbllndryever since my property was left to me. And yet 1 can add upneither with counters nor with a pen. Most of our coins areunknown to me. 1 cannot lellthe difference between one grainand another, either in the ground or in the bllrn unless it istoo striking to miss; and I can hardly distinguish betweenthe cabbages and lettuces in my garden. 1 don't even knowthe Dames of the chief implements of husbllndry, nor therude principles of agriculture, which every boy knows. I knowstill less of the mechanical arts, of trade and merchandise,of the nature and varieties of fruits, wines and foodstuffs. And,to complete my disgrace, onl)' a month ago 1 was caughtin ignorance of the fact that leaven is used in making bread,and of the meaning of allowing wine 10 ferment. ... Ofmusic, either vocal, for which my voice is very inept. orinstrumental, Ihey never succeeded in teaching me anything.At dancing, tennis, wrestling, I have never been able to ac­quire any but very slight and ordinary ability; at swimming,fencing, vaulling and jumping, none at all, My hands arc soclumsy that I cannot even write so I can read it; so I wouldrather do over what I have scribbled than give myself thetrouble of unscrambling it. And I read hardly any belteraloud. I feel thllt I bore my listeners.... J cannot close aletter the right way, nor could I ever cut a pen, or carve attable worth a rap, or saddle a horse...."

Charles Lamb: "My reading has been lamentably desultoryand immethodical. Odd, out of the way, old English plays,and treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, andways of feeling. In everything that relates to sdtllce, I am

144 How TO WRrTE. SPEAK, A}.'D TIll,,"'" MORE EFFECTlVELY

:I. whole ~nc)'c1opa~dia behind the rest of th~ world•... Jknow less g~ography than a schoolboy of six weeks' stand­ing.... I do not know whereabout Africa m~rges into Asia;whcther Ethiopia lie in one or other of those srellt divisions;nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of NewSouth WilleS, or Von Diemen's Land.. , . I hllve no astrono­my. I do not know where to look for the BCllr. or Chllrles'sWain; the place of any star or thc name of Ilny of them atsight. J guess at Venus only by her brightness-and if thesun on some portentous mom were to make his first appear­ance in the West. I verily believe, that, while aU the worldwere gaping in apprehension about me, I alone should standunterrilied, from sheer incuriosity and want of observation.Of history and chronology I posseS! some vllgue points..••I am entirely unacquninted with the modern languages....J am a slranger to the shapes and texture of the commonestlrees, herbs, nowers ... and am no less at II loss among purelytown-objects, tools. engines, mechanic processes."

1. B. Priestley: "I have no knowledge whatever of thesciences, in which I once received a thorough if rudimentaryinstruction.... lance knew German and relld Goethe andHeine. Now I doubt whether 1 could ask for a bed or a cigarin that tongue. I have forgouen nearly all the history andphilosophy I once knew.... I never knew anything IlboutNature, nowers and birds and trees lind so forth, and if Ilived to be It thousand I could never become one of thosepersons who e:1O tell you what anything is at II glllnce..•.My piano-playing is gone: I cannot dance now or play foot­ball: my billiards and chess are conlemptible; I could drawB lillIe once. but tbat too has gone; even my French is vile...ndI putT and pant, grow fal, and creep about in the shadowof a liver."

Robert Benchlcy: '" have tried to know absolutely nOlhingabout a great many lhings, and, if I do say so myself, havesucceeded fairly well. ... I am never upset when I lind thatJ know nothing nbout some given subject, because I 11mnever surprised. The names of birds nnd f1owcrs, for example,give me proctic311y no worry whalcvcr, for I never set out10 learn them in lhc lirst place. I am familiar with severalkinds of birds and flowers by sighl. and could. if cornered.designatc a carnation or .. robin as such_ But beyond lhatI just let lhe whole thing slide. .. :'

Well, you may say, these are all professional humorisisand essayislS; the ordinary person is not callcd upon to doall this confessing and sclf-abasing in print. But that is just

FrasT PERSON SINGUL\1t 145

the point. The principle holds in practically aJl nonfiction. today. If you w.o.nt to write well, about anything al all, you

must be prepared to face the consequences and portray your­self quite mercilessly whenever the occasion arises. Goodwriting should sound like one hum.o.n being talk.ing to anotberon an equal footing-th.o.t's why it must show, one way oranother, that the human being that is talking is just like thehuman being that is reading: imperfect. not too well informed,ignorant of VI1St areas of human knowledge, physic.o.lly weak,sometimes a coward, and often ridiculous,

To prove my point, let me describe in detail the five first­person articles that I found in my random copy of the Sawr.day Evening Post, Here they are:

The first was an article by Joseph N. Bell, "New War onHit·and-Run Killers." Mr, Bell writes: "I spent several weekswatching the Chicago police unit in action.•• , I traveledwith the Hit and Run Unit while they interrogated suspects,and I listened 10 nil the pat excuses from every walk of lifeand prcfahric.o.ted alibis...." etc., CIC.

This dQe!o't leU us anything unfavorable about Mr. Bell,but il does show that he doesn't claim to be the world's ex­pert on what he is writing about, hut to have worked long andhard at collecting his information.

Next: "Personnl , .. From Budapest" by Noel Barber. Mr.Barber, an English journalist, was an eyewitness of the Hun­garian Revolution of October, 1956. He begins: "This is mypersonal testament of what happened in the bloodstainedstreets of Budapest. of how men and women, boys and girlsdied in the thousands, and of how I myself fought with agroup of insurgents, until a direct hit from a Soviet tank allbut wiped us out... , Two days later r was twice shot inthe head by a Soviet sentry. For days I lay desperately ill inhospital, after blood transfusions and an operation... ," Andso on, a heartbreaking story of suffering and lragedy.

Next: "I'm Glad I Bought a Toupee" by Fred Sparks.You can figure out for yourself in what light the author ap­pears in this article. For example, he writes at one point:"My mother often said, 'Don't worry; hald men can behandsome.' That's true of citizens like President Eisenhower,Jim Farley or Yul Brynner, who have well-sbapcd skulls.But millions of bald men under fifty years of age are miserablyself-conscious, panicularly if their bone structure is odd. Thetop of my head is like the top of a bent knuckle, my chindrops suddenly, my cheeks puff out and my complex.ioll is

146 How TO WRITE, SPIl.AX. AND Tll1NK MOR2 EFFECTIVI!U'

very red. I was once described as looking like a hot-waterbag Wilh eye.glasses."

Nexl: "Suddenly He Was a Genius," part of a series ofarticles by Diane Disney Miller as lold to Pete M:lflin. Thisis written in the first person by Mrs. Miller, but the real heroof the story is her father, Walt Disney. Surely lhis article wasread and approved by him before it was printed. Yet the firstsentence reads: "The nervous breakdown my father sufferedin1931 .....

Finally: "Deadliest· Fighter in the Air" by Frank Harvey.This is an eyewitness descriplion of a mock missile atlack ona 8-52 bomber by n supersonic interceptor F-102A, as seenfrom a TF-102A trainer plane. Mr. Harvey describes howbe went up in the trainer, carefully showing to lhe readerthat he is something less than a hero:

"We hurried OUI into Ihe sun glare and climbed into theairplanes, and a crew chief crawled up the ladder and leanedin to hclp me with the buckling-down details. 1 always haleto go through Ihis with a crew chief. I feel the rascals havea streak of sadism where writers arc concerned. They alwaysexplain the ejection procedure in minute detail and with greatrelish-also with a touch of sadness, as if they felt that thiswas probably the last time they would be seeing you about.They poin! out lit!le items like Ihe faci that lhere is a solidiron bar directly overhead in lhe canopy of a TP-102A.

"'Too bad you nren't flying in some other jet, sir,' thechief says wistfully. 'Other jels don'l have that bar. In anemergency, if lhe canopy fails 10 jellison, you can blow your­self up through lhe plastic glass Wilh case. Dut not in a TF,sir.' ... 'Know how 10 use an oxygen mask?' my boy asked,peering bcadily from his perch on Ihe ladder. 'Oh, sure,' Isaid doublfully .. ." efc.

And there you have jf. Five people are self-described here,and as you leaf through the magazine, you read aboul theirignorance, suffering, ugliness, nervous breakdowns, nnd cow­ardice. And yel, all of this does nOl detract from the qualityof these articles. On Ihe contrary, it is essenlial. It's whatmakes them good wriling-good enough to have been boughtfor good money by the Saturday Evening Post and printedfor milljons 10 read. WilboUi this humble, self-depreciatingmtitude on the pari of the writers, these arlicles wouldn'thave been worth publishing. A piece on police melhods canonly be properly done by a reponer who doesn't know toomuch nbout such matters and pUiS in Ihe lime and legwork:necessary for getting the iriformation. An eyewitness report

Frur PERSOl'l STNGUUR 147

on a bloody war :md revolution become" memorable if thewriter bimseU has fought and been injured. An ankle ontoupees is good only if written by someone who wears one.A profile of a celebrity musl cover the ups and downs of hislife--especially the downs. A true adventure story seems eveDtruer to life if it is wrineo by someooe like you and me­someone who would be afraid.

This is the great paradox of writing-the thing :lOOut itthat you have to understand before you can make a decentjob of it. If you want to convey information, you must firstshow the reader the extent of your ignorance before youbegan to learn. If you want to describe an adventure, youmust first confess that you were afraid of the danger beforeyou went into it. If you want 10 write about health, your pointof view must be that of someone who has known sickness;if your subject is beauty, you must be familiar with ugliness;if it is money, you must first tell your reader that your ownfinancial troubles are just as bad as his own.

Reader! are, 00 the average, average. To reach them, towrite for them in such a way that they will understand andremember, you must show them that you are average too.And so you are, of course, in almost all respects, but you hllteto admit it. Well, you'd btlUr admit it. Among mnny otherthings, it will help you write beller English.

Since in most of what you write, the main purpose is toconvey information, it's particularly important that you leamthe technique of admiuing ignorance. Not preseot ignoranceof your subject, of course, but past ignorance before you wentto work COllecting your information. II's no good telling thereader that you are an expert; he doesn't believe in experts,instinctively. He has known too mnny so-called experts whoturned out to be phonia. What he knows and has faith inis a person like bimself who doesn't know nnything bUI whathe reads in tbe papers. Whenever he does want to get in·formation on a subject. he goes nnd finds out,

So did you, of course. nnd to gain your reader's confidenceyou'd better tell him how you did find out. Trulh is whathas been established. How did you establish it? Who did yousee? What did you read? Tell him exactly in so many words,Don't rely on your position and title to qUlIlify you as anexpert. Possibly you are one; but the reader may not beimpressed. He'll be more impressed if you Slale loudly nndclearly that you were once utterly ignoram but made it yourbusiness to learn.

148 How TO WRITIl, SPeAK. AND TIlINK MORE EPI'ECTIVIlLY

Here are two beautiful examples-two famous writers whoweren't afraid to admit their ignorance.

First. here is John Gunther, world-fnmous amhor and polit.ical reporter. I quote from the foreword to his Inside U.s.A ..which was published aner Inside Europe. Inside Asia, andInside Ullin America, and therefore had a ready-made nation·wide aUdience, presumably trusting John Gunther as an ex:·pert reporter. And yet, he wrote candidly:

I visited all forly.eight stntes of course, and of citiesin the country greater than two hundred thousand inpopulation, of which there are forty-three, I sawall butfiYe. Also I Yisiled II great many smaller communities.Most of these I had never seen before; it onen occurred10 me that the only virtue I brought to the job, asidefrom curiosity. was ignorance. Until my trip (1944-46)I had neyer in my life been in Denver, New Orleans,Rochester, Atlanta, Memphis, Salt Lake City. Portland,Oregon or Ponland, Maine; except to pass through onn lrain or fly OYer, I had never seen Arkansas, Oklahoma,Kentucky, Delaware, Mississippi, tbe Dakotas, or Mon­lana. All this did, at least, serve to give me the advantageof a fresh eye and an unprejudiced approach. Nor onlywas I writing for the man from Mars; I was one.

Second, here is Dorothy Canfield Fisher, first lady of thestate of Vermont, which she had known and loved for a longlifetime. In her book Vtrmorlt TraditiO'l I find the following"charming admission of ignorance:

Every Vermonter wilh old·lime roots here knowssomethins about potash.•.. My own interest wasaroused almost by chance, when I happened to noticein a dry county history the fnct thnt in 1791, a. thousandtons of potash were sent out of Vermpnt. ... That wassurprising. I had no answer 10 the quesuon, "Who inthe world could possibly have wanted to buy as muchas that?", so the next time I was in Montpelier I steppedinto the fine library of our State Historical Society andasked the librarian for information.

He answered readily, "Potash was used in makingsonp---sarnc thing as lye."

That much I knew already.•.. "But," I objected, "theamount of pOlash yOll come across in old account booksand commerce reports couldn't have been for making

FmST P£RSON SINGULAR 149

soap to wash with. Enough was sent au! of Vermontevery year to wash thc clothes and faces of humanityall around the globe ten times a day...."

The librarian ... suggested, "It was mostly taken, youknow, to cities outside of Vermont. ... The local recordssay, 'Mostly for export.'''

We looked at each othcr nonplussed. _• ,

Whereupon Dorothy Canficld Fisher devotes a chapter ofher book to the history of Vermont potash, which was ofenormous world-wide economic importance in the manufac­ture of woolen cloth.

That's why the word I is so essential in all nonfiction writ­ing. The advertising people always talk about "believability."But "believability" goes further than advenising. Everythingthat is presented as fact must be believable if it is to makeany impression on the reader. In face-to-face conversation orin an informal speech "believability" is established because thepersonality of the speaker comes through-by way of hisvoice, his expression, his gestures, his manner, his eyes, hishands, his arms, his legs, everything about him. Facts arebelieved because the speaker looks like a person who knows.

In writing, all Ihis is absent. The writer is hidden behind nsheet of paper. If he says, "Ten per cent of all Americans aresuffering from nervous or mental diseases," you mayor maynot believe him, even if he is an expert in psychiatry withhalf a column in Wlro's Who. But if he writes, "I was a com­pletc ignoramus in the field of psychiatry, bUI 1 wanted toknow how many neurotics there are in this country. So I wentto lhe library nnd studied lhe following twenty-nine sources.. . . Then I interviewed seventeen leading psychiatrists, be­longing 10 nine differenl schools of though!. ... Then I care­fully checked this information.. , . etc .. etc."-if he writeslike that, he will be automatienlly believable. He has gainedyour confidence as a fellow ignoramus who has simply donewhat you yourself would have. done if you'u had the timeand the curiosity to look inlo the matter.

Moral: Always confess your ignorance. If you write areport, begin by showing what you didn'l know, and go onto explain how and what you found out. Even if you write asimple letter, based on a routine check of the files, start bysaying that, to make sure of the answer, you checked the files.

Which brings us to the question of the pronoun / in a busi­ness letter. This, as I have discovered, is one of Ihe grealproblems in American life. Masl business letters arc written

150 How TO WarTe. SPI!A~ AND Tnna:: MORE EFFECTlVELY

by employees of large corporations-usually by a minor em·ployee a lillIe further down for the signature of a majoremployee a little higher up. Where does the word 1 fit intosuch a leller? Usually it doesn't. U iI's an older, more tradi·tional company (or a branch of the government), the writerhappily settles in the impersonal, passive-voice style, and thethird-person pronoun reigns supreme. "It is suggested , .•Reference bas been made ... It should nOI be inferred _ ••The policy has been established . , , The question arises _ ••An early reply will be f1ppreciated." If it's a modern, moreprogressive corporation, the leiters are being wrillen in thefirst persoll plural. "We regret to say , . , It gives us greatple:lSure , .. One of our customers has written us concerning, .• We are now in a position to reply ... We are lookingforward to hearing from you:' The little word 1, first personsingular, appears nowhere. The letler writer can', use it inspe:lking of himself because he doesn't sign the leiter; thesigner can't use it because he didn't write it; nor can thewriter use it in referring to the signer, bcc:ause that's an awk­ward lind unnatural thing to do.

Docs this mean that this whole chapter is useless for thoordinary business-Ieller writer? I don't think so, There arcsome compromise solutions. In the first place, it's a goodthing to know and have learned that the flrSt-person style isbetter English and th;'lI the impersonal style should be avoidedif at all possible. At lcast, if you know Ihat, you hnve astandard and a direction in which to go.

Secondly, it is always possible. in any organization, to usethe first person plural. This is not as good as the first personsingular, but it is still beller thnn saying it nil the lime. Thepassive-voice style, which has been denounced in everysingle course and textbook on writing for some fifty orseventy.five years, is really inexcusable today. So if you cao'tsay I, say at least we.

However, if you do use the first person plural, be careful.Use we in referring to lhe orgllnization for which you write,but don't use it in ,lOy other way, Don't write pompous sen­tences like "We know today," if by we you mean mankind,or "every thinking American" or, most likely. your own in­flated ego. Mark Twain said, "Only presidenls, editors, andpeople with lapeworm have the right to use the editorial we,"I would go funher than that, demoting even editors to plain.ordinary I. The word we should mean a group of two or morepeople that can be identified, or else it shouldn't be used, And

FIRST PERSON SINGUUt.t 151

now let's drop this subject-and by "us" 1 mcan exactly twopcople: you and me.

Third compromise: It is possible to use both 1 and wein a business leiter. You can say we whenever you refer tosomething done by the company, and / whenever you me:u1the writer (or signer) 01 the letter. In practice, this meansthat you can-and should-use / when you express feelingsand emotions, and we for everything else. There are, afterall. emotions that come up in a business letter. The news itcontains is usually either good or bad. Therefore, as a matterof ordinary courtesy, YOU'll wanllo cxprcss pleasure or regret.Don't write "We arc pleased" or "We regret"; instead, write"I am happy" or "l am sorry" (or, more informally, "I'mhappy" or "I'm sorry"). In this WilY, you will manage tomake clear that the informntion given in your letter comesfrom the organization hut the feelings expressed are yourown. (U you write "We regret the delay in answering yourteller of February 26, 1958," you don't realJy mean that your10,000 fellow employces share your regret. You mean thatyou are sorry-just yourself.)

Iu I said, these are compromise solutions. Ideally, lettenlike everything else should be wriuen in the first person singu­lar throughout, with the word / appearing naturally whereverit fits in. Writing, aner all, is just a substitute for s~cb. Andthere is no speech without a speakcr.

EXERCISES

These exercises are meant to be done within thc framcworkof tbe continuing exercise described on page 139. At anyralc, they should always be given to someone else to readand criticize.

I. Describe, in about 500 words, your general ignorance ofsubjects most people arc expected to know.

2. Describe. in about 500 words, your lack of skills mostpeople 3fe expected to have.

3. Describe, in about 500 words, your physical weakne:ssc5and disabilities.

4. Describe, in about 500 words, your financial status llndpast ups and downs.

5. Describe, in about 500 words, some situation in whichyou were defeated or failed.

Chapter Seventeen

TO BE EXACT

There nrc some 100 or 150 free-lance writers in this countrywho make a living by writing articles for magazines. Someyears ago, tbis brave band of independent spirits joined to­gether to form the Society of Mnguine Writers. In 1954they published a book, A Guide to Successful Magazine Writ·ing, which was in part a handbook nod in part an anthologyof a few dozen minor masterpieces of the species. It's afascinating book, full of highly valuable informalion.

Ench of the reprintcd articlcs is prefaced by n detailedstatement by the author in which he tclls how the article waswritten, how he got the idea, how long he worked on it, whatobstacles he ran inlo, how he managed to place it in a maga­zine nnd, in most cnses, how much he was paid for it. Onthe average, the articles run to three thousand words or more,the average price (around 1950) was $1,500, the averagetime spent was usually about two wecks of research and onemarc week for the actual writing.

Often, however, the work was far more. Here are statementson what it amounted to in three cases:

Jack Harrison Pollack: "I spent an intensive month doingJive r~lll"Ch. My nOles show that 1 talked to 58 individualsin person or by telephone."

Edith M. Stern: "Aflcr about three monlhs I arrived at tbath:tIf.joyful, half-terrifying point where your material seems tobe duplic3ting itself and you know you should stop researchand get at the writing. Before me lay some forty solid single­spaced pagc.<; of typewriuen notcs, in addition to a smalllibrary of printed malerial I had picked up in the course ofmy travels and answers 10 requests for information I bad sentto various stales I had not visited. Ry what I call l.h~ icebergmethod, in which eight ninths o( your research doesn't show,

lS2

To Be EXACT 153

I had to boil down this formidable mass into the Companion­set limit of 4,000 words."

Robert Froman: "Allogether I had spent about four weekson the researeh, had interviewed some two hundred individ­uals, made a few more than one hundred p3ges of notes, 3ndhad collectm a five-foot shelf of books, pamphleLS, pressreleases and technical p3pers.... It took me 3 week to choosethe useful items in my collection, to read them, and to discardthe useless ones. By lhen the main points of the story wereclear in my mind.... At that point I pushed the whole thingout of my conscious mind and spent several days sawing andsplitting wood. When I WitS ready to go back to work, Iignored the material I had collected and made first a rough,Ihen a detailed outline SOrt of in free-hand. Then I wentthrough all the useful material again and made note of itemswhich I had left out of the outline but which seemed to belongin the story. When I had fitted them in, I started writing.. , ."

If you labor under the common superstition that a maga­zine article is written by looking up a few data and thenknocking off a digest of your ideas and opinions in an after­noon, then these quotations may serve as an antidote. Anarticle, as Mrs. Stern rightly says, is like an iceberg: 10 getlIle three thousand words which the subscriber will read infifteen minutes, Ihe wriler must take at least twenty thousandwords of nOles.

This is the aspect of writing thllt is almost impossible toteach in a class--or in a book, for that mailer. A class inwriting naturally creates the optical illusion that writing con­sists primarily, or wholly, of putting words on paper. Thesame with a textbook or handbook: the render expects it todeal with vocabulary, sentence structure, and paragraphing,nnd Ihal's usually all II does. So the studenl concentrates onexpressing his ideas in words. He writes essays and themeson some assigned subject, setting down whatever he knowsabout it, or Ihinks about it, or vaguely feels about it. Nowonder aU of these exercises produce Ihin, empty stuff, with­OUI substnnce and without inlerest for anyone in Ihe worldbut lIle writer himself. No wonder so many leachers despairand arrive al the conclusion that "writing cannot be taught."It can't be taught, Ihal is, in a vacuum: il can be taught onlyif the student has things to write about-real, live faclS he hasassembled by hard work rather than ideas he has simpl)'thought up. The unpleasanl truth, as J always tell my stu­denIS, is Ihat nobody is interestf'd in )'Ollr perSQtlal opiniO/lS,

So you have to go out and get faclS. How do you do that?

154 How TO WRITE. SPf!AJ:. AND TIIINK MOllE EFFECTIVELY

There arc two wnys: the amateur way and the professionalway. The amateur prepares for a writiog job by gelting to­gether the relevant facts; the professional goes out and getsail the facts. tn other words, if you are not a trained WTiter,you consider yourself the best judge of what faeu are relevant;you assemble those and think you are ready to write. The oldpro--the seasoned reporter or magnine writer-knows thatthis isn't good enough. The only thing that', good enough isto soak yourself in all the fncb you can lay your hands on,to bccome a temporary cxpcrt on the subject. You go afterthe more obviou5 sources, then aftcr the less obvious 50urCes,lind finally you follow up all thc stray leads th:ll you canpossibly uncover. You ne\'cr can tcll. In principle, you haveto know cverything there is to know aboul a subject so thatyou can write a short piece a few peoplc will bother to read.Legwork is nine-lenlhs of the job.

There is no betler illustration of the meaning of thc wordlegwork than Ihis Story about the late O. K. Bovard, manag·ing editor of the St. louis Post-Dispatch:

When Bovard was cily editor, Charles G. Ross, who yeanlatet' became Presidcnt Truman's press sccretary, was a cubreporter. One day Bovard senl him out to get the facts aboutthe fall of a paintcr from 11 high 5ffiokestack in the extremesouthwestern pan of St. Louis.

It was a hot summer day. The trip 10 the 5cenc of the aeci·dent eoo5isled of a 5treetenr ride to the end of the line andn long walk from there. Finally Ross gal 10 Ihe factory andcollected his information-name, nddress, and age of thepainter, the plnce where he fell, how he happened 10 fall, theextent of his injuries, nnd so on. He look Ihe long walk backto Ihe end of the streetcar line, rode back to the office, satdown and composed a short ilem about thc Rccident. Feelingrather proud of it, he turned it in to the city edilOr.

Mr. Bovard glnneed ovcr Ihe few lines and caned his cubto the desk. "Ross," he asked, "bow tall is this smokestack?"Ross couldn't 5ay. Quite tall, he said. About 50-and-so-manyfeet.

But Bovard W:l.Sn·t sati5fied with this. "R0S3:' he said,"'tall' is a relalive term. I wanl you to go back and find outthe exact height of that smokestack."

So Ross took again the long, hot trip to the factory. Whenhe relurned 10 the office, it Wll5 night. But he had the preciseheight of the smokestack in feet and inches.

This sounds legendary, but it isn't. Only n cub reporter or

To Bs EXACT 15S

an amateur would forget to put down the height of thatsmokestack. A pro would do it automatically. Thousands ofstories that you read in your paper every day testify 10 thatfact. Here is one, an insignificant little item that I picked atrandom from the New York Times, Sunday, February 2,1958:

PRIEST RUNS CAFE TO COUNTER EVIL

His Puerto Rico Shop SellsNo Liquor bllt Lures Trade

From Drillking Places

By PaTER Krnss

VILLALBA, P.R., Jan. 25-There is a new cafetin-atypical Puerto Rican bar and grocery-here, and the Rev.Salvatore RulJolo, a Roman Catholic parish priest, startedit.

Thirty men of the Holy Name Society bought sharesand the Church of Our Lady of Carmel purchased 10per cent. Three church women operate it seven daysweekly from 7 A.M. to II P.M. When the store ends itsfirst year next month the guess is that it may have paidback 20 per cent nf its $2,825 capital investment.

One non-typical nspect is that the cafeteria La Fe doesnot serve alcoholic beverages, relying instead on softdrinks. But, like other Puerto Rican grocery-bars, it isn neighborhood meeting place.

Around its central square counter are six tables whereneighbors gossip and buy meals. The cafetin sells fruit,milk, bread, biscuits, instant colIee, canned goods andcandy.

It serves children of a near-by Government schoolwith sandwiches from 5 cents for ham and cheese. Mealsinclude rice with meat and vegetables at 35 cents.

Father Ruffolo had to be prevailed upon to explainwhy be started the cafehn. Villalba had many alcoholicbar-groceries-"barbarity," one parishioner said-withfourteen in two blocks alone.

Churchgoers said they went there to meet friends buthad to buy liquor. Women said that neither they northeir children dared go to such places. Fatber Ruffolo,less than five feet tall but willing to try anything, ar·ranged to rent a former drygoods store-and scored a

IS6 How TO WRIT!!, Srl!Al:, .",m Tmm:: MORE EFFECTIVELY

success as n bar operator. He said it was a "moralizingdiversion."

The 47-year.()ld priest came 10 Puerto Rico from Italyin May 1954, responding to a papal appeal for servicein Latin America.

Puerto Rico is nominally 90 per cent Roman Catholicbut bas only one priest for every 7,000 inhabitants asag:tinst perhaps one for 700 in the New York Arch­diocese. It has sixty.five Catholic p:trishes for its 3,400square miles; New York Archdiocese hns eighty-ninewith Spanish-Iangu:tge services.

Father Ruffolo serves a parish of 17,000 inhabitantsin thc rugged southern slopes of central Puerto Ricanmountains. He regularly says mass in thirty-two places,of which thirteen have chapels. Services elsewhere arein tiny mountain hulS.

He travels in D bright red jeep, by horseback or afootto get through his parisb, sometimes needing an houraod D half even thougb the limits are only twenty-fiveby thirty-five miles.

Under papal regulations he can say mass twiCe onweekdays, provided this is in two different places, andthree times on Sundays. Once he spent $400 of his ownmoney to bring another priest from Italy; the otherpricst endured tbe mountain rigon just a few weeksnnd left.

It is staggering to think of the amount of work Mr. KihssPlit into this routine item, which appeared on pnge 38 of aNew York Times Sunday issue, to be glanced over sleepily byn few subscribe" while they were munching their eggs andtoast. Therc it is, the small part of the iceberg of faclS andfil:ures-the price of rice with meat and vegetables (35j'!), thecnpilal invesunent ($2,825), the limits of the Villalba parish(25 by 35 miles), the color of Fnther Ruffolo's jeep (brightred), his height (under 5 feet), his first nnme (Salvatore),Ihe number of tables nround the lunch counter (6), thenumber of cbapels in the parisb (13), Ihe number of alcoholicbars (14 in 2 blocks), the hours the cafe is open (7 A.M. to IIP.M.), its oa.mc (La Fe), how often a priest can say massunder papal regulntions, how Pueno Rico compares withNew York in its Spanish-Innguage Catholic services, whatkind of store was there before Father Ruffolo opened hiscllle, when it opened (a year ago next monUl), and so onand so Corlb.

To Dn ExAct 157

It's impossible to guess at all the other facts Mr. Kihismust have assembled that didn't get into the story as it ap­peared in the paper. He probably took complete notes onFather Ruffolo's previous career, maybe a few anecdotsabout his service in Puerto Rico, more details about theopc:mtion of the La Fe eafelin, more statistics about theCatholic Church in Puerto Rico, perhaps somcthing /iIloreabout the drinking problem there, plus all sons of otherthinp Ihlll are hard to guess. At any ratc, he probably gottea tiJI:IIes as many facts as he needed-and about a hundredtrm.s • many facts as an amateur writcr or casual touristwonJd 'have collccted. And by doing so, he managed 10 writea story that docs a superb job in conveying truth. After read­ing ii, the New York Times subscriber has n notion of whatlife is like in central Puerto Rico-the mountains, the poorroads, the mllSSe5 said maybe once every two weeks in a littlehut, the long struggle for the government school and the five­cent sandwiches for the children, and the men drinking inban that are crowding each other on Main StreeL

Or talee another example, one of the routine masterpiecesby Meyer Berger, thc New York Times Pulitzer prize-winningreporter, who wrote a daily column called "About New York."This is from his column of February 5, 1958:

In a few weeks or so tbe wreckers will come. Theywill tear down the two venerable brick and brownstonemansions th3t have slood hard by the First PresbytcrianChurch in West Twelfth Street for more than 100 years.

No. 12, ne3rest the churehyard, was built in 1849 forJames W. Phillips, son of tbe Rev. William Win Phillips,who beld the pulpit next door from 1826 to 1865. No.14, built 3t the S3me time as a twin, except for the in­terior, was the home of Charles C. Taber, n prosperouscotton merchant.

The two dwellings are the last remaining two townhouses in this city of the many designed by AlexanderJackson Davis. A modest man, he conceded th3t theinteriors of his Twelfth Street designs were "remarkable."Even in their last stages of neglect thc unprocticed eyecan see that_ They are lovely.

The buildings had [3mous ten3nlS, too, at one time oranother. Thurlow Weed, ninetecnth-cenlury Wnrwick­he was called th3t in his own day for his genius in mould­ding pOlitical carecrs-Iived in No. 12 from 1866 to1882. Most of the important men and women of his

IS8 How TO WRrn, Speu:, ..."'" TIIINJ:: MaRl! EFFECJ'TVI!LY

time were his guests there. Down the street lived Gcn.Winfield Scott.

Probably the chief featuN! of the old Weed house Wl15the octagonal stairwell with the stnincd-glass skylight atthe top. The stairwell in the olher house is oval, bUI ithas the same glowing dome skylight. In both dwellinS'you find rich stucco molding, handsome fireplaces, mag·nificent woods.

Just outside the old Weed study there stood, in hislifetime, 3 handsome willow brought from St. Helenanelll' the grave of Napoleon. Ie was uprooted long agoto make play space in the churchyard for the childrenof the church school. Incidentally, aher the old mansionscome down, a new church school will rise on the spot.The Davis mansions tire now a firelrnp.

Thc most famous dweller in No. 14 was John Rogcrs,a ninctcenth-century sculptor, a kind of Edgar Guest whoworked in stone. His studio was on the second fioor. Itlooks today pretty much as it did when he worked in itfrom 188810 1895, turning OUt such groups as "CheckersUp at the Farm," "FetChing the Doctor." A p3ir of hisworks 3re in the church office. Each has the TwelfthSlreel house address worked into it.

Though church folk dislike the iden of having the oldmansions torn down, and architects in town frown onthe notion, too, they know they must go. The space issorely necdcd for the children. So, one by one, themaster works of the great architects vanish from thecity-Dnvis did preliminary sketches for the old Tombs,worked on the old Custom House, on many hospitalsand colleges. All that will remain of his dreaming onpaper, when the Twelfth Street mansions go down inrobbIe, will be a few villas up in Hudson River Valley.

Here again you have thc mtlss of facts, the enormous ac­cumulation of details, the feeling that Mr. Berger's columnis just the top of the iccbcrg that's visible. He probably hadin his notes all the inhabitants of No. 12 and No. 14 eversince J849, and the names of the hospitals and colleges builtby Davis, and the number of the bouse on Twelfth Streetwbcre Gener:al Winfield Scott lived, and the names of hall adozen more of Rogers' sculptures, and more details aboutthe interiors of both hOWlC!. Notice that even within the briefspace of his column, he tloes give you the most prominent in·habitants of both houses, the exnct dates of their stay there,

To DE EXAct' 159

the floor on which Rogers had his studio, and the fact that thestairwell in No, 12 is octngonal. wherens that in No, 14 isoval. And notc how Mr. Berger, the famous reporter, cnre·fully records his ignorance of art and architecture: "Theunpracticed eye cnn see that they are lovely," he says, rightin the spirit of the literary tradition that started with Mon.taigne in 1571.

Perhaps you think that these two examples from the pagesof the New York Times represent the ultimate in detailedreponing. They do not. There is no end to what you cnn doonce you start with the business of collecting facts.

In 1894 a man by the name of Shuman published a text.book in journnlism in which he described the now-famous5-W formula: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. It wasthe business of every reporter, he said, to get these five W'sof each story and to tell them in the opening paragrnph. BUIthis was sixty-five yenrs ngo. Today the tmined reporter getsnot only the five W's, but nlso dozens and dozens of minorWs-what middle initinl, what street address, what floor,what age, what occupation, what amount in dollars and cents,what height, what weight, what bust measurements, whatprice, what annual income, what injuries, what hour and min·ute of the day, wbat birthplace, wh:lt for lunch, what to drink,what brand smoked, what Ilicknnme, whnt hobbies, whatmannerisms, elc., etc. It's like the scientific study of the atom.Every year the search extends to smnller nnd smaller panicles.In exnctly parallel fashion, a writer who fifty years ago wouldhave been satisfied with the general fncts about Lincoln's as·sassination now has to know precisely what he nte for brenk­fast on the morning of April 14, 1865.

This happens to be an actual example. Some time ago Iwtltched a television interview with Mr. lim Bishop, authorof the best.gelling book Tile Day Lincoln Was SlIot. He wasasked about the problems he ran into while writing the book,nnd told that he had the greatest trouble-in finding out justwhat_Lincoln had for breakfast on the morning of the dayhe was shot. He spent months and months in research on thisnagging little itcm and wns finally forced to give up. (Hisbook doesn't tell what the breakfast consisted of.) He didfind out, tbough, that Lincoln's willal breakfast was one eggand onc cup of coffee.

As nn example of Mr. Bishop's fantastically meticulous re­search, which took in such items as this one, I'll quole a fewparagraphs from his book:

160 How TO WIUTE, SPEAK, .um TmNK MOUl EFf"ECT1V£LV

The Wasbington police (oree consisted of fifty police-.men who worked by day and were paid by WashingtonCity, and a night force of fifty more who were paid bythc Federal Government. The night men were not paidto prolect citizens; their job was to protect public build·ings. The Fire Department was paid by the city, but itwas controlled by politicians and often reCused to go outto fight fires. The criminal code of the District of C0­lumbia was archaic and was enforced largely on politicalgrounds. Crimes punishable by death were murder.treason, burglary, and rape if committed by Negroes.Only a few years before this day, ffillfly of the politicianswho fought for the abolition o( slavery made extramoney by selling freedmen back into slavery. Until theEmancipation Proclamation had been signed in 1863, aweekly auction of Negroes was held in the back yard ofDecatur House, a bloclt from the White House.

There Wt1$ a great difference between "permanent"Washington and political Washington. A clerk earning$1,500 a yenr in the new Treasury Building found itdifficult to feed n wife and children and his quarters werelittle bettcr than what the Negroes bad. He was at his

. desk at 7:30 A.M. and, in tbe evening, he left it after 4.Political Washington functioned between November andJune, when Congress was in session. It convened late andit did not convene every day.

The hotels, which understood the legislators, servedbreakfast between 8 A.M. and 11. A good breakfast con·sisled of sleak, oysters, ham and eggs, hominy grits, andwhiskey. Dinner was scrvcd at noon nnd ran to six oreight courses. Supper was disposed of between 4 P.M.and 5. Teas were common at 7:30 P.M. nnd cold supperwas ~aten between 9 and 10 P.M.

I am sur~ these quotations arc enough to make the pointthat legwork is all-important in writing. And legwork maytake mnny forms: Young Charlie Ross making his second hottrip to get the exnct height of tbat smokestack; Mr. Kihss ofthe N~w York Tilll~s walkiog along the main str~et of ViUa1bD.,Puerto Rico, and counting the number of bars and drinkingplaces; Meyer B~rger climbing the stairs in both the oldDavis houses on West Twelfth Street to compare their intcriordecor, Jim Bishop ransacking libraries for months and monthsto find OUt whether Abraham Lincoln had an egg for break­fast on tbe morning of April 14, 1865. h's up to you to go

To De ExACT 161

and do likewise. Use the iceberg method. \Vhatever you arewriting, fill it with facu---detailcd facts, minute facts, utterly.absurdly trivial facts-and colleci ten times as many of thosefacts beforehand as you are ever apt to use.

Of course I know thai this is counsel of perfection. I knowyou are not going 10 work like that. But at le3St I want to goon record as having said so. These are the faclS of writingThis is the way it's done if it's done right. The way to benefEnglish is through mountains of picayune details.

Dut, you say, this doesn't npply to evcrYthing. What aboutwriting that isn't rcportorinl-what nboul argumcnt, debate.opinions? My answer is that the principle holds for everykind of writing. If you want 10 argue, do il with facts. If youwant to state your opinions, do it by way of facts. If you fecithe urge to write an essay, set down fncts. \Vhich means, ofcourse, doo't write an essay, write an article.

Anyway, essays arc elltremely hard to find nowadays. Topicsthilt used to be discussed in finely chiseled literary essays arenow given the facts-and-figurcs treatment in articlcs. For ex­ample, here is how Agnes Repplier treated the topic of"Leisure" in the Atlantic Monthly in 1893:

A visitor strolling through the noble woods of Ferneycomplimented Voltaire on thc splendid growth of histrees. "Ay," replied the great wit, half in scorn and half,perhaps, in cnvy, "they have nothing else to do"; nndwalked on, deigning no further word of approbation.

Has it been more than a hundred years since thisdistinelly modern sentiment was uttered,-more than ahundred years since the spreading chestnut boughs bentkindly over the lean, strenuous, cnustie, disnppointedman of genius who nlways hnd so much to do, and whofound in the doing of it a mingled bliss and biuernessthat scorched him like fever pain? How is it that, whileDr. Johnson·s sledge-hammer repartees sound like thesonorous echoes of a past age, Voltaire·s remarks alwaysappear to have been spoken the day before yesterday?They are the kiDd of witticisms which we do not say forourselves, simply because we are not willY; but theyillustrate with biting nccuracy the spirit of restlessness,of disquiet, of intellectual vanily and keen contentioDwhieh is the brand of our vehement nnd over-zealousgeneration.

16'2 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND '1'nTNK MORB EFFECTIVELY

"The Gospel of Wor""-that is the phrase woveninsistently into every homily, every appeal made to theconscience or the intelligence of n people who are nowstraining their youthful energy to its utmost speed."Blessed be Drudgery!"-that is the text deliberatelychosen for n discourse which has enjoyed such amazingpopularity that sixty thousand printed copics have beenfound all inadequate to supply the ravenous demand.Readers of Dickens-if anyone has tbe time to readDickens nowadays-may remember .•. etc, etc.

Mind you, this is not a poor example of n literary essay.On the conlrnry, I think it's one of tbe best essays ever writ.ten, well worth rending even today, after some sixty-five years.(It is one of Agnes ReppJier's Essays in ldlt:lICSS.) And yet,now that I have copied out tbese opening paragraphs, Irealize that one cannot ask anyone today to work bis waythrough all this sttl.tely prose, the elaborate t1.djectives, theelegant phrasing. the precious thoughts-the whole hopelesslyold-fashioned literary bric-a-brac of a past age. If you wantto talk or write about leisure today, yOll have to give thoreader facts, figures, sttttistics-yes, statistics. Like Mr. DavidDempsey in the Nt:w York Times Magazillt: of January 26,1958:

If we are to take literally the findings of the statis­ticians, ours is a civilization thai works less and playsmore than any since Ihe Roman Empire declined andfell. No less than sixty million of us belong to the newLeisure Class, n group whose hrmds have been freed bytechnology and whose minds are now being liberated bynutomation. \Ve are men and wonlen, manual workersand white-collarcd, old and young, all with plenty offree time (theoretically at least), n steady income and,most importnnt, an abundance of available crediL

On paper, there is no argument about it. Salaried em­ployes and wagc-earners work an average of forty hoursa week where, as recently as 1929, their fathers workedfifty, and congratulated themselves on not having towork sixty, as their fathers did in 1900. (Today's work­ers alsO produce si]L times as much as their grandfathersproduced for every hour on the job.) What is more, asthe work week shrinks, the vacations get longer-amonth is no longer unusual for an employe with seniority.

00 paper, too, this huge dividend of extra time made

To BIl EXACT 163

pos~ible by modern technology is nn unmixed blessing.Wc spend more money on recreation and amusementthan we did a generation ago on food and clothing.Including travel and the do-it-yourself movement, some$34 billion a year finrmces what is represented to us asa longer and longer pause in the day's occupation.

One student of the subject, for instance, credits theaverage American with about 3,000 "free" hours a year,, , . etc., etc.

The moral of all these examples is clenr: Don't write any­thing without a firm foundation of facts-<letails, specific dala,figures, statistics, incidents, names, addresses, biographical

.material, anecdotes, measurements, lists, descriptive matler­surely you know by now what I mean. Yes, you know, andthen, at the next opportunity, yOU'll go ahead and informthe world of your personal prejudices and opinions, things youhave read somewhere, things you think you know, basicprinciples that have to be put down, and so on. I say, forgetit. NlJbody is interestcli in ymlr personal opi/lio/ls. That'stoo bad, but there it is. Stick to the facts. If you haven't gotthe facts, go out and get them. You'll be surprised at whatyOU'll find. Maybe-who knows?-the facts that you'll haveleilflled ·will even make you change your opinions.

EXERCISF..s

I am still assuming that you arc doing the continuing: cxer­cise descrIbed on page 139. The following exercises are meantto be done within the framework of that daily-letter-writingscheme. At any rate, they should always be submittcd toanother person for his or her reaction.

1. Describe, in about 500 words, a significant event in )'ourlife (landing first job, marriage proposal, ctc.). Be as specificas you possibly can. Try to recall what the weather was like,exactly what was said, what was eaten at meals that day, whatpeople wore, etc.

2. Describe in equal detail, in about 500 words, a recentfamily eyeOI (birthday, holiday celebration, etc.).

3. Describe in equal detail, in about 500 words, yourroom or office.

4. Write a detailed biographical sketch, of about 500 word~,

of someone you know very well.

164 How TO WRJTI!. SPEU. ANn Ttnm:: MORB EFFECTIVELY

S. Describe, in about 500 words, as exactly tl5 you can, afamiliar shon trip (e.g., from your home 10 your office).

6. Describe, in lIbOUI 500 words, with as much detail 33possible, n recent sport or hobby activity of yours (3 gameyou played, something you made yourself, ctc.).

Chaptcr Eightecn

QUOTE .•. UNQUOTE

The other day I read an interesting anicle about "Parole andthe Prisons" in The At/amie. It was by Erie Stanley Gardner,the famous mystery writer, who is also a serious student ofcrime and penology.

In the article, Gardner told about two New York judgeshe knew who had worked out a system of their own io re­regard to probatioo. The article weot on:

I nsked them about the pcrcentnge of failure and wasstartled to find that they had virtually no failures. [wanted to find out the secret

One of the judges told me, in effect, '"There isn't anysecret about it. We know that these men got up againstconditions that were too much for them and they eom­milled a crime. We know that jf they gel up againstanother set of similar conditions they're apt to commitanother crime. The thing to do is to see that their troublesand temptations don't pile up to such a point that theylose their perspective.

"Every so often we send for one of those fellows. , ,"etc.

I quoted this brief passage because it's an ell:ample of aprofessional author of popular fiction discussing a serioustopic in the pages of one of our leading literary mag:u.ines,It shows, I think, that professional experience in writing goesdeep. Gardner, who day in day out produces the machine-gunprose of the Perry Mason stories, can't be sed3te nnd dulleven if he tries. Even in the midst of ILO earnest, high-mindedarticle in The Allalllie he has to dramatize what he says bytelling the render thnt he met two judges who had a powerful

'65

166 How TO WRITE, Srl!.u::, AND TJIIN'II:: MaRl! EFFECTIVELY

secrel. (In the next line it turns out that there isn't any secret.)However, the operative words in this passage, the really

telling pht3se revealing the hand of the old pro, is tbe twowords "in effect." Observe how Gardner, by using these twoinnocent-looking words, has turned his not panicularly ex­citing piece of information into the highly dramatic revelationof a new system "out of the borse's mouth:' To be sure, thetwo judges told him samtlhing; but, tl$ is clclU'ly shown bythe words "in effect," they cenainly did nat tell him what isprinted in The Atlalltic between quotlltion mark!:. Eric StanleyGardner, the old pro, just couldn't help himself: when he bassomething important to say, he naturally, almost unconscious­ly, slides into dialogue.

This, as I have found out after fourteen years of dealingwith amateur writers, is the decisive difference between theamateur and the pro. The pro hu an itch to go into dialogueand, by hook or crook, surrounds large chunks of his ma­terial with quotation marks. The amateur, on the other hand,has a quotation-mark phobia. He bas, as J said earlier, hisgeneral "grnphophobia" anyway, but the classic, outslandingsymptom of his disease is his tOlal inability to put spokenwords on paper. The writing of such a simple sentence as"He said, 'O.K.''' presents almost insuperable psychologicaldifficulties to the aver.tge American.

This is very odd. Somehow, at the end of a long historicaldevelopment, we have arrived at a situation that is com­pletely upside down. Writing is essentially nothing but re­corded speceh. And yet, people nowadays arc willing to useit for nnything hilt recorded speech. The normal, naturalfunction of writing-putting down something that has been.faid-hllS now become a specialty performed only by experts.

I have a hunch that we, in the twentieth century, have ar­rived al some sort of turning point in this matter of writingnnd speak.ing. Look at the historical facts. Some three thou­sand years ago, when the alphabet was invented, writing wasa highly difficult and cumbersome aff3ir. Only a few peoplemastered the technique, and even those had to sU'Uggle withpoor, inefficient writing materials. The best they could do wasto slowly Dnd elaborately put down one letter after anolher.The first real progress in lhe field of writing was the inventionof printing io the fifteenth century. But even that was aspecial process for books and, later, newspapers and maga­zines. The bulk of literate mankind kepi on with their goosequills nnd inkwells and sllndboxes. Then, only some eightyyears ago, the typewriter came on the market aod it became

QUOTB ••• UNQUOTE 167

possible for people like you and me to write reasonablyquickly and efficieDtIY by machine. Finally, just a few yeanago, photocopying came in in a big way, so that tediouscopying was eliminated.

My point is that writing, for thousands of years, has beenan awkward and time-eonsuming businCS1, a miserable make-­shift substitute for getting ideas across by talking. Talking isas easy as breathing; writing is----or has been-a chore. Nowonder it is natural for most people to shy away from writingas they would from a nasty medicine,

Because nf this situtltion, Ihere is a tradition to put downon ptlper only a higll/y condensed versIon 0/ what the writerwould have said. Human beings, on the whole, do everythingthey do with a minimum of excrtion; thcrefore, thcy tcnd towritc down in a hundrcd words what they would have saidin a thousand. (Don't start Brguing that most people arcvcrbose and don't know how to boil things down. That's true,but it's also true that btlrdly anyone bas the gift of free·flowing, 100 per cent conversational style.)

Now, in the middle of the twentieth century, the time hascome to change these ancient writing habits. We don't writethe way we talk because it used to be practically impossibleto do so. (A man laboriously forming curlicued leuers witha goose quill---bending down over his papcr with the tip ofhis tongue showing between his pursed Iips---can't be ell­pecled to produce an ellact image of rapid, fiuent talk.) Butwe don't write that way any longer. We now havc fast type­writcrs and Dictaphones and tape recorders and there is noreason any Innger why we shouldn't write conversationalEnglish.

So Ict's use this new opportunity and put dialogue into oureveryday wriling. Don't tell me that it's impossible to workquoted speech ioto your business letters and reports. It's tbeeasiest thing in the world-if you really waot to do iL Forinstance, suppose you write in a letter: "A thorough investiga­tion was made and it appeared that the delay in delivery wnsdue 10 heavy absenteeism in our shipping depanment becauseof the snowstorm and tbe subway strike. Ju soon as nonna!conditions returned . , ." ele,

Why 001 wrile it this way? "We checked with Arthur Smith,who's in chuge of our shipping department, and he IOld us,'Thai was the week of the snowstorm and the subway strike.Only half of the men came in and we simply couldn't handlethe load. After the strike was over. , .' " etc.

After all, most of the information that goes into a leuer or

168 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TmNK MORE EFFECTIVELY

a memo is the result of talking or listening to people---citherperson:!lIy or by telephone. Sn why not say so in a letter? ITyou go by the typical business correspondence today, all officework is performed in utter silence: people receiving leiters,silently studying the files, silently going over previous cor·respondence, silently ussembling dot:!, silently dmfting a reply.Nothing ever stirs except the rustling of paper. You knowvery well that this' isn't so. Letters arc the result of talk, justas all other business activity is essentially the result of talk.Quotation marks belong in a business letter because thenatural way to write is to set down what was said.

But that's only the beginning-the minimum essential, soto speak. After you have trained yourself to use quotedspeech wherever possible, you then ought to go ahead nndlearn from the professionals the use of dialogue as n fine art.Thcre is a tremendous dilTerence between the simple usc ofquotation marks and the writing of talk that feels and soundslike talk.

The professional writers have been perfecting their tech·nique for a long time---cver since that memorable day, May16, 1763, when young James Boswell returned home fromhis first meeting with Dr. Samuel Johnson and wrote in hisjournal: "I shall mark what I remember of his conversation."Boswell of course wa... a born genius at this sort of thing, butthere hove been many writers since his day who have beenblessed with a remarkable ear and memory for the inimitablesound of talk.

One of the best current perfonners of this highly specializedart is Mr. Harvey Breit, who for several years used to writeweekly interviews with writers for the New York Times BookReview. They were later collected in a book, The WriterObserved. Here are a few samples:

1-

From an interview with Aldous Huxley:"For a long time," Mr. Huxley said, "I have been

thinking of doing the impossible job of wriling a his­torical novel, and I've been thinking of collecting mymaterial on the spot. It would be fourteenth-centuryII:lly. It fascinates me. Why! Well, it has the fascinationof the impossible task-I still don't know how it's to bedone--of indicating that people are always the same andawfully different."

Why did fourteenth-century Italy fascinate Mr, Hux­ley? "It's awfully good," he said. "It's really humannature with the lid off of it. It really is wonderful. The

QUOTI! , • ,Uro:QUOTI! 169

violence and piclUresquene5S; and 1 must say it's funwhen one reads a life of the Middle Ages and the in­timate life emerges. All kinds of things that we regardas 'Very, 'Very strange they took for granted. There isth:1t passage from extreme sanctity to eXlreme brutality-things we consider incompatible go on in the samebreath. Men ate off gold plate and were monstrouslyfilthy. Beautiful women painted their teeth, which ateaway the enamel. (Mr. HUXley said "et" away.] Womenmnde themselves so revolting that the men were driven10 sodomy. No, I must say ii's fascin:l.ling-and thenyou get into the early humanisls: Pe(rurch, Boccaccioand that extraordinary woman, St. Catherine, rushingabout nod bawling out the Pope."

From no interview with E. E. OJmmings:Why did Mr. OJmmings turn his back on the con­

ventiooal upper.and.lower<ase syslem and employ nearlyexclusively the lower-case letter? "Sure, I'll tell you,"Mr. CUmmings said, se~oely aod simply, "Sam Ward,a New Hampsbire farmer and a dear friend of mine,used 10 write to me. I remember once he wrote: 'wehad a Big snow: He'd write 'i' not 'I'-beeause I wasn'timportant to him. I got leiters and leuers from him. Itis the most natural way. Sam Ward's way is the onlyway. Instead of it being artificial nnd affected, it is theconventional way that is militial nnd affected. I amnot a scholar but I believe only in English is the 'I'cnpitalized:'

From an interview with Angela Thirkel\:", , , I think we're rather lucky to have the English

language. There are so many good novels in English,There are n few good novels in French and a few inGerman, but the rcal Dowering of the novel was inEngland."

INTERLOCUTOR: Isn't there one exception?MRS. nIlRKELL: You're not going to say War and

P~ac~?

INTeRLOCUTOR: Yes, I am. But I melln the whole gre:nninetcenth-century Russian oovel-Pushkin, Gogol, Tol­stoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky,

MRS. TIIIRKELL: Ob, Russian novels arc so dull! Theymake Ole squintl

170 How TO WRrT2, SPI!AX, Ar.'D TJIU'o'J: MORE EPF£CTJVELY

These snatches of recorded talk arc, I think, examples ofhigh an. What makes them so good is the trained precisionwith which Mr. Breit recorded all the peculiarities of speech,the unconventionlll grammar and special inflections of hisinterviewees. Aldou.! Huxley, he noticed, used "Why" as anexclamation, and said "human DatUre with the lid off of it,"and pronounced au as "C!t" in the Britisb fashion. E. E.Cummings said "1 got letten and letten from him," which is'omething of a prize example of English as it is spoken butnever written. And Angela Thirkell said that "Russian Dovelsare so dull," emphasizing the word so, which menos some­thing quite different from "Russian nove19 are so dull," withUle emphasis on dl/II,

ti talk is recorded with that much exactness, then you gct,orne meaning beyond the meaning of the individual words.Something of Aldous Huxley's fasciD3tion comes through bythe sheer rapidity wiLb which he jumps from gold plate andpainted teeth to St. Catherine bawling out the Pope. And youunderstand, perhaps for Lbe first time, the inner meaning ofthose funny-looking poems by E. E. Cummings, because hi!simplicity shows in the way he talks nbout his lower<ase i's.A! to Angela Thirkell's remnrk about Russian novels-well,it somehow tells more about upper.m.iddle<lass England thanpages of sociological analysis.

And yel, e\'en an interview artist like Mr. Breit can giveus only a sulrititute. The real tbing-the actually spokenwords, as they fell from the speaker's lips-is still beyond thereach of even the most gihed wriier. You need a tape re~

corder if you wnnt to caleh some of the extraordinary thingspeople say and their wholly unorthodox ways of saying them.

There used to be two easily accessible sources of printedtape·recorded interviews: Mike Wallace's daily TV interviewin the New York Post and tbe weekly Q.·and-A. interviewfeature in US. New3 &. World Reeort. Here is a specimenfrom Mike Wallace. He was interviewing Mrs. Gwen Caffritz.the weU-known Washington hostess:

Q. Do YOllr purties really do some good?A. Well, I do think you do a certain amount of good

bringing significant people together.Q. What's a significant person, Mrs. Cnffritz?A. Practically anybody in an important position in

Washington is a significant person,Q. You've never mct stupid people in important po­

sitions?

QUOTE , •• UNQUOTB 171

A. Oh, no!Q. You're said to be a king-maker, Mrs. Caffritz. Are

you?A. Oh, modestly, I wouldn't say so. But these top-rate

people come here nnd when they think they're going torun for the Senate, thcn I usually give a dinner forthem, and we toast to the future Senator.

Q. You always pick winners?A. We pick them well. They usually get to be Senators,Q. What are your politics?A. My husband and I like to have friends on both

sides at all times. I'm bipartisan.Q. How can one person be bipartisan? Don't you have

definite political opinions?A. Yes. It wouldn't be any fun if I didn't.Q. Well, for example, what do you think of Mr. Reu­

ther's prolit-sharing plan?A. 1'01 afraid I don't know much about Mr. Reuther.

Economics are out of my field. What I'm really interestedin is thc future of Western civilization.

Q. Do you rcally worry :lbout thc future of Westerncivilization without worrying a lillIe bit about economics?

A. I'm afraid I do.Q. Docs this make sense?A. I don't know.. , ,I think people shonld discuss the

things they know about. I know about Western culture,, •• J simply love Fra Angelico and things like that.

Only a genius--or a tapc re{:order--eould have set downMrs. Caffritz's last two sentences in just this way. H anordinary person had recorded them from memory, they woulddoubtless have sounded incredibly stupid, But this way, some­how they don'l; at least they don't seem so to me. How wouldyou define Western civilization, silting under glaring lightsand fending off a hostile interviewer who is Irying to scorealI you? As far as I can sec, Mrs. Caffrilz's declaration thatshe "simply loves Fra Angelico and things like that" isn't 1I

bad nnswer at nil. It seems rather likely that she docs-incontrast to lots of people who 3re all in favor of Westerncivilization but whose acquaiutance with Fra Angelico isslight.

And wh:lt about the rest of Ihe interview? Somehow, theQ's seem to be more interesting 3nd rc\'caling than the A's,Here, as clear as daylight. is the nasty undenone with whichthe words "Does this make sense?" were spoken-with which,

172 How TO WRrrn, Sf'I!AX, AND THINK MoP.B EFFECTIVELY

in fact, all the questions were asked. Could this be brooght001 on paper except by the exact reproduction of every singleword of the interview? I don't think so. I think the taperecorder has added another dimension to written English.(The only editing of a tape that's required is the removal ofsome of a speaker's "ers" and "ahs.")

U.s. News d: World Report, as I mentioned, has for severalycars been running a weekly tape-recorded interview-ahighly successful feature thai many subscribers read wordfor word every week, The inlerviews are a gold mine for thestudent of language Bnd writing. I sball quote a few of themO'lt instructive ones.

Here is one (February 7, 1958) Ihal shoW! nicely the ere.ative power of conversntion. It's an interview that was de­signed to produce a certain effect but developed a powerfuldrift of its own. The interviewee was Dr. Donald 1. Hughes,a nuclear scientist who had just returned from 0. trip toRussia. The interviewer tried to s.how the readers that theUnited States was still ahead of the Russians in basic researcband that there was no reason for being panicky. At ooe pointDr. Hughes said: "I made quite an effort wben I was inRussia to find out what books they used at the university level.II was somewhat of a surprise to learn tbat their main text·books in advanced nuclear pbysics. are American books tram·Inted into Russian."

Q. Are any of your books being used over there?A. Yes. Here on the desk is the Russian version of a

book of mine on ncutron physics,Q. Do thcy give you credit for it?A. They didn't at first. My book appeared in the

United States in 1953, and I think the next year it wasprinted. in Rl.ISSia, but they didn't tell me about it.

One interesting point is that a Soviet book alw3.YScontains a notation giving the number of copies printed.You can see here in the back of this Rl.ISSian translatioD.of my boot. thnt 20,000 copies were printed.

Q. And how many were printed in tbis country?A Probably n quarter of that number.

You see? The interviewer neatly steers Dr. Hughes intotelling about how the Russians use his book as a textbook,and suddenly, without warning, Dr. Hughes drops his bomb-­s.hell about the compnrntive number of copies printed. There

QUOT'B ••• UNQUOTE 173

is no way this effcct could have been produced except by theQ.-and-A. method.

Next, here is an interview (November 1, 1957) with Dr.Edmund Jacobson, widely known expert on tcchniques nfrelaxation. What's the best way for executives to relax? Aftera while the questio05 and answers take an unexpected turn:

Q. What about sports? A lot of businessmen take upgoU, for instance. Is that a good form of relaxation?

A. It is not necessarily relaxing at all. It's a fine sport,and good exercise. It develops muscles. But that doesn'tteach you tension control. It doesn't show you how toquiet your nerves when you've got five different peoplecalling for you, as in the case of a busy executive. , , ,

... By all means play golf. I elln remember Grant­land Rice, 25 years ago, having me tell him about tbisvery matter, although I've never pl:lyed a game of golf.I know one or two professional golfers who have comefor a little special training in relaxing. I think sports arcwonderful, but I believe that sports are one thing andtechnical training in relaxing is another.

Q. Well, then, should you take five minutes of! everyso often during your working day and just sit back andrelax?

A. That won't do much good either, unless you usethe right procedure in rela'ting.

Q. What about wandering into a bar and having afew quiet drinks?

A. 10M might do more good than what you've justmentioned, because there you've got the nlcohol. whichis a depressant. , . ,

Again, this is much more illuminating than straight ex·position could possibly be. What happened here, it seems tome, is tbat tbe U.s. News editor tried to have Dr. Jacobsoncomment on the commonly used means of relaxing tension,but got unexpected "no" answers, except in the case ofalcohol, where you would expect a scientist to say "Layoffit." And why was Dr. Jacobson so bearish on all the thingsexecutives usually do to relax their nerves? The reason is<:learly visible, somewhere between the lines of his answers.A<:oording to Dr. Jacobson, nothing relaxes you "really" ex­cept relaxation according to the Ten Commandments of Dr.Jacobson. You may kid yourself and have a fine time on thegolf course or take splendid afternoon naps but you can't sct

174 How TO WRITB, SPUK, AND nfJN'X MORl! EFFEC'TIVELY

any official credit for it "unl~~ you use the right procedure inrelaxing." Could this have been brought home to a readerexcept by means of a tape recorder? J doubt it.

Next: Here is Chllrles E. Wilson, former Secretary of De­fense, interviewed on Jnnuary to, 1958. 111is was shortly afterthe first unsuccessful attempt of getting the Navy Vanguardsatellite into orbit, M.r. Wilson was asked:

Q. There is a report that 17 billion dollars has beenspent or eommiued on guided missiles up to now. Doyou think the money has been well spent?

A. Some of it was. Not all of it.Q. Do you mean there was some waste?A. Of course, people don't understand thc research

and development thiog very well. If everything youstarted was bound to be successful, it wouldn't be re­search and it wouldn't be development. It would be justlltraight engineering.

Take all this disappointment over this first lillie Van­guard outfit that was put up to launch a satellite a fewweeks ago and then didn't work, It would have been ancar miracle if it had worked.

The whole Vanguard thing was projected on the basisof six, hoping thM onc of them would work. And Jthink it is wrong to talk too much about experimentalthings as if they're proven and as if somebody made 1\

mistake just because it didn't work the first time.

This is an excellent example of the way people really talk.Mr. Wilson is quoted as having said "the research and develop­ment thing" and "this first little Vanguard outfit" and "thewhole Vanguard thing" and "experimental things." Not exact·Iy the kind of smooth, orderly English students are encour­aged to usc in their compositions, is it? And yet, Mr. Wilson'spoint could hardly have been made as well as he made itif be'd prepared nn article, sa.y, for The Adanlic, and hadinformed "thinking Americans" of his views on "the under­lying philosophy of research and development projects" or"the basic differences between experimental procedures andapplied science anti technology." Something of this orderwould have appeared on paper if he had translated his olThandremarks into statelier English, but the force-in fact, somcof the meaning-af what he said would have been lost in theprocess.

For the fact is that Mr. Wilson did say something mtber

QUOTil ••• UNQU()"T2 175

important here. He practically coined a phrase: "If everythingyou started was bound to be successful, it wouldn't be re.­search and it wouldn't be development. It would be juststraight engineering." These two sentences make you think,don't they? They certainly made me think. There is a finequality of paradoxical logic about them, with their casualdisdain for success and for "just straight engineering" andtheir emphasis on development. You might do worse thancopying this quotation and putting it framed on your desk,to look at and ponder from time to time.

Finally, here is an excerpt from a long interview with Mr.Frederick H. Ecker, nincty-year-old honorary chairman ofthe Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (December 27,1957):

Q. A friend bas this formpla: When he gets worriedabout a document or a memorandum, be does somethingabout it, or else he puts it aside in his drawer and doessomething about it five days laler. He lakes a definitivestep and puts it out of his mind. Do you ever try that?

A. I do it all tbe time-always have.Q. Different men apply it in dilTerent ways-A. If you worry about a thing, il takes half an hour

and you get all upset and. forget the other things youought to be doing. I say, "I'll look at that tomorrow,"or two hours from now, and I get so busy with somethingelse I forget it.

Q. You wait until you can do something about it, andthen dispose of it?

A. It helps to do it just that way. I won't say one isalways successful in doing it. If you have something onyour mind and turn to something else, the first thing youknow, you are thinking of the otber,

Q. Do you feel that the thing they call "tension" to­day is a form of worry, or is it overaetivity?

A. It goes along with another thought that occurs tome. In your body, where there is pain there is tension.If you can relieve the tension, you relieve the pain. Ifyou can find the tension before tIle pain comes, that isreally preventive.

Q. Are you a fatalist? Do you believe that wIlat iggoing to happen will happen, and that there is nothingyou can do about it, and do you accept it?

A. I have faith in an all-merciful Providence and thedivinity of God, but with tbat faith 1 have a realization

176 How TO WarTP., Srl!.l.~ AND TlIlNX MORE EFFECl1VELY

thu, while I can't do things which determine courses formyself without interference, I am responsible for what1 do, and I can oecomplisb things if 1 make tbe effort.

If I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't worry. I amlike the Irishman who was talking about death. He said,"If you will tdl me where, I will never go near theplace." Well, at my :.ge, if I were going to die nextTuesday, I wouldn't change anything. I would carry onjust as I am doing, but, then, I am an old man.

Q. Is that bllSed upon a philosophy that you have ajob to do and it i~ not finished until you are ready to go?Is it possibly like someone undertak.ing a job-that, ifthat is the time it ends, it ends then?

A. Fatalistically, you mean? I give no thought to it.Q. That is probably the real answer-you don't think

about it-A. "Consider the lilies. how they grow; they loil nol,

neither do they spin:' I don't think. about it. I JUSt thinkabout the things J am doing.

Q. That, then, is the training and discipline of som~one who has .....ork to do?

A. Yes. You can't put it in a book. J don't knowthat you can teach it. You can't make your son under­stand it. You can guide him a lillie bit, to help him un­derstand things for himself, but you can't decide it forhim.

"You can't put it in a book," Mr. Ecker says. Well, here Jhave pUl it in a book, :md I think it's quite an extraordinarything 10 rcad. The lnre recorder hns performed somethingclose to a miracle. Here is the thing you can't write, the thingyou can't teach, the thing you can't pass on to your son. Andit is true that no one, silting in front of a typewriter and com­posing an orderly succession of English words and sentences,could possibly put on paper .....hat ninety-yenr-old Mr. Eckerhere murmurs and hints :11 and leaves finally uns3id. Nobodycould possibly write it, but the tape recorder has somehowC3ught it-the altitude of a man who can say, "I[ I weregoing to die nexl Tuesday" without a nUtier in his hean, ofa man who can say quietly, "You can't make your son under·sland it," though Ihis son happens to be Mr. Frederic W.Ecker, currenl president of Metropolitan Life. This is howit feels to be ninely yeIlrs old. You can't wrile it, bUI you cansay it, and, if lhere is a lape recorder handy, it can be printedfor other people to relld.

QUOTE. , • UNQUO'JE 177

The moral of all this is clear: If you w:mt to say somethingthat's bard to put inlO words, use dialogue. Dialogue some­how has a wider reach tban ordinary prose. It can, and oftendoes, express the inexpressible. Use it as much as you can.Drag it into your writing wilh a deliberale effort. Give thosequotation marks a real workout. Of course, ninety-nine timesout of a hundred the difference betwcen straight expositionnnd the dialogue you produce won't be anything very exciting,Bill the hundredth time somcthing is going to happcn. Sud­dcnly you will sce on pllper somcthing that you didn't knowyou were going to say-somcthing that you didn't know youknew,

EXERCISES

I am slill assuming th:l.I you :ue carrying on with the basicdaily.lelter exercise on page 139. Now use this exercise totrain yourself in using dialogue.

I. Tell aboul a movie or TV play you saw recently, quotingas much dialogue as you can. If you can't remember theexact words, try to come as close as possible.

2. Describe a recent party or social event you went to,using as much dialogue as possible.

3. Do the same with a business conference, luncheonmeeting, elc.

4. Write down the ten best funny stories you know-using1015 of dialogue, of coursc. Make thcm as funny as you knowbow,

S. Dcscribe, from memory, an imporlant conversation youhad years ago--"the best advice you ever had," for instance,Use straight dialogue, even though you may have to inventall of it.

6. Describe, from memory, the most memorable scene youever saw in a play or movie. Again. use dialogue, though theactual words may be your own.

CIlapter Nineteen

HOW TO WRITE LIKE A PRO

Mr. Morlan Sontheimer tells us, in the introduction to AGrtide 10 Success/III Magazine Writing (the book I mentionedon page 152): "As much of the article as possible is told inOllrrative style. The fuel that keeps this narrative style run­ning smoothly is anecdotes. Not just any anecdotes ... Thellnicle demands anecdotes that make a given point, thatiJlustrate, that tell the story. fdeally, the anecdotes will Dotmerely supplement but substitute for description or exposi~

tion in the article. Anecdotes arc far and away the favoritedevice for sustaining reader interest in nonfiction subjecls...•Certainly they have become the overriding fetish of ourmagazine editorial rooms. Many a story has been ordered,many a long trip laken, on the basis of a couple of anecdotcsalone. Hardly lIny idea can be put over without one...."

This is no exaggeralion. On the contrnry, the introductionto the official handbook put out by the magazine writers' as­sociation is just about lhe best source on what is acceptedtechnique. If Mr. Sontheimer says so, thcn we may take itfor granted that anecdotes are the chief element in all popularnonfiction today.

You don't need to look very far to find out that this is so.Open any popular magazine, pick any article at random andyou'll find that it consists of about a dozen or so anecdotes,spaced more or Jess evenly and slrung together with swatchesof dry subjeci mnllcr. Thi.~ is the famous "sandwich" method.Without anecdotes, popular nonfiction would be unsalableand free-lance magazine writers would starve.

To prove my point-and to provide you with some mildclltertainment-I picked two articles at random, one from theLadies' Home Journal (April, 1957) and oDe from the Safur~

duy Evening PO!/ (February 22, 1958).178

How TO Wll.1TP. UKIl A PRO 179

Here arc some of the anecdotes I found in "Who AreAmerica's Ten Richest Men?" by Margaret PartOn (Ladies'Home Journal):

"After the first hundred million, what Ihe heckT'asked Clint Murchison, discussing his friend and fellowTexan, Sid Richardson.

• • •

Richardson, a large, barrel-bodied man with thinningbrown hair, a rolling walk and a Texas drawl, has beenn bachelor all his life. Whenever he is teased about this,which is often, he remarks aminbly, "Why, 1 becatbinkin· about a wife for forty yean now,"

• • •

The acquisition of property and business, particularlyin Dade County-which means Miami and its suburbs-is his [Arthur Vining Davis') current absorption. Heowns one eighth of the county, and many of its banks,hOlels and skyscrapers. "Arthur Vining Davis is a largebody of money surrounded by Dade County," quippedone observer.

• • •

Howard Hughes carries most of his business in hishead, and does business by telephone, often calling as­sociales in lhe middle of the night. "1 don't know whetherHoward is a genius or crazy," says one of them. "Maybebe's a little of both. I know I sometimes feel like blowingmy top when I bear the phone ring at four A.M. But thenhe's always 50 polite IlDd apologetic for waking me up,1 forget about it,"

• • •

Generally considered hot-tempered but fair, [August}Dusch often hel10ws at his family or at members of hisboard, "Let me finishl Then you can blow )'ollr topl"

And here arc a few of the things 1 learned by reading

180 How TO WRtTe, SI'UX, AND THINK MORE EFFECTIVELY

"The High Price of An" by Ernest a.-Hauser in the SaJurdayEvening Pas/:

"I own no stocks," a well·known Hollywood producerconfided as he led me past the glittering walls of hisParis establishmeot. "My savings go into my paintings."

• • •

(Mr. Basil P. Goulnndris bought n stiJIlife with applesby Gauguin at a Paris auction for II quarter milliondollars.] "Your face showed DO excitement," II friend saidto the winner afterward.

"You should have seen my hands," was the reply.

• • •

"U you broUght me a Raphael today," one leading artdealer said recently, hi would have trouble selling it.Dut let me have a Renoir, and I'll dispose of it"-hepointed to his phone-"in fifteen minutes'" I

• • •

"We've always made our living selling impressionists,"says Jean d'Auberville, third-generation owner of thehouse of Bernheim Jeune, which, in the last half century,has sold some 27,000 canvases, "But we made ourfortune with the ones we kept,"

• •

''No truly good collector ever bought with an eye onappreciation," one vCleran art dealer states. "Buy whatyou like, nOI whnl is fl1Shionable, spend only what youcan afford to lose, and your reward will be in yourenjoyment. If you must speculate, buy stocks'"

There arc a few more anecdotes in both Miss Panon's andM.r. Hauser's articles, but basically it is true that without theones that J have quoted neither of lhem eould have sold thenrtie10--0r rather, neithcr of them eould havc writtcn it, be-­cause there simply is no other way nowadays of presentinginformation to the general public.

Of coursc, you tire not interested in writing articles for

How TO WRl'TB l.JXB A Pao 181

rnilSS-circulation magazines. (If you are interested, let me warnyou: it's a long, hard road.) But you can and should learnfrom the technique of the successful practitioncrs. If youwrile anything-a lettcr, a memo, a pamphlet, a companybrochure, a repon-never underestimate the power of anec­dOles. If you come upon one in your preliminary research,don't just smile and go on. Take it down carefully: it's valu­able stuff-in interest, in reader appeal, in forcefulness, ingeneral aU-purpose usefulness for wrincn presentation.

The magazine writers usually use the most telling one oftheir anecdotes as the "Ielld"-the opening parllgraph of thearticle. Thllt's good practice for anicle writing; for other k..indsof writing other types of leads are often preferable. The bestmodel for you-for your letters and memos and repons­i! the standard newspaper lead, which is simply a capsule sum­mary of the story.

We're all reading the daily paper every day, but I knowfrom experience that very few people are aware of the rigid,standardized form of the newspaper story. Open your morn­ing paper of the day you are reading these words, llnd you'llfind that every story on the front page, without exception,begins with a summary lead and goes on from there, anti­climactically, into less and less interesting details.

For instance, here is the New York Times (Monday, March24, 1958):

WASHlNGTOl'l, M3rch 23-Three of tbe ontion's Icadingscientists and educators outlined today a six-point pr~

gram 10 improve higb school education.]AKA.RTA.. Indonesia, March 23-The Indonesian Army

announced tonight that a new victory over rebel forcC3bad established Jakartn's control over all the major oilcenters operaled by United States companies in CentralSumatra.

WASHll'IOTOl'l, March 23-Democratic leaders of Con­gress have been quietly eJlerting their influence, withapparent success, against rank-and·file agitation for taxreduction.

CAIRO, Mareh 23-The abrupt removal today of Lieut.Gen. Afi( Biui as Cbief of Staff of the Syrian Army wasregarded here as proof that President Amal Abdel Nasserhad taken over complete control o( the Syrian fon:es.

ALBANY, March 23-Several major clashes betweenRepublicans and Democrats were in prospect tonight as

182 How TO WaITE., SpEa, .\.'1) THlSJ:: MoaE EFFEC'11VELY

the LcgislalUre headed for a final adjournment of thi!year's session on Wednesday,

FRANKFURT, Germany, March 23-Erieh Ollenhlluer,Social Democratic leader, called today {or a generalstrike 10 upset the Govemmenl's decision 10 accept ou­clear arms.

NEW HAVEN, March 23-The first undergraduate co­eds in Yale's history will be living and studying on thecampus here in September.

And so on. There are a few more stories starting on theTimes {rant page, bUI the pattern of the lend is always exactlythe same. Read the first paragraph nnd yOll know the gist ofIhe story. (In fact, read the headline-which the copyreaderhas distilled from Ihe first paragraph-and you have the gistof the gist of the information.)

This pattern, which has been eslablished in Americanjournalism for a good many years, is, I think, invaluable forall ordinary, practical writing. Every business Icller, to befully effective, should stan with somclhing like "The widgetsyou ordered on March 23 are under way" or "Sorry, butwe can't give you Ihc $100 refund you asked for."

Traditionally, of course, half Ihe letter is spent on elabo­fately acknowledginS the receipt of the incoming letter andleisurcly paraphrasing ils contenlS. Then, in Ihe third orfourth paragraph, the poor addressee is given his first inklingof whether the answer he is waiting for is going 10 be yes orno. Well, I Ihink it's lime to learn something [rom the pro­fessionals and be II lillie quicker on Ihe uptake.

I don'l mean 10 say, however, thnt the averuge lead para­graph in the daily paper is a paniculllrly good model for anopening 5ummny. It is not. It's possible to do beller thanthe average lead on a random front page of Ihe Times. (Thelead on the story from Albany, for instance, is not informa­tive.) If you re:llly Wllnt to learn how to summarize informa­tion, study the front page of Ihe lVa/J StrrtU Journal for afew weeks. There are twO regular features-"Whal'S News"and "Business Bullelin"-that conlain series of summarizedilems, wriuen with high profession:!1 polish. (Sir Willi:un Osleronce said, "It is often harder 10 boil down tbnn to write," Iwould say, it is t/lwoys hllrder.)

Look at these gems, for inslance:

BlIIy Mitchell's conviction for viol:!ting military law 33years ago was upheld by Air Force Secretary James H.

How TO WRITE Lom A PRO 183

Douglas. He turned down a petition by William Mitchell,Jr" to void the court-martial conviction of his falber­a champion of American airpower, Douglas ruled tilelate general conducted himself to the prejudice of goodorder and military discipline. But he added Mitchell'sviews "have been vindicated" and his vision on airpowerhas proved "amazingly accurate."

• • •

A Japanese learn launched a plastic rocket, believedto be the world's first. The inventor said it cost about afifth less than a metal rocket and should give moreaccurate observations of electrical phenomena. The 78­pound missile was nine feet long, 51 inches in diameterand carried a radio lransminer.

• • •

Rosie the Riveter has had it. Even another full-scalewar, say defense manufacturers, will find much less usefor this lady and the thousands of other unskilled orsemi-skilled hands of World War 11. Intricate new mis­siles require higher skills; one defense contractor sug­gests training present unskilled hands now in these finerarts.

• • •

An ll-year.cld New York boy, George Jones, ad­mitted to police that he pushed two of his playmates intothe Hudson River. He shoved a 4-year-old girl off n62nd Street pier last June 28-for no reason which offi­cers could determine. His otber victim, he said, was a.7-year-old boy he pushed off a 27th Street pier lastSunday in a dispute over a dime.

An enormous amount of time, money and effort could besaved if the average business letter or report started with abrief summary of this type. A brief leiter or memo, as I said,sbould begin with a simple newspaper-type lead, conveyingimmediately the essence of tbe information. A longer pa­per or report should be preceded by a separate summarysomewhat along the lines of these Wall Street Journal exam_ples. Good writips, as I explained in Chapter 15, often ro-

184 How TO WiU'TE, SP£U, , ....on nUl« MORl! EFP£CT1VI!LY

quires lenglh and a leisurely pace; on the other hand, a bll!fexecutive shies away from thick bundles of trpewrilleo pages.Tbe compromise solution is Ihe opening summary, followedby the detailed full story.

MO$I of the trade journals, in fact. have arrived at the samesolution and their Iypical pallem today is a combination ofnewslelter pages and "briefs," introducing a series of fairlylengthy articles. (U.s. News &: World Report rons half adozen variegated newsletters side by side with their leisurelyrambling Q.-and-A. features.) Here are a few well-writtenitems J picked from Chemical Week (January 4, 1958):

Foods with buj/t-in protection against 'ooth decaymay be possible, say University of Wisconsin researchers.Fumito Taketa and Paul Phillips have investigated thedecay-prevention properties of oat hulls. They previouslyhad found a diet with 10% finely ground oat bulls thatcould cut decay in half. Their latest work indicates Ibat0.5% partly purified hull extracts can turn the lrick.

The IWO biochemiSlS are trying to find out whichcompounds are responsible for the resUlts. They've zeroedin on 10 phenolic compounds nnd fotty ocids, theorizethai one or more of them protect the leeth through theirbaclericidal aClion.

They feel thn!, once the malerial is identified. it couldbe manufactured ll.t a modesl COSI, incorporated into foodthe way vitamins nrc. It might be possible, Ihey sny. touse the compounds in items such ([.'i candy and chewinggum that are normally hard on the tecth.

Now it's "cloud poisoning" 10 prevent snow. Geo­physics Research Direclorate, Air Force Cambridge Re­sea.rch Cenler (Bedford, Mass.), hns found in laboratorytests and in preliminary atmosphere tests that monoethylamine prevents snow crystals from growing. apparentlyby coaling the seed crystals. The "poison" is floated intothe cloud in gaseous form. In test cases. none of IheIrealed clouds have "snowed." Some control clouds ha.ve.others have not.

• • •Some new mathematical formulas to speed up moree­

,,1ar anal)'3is hnve been polished up by three physicistslit Ihe Illinois Institute of Technology. Mtcr two yean'work, they have come up with Dew formulas that give

How TO WlUT8 LIU A. PRo 185

values to constants in several large molecules, eliminatecumbersome cut-and-try methods o{ determining ther·modynamic data.

Let's analyze these Wall Strut JOllrnalll.nd Chemical Weekexamples. What exactly is this modern technique of boilingthings down? What are the rules of the game?

As far as I can see, they are u follows. U you want to be­come a first-rate boiler-downer, do this:

1. Save every unnecessary comma and every unnecessary'lrat. ("Douglas ruled the later general conducted himself, ..")

2. Don't spell out words th:l.l can be implied. ("A plasticrocket, believed to be the world's first" , , . "Some controlclouds have, others have DOL")

3. Use terse colloquial phrnscs to convey your ideM.("Rosie the Riveter has had it" , •• "Now it's 'cloud poisoning'10 prevent snow.")

4. Use the most expressive verbs you can think of. ("Heshoved a girl off a pier." , , • 'They've zeroed in on 10phenolic compounds.")

S. Let the names, numbers, specific data, and verbatimquotes carry the slory.

And now, let's do n couple of excursions into the higherreaches of professional writing. By this I don't mean fictionor poetrY or drama or any of the creative types of writing-farfrom it. No. The real test of good writing comes when youare called upon to explain rules and regulations to an ordinaryreader. If you can translale legal language into English sothat both lawyers and laymen wiu be satisfied, then you canreally wrile.

I am indebted ror my first example to Mrs. Jean Whitnnck.edilor of the Columbia University catalogues of infonnation,and to her assistant, Miss Marjorie Malcolm. Some time agothese two ladies decided that it ought to be possible to putau! catalogues that contained neither gobbledygook nor nca·demic jargon-in other words, to rewrite the rules so that astudent could read them and know what was meanl. Here is0. specimen (from Ihe old catalogue) of what Mrs. Whitnack:and Miss Malcolm were up against:

Subject to the approval of the appropriate deans, anundergraduate student in Columbia University whoseacademic record has been good and who, in the finalsession of his ca.ndidacy for a Bachelor's degree, is with-

186 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TursI:. MORE EpPEC'I'TVELY

in twelve points of that degree may register for graduatecourses with a view to offering such courses in parlinlfulfillment of the requirements for residence for a higherdegree, provided, however, Ihat he shall not receivegraduate credit in excess of the difference between fifteenpoints and the number of points that he needed for hisBachelor's degree at the beginning of such session.

The two brave Indies waded into this horrible mess andcame up with the following version in English:

An undergraduate student in Columbin University mayregister for graduate courses and offer them in parlialfulfillment of the residence requirement for the advanceddegree. Provided: (a) He is within twelve points of theBachelor's degree. (b) He is in the final session of hiscandidacy for the degree. (c) His academic record hasbeen good. The amount of "excess credit" may not ex·ceed the difference between fifteen points and the numberof points he still needs to fulfill the requirements for theBachelor'S degree.

Let's compare: The old version is exactly 99 words longand is all in one sentence. Its score, according to the testdescribed in Chnpter 35. is to (assuming that the sentenceformed a complete paragraph and counting two extra pointsat the beginning and the end). The revised version consistsof six sentences (counting Ihe very effectively used wordProvided as a separate sentence, since it is preceded by aperiod and followed by a colon). It scores 31 points within85 words, or 36 points pcr 100 words. As rnted by our scale,the revision changed the writing f.rom "formal" to "very popu­lar."

_ How was it done? To begin with, Mrs. Whitnack and MissMalcolm broke up that 99-word sentcnce and gave a completesentence to each separate idea. NOle thnt they wenl all outand formed really complcte sentences for each one of thecondilions. They did nOI write-like all bureaucrats in goodstanding-"... providcd he is (a) within twelve points ofthe Bachelor's degree. (b) in the final session of his candidacyfor the degree, and (c) has had a good acadcmic record:" No.They wrote the way human beings talk and put He and Hj~

after (lI), (b), and (c).Next, please note that Ihe two 1:ldies exactly reversed the

6equence of the Ihree conditions. That's typical if you try to

How TO WIlITE Lrx.e A PilO 181

translate legal lingo into English. Lawyers, for some reasonor olber, always put lbe exception or lbe le3St important con­dition first, and proceed step by step from the exceptionalnnd insignificant to lbe general and important. The ordinaryperson, naturally, does it the other way round. Therefore,whenever you do any such job of rewriting, you have to startlit the bottom and work your way up.

Next, tbe rewrite team bad the good sense to start with themain point: "An undergraduate student in Columbia Univer­sity may register for graduate courses." The original versionhas 26 words between all urn!ugraduau: :studellt ;11 ColumbiaUlliversiry and may reci:sur for graduare coursu. Why? Be­cause the legal mind h35 a basic horror of setting down allYstatement that could conceivably be lifted out of context soas to gel away with something. "An undergraduate studentmay register for graduate courses"? Why, of course not, perisnthe thought! Who ever heard of such a thing? No one-ab­solutely no one-is allowed to register in the graduate school, , . except, of course, if he fulfills the three conditions "lISherein stated." So let's not be r3Sh; let's stop anyone who isapt to jump 10 conclusions by putting 26 words in his way,Result: Gobbledygook instead of English.

Finally, the two ladies explained the business about the"excess credit" in a separate sentence rather than working itin by way of "provided, however," Also, lhey called it by itsusual handle ("excess credit") rnther than sticking to theformal "shall not receive graduate credit in excess of." (Thisis fine, but here they ought to have gone a step furlher andadded an example or two, e.g.: "If the student needs 12 point!Cor his Bachelor's degree and takes IS, he gets 3 points extracredit" or "If he needs only 10 points (or his Bachelor's degreeand takes 16 points, he still gets only 5 points excess credit.")

After this rather tricky problem let's climb the MountE"~rest of all writing problems. I mean, of course, the world­fnmous, forbidding p~ak of US. income-tax prose. On March19, 1958, the Associated Press carried the following story:

WASmNOTON, March 19---senator Arthur V. Watkinsis offering a prize 10 anyone who can figure out th~

meaning of a 212-word sentence in the Government'slatest income-tax instructions. He said a pUzzled can·stituent had wriUen him, asking what the sentence meant.

An Internal Revenue Service spokesman said its ex­perts bad "done their best to make this instruction read·

188 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, ,,,,,.n nllN" MOllE EPFECTIVELY

able and understandable" but were handicapped by thecomplications in the law, as passed by Congress.

He said the questioned section came from the InternalRevenue Code, nnd was not a regul:llioll laid down bythe service.

Senator Watkins said later he probably had Voted forthe law himself. He said that if Congress were at fault,maybe some of its members could enter his CODtest andhelp clarify things.

Earlier, the Utah Republican said he had read thesentence several tim~ "without geuing anywhere--savefor a state of aggravated thirst, induced by repetitive rend.lng of the 212-word sentence."

"I even exposed it to some of my colleagues in theSenale, a group not normally nonplussed by long-windedand obscure phrases," he said. "They tOO were stumped-and dehydrated."

In his statement, Senator Watkins said that as a prizefor the best explanation of what the sentence meant hewould give a copy of the book "Simplified English."

He suggested thai the winner could autograph thebook and give it to the Internal Revenue Commissioner.Russell C. Harrington.

The Senator said he would also present 10 the winnera copy of the Bible. "an all-time best seller, known forIhe simplicity nnd lucidity of its prose."

A few contest rules were set. Professional lax expertsand Imernal Revenue Service employee~ ore ineligible.Entries must be typewritten, not over 300 words in length,lind be submilled by April 16.

And he had one more admonition: "No 212-wordsemences, please."

The sentence 10 be inlerpreted is from Page 8 of theInternal Revenue Service Booklet "How to PrepareYour Income Till[ Return on Form 1040."

It is entitled "Additional Charge for Uoderpayment ofEslimaled Tax," and says:

"The charge with respect 10 any underpa.yment ofany installment is m:mdatory and will be made unlessthe lotal amount of all payments of e5lirnated tax madeon or before the last date prescribed for the paymentof such installment equals or exceeds whichever of thefollowing is the lesser-"(A) The amount wbich would have been required to

How TO WJUTI! LO::E A PRO 18!}

be paid on or before such dale if the estimated taxwere whichever of the following is the least-

"( I) The tax shown on your return for the previousyear (if your return for such year showed n liability fortax and covered n taxable year of 12 months), or

"(2) A lax computed by using the previous )'car'sincome with the cUlTent year's rales and exemptions, or

"(3) 70 per cent (66~ per ~nt in Ihe case offarmers) of a tax computed by projecting to Ihe end ofthe year the income received from the beginning of theyear up to Ihe beginning of the month of the installmentpayment; or"(8) An amount equal to 90 per cent of the tax com­

puted. at the rates applicable to the taxable years. onthe basis of the actual taxable income for the monthsin the taxable year ending before the month in whichthe installment is required to be paid."Defore offering a brief interpretation of the 212 words,

the spokesman nOled that the words applied only tothose required to file an estimated return, a comparative­ly small minorilY of individual income taxpayers. Thegreat majority has to file relurns only for income re­ceived in the previous year.

The sentence, he said, sets forth the applicable rulesand tells when the penalty will be assessed for failing topay n sufficient amount.

It also states Ihe exceptions, or "outs," that applyeven though the affected taxpayer hasn't paid the re­quired 70 per cent of his Iinbility for the year.

A 6 per cent penalty is imposed. the spokesman con­tinued, but not on the difference between what II taxpayerhas paid and what he was supposed to pay.

The penalty is assessed against the difference betweenwhat he paid and the 70 per cent he was supposed topay. Aod the peoalty 00 this is prorated quanerly ~c.ause the tax is payable in quanerly installments.

Then Ihe sentence allempts to explain cenain condi­tions under which no penalty will be assessed eventhough 70 per cent of the tax has oot been paid, thespokesman said.

One exception is when a declaration is filed and a t3Xpaid 00 the basis of the individual's actual tax for theprevious year. If the tax paid in 1956 was SIOO, forexample, and SI00 was paid in 1957, there is no penaltyeven though the 1957 liability might be greater.

190 How TO WRIT£, SP£AK. ANo TiliNe MaRl! EPFECTIVllI.Y

The spokesman said another exception applied whenone has filed a declarati.on and paid a lax on the bnsiso( his previous year's income bUl has taken advanlageo( Ihe currenl year's exemplions nnd deductions.

A Ihird exception arises, the spokesman went on, ifa taxpayer files a declaration nnd pays his estimaledquarlerly lax on the basis o( actual income for the yearup to Ihal date, prorated on the annual basis. He's inthe c1enr, the spokesman concluded, even Ihough he'snot up to the 70 pcr ceot minimum at the end of the year.

'"Ihis is quite a long SIOry to read, but I think it's invaluablefor anyone who wants to improve his English. Here is a sen­tcnce of absolutcly unrendable English, so ridiculous Ihllt itmakes a (ront-page story if a Senator happens 10 look into it,The Senator, properly appalled, offers II mock prize (orconteslants trying to rewrite Ihe senlence (I sliIJ don'l knowwhether the book on "Simplified English" is mythical or real).Newspllpers all over the counlry print the story. and every­body has a good laugh. Six weco later it is announced thatlots o( people tried for the prize. bUI nOI n single contestantin Ihe whole Vniled States managed 10 come up with a ver­sion thnt satisfied a panel o( tllX experts. And that's the endof Ihe story: it's officially impossible to trunslale income tllXprose into readable English.

Or is il? I don't think so. For the thing Ihllt nobody noticed.the miracle o( American everyday journalism, was the factthm the AP story itself contllined an excellent rewrite of theZIZ·word sentence. Senlltor Watkins' prize by right belongedto the unknown reporlcr who hnd written Ihe slory. As amatter of course, as pari of Ihe routine of the day's work, hehad performed I.he impossible.

What happened was simply Ihis: After the AP man gal Ihestory from Senator Watkins, he did Whal any good news·paperman would have done and gO! in touch wilh the Bureauo( Inlerna! Revenue. There he got hold o( someone who ex­plained 10 bim whal Ihe unreadable sentence was supposed10 mean, and asked a few questions 10 make sure he (ullyunderstood the explanation, Then he went back to his officeand ~t down 10 write the story in lime for the morning-paperdeadline, The result o( this perfectly normal rouline of newswriting was the solution to the seemingly insoluble problem:an understandahle explanation, in 277 words (not counling"the spokesman suid," elc,), of what the sentence meant.

How TO Warn Lua; A PRo 191

If you analyze the unknown AP hero's work, you'll findthat he pretty much followed the principles I just derivedfrom Mrs. Whitnnck's and Miss Malcolm's simplification ofthe Columbia Univcrsity rules. First. he broke up the monstersentence and used a separate sentence for each separate idea.(Altogether, he used eleven sentences for his explanation.)Second, he too reversed the sequence of the conditions, slaning-rightly""':wilh Point (A) (3), which happens to be thebasis of the whole penalty SYSlcm. Third, he 100 started withthe main point: "A 6 per cent penally is imposed. : . onthe difference between whtlt the taxpayer ptlid and the 70per cent he was supposed 10 pay," However, the AP man,more seasoned than the two Columbia University ladies, didtwo more things; He went out of his way to forestall anypossible misunderstanding (".. but not on the differencebetween what a taxpayer has paid and what he was supposedto pay"), and he added :tn example where one was called for("If the tax paid in 1956 was $100 and $100 was paid in1957 there is no penalty even though the 1957 liability mightbe greater").

So, if you ever find yourself faced with the tough problemof rewriting rules and regulations, here are five points toremember:

1. Put each idea in a separate sentenCe.2. Start with the most general condition and end up with

the most exceptional case.3. Stale the main point first.4. Forestall possible minunderstandings.S. Give illustrative examples.

EXERCISES

Jt has been said thai everybody considers himself tin experton marriage, education, and politics. So, lake the subject ofmarriage and imagine that you are preparing an article on it.5tatmg your views and experiences. Do the following:

1. Write down six anecdotes Ihat illustrate your point ofview. Tell them as effectively as you can.

2. Pick as the lend of your nrticle the one nmong the sixanecdotes that will serve best to get a reader intcrested.

3. Write a one-paragraph summary of the article. Make itas naeaty as po6Sible.

4. Do the same three things for an article on education.

192 How TO Warm, SPEAK. AND Tmsr:: MORI! EFFECTIVELY

S. Do the MUne three things for an article on politics.6. Write your own simplified version of the 212-word sen·

tence from the income-tax instructions on pages 187 to 190,using the AP version as a guide.

Cllapter Twenty

DANGERI LANGUAGE AT WORK

In the fall of 1786, Goethe went on his famous trip to Italy.Three weeks after he got there. he wrote in his diary:

We northerners can say Good niCht! at any hour ofparting in the dark. But the Italian says Fclicissima nollelonly om:e: at the parting of day and night. when thelamp is brought into tbe room. To him it mcans some­thing entirely different. So untranslatable are the idiomsof every language: from the highest to the lowest word.everything is based on national peculiarities of char­acter, allitudcs, or conditions.

Goethe's casual observation contains a profound truth.Every word in every language is part of a system of thinkingunlike any olher. Speakers of different languages live in diff­erent worlds; or rather, they live in the same world, but can'thelp looking at it in different ways. Words stand for patternsof experience. As one generation hands its language down totile next. it also hands down a fixed pattern of thinking, see­ing. and feeling. When we go [Tom one language to another,nothing stays pUl; different peoples carry different nerve pat­lerns in their brains, and there's no point where they CuUymatch.

Of course, Goethe wasn't the only one who noticed this.Everybody who comes in contact with foreign languagessooner or later runs into the samc thing. In recent years, UNmeetings have furnished many examples. When the UNcharter was written, Latin Americans protested that the phrase"sovereign equality" didn't mean a thing to them; they pre­ferred "personality of states," a phtilse menninglc.~s to every­one else. The French, it turned out, bad no word for "trustee-

193

194 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND THINK MORE EFPECfIVELY

ship," the Chinese had trouble in translating "steering com·minee," the Spanish-speaking members couldn't express thedifference between "chairman" and "president." The Russianshad trouble with "gentlemen's agreement" and had to fallback on semi·English, making it (fentlemenskoye sog/as1leniye.

Russian is filled with words showing the Russian "character,attitudes and conditions." The critic Edmund Wilson foundthat out when he read Tolstoy in the original. He came uponsuch beauties as dozhidat'sya (to attain by waiting), pro­pivat'sya (10 squander all one's money on drink), and pere­paryval' (to whip everybody all around). And in AnnaKarenina he found no fewer than fifteen words that meantdifferent expressions of the eyes.

The more exotic the lllnguage, the odder the thinking pat­tern to us. In Hindustani the same word, kal, stands foryesterday and tomolTow. In Lithuanian there is a word forgray when you speak of eyes, another when you speak of .hair, a third when you speak of ducks llnd geese, several morefor other purposes, but no word for gray in general. TnBalinese there is a lovely word, tis, that means "to feel warmwhen it's cold or cool when it's hot."

We don't even have to go that far to realize differences inlanguage patterns. They arc brought home to every first-yearFrench student when he is asked to translate a simple sentencelike "The girl is running down the stairs." Naturally, he triesto translate word for word: La petite fWe court has l'escalier.Then he learns that that's all wrong. A Frenchman says: "Lapetite fille descend l'escalier en courant"-the girl descendsthe stairs in running.

Or take German. Everybody has heard of the three Germangenders, which make tables, chairs, coats, and spoons mascu­line; cats, roads, bridges, and' forks feminine; and horses.sheep, girls, and knives neuter. Or the two German formsof you-familiar dll and formal Sie-whose subtle differencemay spell the loss of a. job or the acceptance of a marriageproposal.

German has all sorts of the fine distinctions that don't existin English. A German isn't satisfied with a word meaning"to know"; he needs two, winen and kennen. One means "tohave knowledge of," lIS in knowing a secret; the other means"to be acquainted with," as in knowing a place or a person.A German woman doesn't just "put on" a dress, an apron, ora hat; she "pulls a dress on," "ties an apron around," and"puts a hat on top of herself." A German horse has a different

DANCER! LANCUAGE AT WORK 195

name depending on whether it's white or black: if it's white,it's a Schi",m~/; if it's black, it's a Rappe.

Even more subtly, German writers come in two grades.They may be either Schriftsteller (professionals who make aliving by writing) or Dichter (poets in verse or prose; literaryfigures). Thomas Mann is a Dichter, but Vicki Baum is aSchrjjtstellerin. In German translation, Ernest Hemingwaydoublless is a Dichter, but Erie Stanley Gardner is a Schri/t­steller.

To a German, of course, some of our English distinctionsarc just as odd. Braten, in German, covers roasting, baking,grilling, broiling, and frying. Reise means travel, journey,voyage, cruise, tour, and trip. So don't gel me wrong---don'tconsider the English language paUern natural and all othersperverse. It aU depends on where you sit.

Just for the fun of it, I drew up a short list of German"untranslatables" (with explanations in English of what theymean almost but not quite). Here they arc:

LebenskiinstlerSelmsuchtZeitgeistWe/tschlllerzRausch

verschert.en

Gemijt/ichkcit

Schadenfreude

Vbemmt

one who knows how to livegreat longing or yearningspirit of the ageworld-wearinessdrunkenness, delirium, passionateglow, ecstasy, mad fitto lose something through folly; totrine awaygood-natured, sanguine, casy·going dis­position; good nature; cheerfulness;comfortableness; sentimeot; freedomfrom worry about moneymalicious joy at another's misfortune;gratification of pent-up envy; joy overthe misfortune of those one has for·merly cringed to and enviedwild spirits; excessive joy or merri·ment; cockiness; sauciness; uppishness;arrogance

Naturally, English has its share of "untranslatables" too.They don't seem any difTerenl from other words to us, butforeigners have an awful time with tl1em. Examples: "tohumor someone," "3 bargain," "a pet."

On the other hand, there are quite a few useful wordsthat other languages have but we have not. We have no single

196 How TO WRITE, SrEAK, AND TllINJ: MORE EFFECTTVELY

word thai means "his or her" and have to make shift withsentences like "Everybody pOI on their hal!l and coaLS." Webave no word for "brother or sister" and our sociologists hadto invent the word "sibling" for the purpose.

And, as John T. Winterich nOled in Ihe Salllrday Reviewa while ago, we have no noun "to denote the relationship ofone father-in-law (or mother-in-law) to his (or her) oppositenumber." You may doubt-looking at the world throughyour own culture-and-Ianguage spectacles-whether any peo­ple ever went 10 the trouble of coining a word for such IIcomplex relationship. But you'd be mistaken. As soon asnational "peculiarities of chamcter, lluitudes or conditions"make a relationship imponant and meaningful, a Illbel for itwill appear_ Yiddish, for one, is a language equipped withMr. Winterich's word: the father·in-Iaw is to his oppositenumber a mek},ooln, the mother-in-Illw a mek/llaynes/a.

Words for family relationships, in fact. arc the pet examplesof the llnthropologists to show cuhural differences amonglanguages. The variations are endless. To you, an uncle is anuncle; to millions of people there is a tremendous differencebetween a father's brother and a mother's brother. In English,the word cousin covers bdth girls and boys; in practically allother languages, sueh an idea would be utterly unthinkable.

Consider, for instance, the fanta.~tically complex system ofIhe Vietnamese. They wouldn't think of using the term for thefather's elder brother, bac, for lhe father's younger brother,who is called elm, not to speak of the mother's brother, whois called call. The father's siner is co; the mother's sister is di­On the other hand, one word, c1lou, is nil lhey use to refer togmndchi1dren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, grand·nephews, grandnieces and so on of either sex. A son, whenhe grows up, is suddenly called COil, likc the mother's brother;so is a wife's brother after he gets married. Before that, he iscalled an", "cider brother," which is also the term used by awife for her hllsbrlnd's elder brother, liS well as for her hus­band himself. If this sounds utterly confusing to you, pleaseremember that our system is probably just as confusing tothe Vietnnmese.

Anthropologists soon learn not 10 be bewildered by varietiesof words. The Eskimos have one word for "snow on theground," another for "falling snow," a third for "driftingSIlOW" and n founh for M a snow-drift.'· They have a generalword for "selll," anolher for "seal basking in the sun," a thirdfor "seal floating on a piece of icc," and any number of others,

D"NGERI W.NGUAGt! "T \VORl( 197

classifying seals by age and sex. To the Chukchee, a tribe thatlives at the for eastern tip of Siberia, reindeer are what sealsare to lhe Eskimos. They have twenty-six. different words forreindeer skin colors, and sixteen words for reindeer of variousages and seltes. For instance, a qUkjn, a male baby reindeer,is different from a pctlvel, a male reindecr one to two years old;a krimqor (female, two to three years old) is not the sameas a rewkllt (female, five to six years old); and so on throughsiltteen different names-a system which come.~ perfectlynaturally to even the dumbest Chukchee boys and girls. Half­way around the globe, the Lapps of northern Scandinaviaalso live of, by, and for reindeer. They call them patro, sarves,hierke. ~a/jes, valeuvaja, stainak, ralnO, tjnoivak, kiepak,pajuk or ti01LJek, depending on sex, color, fertility, tractabilityand whatnot. Of course their classification has nothing to dowith the Chukcbee system; no reason why it should.

II you feel superior to all this and insist that a reindeer isa reindeer (eltcept for speciaUy famous ones like Donder,BlitzeD, or Rudolph), that just shows you don't realize theclose relation between language and life. For Lapps or Chuk4chees, a single word for reindeer would be the height of in­convenience; they have to make all these distinctions to get00 with lhe business of living. To them, the sentence "1 saw0. reindeer" would be as absurd as if you said, "[ live in adwelling with family members aod own a vehicle,"

Anthropologists also oflen run into a single word used bya primitive tribe that seems almost impossible to define exact·Iy. One of them once spent fourteen monlhs in the SolomonIslands, using most of that time trying to pin down the mean­ing of the word mumi in a Papuan dialect. It was easy to seethat a mumi was a chief headman, wealthy, a born leader,and owned a clubhouse filled with wooden gongs, which wasused ever so oflen for big parties. But it took much researchto find some of the other connotations of the word IIIllmi:

He is given preference over other natives in pig-buying;the choicest cuts of pork go to him; he need never climbpalms for drinking nuls if someone else is arouod....He can sit in his clubhouse lind listen to the flattery ofbis followers, he 'can call upon supernatural aid wheneverhe needs it, and he can rest assured of a comfortableplace in the afterworld.

Quite n word, isn't it?All of tbese examples, however, are nothing compared to

198 How TO WRrrn. Srp.....". AND TUTN" MORB EFFECTIVELY

the brilliant researches of our own anthropologists into thestructure of American Indian languages. Fortunately for thescience of linguistics. the Indians live right among us, whiletheir languages lire as far removed from ours as they canpossibly be. They arc full of eye-opening examples of theenormous range and flexibility of the human mind. Belterthan anything else. they show that the very nature of factsand events changes as soon as anothcr language is used tostate them.

Here arc some of our anthropologists' finding:In the Kwakiutl languOlge, there is no single word that

means "to sit." There are only words that mean "sitting onthe ground." "sitting on the beach," "sitting on a pile ofthings." "silting on a round thing." or "sitting on the floor ofthe house."

In Dakota. there is one word meaning "to be gripped" thatcovers a wide range of situations that seem utterly differentto us. Depending on the context it may mean "to kick," "totie in bundles," "to bite," "to be ncar to," "to pound" andso on.

Dakota verbs are equipped to express subtle degrees. Slecha,for example, means "to split something easily"; .til/echo means"to split something with some difficulty"; II/echo means "tosplit something with great difficulty." Zczeya means "dan­gling"; but apar.llez!rcya means "right on the edge, almostfalling over."

In Hupa. nouns have present. past, and future tenses.Xonla means "house now," XonlQlleen means "house past (inruins)" xOn/ale means "house to be (planned)."

The Shawnee translation of the English sentence "I pullthe branch aside" is nillhawakona. Broken down into its ele­ments, this means "Fork tree by-hand I do." The Shawneetranslation of "I clean it (a gun) with a ramrod" is nipck­walakha-which means "I dry-space inside-hole by-mavins·tool do."

In Nootka. there are no parts of speech whatever. Thedifference between nouns and verbs, or between subjects andpredicates, simply doesn't exisl. There is a word for "house,"for instance, but it's something indefinite between a noun aDda verb and means "it houses." Or take the simple Englishsentence. "He invites people to a feast." In our language, thishas a subject ("he"), n verb ("invites"), and a neat logicalprogression-that is, according to OUT logic, the way of think­ing embodied in our language. A Nootkn Indian looks at thissituation in an entirely different way, He starts his sentence

DANGER! LANGUAGE AT WORK 199

with the main thing about a feast-Ihe event of boiling orcooking: ai/llsh. Then comes ya, meaning "result": tlimshya,"cooked food." Next comes is, "eating," which makes llim­shya-is, "eBting cooked food." Next: ila, "those who do."Now he has liimshyll-isilll, "cooked food eaters." Finally headds ill ("go for") nnd ma ("he") nnd comes up with thesentence IlimsJrya.isila-i/lma, "cooked food caters he go for"or, in English, "he invites people to a feast."

And Ihen there is the most fascinating of nil Indian lan­guages, Hopi. By now you won't be surprised when I teU youthat a Hopi classifies things difIerently from us. For waterhe has two words: pahe and keyi. Pahe is a lot of water run­ning wild, 50 to speak-the sea, a lake, a waterfall; keyi is"tamed" wllter, water in a container-II panful or a glassful.The word masaYlaka takes in everything that flies except birds.It docsn't bother a Hopi that masaytaka may at differenttimes mean :10 lIirplane, a pilot, a bUllerfiy, or a mosquito.

Hopi verbs don't have present, past, or future tenses; itis a "timeless" language. Instead, its verbs have forms thatshow whether somtlthing is (or was) Demally happening,whether it is expected to happen, or whether it is merely aptto happen in general. When a Hopi says wad ("running"),it may mean "he is running, I see him"; but it may alsomean "he was running, you agd I both saw him." When hesays warikni, it means "I expect him to run," which isn'tquite the same as "he will run." And when he says warikngwe,it means "he runs" (in general, say, on the track team).

A unique feature of Hopi is that verbs can express one bigaction or a series o[ little oncs. A suffix ending in ttl takes careof that. Yoko means "he gives one nod"; yokokoltl means"he is nodding." Ripi means "it gives one flash"; ripipita, "itis sparkling." Wilkl/kll means "he takes one step without mov­ing from his place"; wllkllkultl, "he is dancing up and down."HaeM means "it forms a sharp angle"; hoc:1Jichilll, "it is zig­zag."

All of this is as odd as can be, but again I must remind youthat it seems odd only to us who are used to thinking inEnglish. Hopi find English arc jusl two of thousands oflanguages actually spoken today. Each of them, as the lateEdward Sapir put it, is a particular how of thought; and thespeakers of each consider all others ~as more or less inferior,absurd, and illogical.

The knowledge of Ihis basic fact is essential to clear think·ing. To be sure, we can't help using our native (or adopted)

200 How TO WRIT!!, SPEAK, AND TIIINK MORI! EPFECTlVELY

language in our thoughts; but we can try to remember thatours isn't the only way to think.

Does this me:ln thai the practice of trnnslalion will helpyou think? Maybe it does, Let's go into tbat question in thenext chllpter.

ClJaptcr Twenty-Olle

THE PURSUIT OF TRANSLATION

Some lime ago I wrote a Readers Diges/ article that wastranslated into German and Spanish. One of the expressionsI used was "fancy words." It turned out that you can say thatneither in German nor in Spanish. In German the phras/:':becomes gesellraublc A llsdriicke ("screwed·up expressions");in Spanish, pnlabras rebuseadas ("farfetched words").

What surprised me even more was that the common word"executive" has no counterpart in either German or Spanish.In German it's leifendc Manner ("leading men"), in Spanishdiree/ores dc empresas ("directors of enterprises").

These are, after all, simple words. Quite another problemcame up when Billy Rose's Wine, Women and Words had tobe translated for the French Reader's Diges/ edition. MauriceChevalier was hired to do the job and did himself proud­considering whnt be was up against. He translated "it was aseven-day wonder" iOlo epolls/ou[la ("it blew them over"),"it was a cinch bet" into e'bajf du nOllgat! ("it was candy"),and "razzle·dazzle and razzmatazz" into plaisaflter sur desploisantries plaisanfes ("having fun with fun").

Translation problems of this sort are not exceptional. Doyou think translating means taking the dictionary translationsof each word nnd putting them together? This is a widespreadnotion; it's the theory of nutomatic translation. And 1 meanautomatic: in California there is a machine, the Bureau o(Standards Western Automatic Computer, that's supposea totranslate on just that principle. I haven't seen any of itstranslations, but I am skeptical. Equivalent words in twolang"uages are not the rule, but the exception.

In 1949 Monsignor Ronald Knox wrote n linle book aboutBible translation problems. Among his illustrations arc suchapparently simple cases as the English word "danger." Sur·prisingly enough, it doesn't occur once in the Authorized

201

202 How TO WRITE, SP£.\C, ANO THINK MOllE EFFECTIVELY

Version of lIle Old Teslamenl. Now, snys Knox, "it is nonsenseto suppose that the Hebrew mind hll5 no such notion asdangeri why is Ihere no word for it? The answer can onlybe, that in Hebrew you express the same idea by a nearly­allied word which has to do duty, also, for slightly differentideas; a word like 'affiictioo,' 'tribulation' or 'trouble.''' Orlake Ihe word "land": "Neither Hebrew nor Greek nor Latinbas two separate words for 'earth: in tbe sense of lIle terres.­trial globe, and 'land' in the sense of a particular region of if.When we are lold lhat Ihere was darkness all over the u"aat the time of our lord's Crucifixion, how are we to knowwhether that darkness was world-wide, or was ooly noticenblein Palestine?"

Then there is the simple word "know," which, according 10Knox, "is a constnnt problem 10 the translator, all throughthe New Testament. Nine times out of ten you want totranslale it 'realize' but unfortunately Ihat use of the word'realize' is modern slang," Even more basically, "Hebrew h35one word that does duty for ':rnd' and 'but"; and wherever thetransl310r comes across th31 word in the Old Testament hemust decide between them, sometime3 lit the risk of makingnonsense of a whole paragraph."

On top of all thaI, t:ransl:uion, like woman's work, is neverdone. It bas to be done all over again for each succeedinggeneration. How many English Iranslations of the Bible thereare by now, I don't know; but Ihere life over thirty translationsof Homer's Odyss~, for instance. You'll immediately under­st3nd wby wheo you compare different versions of the SllJl1epass3ge.

In tbe standard trllnslalion by Bmcher nnd Lang (1879)the famous scene in which Odysseus is reeognized by his olddog looks like this:

Thus they spake one to the other. And 10, a boundraised up his head and pricked his ears, even wbere he13y, Argos, the hound of Odysseus, of the hardy heart.which of old himself h3d bred, bUI had gOt no joy ofhim, for ere lhat, he went to sacrcd Ilios. Now in timepast the young men used to lead the ho'und against wildgoalS and deer and hares; but as then, despised he lay(his master being afar) in the deep dung of mules andkine, whereof an ample bed was spread before the doors,till the thralls of Odysseus should carry it away to dungtherewith his wide demesne. There lay the dog Argos,full of vermin. Yet eveD DOW wheD he was ware of

Tlln PtJllstJrr OF 1iuNSLATlON 203

Odysseus standing by, be wagged his lail and droppedboth his ears, but nealer to his master be had not nowthe strength to draw,

Now let's go baek to I72S, to the most fllffiOW Englishlrllnsl.ation of the Odyssey, by Alexander Pope:

Thus, near the g3les conferring as they drew,Argus, the dog, his llncient master knew:He not unconscious of the voice llnd tre"d,Lifts to the sound his ear, llnd rears his hC:ld;Dred by Ulysscs, nourish'd at his bonrd,Dut, IIh! not fated long to please his lord;To him, his swcetness :lnd his strength were V:lin;The voice of glory clllI'd him o'er the mnin.Till then in every sylv:ln chase renown'd,With Argus, Argus, rung the woods :lround;With him the youth pursued the goat or fawn,Or traced the mazy leveret o'er the lawn.Now left to man's ingratitude he Jay,Unhoused, neglected, in the public way;And where on heaps thc rich manure WI1S spread.Obscene with reptiles, took his sordid bed.

He knew his lord; he knew and strove 10 meet:In vnin he strove to crawl and kiss his feet:Yct (all he could) his tail, his ears. his eyes,Salutc his master, nnd conIess his joys.

T. E, Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) translated theOd)'ssey in 1932. His version is this:

AJII they talked, II dog lying there liJted hi, head andpricked his ears. This was Argos whom Odysseus hadbred but never worked, because he left for Ilium toosoon, On a time the young fellows used to take bim outto course the wild goats, Ihe deer, the hares: but now helay derelict and ffiasterless on the dung-heap beforethe glltes. on the deep bed of mule-droppings and cow­dung which collected there till the serfs of Odysseus hadtime to carry if off for ffinnuring his broad acres. So layArgos the hound, nil shivering with dog-ticks. Yet theinstant Odysseus approached the beast knew him. Hethumped his .rail lind drooped his can forward, butlacked power to drag himself ever so little towards hismaster.

204 How TO WRITIl, SPEAK, ANn TIlINK MORl! EFFIlCTIVELY

You probably feel thtl! thc third version is the best, So doI. But all such judgments IHe relative. When Pope's translationwas published, a contemporary critic wrote: "To say of thisnohle work that it is the best which ever appeared of Ihekind, would be speaking in much lower terms than it deserves."Sixty years latcr, in 1788, William Cowper said flo.tly: "Thereis hardly a thing in the world of which Pope is so entirelydestitute as a taste for Homer." As to T. E. Lawrence, Pro­fessor Gilbert Highet of Columbia University casually re·marked in a book revicw: "T. E. Lawrcncc's caricature ofHomer's Ody:!i,rey is clever but cheap, like a mock·Victoriandrawing-room."

Another paradox of translation is this: The simpler thewords of the original, the harder it is to translate them. That'swhy simple lyrics arc the toughest ttllnslation problem in theworld. Compare, for instance, four English translations ofGoethe's IYanderers Nac!lIliell, which is generally considered'he most beautiful German poem. Herc is the original-alltwenty-four words of it:

Ubcr allen Gipfdn1st RUh,In allen WipfelnSpiirest duKaum dnen Hauch;Die Vogclein schwcigen im Walde.Wane nur, baldeRuhest du lIuch.

Here is Longfellow:

O'er all the hill-topsIs quiet now,In nil the tree-topsHe:lrest thouHardly a breath:The birds are asleep in the trees:Wait; soon like theseThou 100 shalt rcst.

Aytoun and Martin:

Pe:lce breathes along the shadeOf every hill,The tree-tops of the glade

TlII! PURSUIT OP TRANSLATION 205

Are hush'd and still;All woodland murmurs cease,The birds to rtst within the brake are gone.Be patient, we:1ry hean-anon,Thou too, shalt be at peacel

George Sylvcster Viereek :

Over the tops of the treesNight reigns. No breath, no breeze.Never a voice is heardOf rustling leaf or bird

The forest through.Hush! But a lillIe waysFrom where your footstep strays

Peace awaits you.

John ROlhensteiner:

Over all the bill lOpsJ.s peace;

In all Ihe trees' still topsGentle cease

The hreaths from the blue.The birds in the forest are sleeping,

Soon in God's keepingSleepest thou too.

Which is best? Thc onc that's printcd in all thc anthologiesis Longfcllow's, of coursc; thc one that's nearest to thc letternnd spirit of the original, I think, is Rothenstciner's. But itdoesn'l renlly matter: none or the four comes anywhereclose to Ihe original with its magiclllly soft and soothingGerman words.

Jf you don't know German, I can't very well ask you 10appreciate Ihat. In r..et, it seems almost impossible 10 talkunderslandably about Iransl:uion to a person who may notknow any foreign language. Therefore, I want to add here onemore example, tbis lime the other way round: I'll show youan English passage and describe the various words that havebeen uscd to translate it into German. (I apologize for draw­ing so much on my nolivc language.) My cxnmple is thefamous liDes from Macbeth:

Out, OUI, brief candlelLire's but a walking shadow, a poor player

206 How TO WRITI!, SPEAK, AND THINK MORE EFFECTIVELY

That stnUs and frets his hour upon the stngeAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury.Signifying nOlhing.

The Germans have about as many Shakespeare translationsas we have Homer translations. I compared eight differentversions of this passage and found eight different expressionsfor "struts and frets," fj,,'e for "idiot," and six for "sound andfury." For "stnUs and frets" a German render gets somethinglike: makes a noise nnd raves, swaggers and gnashes, laborsand raves, stills nnd gnashes, parades nod raves, rages andstorms, stilts and brags, and boasts; for "idiot": blockhead,fool, madman, simpleton and ninny; for "sound and fury";pomposity, noise and rage, flood of words, storm and urge,tone and fire.

Reading this, you probably sympathize with the poor Ger­mans who get only a vague inkling of Shakespeare's immortalwords. But remember that most of these translations nre ex­cellent: one is by SchiJler, one is by the famous team ofSchlegel and Tieck, and so on. On the whole, they are justas good as our translations of Goefhe--or of Homer, Plato,Horace, Dante, Cervantes, Balzac, Tolstoy, and all the rest.You just have to accept the fact that translations are alwaysal?proximations; as Don Quixote said, they show us the wrongside of the tapestry.

But even that isn't all. Orten a complete shift is necessaryin order to convey anything at all in another language. Twofamous Broadway plays furnish good examples.

In his translation of Jean Giraudoux's Madwoman 01Choi//ot, Maurice Valency completely changed a great manypassages that meant a lot to Frenchmen but would have leftAmericans cold. For instance, a character, in the role of Il.

billionaire, says: "I have flowers sent from Java, where theyare cut from the bllcks of elephants, and if the petals are theleast bit crushed, I fire the elepham-drivers." In English hesays instead: "I dispatch a plane to Java for a bouquet offlowers. I send a steamcr to Egypt for II basket of figs. [ senda special representative to New York to {cteh an ice creamc<?ne, and if it's not exaelly right, back it goes."

And when Arthur Miller's famous play Death of a Salesmanwas produced in Vienna, the leading part, believe it or not,was played as a SOrt of petty official. Otherwise the Viennesewouldn't have understood what it was aU about.

THE PURSUIT OF lRANSLATION 207

What does all this mean 10 you? It means that translatingis the ideal Corm oC inlellectual exercise. Whenever we trans­hue, we are Corced 10 abandon the mental pallerns we areused to and get the hang of others completely alien to ourthinking_ There's nothing quite like it to gain mental ftexibility-which, ns you'll sec Inler on, is pructically the main ingredi.ent of clear thinking. If foreign languages didn't exist, we'dhave to invent them :IS a training device for our minds.

This looks like a plug for the study oC Coreign languages,but I don't quite mean that-at least not in the usual sense,Usually Coreign languages are played up either because theyare practical ("You ought to know how to order a meal inParis") or because they are cultural ("Latin makes you thinkmore logically"). The way I look at it, all that's ncilber herenor there. Let Schopenhauer make my point Cor me:

In learning nny foreign language, you form newconcepts, you discover relationships you didn't realizebefore, innumerable nuances, similarities, differencesenler )'our mind; you get a rounded view oC everything,Which means that you think differently in every lan­guage, that learning a language modifies and colors yourthinking, corrects and improvcs your views, and in·creases your thinking skill, since it will more and moredetach your ideas from your words.

Schopenbauer, who was an intellectual snob, goes on tosay that everybody ought to know Latin and Greek-in fact,that people who don't are only hair human. I don't think: thatfollows from his argumenl. If language study is good becauseit detacbes ideas Crom words, any language will do--Cbinese,Swahili, Navaho--tbe farther removed rrom our own culturethe bener. To be sure, some langu:l.ges bave richer literaturesthan olbers, but that's anolher story,

Probably you'll be skeptical about nil this; interest in Coreignlanguages doesn't come naturally to an American. But beloreyou shrug it olI, let me remind you that ever since the Ro­mans, Western civilization was built and run by people whoknew at least one foreign language; thai until IlOt so longngo, Latin and Greek were pan oC every eductlled person'smental equipment. As the ramous quotation goes, the battleor Waterloo was won on tbe pll1ying fields of Eton; it's equallytrue that the British Empire was won in the classrooms ofElon, where luture colonial administrators were Corced tocompose little Latin poems.

208 How TO WRI11!, SPUJ::, AND TIIINI: MORE EFFECTIVELY

Well, then, do you have to go to a Berlitz school to learnthe. arl of clear thinking? NOI quile. ~ I said, the importantthing is nOt the learning of foreign languages, but the activityof translalion. Fortunately. you can practice translation-toa deg~~ven if you doo't know a single foreign word. Youcan Iranslate from English into English. You do this wheneveryou detach ideas from one set of words and nunch them toanother. You do il whenever you write n leuer and make yourideas clear 10 the addressee; whenever you make a speCi:h andpresent your thoughts to your audience; whenever you carryon an intelligent conversation. You can learn to do Ihis sonof lr:lOslnring better and beuer, and you Clln use it conscious­ly "to detach your ideas from your words."

Otherwise you never can teU whether you have any ideas--or just words.

Cbapter Twenty-Two

WHY ARGUE?

Logic is the science of argument.This was true in the fourth century D.C., when Aristotle

started it all; it is still true today, when the teaching of logicis being justified by the fact that it helps students win anargument.

But what does it mean-"win an argument"? When youargue with someone, you pit your opinion against his. Youropinion is the result of past experience; so is his. If you winthe argument, it means that your opponent has to realign hisideas $0 lbat they parallel yours.

This is unpleasanl for him. Everybody's established opin.ions are as comfonable as an old sb~; they have acquiredexaclly the right shape and form through continued use inall sons of conditions. If you are forced to accept a differentopinion, it's like gening used to a new pair of shoes: thecbange may be for the belter, but it's always a somewhatuncomfortable experience.

Winning an argument is therefore, to begin with, doingsomething unpleasant 10 someone else.

But does that maller, you say, if you are right and the otherfellow is wrong? Well, does it? LeCs take a simple example.Someone has used the quotation from Ti,e Ancient MarilUr,"Water, waler everywhere, and not a drop to drink." Know­ing beuer, you speak up and say that it is ".•• nor any dropto drink." An argument follows and, with the aid of Bartlett'sFamiliar Quotations, you win. Your opponenl is embarrassed.Was it worth doing lhat to him? Is the truth $0 important?

Dh well, you say, thaI's a trivial eX:l.mple-3n argumentturning on a simple question of fact. What about rC:l.lly signifi­cant llfguments about deep-going differences of opinion?Aren't sueh arguments worth winning?

20'

210 How TO WIUTI'., SrJ!..l.K, AND TIIINK MORI! EffECTIVELY

All right, let's take another cX:lmple from Iiter:lture-afamous controversy this time. Not long ago, I was reading theJelters of M:lxwell Perkins, the Ime, great editor of ThomasWolfe, Ernest Hemingway, :lnd F. Scolt Fitzgerald. I cameupon the sentence: "It is certain, to my mind, that the manShakespeare was not the author of what we consider Shake­speare's works." Suppose you belong to the minority Perkinsbelonged to, and find yourself in an argument with an ortho­dox Shakespearean. What would happen if you won thatargument?

Naturally, your opponent would resent it terrifically. You'dhave upset many of his most cherished belich, yOU'd havemade his mind llCUlely uncomfortable, you'd have filled hisbrain with sore spots.

And !\fter some time, it would turn oul that you h:lven'twon the argument after :Ill. Your opponent's old, strongly heldideas would gradually overcome all your arguments, by andby the balance would be restored, and his mind would settleback in the old grooves, If you won the argument because ofyour logically'" trained, superior debater's technique, thiswould happen even sooner. "Why," your Opponent would sayto himself, "that fellow put something o\'er on me. Everybodyknows that all this business about Shakespeare not being theauthor of Shakespeare's plays is nonsense. Can't understandwhat came over me when I agreed with all that stulr."

The trouble is, you sec, that big questions cannot be settledby looking up the facts; you may be able to win an a'Cllm~nt

about a big question, but you'll hardly ever win a personover to your side. (Even facts won't always do the trick:pleoty of people would still believe in Shakespeare's geniusif it were proved that he never wrote a line.)

Of course, I'm not talking here about arguments you nretrying to win for a purpose: if you arc out to make a salt!,that's a different mauer. Or if you arc out for votes, Or ifyou want to win :I law suit (I'll go into that in the nextcbapter). In all those cases it will obviously profit you to winyour argument and hold on to your point of view regardless.

But when it comes to purposeless argument, argument forargument's sake, that'S something else again. There's no profitat all in hanging on to your point of view [or dear life, justbecause it's yours. It's nOI as precious as all that.

Most dinner-table or living-room arguments are hardlyarguments at all. You stick 10 one opinion because it's beenpart of your mental furniture for years, and tbe other fellowsticks to anotber for tbe same reason.

WlIY ARGUE? 211

Conversations oC this sort aren't taken down in shorthand.which makes it hard to give examples. But "sidewalk. inter·views" hy newspaper photographers are a reasonable substi·lute. Here is one from the New York Post.·

QUESTION: Who are the biggest gossips-men orwomen?

MISS PLORENCB c. (bookkeeper): The men are thebiggest gossips. They can't keep anything under theirbats. They are always telling their friends the things thatthey should k.eep to themselves. And women are themain topic they gossip abouL

DR. MAX O. (dentist). The mcn bave the women beatby far. They are always talking about the other fellow'sbusiness life. And many limes by their tales they put aman in an awkward situation.

MISS JEAN r. (division manager): Doth of them neejust as pelly and gossipy. I wait on them all day longand I know. There is no difference in either sex. Bothmen and women gossip to me about things 1 nevershould be told or even know abouL

MR. PASQUALE T. (barber): The feminine sex takesthe prize on that subject. They are always chanering.They don't need a hint of anything, just let them surmisesomelhing nnd they are capable oC building it iDlo nicejuicy gossip.

MRS. M.... UREEN M. (housewife): Women definitely.They have a tendency to be very jealous anu will gossipabout other women whether it is necessary or nOI. Justgive them the opportunity and they'll never miss iL

Imagine these people silting in a living room and you havethe perfect pallem of an ordinary conversational argument.A general question is raised and .live people give five differentanswers-eaeh according to his or her experience or gencr:l.1pattern of living. The girl who works in an office remembersall the men she has heard gossiping about women, the girlwho waits on cus!omers meets men nod women gossips nilday long, the housewife recalls the chaner at canasta games,the harber has listened to women under the dryer, and thedentist sums up his experience with anguished, open-mouthedbusinessmen. H these people started to argue among them­selves. they would each repeat and elaborate what they have

• Reprodueed from lhe Ne.... Yorl:: Post of Seplember 18, 19~O. Copy­siabt 1950 by New Yorl:: POSI Corp.

212 How TO Wllrrll, SPEAK, AND TIIINK MORIl EFFIlCTIVI':LY

said. Afler a while, the argument mighl get hCllfcd-Mrs. M.insisling 'hal only a married woman really knows anythingnbout gossip, Dr. O. announcing that only a dentist can ar­rivc at a dClachcd, objective poinl of view on lhe subject,and so on. Is il possible for nnyone to win the argument?Hardly. The question could orily be sell led by n eomplctestatislical survey-and even then you'd have lrouble defininga gossip and agreeing on whal makes one gossip biggcr thannnolher. For all practical purposes, the question is un::l0­swerable and 10 nrgue about it is rather silly.

Now you are protesting against my choice of nn example.Of course, you say, these are idle, aimless arguments. BUIthere lIrc IOpics worth talking about, and people who nre in­telligent and well-infonned. Should a/l arguments be dismissed115 useless?

Before 1 answer thai question, let me give you l\ few moreexamples-serious arguments this lime, debates between ex­perls. The first deals with the newspaper I have just beenquoting, the New York Post. In 1949 that paper was takenover by II new young editor, Mr. James A. Wechsler, whosuccessfully built up circulation by a heavy dose of crime andsex. Many old readers of the Post were disgusted by the sud­den SWiICh. In June, 1950, the Sawn/ay Review of Literatllreran a kngthy debate between Mr. Wechsler and Mr. AugustHeckscher, editorial writer on the New York Herald Tribune.Mr. Wechsler said that you can't get an audience withoutusing showmanship; Mr. Heckscher said that was "a falseformula."

Nobody reading [hnt debate could possibly say that citherof [he two men won the argument; each stated his pointof view, prClieOled excellent reasons in support of it, andproved that he knew what he was talking about. BUI in theend it Wl\.'i clear that the basic patterns of experience of thetwo debaters simply couldn't be reconciled.

Mr. Wechsler faced the job of selling a New Dcalish papcrto millions of potential readers who strangcly preferrcd paperswith whose political views they disagreed. He looked 31 thecirculation figures of New York City papers aDd found theanswer to his problem: "The menning of these numbcrs isDOl mysterious. TIley prove beyond dispUIC thllt newspaperswhich displayed tIle deepest interest in crimes of pll.~sion andpassionale crimes have remained far out in fronl in NewYork...." His business was to scll II liberal newspaper toIibcral rClldef$ in Manhattan, BrooklYIl, IWd the DroIllt, Todo thaI, he bad 10 put sex 01] page one.

WilY ARGUE? 213

Mr. Heckscher felt that emphasis on sex degraded a paper,regardless of what it printed on the editorial page. H~ madean excellent case for his point of view. But the telling sentencethat gave flavor to his whole argument was one that wasobviously based 011 direct experience:

If friends of the Post object to the emphasis of sex, itis on the prnclieal grounds that they do not like beingcompelled to leave their favorite evening newspaperon the train, or otherwise dispose of it, before enteringbomes where growing children are entitled to be pro­tected against at least the most brutal and the mostsordid facts of life.

Let's tum to another debate whieh appeared in The NewYorker. On one side 'we have Mr. Lewis Mumford, well­known authority on city planning, contending Ihat the newhousing developments in New York City nre bad becausethey add to congestion. Over on the other side is Mr. Her­man T. Stichman, New York Stale Commissioner of Hous­ing, defending the projects beclluse they I1rc what peoplewant. Again, the argument clIn be reduced to two irreconcil­able pictures in the minds of tbe debaters.

Writes Mr. Stichman:

.By and large, Americans appear to aspire to highbuildings tIS the Swiss do to mountains, nnd to love tocongregate in groups. . . . If all our lall business andresidential structures were 10 be replaced by buildingsof two and three stories, New York City would stretchfrom here to Hartford.... Actually people are com·muting almost tllat far today in their .el\gerness to enjoythe view from all office on the fortieth floor in M:m·hatlan when they might just as well be doing business011 the ground floor of n building on Main Street intheir home towns. \Vhat we need is not better plannersbut better psychologists to help us understand why peopleare so gregarious and why they seek the heights.

Answers Me. Mumford:

Mr. Stichman says thllt the people of New York hllvea passionate desire for high buildings. That singularpassion ellists only in the minds of the authorities....Every bonest poll of housing preferences shows that the

214 How TO WIlITE. SPEAK. AND THINK MORE EpPECTTV.eL¥

popular ideal for people with families is single-familyhouses wilh a plltch of garden llround them, nn idealfor the sak~ of which people who can alford it put upwith the all but intolerable hnndicaps of commuting.

J think that Mr. Mumford has a slight edge in this llt'gu­ment, just as I think that Mr. Heckscher had II slight edgein lhe other one. After all, neither Mr. Sticbman nor Mr.Wechsler Wll5 a disinterested debater: one defended hisagency, the other his pllpcr. So the pictures in their mindswere necessarily biased. But the fact remains that an argu­ment of this SOrt cannot really be .....on. A man who sees pe0­

ple altr:lcted by skyscrapers like mOlhs by a name ean'tconvince another who sees the picture of II little bungalowetched in each heart_

]n our next example we can safely say that bolh sides arecompletely disinterested. Here are two acndemicians debatinga question in Science magazine. One is Dr. Bernhard 1. Stern,a Columbia University sociologist, the other is Dr. CurtStern, B University of California biologisL The argument isover the old question of heredity \'J'. environment-more spe­cifically, over the low birth rale among bigher-income peoplennd whether it meBns thnt our nation is in danger of gettingmore stupid. Dr. Curt Stern of California thinks- there may besomething to this; Dr. Bernhard 1. Stern qC Columbia thinksnot. The remarkable thing is that both base their conclusionsall exactly the same data: the resullS oC inlelligence teslS.

Stem of Columbia is not impressed at aU by differentialsin intelligence teslS.

The tests [he says] use chieny words, situations, pic­tures, llnd experienccs which are much more familillr toindividuals who have grown up in middle nnd uppersoci~nomic groups. The conventional teslS measure,therdore, not the real intelligence of tbe child or adult,but the cultural and economic opponunities they bavehlld.

Stern of Cnlifornia thinks otherwise.

Even with these imperfections of the tcsts in mind,the results strongly suggest heredilllfY iofiuence..•. Ifound it hard to avoid the conclusion that there aredifferences in the genetic endowment of the differentsocio-economic groups.

WIlY ARauE? 215

And there the argument comes to a standstill. The twoSterns look at the same figures and gropbsj one thinks some­thing may have to be done about differences in our birth rate,the other sees the need to provide more educational op·ponunities for the poor.

Finally, an example I ran into the other day when I boughtthe latest revision of H. G. Wells' forty·year-old Ollt/ine 0/History. The introduction tells how the original edition waswritten, how Wells called in four eminent authorities to helphim-Sir Ray umkester, Professor Gilbert Murray, Sir HarryJohnston, and Mr. Ernest Barker-nnd how thet ran intoinnumeroble differences of opinion, which found their wayinto n mass of footnotes. Mind you, these were not differencesas to facts, but diDerent ways 0/ looking a/ the same facts.

Wells, for instance, thought that Napoleon I waS thequality of Mussolini nnd intellectually inferior to Napoleon1II. Mr. Barker disagreed. "Put me down of the opposite opin.ion," he wrote.

Wells wrote that Athens wasn't a democracy in the modernsense. "The modern idea, that anyone in the state should be acitizen, would have shocked the privileged democrats ofAthens profoundly." A footnote adds: "1 feel strongly thattbe text is unjust to Athens. E.B."

Wells tells of the wretched social conditions in Africa intbe days of the late Roman Empire. "Manifestly," he writes,"the Vandals came in as a positive relief to such a system."A footnote reads: "E.B. disagrees with this view. He regardsit is as the pro-Teutonic view of the German historians."

Later in the book, Wells writes about eighteenth-centuryEngland. ''The poetry, painting, architecture, and imaginativelileralUre of laler eighteenth-cenlUry England is immeasurablybelow that of the seventeenth century." There is a footnotesigned G.M. (Gilbert Murrny): "But Sir Joshua Reynolds,Hogarth, Gray, Gibbon for instaneel And the golden ageof the great cabioet-makers!" A footnote to the footnote issigned H.G.W.: "Exactly! CUlture taking refuge in the por­traits, libraries nnd households of a few rich people. Nonationnl culture in the court, nor among tbe commonalty;a steady decay."

What do all these examples prove? That it's always futileto argue? Not quite. Only that the same facts often q:eatedifferent patterns in different people's brains, and that it'Sextremely hard to change them--even if you have all the

216 How TO WRIT!!, SPEAK, AND TlIlNK MORn EFFI!CTfVI!.LY

facts at your finger lips and are 11 whiz. in the technique of de­baling.

Yel I am nOI going to end this ehapler by telling you that)'ou should never argue. Arguing is too much fun for lhaLWhy shouldn't you jump into the froy if you have a strongopinion of your own and feel thai you can convince youropponent? II's good menial exercise, iI's a much more in·lelligen! pastime than lelevision or canasta. and there's alwaysthe chance that you'l! WiD.

If you do, you'll feel a pleasant glow of satisfaction.And if you lose, you'll have discovered }'our hidden bins,

added to your mental nexibility. looked nt things from nn­other point of view, learned something you didn't know before,and gained some new understanding.

,Chapter Twenty·TJltce

LEGAL RULES AND LIVELY CASES

A month or so ago I was on jury duty. For two weeks Ibeard lawyers address each prospective juror with thc time·bonored question: "Are you going to lake Ihe law neitherfrom me nor from my adversary but only irom the judge?"And lor two weeks I beard jurors solemnly pledge tbat theywould.

Whereupon the jurors were duly selected, swore theiroaths, listened to the lawyers' arguments, listened 10 thc testi·mooy. listened to Ihe judge's charge, and went to the juryroom to consider the ,·crdict.

They did exactly what Ihey bad pledged to do, and tookthe law only from the judge.

And then, in most cases, they didn't apply it.What do I mean by this? Am I accusing all juries or

stupidity or willf.ul malice? No! at all. Let me explain.When you, as a layman, think of the law, the application

of a legal rule to 11 specific casc looks like n simple matter.Once you know what the law is---or once the judge has cx·plained it to you if you sit on a jury-all you have to do ismake sure of the facts. When you have the facts---or whenthe jury has agreed on lhem-you apply the rule, and yourverdict follows almost automatically. You may have yourdoubls about the application of abstract rules to concretesituations in other fields; bOl not in law. ThaI's what the lawis, isn't it7-a body of rules and a procedure for applyinglhe rules to cases.

Or so you think. DUI lawyers know beUer. ''The assump­tion," one of tbem writcs, "that the application of a law ismerely ... matching the rule against tbe case •.. is naiveand misleading."

Anotber lawyer, in n well·known book on Jegn! reasonins,217

218 How TO WRITll,. SPU", Al'-"D TIIlNK MORE EFFECI1VELY

is even more explicil. "II eannot be said," he writes. "Ih:ltthe leg:ll process is the appliCluion of known rules 10 diversefacls, .. , The rules change as the rules :Ire applied." Hethen goes on 10 explain what h:lppens in the applicalion ofcase I:lw, statUlory law, and Ihe Constitution. Case law isapplied by "classifying things as equnl when Ihey are some­what different, juslifying the classification by rules made upas the reasoning or classification proceeds." As to statutorylaw. "it is only folklore which holds that a statute if clearlywrinen can be completely unambiguous and applied as in­tended to a specific case." And the Constitution? "The Con·stitution permits lhc coun to be inconsistent."

Are you outraged? Docs Ihis offend your senSe oC justice?Wait a minute before you answer yes,

For one thing, you have to rcalize that justicc doesn'tnecessarily mean the application of laws, That idea is justpan of your unbringing in our Western civiliZ3tion. TheChinese, for instance, whose civiliZ3lion is a good deal olderthan ours, have a different notion, Confucius said he wasfor government by wise and just men nnd againsl govcrnmentby laws, So, in traditional Chinese law, it's considered anilljll~lice to base a decision on a general rule; Ihe only fairthing, from the Chinese point of view, is to decide eachindividual case strictly on its own merits,

When il comes down to 'it, you :Ire Dot as far removedfrom the Chinese point of view as you think you are. Youdon't really think thai Ihe l:\w should be applied in each case.You see no harm in settling a case out of eourt, in com­promising, in submitting to mediation or arbitration, Youdon't consider it an injuslice if n policeman leIS, you of[wilhout a ticket. You arc a concrete Chinese thinker inpractice, bUI an abstract Western thinker in theory.

Even in theory, however, your faith in the application ofrules 10 cases is hard to juslify. There's the awkward factthat there seem to be lWO possible rules applying 10 eachcase, depending on which side you're Oil. And higher eouns.every so ofteD, apply different rules from lower ones. Andjudges on the same bench havc a llllbit of dissenting in theiropinions. In fact, if a case comes to court at all, Ihere isalways some doubt as 10 whnt rule applies.

Here are, at random, a few cases I picked from the news­papers some timc ago. Each could have been plausibly de­cided either way. Each is n slap in the face oC the theorythai the law means applying rules to cases.

[ttlll: The C. F, l...luellcr Company made--and still makes

LEG.4.L RULES .4.ND LIVELY DSES 219

-macaroni; all the money i( made went to the New YorkUniversity School of Law. So, the compnny snid, it was a"corporation organized exclusively for educational purposes"and didn't have to pay income tax. The Internal RevenueBureau said it had (0 pay taxes just likc everybody clse. sincethe macaroni business isn't education regardless of who gelSthe profits. The Tax Coun sided with the Revenue Bureau.

fum: Irma. Smith was employed by her father. Accordingto the books, she drew a salary of 515,000, and thaI's whlltshe paid income tax on. Then the government went over thecompany's books, thought SI5,ooo was too much, and de·cided that whnt Mr. Smith renlly pnid his daughter was$9,000 at most. So Miss Smith nsked for a refund of herpersonal income tal( on the difference of S6,OOO. The RevenueBureau said DO; the change on the company's books hudnothing to do with Miss Smith's personal taxes. In this casethe Revenue Bu~au lost. The U.S. District Coun of NewJersey turned them down. (But later a higher coun decidedthe case the other wny. See what I mean?)

ftrm: Another businessman, ~fr. Bernard Glagovsky, alsohad a daughter. When Miss Glagovsky gOI married, ber fatherthought he'd invite his customers and business acquaintancesto (he wedding. All in all, thcre were 350 guests and the billwas 59,200. Mr. Glagovsky felt that about 60 per cent ofthe amount was strictly a business expense and therefore dc­ductible on his tax return. The Revenue Bureau, as always,disllgreed. If Mr. Glagovsky liked to have two hundred cus­tomers and prospects join the celebrations, that was his ownnffair. TIle Tax Court felt thc same way.

Item: Thomns Petro was born in Oklahoma in 1900. Whenhe was ten, his parents moved to Canada. Petro senior be­cnme a naturalized Canadian. Automalieally, Thomas be·came a Canadian citizen too. He grew up as a Canadian andvoted in five Canadian elections. Then, in 1942, he wentback 10 Ihe United States, claiming he was still nn American.The case camc to court, and the eoun said he had to go backto Canada: a 1941 law said anyone vOling in a ro~ign elec­tion lost his American citizenship. Whereupon PelCO appealedto the U.S. Courl of Appeals and won: the higher courtlooked n.t the same 1941 law and discovered another provi­sion in it that made him an American. It said that if youlose your U.S. citizenship because your parents were natural·ized abroad, you gct it bnck as soon as you rcturn.

All of which should effcctively cure you of the nOlion that

220 How TO WRIT!!, SPI!AK, AND TlIlNll: MORE EFFECTIVJ!L¥

you can apply a legal rule to a Case and that's that. Troubleis, there arc always at least IWO rules.

But thcn, where do the rules comc from? In thc bulk ofour law, they are derived from previous decisions in similarcases. And since no tWO cases are ever exactly alike, thismeans that in case law, strictly speaking, there are no rules.

The law books arc full of illustrations 10 prove this point.The most famous is the story of the so-called "inherentlydangerous" rule. This deals with the question of whether themanufacturer of an article has 10 pay damages if the articleinjures someone who bought it from a retailer. The rule usedto be thnt he was liable if the articlc was "inherently danger­ous"-like a loaded gun-and wasn't if it was not. Thedistinction was first made in an English case in 1851 whenII housewife was hurt by nn exploding oil lamp; the courtsaid then a lamp wasn't like a loaded gun Ilnd Ihe manufac­turer wasn't ,responsible.

In the horse-nnd buggy days, of course, there WllS no trou­ble in applying this rule to vehicles: carriages, just like alamp, were not "inherently dangerous." But then the auto­mobile cnmc in and things began to look different. The oldrule didn't fit the times llny more. So whm happened? Verysimple: The courts suddcnly discovered there wasn't :lDY suchrule after all.

Before that discovery, in 1915, n Me. Johnson bought aCadillac whose wheel broke, and sued the Cadillac companyfor damages. He didn't get a penny because, as the courtsaid,

. , . one who manufactures nrticles dangerous only ifdefectively made, or installed, e.g., lables, chairs, pic­tures or mirrors hung on the walls, carriages, automobiles,and so on is not liable to third parties for injuries causedby them, except in cases of willful injury or fraud.

A year later, in 1916, a Me. MacPherson bought a Buickwhose wheel broke, and sued thc Buick company for dam­IIges. Mr. MacPherson wns luckier than Mr. Johnson. Some­how, bctween 1915 and 1916, thc old rule had melted awayIlnd JUdge Benjamin Cardozo found that the Buick MotorCompnny bad 10 pay.

The defendant argiles [he wrote} that things inherentlydangerous to life are poisons, explosives, deadly weap­ons, things whose normnl function is to injure or destroy.

LEOAL RULES AND LI...eLY CASES 221

But wh3tcver the rule m3Y once ha e been ... it hnsno longer that restricted meaning If the nature ofa thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place lifeend limb in peril, when negligently made, it is then athing of danger.

And with these words of Cardoro, the old rule ...anishedfore...er.

This famous example shows what can happen in case law,where rules are deri ...ed from court decisions. Surely, you'llsay, things are differenr in statutory law, where rules arespelled out in so many words by legislators. But are they?Take the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. 11mt law said that40 per cent of all DP's must come from "de facto annexedcountries and arens," meaning Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.It turned out that this made it practically impossible to fill theannual quota of 205,000. So a year later the State Departmentdisco...ered that "de facto annexed countries and areas"meant not only those three Baltic states, but also all territoriesadministerrd by Russia or Poland under the Potsdam Agree:­ment of 1945.

Usually, when there is a question about the meaning of anact of Congress, the lawyers say that you ha...e to find theintent of the legislature. But tbat's a fiction. What it reallyme:tns is that statutes are changed by suddenly declaring thntCongress meant something different from what e...erybodythought it meant. This is easy because doubtful cnses areexactly those that Congress either didn't foresee or deliberatelyleft up in the air. For instance, in the 1949 re... ision of theminimum Wl'1ge 11IW, the Inw wns narrowed to co...er fewerworkers. This is the way it was done. Congress can makela\.\'5 only fn conncction with goods produccd for interstatecommerce; so the originallnw had referrcd to workers u neccs_Stlry to" the production of goods for interstate commerce.The House of Representatives fel[ that these words had beeninterpreted too broadly by the Wage and Hour Administra­tion and proposed 10 replace them by "indispensable to." TheSenate wanted to stick to the old phrase "necessary to."Finally the House and the Senate compromised and settledon "workers engaged in a closely related proccss or occupa­tion dirt!ctly t!sst!mial /0" the production of goods for iotcr~

state commerce.Now what does this metln when it comes to deciding a

specific case? Docs it metln thnt a man washing thc windowsof a firm cngagcd in interstate commerce has to be paid at

222 How TO WRIT!!. SrI!AK, AND TIlINK MORI:! EFf!!CTlVELY

least 7St an hour? Nobody knows. Whal was the inlent ofthe legislature? Well, the congressmen who were for "indis­pensable to" obviously didn't mean 10 include Ihe window­washerj those who wanted to stick to hnecessary to" probablydid. And those who finally voted for the compromise? Some­time in the future a jUdge will decide they meant one thingor the other.

That judge will do well to look at the circumstances of thecase rather Ihnn search for what was in the minds of thecongressmen who debated the bilL Otherwise he'll get con­fused by exchanges like Ihis in the House:

MR. LUCAS: ... substituting the word "indispensable"for the word "necessary." These chnnges llre needed inorder to slem, !lnd in some cases. revene the aClion ofthe administrator nnd the couns in bringing under thenet many businesses of a purely local type by giving tothe word "necessary" an all-inc1usi\'e construction...•

MR. DONDERO: Mr. Chairman. will the gentleman yield?MR. LUCAS: I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

- MR. DONDERO: ••• What does the gentleman do inthis bill in regard to caddies on golf courses, boys aodgirls who :Ire in high school or now alit of school dur­ing their vacations working and earning n little moneypicking fruit or picking vegetables, pulling weeds, andthings oC that kind? Whllt does the gentleman do withthem?

MR. LUCAS: Well, sir, it is going 10 be difficult to findthem in inlerstate commerce, but I do not question thellbility or thc administrlltor, the present administrator,to find that caddies llrc in interstate commcrce, if theyare handling golf balls which were produccd across theState line, or ir they are carrying golf clubs which areproduced in another Stnle, or if they are working for atraveling man. The administrator may well find tbemin interstate commerce.

MR. JACORS: Me. Chairman, willihe gentleman yield?MR. LUCAS: I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.MR. .JAcons: Has Ihe administrator held caddies 10 be

in imcrstale commerce?MR. LUCAS: I will answCl" Ihe gentleman by saying that

if hc has not done so, it is because tbe problem has notyet been presented 10 him_

Does this sort of thing help in deciding a Case by ascertain-

LEGAL RULES AND LIVELY CASES 223

ing the intent of the legislature? II does not. No wonderSenator Elbert D. TIlomas came out of the House-SenateConference telling reporters that the new law was an invita·tion to litigation. It might be ten or twelve years, he said, be·fore the courts would imerprel lhe mCllning of direcr/y t!ssell­tial.

So the rules of statutory law arc just as open to shifL~ andchanges as the rules of casc law. There is even a famouscase where a statute said one thing and a court said exactlythe opposite. In 1885 Congress passed a law forbidding "theimportation of foreigners ... under contract ... to performlabor in the United States." A few years later, Trinity Churchin New York picked un English miniliter as its new pastor.A contract was signed, and the minister came to the UnitedStates. Whereupon Ihe government sued the church for break­ing the law. The Supreme Court pondered, found that thelaw applied to the case-and decided in favor of the church.Otherwise the result would be absurd, the court quietly ex­plained.

The TrinilY Church case is mentioned in the book Courts011 Trial by Jerome Frank, in connection with Judge Frank'stheory or legal interpretation. The courts interpret the law,Frank says, the way a musical performer interprets a com­position. Until it is performed, a composition exists only onpaper; it is the performer's vision amI imagination that bringsit to [ife. The law, 100, is only a dead letter until a court in­terprets it in the light of an actual case.

For the ordinary !:lyman, even this elegant analogy doesn'tgo far enough. What he wants is fairness and justice, and ifthe law doesn't seem fair and just, then he is all for playingby car. The layman's legal heroes arc 110t the master inter­preters of the law. His heroes are Eric Stanley Gardner'sPerry Mason and Arthur Train's Ephraim Tun, who do rightby their clients and let the niceties of the law go hang.

And this brings us back to the question of what happensto the law when it is put in the hands or laymen-the questionof how a jury decides a case. You'll agree now, I hope, thattbey don't just apply the law to the fncLS of the case. Butwhat do lhey do instead? Wbat actually does bappen in ajury room?

Well, in a case I helped decide on last month, a housewifesued a. storekeeper because she had been injured by a defec­tive piece of merchandise. The storekeeper swore she hadnever been in his store, The woman swore she bad bought

224 How TO WRITE, Sf'I!AK, AND TlUNK r.fORE EFFECTIVELY

the article from him. The jury bad 10 decide whicb one 10believe.

II so happened that nine of us believed the woman andthree the slorekeeper, By Ihe strict rules of law, th:"1 me:..nta hung jury and a new lrial. Actually, it didn'l mean anysuch thing, We compromised and awarded Ihe woman a(raction of what she had asked for.

Typica!? I think so, Not long ago a magazine writer de­scribed IIer experiences in a JUT)' room. It was an automobileaecidenl c~e. A boy riding a bicycle had been injured bya ear after he had daned from a side road onto a busy high­way. The law calls this "contribulory negligence" and legallythe boy wasn'l cnlitled to II thing. But lhree jurors disllgreed.Qlle Ihough! the driver had been speedins: one remembereda case in California where lhe driver had to pay $10,000;and a woman insisted thnt "thaI poor woman ought 10 haveenough to send her boy 10 college." The jury lried to com­promise but couldn't agree because the magazine writer w~the only one who stuck to lhe letter of the law,

Th:lt experience wns even more typical Ihan my own. Ac­cording 10 a statement by 3n experienced judge, Mr. JosephN. Ullman, juries o/ways disregard the law of contributorynegligence, And, Judge Ullman adds, thaCs not at all unrea­sonable: the "illegal" law thai the juries apply on the highwayshas always been Ihe accepted law for accidents on the higbseas.

Many people have come 10 lhe conclusion Ihat juries :ttea good lhing jusl b~call.f~ they often don'l apply tne law.Jllmcs Gould Cozzens, in his novel Tire Just ami Ille UlliiUt,has slaled till: case benutihl11y. In lhal novel, two men nrcon Irilll for murder becnuse they hnve ndmiuedly taken partin a kidnaping in which a man was killed. The actual murderwas commilled by a third man who is not on trial in thatcourt. The judge explains to the jury that they can either findIhe tWO men guilty of fioil-degree murder (for panicipating inIhe kidnaping thai led to murder) or else acquit them. Thejury, howe\'er, disregards the law and returns a verdict o[second-degree murder, saving the two men from execution.As one of the characteNi remarks, "The jury wu jibing atexecuting two men for something Ihey arguct.l a third mao hadrc:llly done:'

To which old Judge Coates (the author'S spokesman) re­plies:

"A jury has its uses. That's one of them. It's like 8

LF.oAL RULES AND LrvI!LY CASES 225

cylinder head gasket. Between two things thtlt don'tgive any, you have to have somcthing thai docs give alillie, something to selll the law to the facts. There isn'tany known way to legisltlte with an allowance for rightfeeling.... The jury protects the court. It's a questionhow long any system of courts could last in a free coun­try if judges found the verdicts. II doesn't matter howwise and experienced the judges may be. Resentmentwould build up every time the findings didn't go withcurrcnt notions or prejudices. Pretty soon half the com­munity would want 10 lynch the judge. Thcre's no focalpoint with a jury; thc jury is the public itself. That's whya jury can say when a judge couldn't, 'I don't care whatthe law is, that isn't right and I won't do it.' It's thegreatest prerogative of free men."

He might have added Ihnt it's also the gre:lIcst prerogativeof intelligent men: to rise above the abstract rules of law,format logic, or mere convention, and meet e3ch new prob­lem on its own terms.

CIJaptcr Twcnty-Four

ENTER A BRIGHT IDEA

Let me tell you the story of a bright idea.In 1949 a Congressional fight broke out over federal aid to

education. The debate didn't center on the principle of aidto public schools, but on tbe question of whether privatesebools should get it too. Catholic congressmen, thinking oftheir parochial schools, felt they should-not for religiousinstruction, to be sure, but for collateral services such ashealth, transportation and nonreligious books. Other congress­men insisted that, as a matter of principlc, private schoolsshould get no federal money whatevcr.

The debato wcnt on for weeks and months. Neither sidewas willing to give an inch. Legislation was stalled.

At t.h.is point, Senator Paul H. Douglas of lIlinois hit uponan idea. He described it later in a magazine article:

Whether children are in public or private schools, andwhether they are Protcstant, Catholic or Jewish, childrcnpresent a uniform health problem, and what is done toimprove their health has a beneficial effect upon thecommunity as a whole. In consequence. it appeared tome that a distinction could be drawn bctweeo healthservices on the one band and transportation and books00 the other; that fcderal aid for these health servicesshould be furnished to all children, wbetber tbey werein private or public schools. Under this view, the school~

house at certain hours in tbe term would have thestatus of a convenient neighborhood dispensary.

Senator Douglas drafted a bill along these lincs, which waspromptly approved by the proper Sennte Committee. The

226

EtITER A BR1GlIT IOEA 227

debate weot on in the House, however; in fact, tbe issue isslill unresolved.

But this doesn't concern me right now. What interests meis that we have here a simon-pure, te.~t-tube specimen of whatis usually called a bright idea. It has all the earmarks: aseemingly insoluble problem, a neat, simple solution, andthat feeling of "Why, that's it, of coursel Why didn't 1 thinkof thatt"

If there is any secret of clear thinking, this is it. What isthe nature of n bright idea? How do you get one? Wheredoes it come from?

Ask anybody these questions, and the answer is apt to be:"A bright idea comes to you out of nowhere in a nash ofinspirntion."

Very simple. Very unsatisfactory, 100. Doesn't tell you nthing.

Do psychologists have a beller answer? Thcy do, in away. Their answer is far from simple, and not quite satisfac­lory either. But it's fascinating and weJl worth knowing.

Psychologists don't study bright ideas, they study "problem­solving"; and they like to strip things down to essenlio.ls. Tothem, a Senator wrcstling with a knotty problem in legislationis essentially the same thing as a chimpanzee trying to getat some bananas that arc oul of reach. Both are examplesof problem-solving behavior; one situntion is n thousand limesmore complex than the other, but basically there's no dif.ference,

The first step in problem..solving is a thorough study of theproblem situation. The chimpanzee looks through the barsof his cage at the banuna.~. secs that he can't reach them, sur­veys the inside of the cage, focuses on all the objects inside­including a slick-and~ponders. The Senator looks at federalaid to education, secs thut a compromise seems impossible,surveys Cntholic and non-Catholic reasoning, focuses onschools, children, teachers, buildings and collateral services­including heatth-and ponders. Both consider all the clementsin the situation before they are ready to solve the problem.

Next come two steps. They are taken simultaneously orone after the other.

One is an effort to find the factor thaI C:IO be moved orchanged. If thut factor were obvious, there'd be no problembul u routine operation. (If you want to ring a bell, you pushthe bunon.) A problem arises whenever the key factor ishidden; you don't see it because it looks like an inconspicuous

228 How TO W'UTe. Srn,uc. AND Tlllm MORB EpP£C'TlVELY

bit of background. The stick is one of many things insidethe cagej it looks like just another object that happens to boaround. Health services are lumped together with transpona­tion and books under the heading "collateral services"; theylook like just another minor part of school expenditures. Tosolve the problem, you have to focus on the key factor andmentally "pry it loose." You have to see the stick as somethingthat can be pushed through bars; you have to realize thatbealth services may serve as a bllSis for a compromise.

The other slep is not II survey of tbe situation before you,but n survey of your mind. You search among your memories(or a pattern that would fit the situation. Again, if that patternwere obvious, there'd be no problem. You have 10 find apattcrn thllt is usually nOl applicd to this sort of problem. Thechimpalll.Cc thinks of games he played and remembers howbe used a. stick to "make a long arm"; tbe Senator thinks ofcommunity services and rcmembers healtb ccntcrs and dis­pensaries. Is there a parallel? Does that meDlnl Cramework: fitthe siluation? Would it change it so that the problem can besolved? .

As J said, the two Sleps may come at the same time. Onepsychologist, Dr. Duncker, calls them the approach "frombelow" and the approach "from above-" Basically, they aretwo ways of doing the same thing: you tty to look at thesituation in a dillerent light.

And then-after you have pried loose a key factor orfound a ncw pattern-something clicks and the bright ideaappears. It isn't a flash of inspiration, psychologists insist.It's what bappens in your brain when a remembcred patternmatches the pattern of the situation before you. If you wanta picturesque phrase, the best psychologists bave to offer isthe word Ahal..exper;ellce.

So there you are. Disappointed? Did you expect a magicConnula, a big wonderful secret? If so, fm sorry; psychologydoesn't seem to work that way. It'll be a long time untilpsychologists can produce miracles.

Meanwhile, J think their researches in problem-solving arehighly valuable. If you want to know bow to get bright ide3S.by far the best thing is to look closely at their experiments andillustrations. Let me describe two, one showing a solution"from below," the other a solution "from above."

The first is one of Dr. DUDcker's ingenious experiments.It's ODe of a series in which he asked people to solve simplemechanical problems.

ENTl:.R A BRIGHT IDEA 229

Here is tbe situation; You are led into a room with a tablain it. You are told that the room is 10 be used for visualexperiments and you're supposed to put three small candlesside by side on the door, at eye level. On the table there areall sorls of materials for you 10 work with: paper clips, paper,string, pencils, tinfoil, asb trays, and so on. There arc alsothree little cardboard boxes; the first contains a few short,thin candles, the second contains tacks, and the third can.lains matches. How are you going to put up the candles? (Ifyou' want 10, put Ihe book down at this point aod trY tofigure oul the answer.)

Slumped? II you arc like Dr. Duecker's test subjects, youprobably are. Only 43 per cenl of them solved Ihe problem.Fifty-seven per cent looked at the door and the candles,spent two or three minutes picking up this or that object fromthe table, and then gave up. They couldn't think of II possibleway of getting those candles up on the door.

The solution is very simple once you know it. You emptythe three boxes and tack them into the door as platforms forthe candles.

Now why is this so difficult to think of? The answer isclenr: the three boxes arc "ftxed" in the problem situation; tosolve the problem, you have to "pry them loose." Dr. Dunc­ker proved this neatly by slight changes in the experimentalsetup. First be repealed the experiment, but left the boxesempty. Result: The problem was solved by all subjects. Thenhe filled the boxes not with candles, tacks, and matches, hutwith buttons-that is, he pushed the key factor even farlherinto the background. Result: The percentage of those whojailctl rose from 57 per cenl 10 86 per cent.

The ability to solve problems this way is tbe ability to spotthings that are hard to distinguish from their background.Psychologists have devised several test! to measure thisability; one of tbem. the "Gottschaldt Figures Test," is re­ferred to in Dr. Duncker's work. You will find it on pages230 to 234.

I can see you looking at these little geometrical designsand wondering. Seems like a children's game, you say. Isthere really a connection between these figures and the artof thinking?

There certainly is, llnd I can prove it. During World WarII, Dr. L. L. Tburstone of the University of Chicago gave 11group of Washington administrators a battery of seventytests to find out what mental abilities are most important for

230 How TO WPJ11!, SPeAI. AND Tuna:: MOIlB EPFECIlVELY

l!!rr...!In ....ell pair or figurell belov, _rk that pu't or tlutlIeeond .!1gun vb1ch 18 the lIU1lt all U1. r1rllt,

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0$executives. He worked OUI the st:1tistical relationship betweenthese tests on the one hand lind salaries and ratings for pro­fessional promise on the other. 0/ all severuy tt!slS, tl/(~ onemort closely rdott!d to adminlstrallve success war the GOIt­schaltlt Figuru Test. Which seems to mean that an executiveis essentially a problem-solver, and problem-solving meansbeing able to spot the key factor in a coafusing situation.

If you want to take tbis test, all you n«d to do is take apencil nnd trace each of the "bidden figures." Before you start

ENrER A BIUGBT IDEA. 231

It. 1, cQnt.t.1ned 1n eaoh ot thodrav1l\i. blllOlI. F1nd it 111 eacl:lllrav1nc and thwl urlc!t. t'.ulc~ one nlS'l" 1.D Nctl dnv1r".

each page, look at your watch. Part I is easier than the rest;no. average person takes about five minutes to mark all twenty~

seven figures. Parts II to V are morc difficult; an averngoperson takes about fifteen minutes to do all thirty-four figures.(II you're a whi2, you may be able to do Pan I in two min­utes and Parts 11 to V in six.)

And now let's look at another example of problem-solving-this time a solution "from above, to through using a difIer~

ent mental £ramework. I take this illustration from ProducJiveThinking, the brilliant book by the lnte Dr. Max Wertheimer.The example is not as ingenious as Dr. Duncker's box prob­lem, but far more illuminating.

Dr. Wertheimer tells how he was looking out the windowone day and saw two boys playing badminton in the garden.(He calls the boys A and n, but I'll cll1l them Andy and Bill.)Andy was twelve, Bill was oaly ten. They plAyed severnl

232 How TO WlU'TE. SPE,.\It, AND TIUNX MOM EFFEcnveLY

P.utT HI

Lock at. U.a blO adJac.nl t1CU"I. ChI or th••is c:onla!.Nd 1" ....cb or u.. v.vi.."'. ~11J".

In Ncb at tho tollCOt1"C v.IIl",., :arl< U>al part."'hicb 11 tho 1&:10 U OM or tho .djacant. rtpr..,Kark onl:t one rtavro 1" INch dr.vi..".

sets, but Bill was a much poorer player and lost nil the games.Dr. Wertheimer wntched and listened. Bill gOt more and

more unhappy. He had no chance at all. Andy often servedhim so cleverly that he couldn't possibly return the bird,Finally Bill threw down his racket, sat on 11 tree trunk andsaid: "J won't play any more-" Andy tried to talk bim outof it, but Bill didn't nnswc:r. Then Andy sat down too. Bothboys looked unhappy, They were faced with wbat seemedan insoluble problem.

What would yOIl have done in Andy's place? Dr,Wertheimer says he asked many people the same question, buthardly anybody arrived at Andy's intelligent solution. Whatactually happened was this:

ENTEB. A BRIonT mIlA 233

pm l't

LQOk at. the two adjacent. fiiures. Q OJOne ot thlllll 111 oont.&1nod 1.Q each otthe d.r&V1Dll. bolOllh

In uch of tho tollClll1ns .sravillgs, o:arlcthat. put. wh1.ch 1s the IClO III on" ot theadj ...::...t.- tllf\U"es. Hulc~ otl6 t1guro1Jl eaeh c!!'aw1.ll.S.

AI first, Andy was simply angry. "Why don't you goahead?·' he asked Bill. "Why do you break up the game? Doyou think it's nice to stop in this silly way?"

There was a pause. Andy glanced at Bill, and Bill justlooked sad. Then Andy said in a different lone of voice: "I'm60rry."

There was another pause. Suddenly Andy said: "Lookhere. Such playing is nonsense:' He looked as if somethingslowly began 10 dawn on him, and coOlinued: "This sort ofgame is funny. I'm not really unfriendly to you...." And lhenhe mumbled something like "Must it ... ?" His face lit upand be said happily: "I have an idea-let's play this wily:

234 How TO WRIT!, SPE4X, AND TlIINK MORE EFJ'ECTlVUY

Look It. Olo bto djIO:«It. nl"""One or !.hI.. h o:ont.alnod 1n oao:bor tho r1raV11\&1 bll_.

In oao:b or \hI tollowlnc drlv1nl!"u.tic Uu t. ~rt. vh1o:b 1& thl u=Das one or thl adjao:.." UIIl"'I.t',ark 01".1,. one .rtCW'1 tn oao:bdr&v1Il&'

Let's see how long we can keep the bird going between usand count how mnny times it goes bnck and fonh withoutfalling. Whot score could we make? Do you think we couldmake it ten or twenlY? We'll slart with easy serves but tbenJet's make them harder and harder, , ,"

Dill agreed happily: "That's n good iden. Let's."They started to play-not the competitive game of bad­

minton. but a different, C<Klperative new game. Andy hadsolved the problem.

There's a loog analysis of this example in Dr. Werthei·mer's boot, and J wish I could quole it all. He poiots out thatAndy solved the problem by completely changing his mentalpicture of the situation. lostead of looking at the game assomething that existed for his own enjoyment and at Dillas someone to play agaiost, be suddenly saw the game assomething to be enjoyed by both of them. "Often," Wenhei­mer writes, "one must flnt forget what he happens to wishbefore he cao become susceptible 10 what the situation itselfrequires, , , • This transitioD is one of tbe great moments in

ENTI!.R A BRIGHT IDEA 235

many genuine thought processes. . •• Real thinkers forgetabout themselves in thinking."

Not only that, real thinkers can detach their miods frOIDhabitual, established pallerns of thought and apply far-re­moved, seemingly unrelated mental frameworks. Their mindsdon't mOVe in narrow grooves but range over a wide areaof possible patterns.

The newspapers, nol long ago, carried a report of brain~

wave studies on Albert Einstein and a couple of other mathe­matical geniuses. The theory behind the e~periments wasthat a creative, original thinker has the ability to quickly"scan" one group of brain cells after another. It was foundthat Einstein's brain did this much better and faster than anordinary brain.

All of which gives yOll a pretty clear picture of how youcan get bright ideas. Mter stUdying a problem, do either orboth of these things:

1. Look for a seemingly irrelevant key factor in the situa­tion.

2. Look for a seemingly unsuitable pattern in your mind.This isn't very specific, but it's obviously more helpful thanjust sitting and waiting for an inspiration.

Let me wind up tbis chapter with a bright idea that madehistory. With Duncker's and Wertheimer's studies in mind,read how Frllnklin D. Roosevelt thought up the idea of Lend­Lease.

In December, 1940, Britllin desperately needed materinlhelp agllinst the Naz.is. The United Stllles, however, was oatat war; Congress and the people were unwilling to give Britain11 tremendous 101ln to buy war materials. How to help Britainwithout a loan was a seemingly insoluble problem.

00 December 2, Roosevelt weot on a two·wceks' Carib­bean cruise. He spent those two weeks in thinking over theproblem, searching for the kcy factor, the novel pallern.

After two weeks be returned. He had solved the "im­possible" problem. He called n press conference and eltptainedhis simple plan to help 'Britain: "Now, what I am trying todo is eliminate the dollnr sign. Thllt is something brnnd-newin the thoughts of everybody in lbis room, I think-get rid ofthe silly, foolish old dollar sign.... Well, let me give youan i11ustration. Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, andI have a length of garden hose ..."

You see the two basic ingredients of a bright idea? Roose­velt had found the "detachable" key factor-the dollar sign;and be bad found a totally new pattcrn no one had ever

236 How TO WRITE, Sru". AND THINJ:: MORI! EFFI!CTtVeL\'

thought of in conneclion with a foreigo IOlln-leoding yourneighbor a garden hose.

It was brilliantly simple. And it chaoged the course of his­tory.

Cll:lpter Twenty-Five

HOW TO SOLVE A PUZZLE

A good mnny years ago Mr. A. A. Milne-who save ourchildren the Winnie-the-Pooh books-wrote a column for aBritish magazine. He faithfullY produced a charming littleessay for every issue until he suddenly found himself stymied.As he explained [0 his renders the next time, someone hadchallenged him with a word game and he was unable tothink of anything else until he h:l.d solved it. The word­whose rearranged letters spell an everyday English word­w"'

TERALBAY.

According to legend, Lord Melbourne gave this word toQueen Victoria once and il kept her awake all night.

Mr. Milne didn't tell his readers what the solution was.But he explained clearly his method of solution.

The way to solve n problem of this sort is 10 waggleyour eyes nod see what you get. If you do this, wordslike alterably and labora/ory emerge, which a littlethought shows you to be wrong. You may then wnggleyour eyes again, look at it upside down or sideways, orsllllk it carefUlly from the southwest and plunge uponit suddenly when it is nOI ready for you.... I have nodoubt thai aner hours of immense Illbor you will trium­phantly suggest rateably. I suggested that myself, butit is wrong. There is no such word in the dictionary.The same objection applies to bot-early-it ought to meansomething, but it doesn't.

I don't mean to say that the Milne Method of solving word237

238 How TO WIlITE, SPEAK, "NO Turn1:: MORE EPFECrlVl!LY

games is bad. It's more or less what everybody docs, and it'sbasically sound. But it Clln be improved upon.

The tera/hay kind of puzzle-like every other kind-basa hidden clue somewhere. Once you've spotted it, the puzzleis solved. The difficulty lies in the fact Ihat the situation be­fore you is confused; you have to get rid of the confusionbefore you can even start working on the problem. After all,the point is not 10 rend the word lua/bay over nnd over tofind a hidden menning, but to form a new word from theletters t, e, r, a, I, b, a, and y.

So the thing to do is this: Try :11 random other patterns ofarrangement, in the hope that the hidden clue will emergein the process. You may arrange the letters alphabetically

........ nELRTy

or in reversed alphabetical order

YTRLEn ........

or alphabeticnlly with lliternating consonants amI vowels

B .... LARETy

or the same reversedyTER .... L .... n

and so on. Or you may try arrnngements ending in able orably like

R"yT .... nLB

or

T I! .... R A D L Y.

(This last one yOU'll find in small type in Webster's Un­abridged, but it obviously won't do.)

If you do this-systemlilically run through various randomarrangements-you'll have a better chance than if you justwaggle your eyes. At least, I used that method Bnd finallydid solve the puzzle, after hours of work. When 1 got to thoable words, I happened upon

How TO SOLVE A PUZZLE. 239

TRA Y ABLE.

I liked that word very much, but in the end I had to admitthat there wasn't any such word. However, the tray in itturoed out to be the hidden clue: suddenly I had the solution.Of course! What Lord Melbourne meant was- (You maywant to play with this. so 1 put the solution on page 245. alongwith solutions to the other puzzles in this chapter.)

In other words, the first step in gelling rid of confusiOnis rearrangement. Any kind of rearrangement is better thanstaring at the confusing arrangement before you. For exam­ple, there's the sign a 01 saw on a post in Italy during: WorldWlU 11:

TOT 1EMU L

ESTO

String the letters out in One line instead of three. and you'llhave no trouble.

Often, ho.....ever. rearrangement is not enough. You haveto do some sort of translation; you have to look at the ele.­ments io the puzzle in some other Conn. Eugenio Rignano, inhis PrycholoSlY of Reasoning. has a fine example of this. Hewas surprised and puzzled. he writes. when be heard for thefirst time this sentence: "Since more people live in Londonthan anyone has hairs 00 his head, there must he at least twopeople there with the same number oC hairs." Yet he im­mediately realized tbat this was so when he began mentallyto line up the inhabitaDls of London, starting with a totallybald man. followed by a man with one bair. a man with twohnirs. aod so 00. Naturally, sioce the popUlation of Londonis larger than the maximum number of hnirs on people'sbeads. be bad lots of leftover people whose bair-count matchedthat of people in the lineup. Visuali2.ed in this way. thepuzzle was no puzzle any more.

Another kind of translation is the use of mathematicalsymbols. It·s the best technique, [or instance. if you wantto solve the following type of puzzle:

The ages of a man and his wife are together 98. He istwice as old as she was when he was the age she istadny. Whnt are their ages?

This is easy to solve if you know enough algebrn to set up Il

240 How TO WRITI!. $PEAJ::, AND TUlNI: MOlUl. EFPEC1'TVELY

couple of equations. calling, say. the husband's age I aod Lbewife's age y.

Maybe you have the feeliog thnt the puzzles I have givenyou so far are panicularly mean. You are right. They arcproblems plus: puules with nn ulra element of confusiooadded. Let's now look nt some problems that I1re presentedstraight.

Here's a nice example. Read the following sentence andcount how ml1ny fs there are:

Finished files arc the results of yean of scientific studycombined with the experiences of years.

(Now do it again slowly and sec if you were right the firsttime.)

Then there arc two neat problems tbat I gave dozens ofmy friends and students last year.

1. Find the smallest number th:l.t can be divided evenlyby 7 but leaves a remainder of 1 when divided by 2.,3, 4, 5, or 6.

2. Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson played threerubbers of bridge at I t II. point. No one had the samepartner twice. Playing against Jones, BrowD won arubber of 900 points. Smith won It 600-point rubber,the smallest of the evening, when he played againstRobinson. Jones lost $10 altogether. How did Robin­son fare?

I ought to warn you that it may lake you quite n while tosolve these two problems. My friends and students took any­where from five minutes 10 an hour for each. (There was aninteresting difference in Iheir way of going about it; I'll cometo thai in Chapter 29.) But---5ince 1 want to make a pointhere-I'll give you 11 break: the key 10 the SOlution in bothcases is Ihe seemingly irrelevant word smallest. In the firstpuzzle you have to find Lile smallest number, in the secondyou are told that Ihe 6oo-point rubber wns the smallest oftbe evening. Among my human guinea pigs 24 per ceot over·looked that elue in the first puzzle and 32 per cent in Lbesecond.

These figures may seem incredible. Why should a bunch ofintelligent adults have trouble spoiling these simple clues?Why should one-founb or one-third of them overlook theseclues, wilh all the time in the world to solve Lbe problem?

How TO SoLVB It PtTZZLll 241

Once you know it, the word smalfut in both puzzles secnuto stick out like!" sore thumb. How is it possible not to see it?

This is the sort of question you llIlk yourself after you havefinished tl. good mystery story. "Why, of course I" you say toyour.;;elf. "X was the murderer; 1 oUght to have guessed thatlong ago. The clues were all there, right in front of my eyes.How did 1 manage to miss them?"

The basic principle, then, of most puzzles or mystery storiesis the "bidden" clue-the thing that you don't see because itseems utterly irrelevant. The qucstion is: Is tbis only a fenturoof made-up puzzles and mysteries or does the principle operatein real-life problems too?

It so happens thnt the two most famous authors of mysterystories provided an answer to tbis question-Edgar Allan Poeand Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both ventured into the detectionof actual crimes; both were highly successful. Let's see howthe methods of C, Auguste Dupin nnd Sherlock Holmes applyto renl-life mysteries.

Poe turned detective when he cleared up the case of MaryCecilia Rogers, who wns murdered near New York City in1842. He chose to publish his solution, thinly disguised asfiction, in the story "The Mystery of Marie Roget." It is 11matter of history that Poe's solUlion was essentially right andthat of the police was wrong.

Mary Rogers lived with her mother on Nassau Street nndwas employed in a cigar store downtown. One Sunday mom·ing in June she left home (supposedly 10 visit an nunt) anddisappeared. Four days laler her body was found in the Hud­son near Weehawken. The official theory was that sbe badbeen the victim of a gang of hoodlums.

Poe knew nothing about the ease except whal he had rendin the papers. But by IInalyzing the published racts he dis­proved the theory thnt the murder was the work of II gangand showed who the real murderer was.

We don't need to go into all the details here, since Poe'smain point was very simple. Mary Rogers had disappearedonce before, about three-and-a-halr years berort her death;lit that time she had lUrned up again afler II week, behaving asif nothing had happened, Obviously she had spent that weekwith a lover. Neither the police nor the newspapers connectedthat earlier disappearance with her tragie death three yearslater; they didn't see any paraJleI between an old amorousadventure and II kidnaping by a gang. Poe focused on thatseemingly irrelevaot clue; once he had done so, everything

242 How TO WRJTB. SPeAX, AND Tuu-ox MORI! EPFECTTVELY

fell into place and il was clear thai Mill}' Rogers was murderedby her lover.

Conan Doyle's performance as 11 real-life detective didn'tdeal with a murder, but the case was even morc spectacularthrm that of Mary Rogers, Thero had been a flagrant mis.carriage of justice.

In December, 1906, the creator of Sherlock Holmes re­ceived a letter and a balch of newspaper clippings from a mannamed George Edalji. Mr. Edalji had just been released fromprison after having served three years for a crime of whichbe bad been convicted. He was unable to continue his careeras a lawyer and asked Conan Doyle to help him prove hisinnocence.

Conan Doyle-like Poe sixty-five years enrlier-studiedthe newspaper clippings. He learned that Ednlji had beendeclared guilty of killing animals nenr the village of GreatWyrley in 1903. The killings had obviously been the work ofa maniac who roamed the countrySide by night; they badbeeo accompaoied and :announced by mad anonymous letterssent to Ihe local police. The leuers--together with otber cir.cumstantial evidence-<:onvinced the police, and later thecourt, that Edalji was the killer. Their most damning featurewas their similarity to a group of anonymous letters wrlllenseven ye:ars before. Those earlier lellers bad been directedllg:ainst George Edlllji's father and the poliee had alwaysconsidered George their author.

Conan Doyle-again like Poe si:dy-five years earlier­found the clue in the previous event. He too focused 00 aseemingly irrelevant point. These are his words:

At the beginning. one point is so obvious thnt I wonderil hns escaped notice. This is the extraordin.llry loog gapbetween the two sets of leuers. Leners, childish hoaxes,abound up to lale December of '95. Then, for nenrlyseven years, nobm!)' gets an abusive leiter. To me thisdid not suggest thnt the culprit had changed his wholecharncter and habits overnight, reverting to them withequal malice in 1903. It suggested absence; that some­one had been away during that time.

After this, the solution of the myslery was easy. All th:l.twas necessary was 10 find someone in the community whohad spent those seven years abroad or at sen and fitted thedescription oC a mad letter·writer .lind animal·killer. The man

How TO SoLVB A PUZZLE 243

was found and, after a long struggle, George Edalji Wa!publicly vindicated and readmiued 10 the bar.

Do tbese two cases prove my point? I think so. But, afterall, you may say, Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur ConanDoyle were amaleur detectives. 00 professional detectiveswork the same way in solving a puzzling ease?

]n 1949 the newspapers carried a story that shows theessence of professional detective work. I mean the Story ofMr. Goetz' Van Gogh.

Mr. William Goetz, a Hollywood movie executivc, boughta picture by Vincent Van Gogh called "Study by Candle­light." He paid over 550,000 for it. After some time VanGogh's nephew, Mr. Vincent W. Von Gogh, declared pub­licly that the picture was a fake. Mr. Goetz didn't take thislying down and submitted the picture to 0 jury of experts ap·pointed by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

"Study by Candlelight" is a self-portrait of Van Gogh,resembling his many other self-portraits. It bears his signa­ture, has a title in his handwriting, and includes a small studyof a Japanese head and some Japanese inscriptions. The jurystudied all this, together with the material, the colors, thebrushwork and so on, and declared the painting as doubtfulat best. "Anyone of the unfavorable factors might be ac­counted for in reason," Ihey concluded, "but the accumula·tion was too great to be counterbalanced; funhermore. thefavorable factors were broad and intangible."

Mr. Goetz naturally wasn't happy with this verdict. He hitupon an ingenious plnn. He shipped the picture back 10Europe and then brought it back to the United Stntes. Therethe expected tbiog happcned: the Treasury Depanmenl askedfor a $5,000 customs duty, since the picture was a fake andoot a duty-free original work of art. Mr. Goetz refused 10pay a penny since in his opinion it was a genuine Van Gogh.And so the ease was thrown into the lap of professionalTreasury Depanmcnt detcctives.

The detectives analyzed everything the jury of experts hadanalyzed before. But they focused 00 ooe thing the four artexperts had paid no attentioo to whatever: the meaning ofthe Japanese inscriptions. Three Jnpanese experts were calledin aod promptly found some typical mistakes a Europeanwould make; wbafs more, they found those same mistakes inotber Japanese inscriptions by Vno Gogb whose authenticitywas known.

Whereupon the Treasury Department decided that Mr.Goetz was the owner oC a genuine Van Gogh.

244 How TO WlUTl!, SPeAX, AND TlIINI: MOllE EPJlECTtVEU'

Of course, it is still possible thai the museum experts wereright and the detectives were wrong. That's not my point. Mypoint is that the professional del<:ctives-just like those twoillustrious amateurs, Poe and Conan Doyle--solved the caseby focusing 00 a seemingly irrelevant detail. They fouod a"hidden" fact that h<ld ~n in plaio view all the time.

Probably this phr:lse will remind you of another of EdgarAllan Poe's classic tales-"The Purloined Leucr." In thatstory, the police know that a ccrtain blackmailer is in pos­session of a stolen letter; they rcpeatedly search him and hisapartment but can'l find it. Poe's detcctive gcnius, C. AugusteDupin, figures that the clever criminal must bave hidden theletler by putting it right under tbe noses of the police. So hepays a visit to the blackmailer in his room and immediatelyspots II half-10m, soiled, crumpled envelope in a "card-rackof pasteboard tbat hung dangling by a dirty blue ribhon froma lillie brass knob just beneath the middle of tbe mantelpiece."

Dupin ClI:plains the principle of bis solution like this:

There is a game of putties which is played upon amap. One party playing requires another to find a givenword-the name of town, river, st<lte, or empir6-t1nyword, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surfaceof the chart. A novice in tbe game geoernlly seeks toembarrass his opponents by giving th~ the most mi­nutely lettered names; but Ihe adept selccts such wordsas stretch, in large characters, from the end of the chart10 the other. These, like the over-largely lettered signs andplacards of the street, escape observation by dint of beingexcessively obvious; and here the physicnl oversight isprecisely analogous with the moral inapprehension bywhich the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those con­siderations whieh nrc too obtrusively nod too palpablyself-evident.

"llle Purloined Lettcr" was nol the first of Poe's classicdetective stories but tbe third. Yct in a scnse all mysterystories are variations upon its theme. There is good reason forthat: A mystery writcr who observes the established rules ofthe game must do two thiDS': (a) he must show the de.tective-hero's ingenuity in solving the puzzle, and (b) hemust play fair with tbe reader and give him a chance to solvethe puzzle himself. He must thercfore hide and reveal the int­ponant clues at the same lime. The only way to do tbis is tomention thcm casually in the coune of the Story as if they

How TO SOLVI! A PUZZUl. 24S

were irrelevant. In other words, they must be hidden in plainview like 'The Purloined Leuer."

Recently a well-known mystery writer, giving away somoof his trade secrets, ma.de this point very clear:

How does your dete1;tin find out who did it? He mayno longer, as he could in Sherlock's time, pick up sig.nificant dues and pocket them, with neither by yourleave nor explanation to the reader. He may not-atleast not too obviously-rely on intuition.•.. And ifbe relies on the method of slow accumulation the readerwill grow bored.... TIle modern answer, by and large,is the gimmick-the single, or perhaps double, revealingclue, which ,he reader mis/tt also notice were he brightenough.

So, if you want to train yourself in clear thinking andproblem-solving, you might do worse than read whodunits­those perennial variations upon Poc's ''The Purloined Leuer'"or, for that matter, upon Dr. Duneker's box problem. Mindyou, you'll have to avoid the corpse-cluuered, hard-boiledpseudo-mysteries, and you'll han to match your wits activelywith the detective rather than passively wait for the solution.But if you read standard·formula whodunits in the properspirit, they may well help you tackle your everyday problems.

Most of those problems, too, are solved by looking sharplyat something thal's been stuing you in the (ace all the time.

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES

1. Tun/bay. The solution is: b~lraya/.

2. Husband's and wl/~'s a8~S. They are 56 and 42-3. Smallesf numb~,. 3014. How did Robinson lau? He lost $8•

•

Chapter Twenty-Six

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, OR MINERAL

The birth of ideas has often been described. Poels lalk atdivine inspiration, ordinary people talk of hunches, psycbol­ogists talk of combinations, incubations, intimations, andilluminations. Professor Wertheimer talks of recentcring andrestructuring. Professor Spel1nnl1n talks of the educing ofcorrelates, and the patent law talks of the f1asb of genius.Everybody seems to lIgree that ideas are born suddenly lindmysteriously.

Well and good. Luckily we all have those hunches andflashes of insigbt and get our fair share of ideas after a goodnight's sleep, or while we are shaving, or during a hot batb.

But what if we don't? What if there is a problem to besolved and we have no clue, no routine to fall back on, andno happy inspiration? Is there a method by which we canhunt for ideas systemauc:J.lly. prosaically, in broad daylight?

There i.r such a mClbod. As Iar as I know, it is the only one.Thomas Hobbes, in 1651, described it this way:

Regulated thought is 0. seeking. Sometimes a manseeks what he has lost.... Sometimes a man knows aplace determinate, within the compass whereof be is toseek; and then his thoughts run over nil the parts thereof,in the snme manner as one would sweep a room to finda jewel; or as 11 spaniel ranges the ficld, till he find aSCent; or as a man should cun over the a1pbabet, to SllU'ta rhyme.

A twentieth-century chemist. Dr. Wilder D. Bancroft, saidthe same thing in more modem terms:

••• One must eventually prescot something construe­246

ANIMAL, VEGI!TADLI!. OR MINERAL 247

tive. The answer is to be found in the game of TwentyQuestions. When I was a small boy. it was a very populargame to try to find, by asking a series of questions, whatthe others had selected. The first question was always:animal, vegetahle, or mineral? After that the questionsmust be ones that could be answered by yes or no...•The trick was to frame the questions so as to eliminateD large portion of the possihle field each time and toreach the goal by successive eliminations.... The meth·od might be called the either-or method, or the Socraticmethod. The latter sounds more impressive. That simpleJiUle game exemplifies tbe principles of scientific re­search aod it would be a good thing if our graduatestudents would play it regularly as part of their researchtraining.

Dr. Bancroft was quite right in comparing idea-hunting tothe game of Twenty Questions. If you're interested in produc­ing ideas. the game of Twenty Questions is the ideal model. Itis well worth close study.

Let's spend a few minutes eavesdropping on twenty ques·tions as it was played every week for some yeal1l on the air.Our master of ceremonies is Bill Slater; the regulars are FredVandeventer, newscaster, F1oreoce Rinard, his wife, HerbPolesie. movie producer, and young Johnny McPhee; theguest this particular evening is Miss Nina Foch, lhe actress.

Here is one game:

Dl1.L SLATER: This one's vegetable.MYSTERY VOICE: Here we go back to the days when

knights were bold indeed. Bill is asking them to identifyKing Anhur's Round Table.

BILL SLATER: Mystery Voice has told our friends athome. This is going to take a bit of a battle. 1 think.

FRED VANDEVENTER: Is it wood or a wood product?BILL SLATER; Yes.PRED VANDEVENTER: Is it wood?BILL SLATER: It's wood..JOHNNY MCPHEE.: Does this thing exist?DILL Sl.ATER: No.FLORENCE. RiNARD: If it did exist, would it be manu­

factured?BILL SLATBR: Yes, if this did exist it would be manu­

factured,

248 How TO WRfm. SPEAX, AND THlN):. MaRl! EPFECTIVELY

HERB POLESIE: Is it connected with one professionalperson?

BILL SLATER: Yes.FLORENCB RINARD: Was. it large enough for people to

be inside of it?DILL SLATER: No. What were you thinking of?FLORENCB RINARD: A wooden horse.BILL SUTER: Yes, that's what you were thinking of-

lhe Trojan Horse.FLORENCE RINARD: Is this in American fiction?DILL SLATER: No.FRED VANDEVENTER: Is it in British fiction?DILL SLATER: Yes, partly there.FRED VANDEVENTER: Is it in prose fiction?BILL SLATER: It has. been in that form, yes.FRED VANDEVENTER: Is it small enough 10 be carried

about?DILL SLATER: No.PLoRENcn RINARD: Is it n building?DILL SLATER: No, it's not a building.FRno VANOEVENTBR: Is it a means of transportation?DILL SUTER: No.FRED VANDBVENTER: Is there any olher-I'li ask this

a different way: When this is manufactured, is it puttogether with something else?

llIlL SLATER: Well, usually yes.FRED VANDEVENTER: I mean such as nails and screwS

and-BILL SLATllR: Yes. The sort of thing you're after is

usually put together with things like Ihat.FLOMNCB RINARD: Is this a piece of furniture? ­DILL' SLATER: Yes.FLORllNCB RINARD: Is it a chair?BILL SLATeR: No•.JOHNNY MCPHEE: A round table?BILL SLATER.: It's a table!JOIINNY MCPHEE: A round table?DILL SLATER: Yes..JOHNNY MCPHEE: King Arthur's Round Table?DILL SLATER: Right!

Another game:

DILL SLATER: The subject's veget::lble.MYSTERY VOICE: The state of Vermont is famous for a

ANIMAL, VOOET!r.nLB, OR MINERAL 249

numbcr of things. But when your swcet tooth is water­ing, you think of The Maple Trees of Vermont.

FRED VANDEVENTER: Is this wood or a wood product?BILL SLATER: Is it wood or a wood product? 1 have to

say yes to that..JOHNNY MCPHEE: Is it manufactured?DILL SLATER: No,JOHNNY MCPHEE: Are we after a tree or part of a tree?BILL SLATER: Partly,JOHNNY MCPHEE: A group of trees?BILL SLATER: A group of trees.JOHNNY MCPHEE: Are they fictional?BILL SLATER: No, they're real.FLORENCE RINARD: Do they elUst?BILL SLATER: They exist.FLOReNCE RINARD: Are they in Europe?lIILL SLATER: No, they're not in Europe,FRED VANDEVENTER: Are they in the United States?BILL SLATER: They are in the United States.HERB POLESIE: Are they in California?DILL SLATER: They are not in California. You're think~

ing of the redwood trees.HERB POLESIE: Indeed, and beautiful they are.JOHI"NY MCPHEE: Are they east of the Mississippi?BILL SLATER: They arc.JOHNNY MCPHEB: And south of the Mason-Dixon

line?BILL SLATER: No.FREP VANDEVENTER: Are they-If you were approach­

ing them from the south, would you cross the HudsollRiver to get to them?

BILL SLATER: Yes, you would.FRED VANDEVENTER: Are they in New England?DILL SLATER: Yes.FLORENCE lUNARe: Are they one particular kind of

trees?BILL SLATER: They are.FLORENCE RINARD: Maple?BILL SLATER: Yes.

FLORENCS RINARD: Are they the trees they get maplesyrup from?

DILL SLATER: Yes.

JOHNNY MCPHEE: Any particular state?BILL SLATER: Yes.

JOHNNY Mel'HEn: The maple sugar trees of Vermont?

250 How TO WRITE, SPI!AK, AND TiliNg MaRS EpI'ECl1VELY

DILL SLATER: Rightl

A third game:

DILL SLATER: This subject is animal.MYSTERY VOICE: The subject this time is that fabled

Face on the Barroom Floor..JOHNNY MCNIEl!: Is this a whole animal?DILL SLATER: No, this is not.FLORENCE RINARD: Is this II living animal?DILL SLATER: No, this is not a living animal.FRED VANDEVENTER: Is it part of a human being?BILL SLATER: It's part of a human being you're after,

y".HERB l'OLESll!: Docs my mother-in-law look like lhis

in any way?BILL SLATER: I doubt it, Herb,.JOHNNY MCPHEE: Is this human being fictional?BILL SLATER: Yes, the human being involved is fic:-.

tional.FRED VANDEVENTnR: Is this pnrt of a man?DILL SLATER; No, it's not part of a mnn.FLORENCE RINARD; Is this in American fiction?BILL SLATER: Yes, I think you'd call it American

fiction,FRED VANDl!Vl!NTEJI: Is it in prose fiction?DILL SLATER: No..JOHNNY MCPHI!.l!: Could it be from a song?DILL SLATER: No, it's DOl from a song.NINA FQCH: Is it-I'm afraid this has been asked-a

poom'DILL SLATER: Yes, it's involved in a poem,NINA FOCH: Is it the innkeeper's daughter? With tho

long hair? By Noycs, you know?BILL SLATER: No. An interesting girl, the innkeeper's

daughter with the long hair. Dut that's not who it wasthat we're concerned with. .

FLORENCE RINARD: Is this hair?DILL SLATER: No, it's not hair you're after.PRED VANDEVENTER: Is this in a poem by a-a ralher

famoUJI author?BILL SLATeR: No.FRED VANDI!.VENTI!R: In other words, we know it be·

cause of the poem nnd not because of the author?DILL SLATER: 1 think that's correct. Van,

ANIMAL, VEGETAnLI!, OR MINERAL 251

FLORENCE!. RINARD: This wouldn't be The Face on theBarroom Floor?

BILL SLATER: Florence Rinardll

Isn't this fun 10 read? It's even more fun to listen to orplay yourself. If you've never played Twenty Que.c;tions, yOU'dbetter sIart right now and find out what you have missed. Youcan he sure it'll be a long time until you're us expert as theVandeventers, Herb Polesie, or Johnny McPhee.

But, of course, my purpose here is more serious. Twentyquestions, as 1 said, is tile model of productive thinking. Howdid these experts play the game?

WeB, if we analyze those Ihree games, we find three basicrules of Twenty Questions strategy. They are:

1. Don'l waste time with wild stabs.2. Ask questions that hnve an even chance of being an­

swered yes or no.3. Vary your approach.That wild stabs are bad is rather Obvious, of course. Any­

one can see that those questions about Ihe Trojan Horse, theCalifornia Redwoods and the innkeeper's daughter in TheHighwayma/l were sheer waste.

The even-chance principle isn't quite as obvious. Let meexplain. Twice, when the subject was vegetable, the radioexpens asked first: "Is it wood or a wood product?" Why didthey do this? Because they had found by experience Ih",t thequestion "ls it woodr' did not divide the field evenly. If theanswer was no, they had to go on and ask "Is il a woodproduct?" So they developed the combined question "Woodor wood product?" which they knew went just about downthe middle of the range of possibilities. Similarly, to narrowdown the whole of the United Stale.c;, they asked first "Eastor west of the Mississippi?" and then "North or soutb of theMuson-Dixon line?" To start with the question "E.'lSt or westof the Hudson River?" would have been poor strategy.

Finally: Vary your approach. It look the panel sevengeographical questions to locate those trees in New England;with six more of these questions they could have pinned themdown to one particular state. Dut they were smarter than that.They shifted to the question "What kind of trees?" and wenlfrom there directly to the solulion.

And DOW let's see how we can apply the Twenty Qucsliomttechnique to thinking in general. In everyday life, of course,we have no M.e. who supplies the yeses and nocs; we haveto ask ourselves each question and answer it as best we can.

252 How TO WJUTIl, SPEAK, AND TUIN!:: MOlle Ef1'I!cnvELY

If we don't know whether the answer is yes or no, we maybe able to say "Probably yes" or "Probably no"; if we don'tknow that either, we may be able to find out. And, of course,we don't have to stick to twenty questions; we may get thesolution after only ten, or we may have to ask thirty or forty,

For example, a friend of mine is an enaineer who used towork abroad. Some yenrs ago his company trnosferred him totheir New York City headquarters and he had to find a placeto live for himself, his wife and their two boys. This is thekind of problem where you start from scratch, without nnykind of le3d or clue.

Using the twenty questions method, my friend began toask himself questions: Do I w3nt a house or an apartment?(A housc.) One or two stories? (Two will be all right.) AmI prepared to pay more than $20,0001 (No.) More than$15,OOO? (Rather not.) Will I commute midtown or down­town? (Downtown.) Am I willing to commute more thantwenty miles? (Yes.) More than thirty miles? (Yes.) Will nnolder house be satisfactory? (No.) Does it have to have adining room? (Not necessarily.) Do I want 11 large yard?(Rather.)

After be had asked himself many more questions aboutlocations, communities, neighborhoods, schools, churches,taxes, shopping centers, parks, beaches, and so on, my friendwas as close to a solution as he could be while sitting in anarmchair and thinking. The rcst was easy. Hc and his familynow livc happily in n house that's just right for them.

A problem of this sort is not essentially different from abusiness or industrial problem. For instance, I looked upthe section on plant location in an engineering handbook. Ifound that tbe engineer has to cbeck, one by one, the fol­lowing questions: (I) raw materials; (2) fuels and purcbasedpower; (3) labor supply; (4) geographic {aCIOTS; (5) waterresources; (6) transportation facilities nnd rates; (7) markets;(8) laws and established public practices; (9) special com­pany and industrial policies; and (10) other possible tangibleor intangible coDSiderntions.

Scientific or industrial research offers some excellent ex·amples of thc twellly questions technique. For example, Dr.Flanders Dunbar, io her book Mind and Body, telb about acompany that operated a large (Ieet of trucks aod becamealarmed at a terrific incre:tSe in accident!. The managementlooked into one question after another. They tested everythingfrom the weather to the renctioo time of the employees. Nosuccess. They tried intensive safety training for the drivers.

ANIMAL, VEOET,lDLE, OR MINERAL 25)

]t didn't help. They tried penalties for those who had acci~

dents nnd survived. Still the Dccidcnt rate went on rising.Finally, the company executives asked themselves whether

the accident rate bad anything to do with the drivers them·selves. So they shifted drivers who had had accidents to workinside the plant. That did it. The problem was solved aodthe accident rate went down to normal. (The former driverskept on having accidents in the plant. but that's another story-and a fascinating one too.)

Running through a list of questions or classifications is infact a characteristic feature of all professional work. Engi­ncers, for instance, use the so-<allcd' "search for power"technique and try mentally whether a given problem caD besolved electrically, hydraulically, chemically, mechanically, Ofelectronically. Doctors making diagnoses run through lists ofdiseases with similar symptoms. Lawyers drafting contract!Jor wills weigh various possibilities of corporate or estatestructure. Accountants do the same with dilTerent types ofaccounts, and librarians, of course, with different book classi·fications.

A few years ago, a hook was published that olTers a non­professional person the sort of helpful check list that cvcryprofessional carries in his head. It is called YOllr CreativePower and was written by Mr. Alex F. Osborn of the NewYork advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn.Mr. Osborn devotes almost one hundred pages to a detaileddiscussion of his ebeck list of problem-solving questions; you'lllearn a lot if you get the book and study those hundred pagescarefully. All I can give you here is II. brief list of Mr.Osborn's main qucstioll5:

To what other uses can this be put?Is there something similar I could p3rtial1y copy?What if this were somewhat changed?What about making it bigger?What if this were smaller?What can I substitute?How else can this be arranged?What if this were reversed?What could 1 combine this with?

This is an idea.provoking'list if there ever was one, but Ithink it's too much of an advertising man's list to be generallyuseful. If you follow Mr. Osborn's method of producing ideas,you may wind up with Mr. Osborn's kind of ideas, and they

254 How TO WAITE, SI'EAK. AND TlIINK MORI!. EFPECTIVElY

mny not always be Ihe right solutions lor your problems. Heis lond, lor instance. 01 "the Lucky Strike auctioneer, thepenguin yodeling 'KooooI' cigaretles. the ch()()...Cboo trainpuffing 'Bromo Seltzer,' the Rinsa-white whistle, and theLifebuoy foghorn," and he is enthusiastic about "a new soap­book, with the story lithographed on Ihe inside cover, andthe characters portrayed by illustrations molded on cakes ofsoap."

Adapting Ihe Osborn list to non-advertising purposes, Ihave drawn up a lillIe list of my own-the kind of questionsthai mny come in handy in solving such ordinary-life prob­lems as buying a f3mily home. Here it is:

Whnt am I tryIng to accomplish?Have I done this sorl of thing before? How?Could I do this some other way?How did other people tnckle this?What kind of person or persons am I dealing wilh?How can this situation be changed to fit me?How can I adapt myself to this siwation?How about using more? Less? All of il? Only a ponion?

One only? Two? Several?How about using something else? Something older? Some·

thing newer? Something more expensive? Something cheaper?How near? How far? In whlll direction?How soon? How often? Since when? For how long?Could I do this in combination? With whom? With what?How about doing the opposite?Whllt would bappen if I did nothing?

Of course, this list is very general. But you can easily seethat it may help in solving everyday problems. In fact, theseare the kind of questions everybody asks himself more orless at random; it's useful 10 have them down in black andwhite.

Ho\\,·ever. for an expert twenty questions player a list likethis is not enough. II's handy for the opening moves of thegame, for the animal-vegetable-mineral or wood-or-wood­product st3ge. Beyond th3t. the more unusual the category,the more sean:hing lmd fruitful the qucSlion. To approachThe Face on the Barroom Floor. Mr. Vandeventer had tothink up a brand-new division of the field: "Little-knownp~m by farnow author or farnow poem by little-knownauthor?"

In the same way, the genius problem-solver raises questions

ANIMAL, VEGI?TADlP., OR MINI!RAL 255

that are way beyond the standard repertory. He arrives a1 asolution by asking himself whether badminton can be playedas a noncompetitive game or whether foreign lOans can begiven in goods rmher than money.

Such original classifications arc rare, of course. They arehard to think of at the spur of the moment. That's why novel,unusual classifications arc always valuable; watch out forlhem and add them to your mental repenory as you go along.

Collecting unusual classifications is a sort of hobby ofmine. Here are some of my more interesting specimens:

E. M. Forster quotes a literary scholar who classified theweather in noyels as "deeoratiye, utilitarian, illustrative,planned in preestablished harmony, in emotional contrast,determinative of action, a controlling influence, itself a hero,and non-existent."

Professor Folsom of Vassar College c:Iassified loye as"sexual, dermlll, cardiac-respiratory, lIod unc:lassifinble."

Mr. Russell Lynes of Harpers Magazine classified peopleas "highbrows, middlebrows, and lowbrows" aod as "intel­lectual snobs, regional snobs, moral snobs, sensual snobs.emotional snobs, taste snobs, occupational snobs, politicalsnobs, and reverse or anti-snob snobs."

Professor W. Lloyd Warner of the University of Chicagoclassified people socially as "upper.upper-<:Iass, lower-upper­class, upper-middle-<:lass, lower-middle-class, upper-lower­class, and lower-lower-class."

Professor Paul F. Lazarsfeld of Columbia University classi·tied people as "opinion leaders and opinion followers."

The German psychiatrist Kretschmer classified people bybody types as "pyknic" (round), "asthenic" (thin), and"athletic" (muscular); later Professor William H. Sheldon ofColumbia University renamed these types "endomorphs"(fat), "mesomorphs" (Mrong), and "ectomorphs" (skinny)and called lhe corresponding temperament types "viscero­tonic" (easy-going), "somatotonic" (active), and "cerebro­tonic" (nervous).

William James classified people as "tough-minded andtender-minded," C. G. Jung classified them liS "introvertsand extroverts," and Friedrich Nietzsche classified them as"Dionysian and Apollonian."

And the late Yale geographer Ellsworth Huntington c1assi·fled people according to what month they were born in,maintaining that most geniuses are conceived in early spring.

The significance oC all this for clear thinking and problem.solving isn't always immediately obvious, but it may make

256 How TO WATTI!. SPEA~ AND TUSNK MORI! EPFECTIV1ll.Y

quite a difference whelh~r you are dealing with an asthenic,lower-upper-<:Iass. middlebrow hous~wiCe who was born inApril and is a tough.minded opinion leader, or with aviscerotonic, uppcr-middle-class executive who is ao 0c­cupational snob and was born an extrovert in November.

Seriously, tbough, it is Irue that new classifications will oC·ten completely change our altitudes and our thinking.

In the field of nutrition, for instance, the chemical c1assifi·cation of foods has made a vast difference in everybody'sCluing habits.

1n politics, our outlook has changed since the old classifi·cation of right vs. left has given way to the oew one oftOlnlitarilln vs. democralic.

And history loob differenl to us since Spengler and Toyo­bee wrote of the rise and fall of civilizations rnther thannations.

All of which may seem preny far afield from the good oldgame of twenty questions. But 1 think the connection is clear.Twenty questions offers a simple strategy for solving everydayproblems, but it can also be used to allack and solve tbe mostimponant problems of our age. As I said, it is the model ofmodem scientific research technique. Quite possibly, Ihe logicof twenty questions is now the heir to the thronc vacated byformal logic.

Future students of twenty questions logic will conceivablystart their analysis with a simple mathematical fact: Twentyquestions asked by a perfect player cover a range of 1,048.576possible solutions. In other words, if you know how, you canuse twenty questions 10 pick the one idea in n million. .

Now do you believe Ihal Iwenty questions is a powerfultool of thinking?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

THE MORE OR LESS SCIENTIFICMETHOD

Perhaps the most famous incident in the hislory of scienceoccurred in the third century B.C. in Syracuse, Sicily. Themathematician Archimedes was laking a bath. His mind wasbusy with a scientific problem. King Hiero of Syracuse badordered a golden croWD and suspected the goldsmith of hav·ing cbe:ued him by using some silver instead of the gold he'dbeen supplied with. The king had asked Archimedes to proveit.

Suddenly Archimedes noticed that his body caused somewater to spill over. In a flash he realized the solUlion of theproblem: he'd take the crown's weight in pure gnld, dip itinto water, and see whether the overflow was the same asthat of the crown. Whereupon he jumped out of the tub, raohome naked as be was, nnd shouted to everyone he met:"Eureka! Eureka! •.. I've found il! I've found itt"

Perhap!l the least f3mous incident in the history of scienceoccurred in the twentieth century A.D. in the United States.The chemist J. E. Teeple was taking a bath. His mind wasbusy with a scientific problem. He stepped out of his bath,reacbed for n towel, dried himself, shaved, took another balh,stepped Ollt of it, reached for a towel and discovered thatthe towel was wet. Thinking about his scientifiC problem, bebad taken two baths. He bad not found the solution to hisproblem.

The first of these incidents has been retold a million times;the second is trivial. Nevenheless, the second is tbe one thatgives the tnler picture of the scientific method.

In the first place, the story about Archimedes puts thespotlight on the happy discovery, giving tbe impression thatthis sort of thing is typical of a scientist's life, Actually,"Eureka I" moments are few nnd far between. Einstein once

'"

2$8 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TIliNK MORS EPFECTIVELY

said: "I think and Ihink, for months, for years, ninety-ninetimes the conclusion is false. The hundredth time 1 amright." And that'S Einstein, the greatest scientific genius ofour time. I leave it to you to estimate the percentnge of cor·reet solution! in an ordinary scientist's work. Most of theirlives are spent like Mr. Teeple's hair-hour in the bathroom,thinking and thinking and gelling nowhere.

But there's a more imponam reason why Archimedescrying "Eureka!" isn't a good picture of a scienlist. Today nOscientist, dressed or undressed, would dream of telling people"I've found itl" as soon as he has hit upon a bright idea. Evenless would he do the modern equivalent-announce his dis­covery immediately to the press. Just the contrary. He wouldtake care not 10 breathe a word about it to anyone, but quietlygo to his laboratory and run some tests-and more tests­and more tests.

A scientist today doesn't consider a bright idea as a revela­tion of tbe truth; he considers it as something to be disproved,Not just proved, mind you; it's his obligation as a scientist tothink of all conct:ivable means and ways to disprove it. Thishabit is so ingrained in him that he doesn't even realize itany more; he automatically thinks of 11 theory as somethingto find flaws in. So he does experiments and hunts for everyerror he can possibly think of; and when he is through withhis own expcrimenl5, he publishes his findings not in a news­paper but in a scientific journal, inviting other scientists todo some other experiments and prove him wrong.

And when the hunt for errors has subsided lind a theorygelS eslablished and nccepled-do scientists think lhey've gothold of n new truth? No. To them, nil scientific findings areonly tentat;w! truth, "good until further notice," to be im­mediately disearded when someone comes nlong wilh anothertheory that explains a few more faclS. Absolute lruth doesn'teven interest them; they get along very happily, thank you,with a set of working hypotheses thai are good only at cer4

lain times and for certain purposes. The most fllmous exampleof this today is the theory of light. There is n wave theorythat fits cennin investigations, and a particle theory that 6tl1certain othe15. Yeal5 ago physicists stopped trying to find outwhich is true and which is false. The Danish Nobel prize win­ner, Niels Bohr, has called this the principle of complemen­tarity, saying that after all "waves" and "particles" are onlyhandy metaphors in dealing with cenain facts; so why not usewhichever is more practical at the moment? Never mind whatlight is "reallY"i Ict's gCt on with the job of finding out what

TlII! MORE OR LESS SCIENTIFIC METHon 259

it does. Or, as one physicist said, "Let's use the particletheory 00 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the wavetheory on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays."

For the layman, the mosl important thing about science isthis: Ihal it isn'l a search for truth but a search for error,The scientist lives in 11 world where truth is unattainable, butwhere iI's always possible to find errors in the long.settled orthe obvious. You want to know whether some theory is reallyscientific? Try Ihis simple lest: If the thing is shot throughwith perhapses and maybes and hemming and hawing, it'sprobably science; if it's supposed to be the final answer, it isnot.

So-called "scientific" books that arc supposed 10 containfinal an.~wers are never scientific. Science is forever self~

correcting and changing; what is put forlh as gospel truthcannot be science.

BUI what does ScieJICe mean? If someone asked you for adefinition, you'd probably be on the spot. If pressed, youmight come up with something like the definition in Web·ster's: "A branch of study, , . concerned with the observationand classification of facts, esp, with the establishment. , •or verifiable general laws .. ,"

That's a pretty good description of what the word meansto the average person. Does it mean tbe same thing toscientists? It does not. In 195] Dr. James B, Conant, whowas trained as a cbemist, published his definition of science:"An interconnected series of concepts and conceptual schemesthat have developed as a result of experimentation and ob­servation and arc fruitful of further experimentation andobservation." As you see, the two definitions are almost exactopposites. You think science deals with facts; a scientistthinks it deals with concepts. You think science tries to estab­lish laws; a scientist thinks it aims at more and more experi­ments.

And what is the scientific method? Your answer is apt tobe: "The classification of facts." Dr. Conant's answer is .againdifferent. Look up Scientific method in the index of his book,Science and Common Sense, and you'l] find this: "Scientificmethod. See Alleged scientific method." In other words, Dr.Conant thinks there iSII" allY scientific method.

That surely is extreme. Even if there is no clearly definablescientific method, there's a way in which scientists work,nnd it's certainly worth knowing about. Let's look at a. care­ful description by Dr. W. 1. B. Beveridge, Ii British biologist:

260 How TO WPJTE, SPEAK, 1J'o"D TIlIl'o"X MOR!! EFF£cnvay

The following is a common sequence in an investiga.lion of a medical or biological problem:

(a) The relevant literature is criticnlly reviewed.(b) A thorough collection of field data or equivalent

observ3.tional enquiry is conducted, and is supplementedif necess:l.CY by Laboratory examination of specimens.

(c) The information obtained is marshalled and cor·related and the problem is defined and broken down intospecific questions.

(d) Intelligent guesses are made to answer the ques­tions, as many hypotheses as possible being considered.

(t") EJt:periments are devised to test first the likeliesthypotheses bearing on the most crucial questions.

TIle key word here is guesses in (d). In the popular viewthe cmphasis is on (b), the colleCtion of data. But not amongscientislS. They like to distinguish between "acc:umulaton"aod "guessers," and they're pretty much agreed that it's theguessers that are imponant. 10 more fancy terms, you couldsay that the modern emphasis is on deduction rather thaninduction, or that the Aristotelian method is now moreesteemed than the Baconian. What it comes down to issimply this: Our lop scientists say we need more ideas ratherthan more bcts; they want morc Einsteins who just sit andthink rather than Ediscns who have a genius for tinkering inthe !Dboratory. After nil, Edison, as one of them has said,"was not II scicmist lind was not even interested in science."

Meanwhile, our research relies far more on accumulatingthan on guessing. Genernl Electric, with its training coursesin "Creative Engineering," is the ClIception; the AmericanCancer Society, which is openly resigned to "whittling awayat Ihis mass of mystery," is typical of the general rule.

Which is why Dr. Sinnott. when he was director of theSheffield School of Science at Yale, said:

It must be ruefully admitted that we have not p~duced our share of great Dew germinative ideas in recentyears. In atomic research, for example, most of thefundamental theoretical progress was mnde eithcr byEuropean scientists or mcn wbo bad received their train­ing abroad. We are strong in application, in developmentnnd engineering, but mucb less so in the fundamentalcontributions of the thcory on which all these are bascd•. . . We are in danger of being overwhelmed by a rowoC undigested results.

TIm MORIl OR LESS SCIENTIFIC MI!TlI0D 261

And what ill tbe method used by those bard-to-find "guess­ers"? U we try to analyze it, we come right back. to Dunck.·er's description of problem-solving, to his "solutions frombelow" and "solutions from abovc." Scientific problems arcsolved either by finding a seemingly irrelevant key factor orby applying a seemingly unsuitable thought pattern. Whichmeans that scientific discoveries arc made in one' of twoways: by accidcnt or by hunch.

Take any history of science, and you'll find that it is ahistory of accidents ::md hunches. Doth types of discoveriesarc equally f(lScinating.

If you're interested in accidents, for instance, scientifichistory looks like this:

In 1786, Luigi Galvani noticed the accidental twitChing ofa frog's leg and discovered the principle of the electric battery.

In 1822, the Danish physicist Oersted, at the end of alecture, happened to put n wire conducting an electric currentnear a magnet, which led to Faraday's inventioo of theelectric dynamo.

In 1858, a scventeen-year-old boy named William HenryPerkin, trying to make artificial quinine, cooked up a black·looking mass, which led to his discovery of aniline dye.

In 1889, Professors voo Mering nod Minkowski operatedon a dog. A laboratory nssistant noticed that the dog's urineattracted swarms of flies. He called this to the atlention of

. Minkowski, who found Ihat the urioe contained sugar. TIllsW3S the first step in the control of diabetes.

10 1895, Roentgen noticed that cathode rnys penetratedblack paper and discovered X-rays.

In 1929, Sir Alexander Fleming noticed that a culture ofbacteria bad been accidentally contaminated by a mold. Hesaid to himself: "My, that's a funny thing." He hnd discoveredpenicillin.

Of course, all these accidents would have been meaninglessif they hadn't happened to Galvani, Perkin, Roentgen, and soon. As Pasteur has said, "Chance favors the prepared mind."What is necessary is an accidental event plus nn observer withstrcndipity-"thc gift of finding valuable or agreeable thingsnot sought for." (Horace Walpole coined that beautifulword.)

On the.other hand, if you're interested in hunches, scientifichistory looks like this, for example:

Harvey describes his discovery of the circulation of theblood:

262 How TO WRrTI!, SPI!AK. A.>.;J) THrm:: MORB EPFECTlVELY

I frequently and seriously bethought me, and loogrevolved in my mind, what might be the quantily ofblood which was transmitted, in how short a time itspnssnge might be effected and the like.... I began 10think whether there might not be a motion. as it were,in a circle.

James Walt invenls the steam engine:

On a fine Sabbath aflernoon I took a walk. . .. Ihad entered the green nnd had passed the old washinghouse. I was thinking of the engine at the lime. I hadgone as Cur as the herd's house when Ihe idea carne intomy miod that Il5 steam was nn elastic body it would rushinlo a vacuum, and if n connection were made betweenthe cylinder and an exhausting vessel it would rush intoit and might then be condensed without cooling thecylinder.•.. I had not walked further than the golfhouse whcn the whole thing was arrnnged in my mind.

Darwin 'ft-nlcs about his theory of evolution:

J cnn remember the very spot in the road, whilst inmy carriage. when 10 my joy lbe solution QCCU!'TW to me.

Kekule tells how he discovered lbe benzene ring on tOp ofa London bus:

I sank inlo 3. reverie. The atoms flitted aboul beforemy eye:!l.•.. J saw how t.....o small ones otlcn joined inlO

n lillie pnir; how a larger look hold of two smaller, anda still larger clasped three or even four of the smlllIOOCS. nod bow all spun around in 3. whirling round·dance..•• The cry of the conduClor, "Onpham Road,"woke me up.

Walter B. Cannon discovers the significance of bodilychanges in fear and roge:

These changes-the more rapid pulse, the deeperbreruhin8, the increase of sugar in the blood, the stere­tion front the adrennl glands-were very diverse andseemed unrelated. Then, one wakeful night, atlcr a con·siderable coUtetion of these changes had been disclosed,lbe idea. Oashed through my mind that they could be

THE MOJlI! OR LESS ScU!NTlFIC M"ETlIOD 263

nicely integrated if conceived ns bodily prep:trntions forsupreme effort in Oikht or in fighting.

Does nil this mean thnt some scieotisl.JI are good at hunchesand some others blessed with serendipity? Not at aU, Theaccideotal clue needs a receptive mind; the hunch has to growfrom a study of facl.JI. The good guesser works both wnys,depending on what he has 10 go on. Here's one more examplethat shows a combination of both methods. It is typical ofmodem scientific research in many ways.

During World War TI, a team of psychologists studied thepropaganda cfJect of orientation films. Among other things,they tried to find out whether films changed the opinions andattitudes of soldiers who saw them, and whether and howthese changes lasted. They had a huneh that the efJttt of thefilms would gradually wear off and that aher some time,soldiers would forget the factuaJ. details and revert 10 theiroriginal opinion.

This idea mny seem rather obvious to you. It seemedobvious to the pS)'chologists te<r-but, being scientisl.JI, theydecided to test it anyway. So they gnve the soldiers a testafter one week. and another tcst after nine ween.

As expected, the soldiers had forgotten most of the factsin the film during those eight weeks. But, "clearly contraryto the initinl expectation," the genc1111 propaganda effect ofthe film-the opinion change-had considerably increasedbetween the tirst and the second tcst. There was not thesli~htest doubt about it: the soldiers had forgotten the detailsof the film, but its mcssage had sunk in deeper.

The research team cheerfully accepted this unexpected factand immediately proceeded to accounl for it by a hypothesis.Thcy found that it could be explained through n thcory bythe British psychologist, Daniell, published in 1932. Ban!ettbad writlen that "nfter learning, that which is recalled tendsto be modified with lapse of time in the direction of omissionof all but general content and introduction of new materialin line with the individual's altitudes," ]n olher words, astime passes, we're apt to forget details but reinforce what weremember of the general idea.

Well. what have we here? Doubtless the research team madea valunble discovery, Yet the whole story is as unlike thatof Archimedes in his bath as can be. For one thing, there isno single scientist, but a team of thincen men and twowomen. Second, the discovery is exactly the opposite fromwbat the scientists expected to fi.nd, Third, it is immediately

264 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TIlINK MORn EFFECTIVIlLY

connected up with an idea thought up by aoother scientist inanother country, twenty years before.

And (mally. there is no "Eureka!", no shouting from thehousetops, no happy annOUDcement to the world. Instead,after reponing their discovery and stating their hypothesis,the researchers add casually: "These bighly spC{:ulative sug­gestions indicate some very interesting areas for fulure reosentch."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE HARNESSING OF CHANCE

The wildly improbnble happens every day.Not long ago there was a picture in Lile that showed a

group of deer iocluding three albinos. Photographer StaberReese took it in northern Wisconsin, where there are 850,000white-tailed deer, twenty of which are albinos. Reese figuredthat the mathematical odds against a picture with three albinodeer in it were 79 billion to one.

Or consider the odd coincidences tllllt happen in every.one's life. For example, on page 197 of this book I listedsome of the Chukchee names for reindeer. I had found thesenames referred to (but not given) in n book by Franz DOllS,and went to the New York Public Library to copy them fromBoas' source-the tattered, fifty-year-old seventh volume ofthe report on the Jesup North Pacific Expedition by Walde­mar Bogoras. When I came home that evening, I found thelatest copy of The New Yorker. The first thing I read in itwas II "footloose correspondent" report on Lapland, listiDgthe various names for reindeer used by tbe Lapps.

Or here is something a little more exotic. In 1923 the poetlIod literary scholar Leonard Bacon went to the University ofCalifornia library nnd took out II twenty·year-old hook pub­lished in Vienna. On the train to Monterey. he opened thebook lind began to read tbe introduction. When he got to theacknowledgments, he came upon the arresting name LordTalbot de Malahide. (This was long before the Boswell pa­pers were found at Malahide Castle.) At this point Mr. Bacongot bored with his book lind turned to the San FranciscoChronicle. There he found a social note that Lord and LadyTalbot de Malahide were staying at the St. Francis Hotel.

Too trivial for you? Then consider the following case. In1908 the Rev. James Smith, pastor of a small Negro coogre­

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266 How TO WRITI!. SPUX, AND Tlllm MORB EFFI!CTIVELY

gntion at Reid's Ferry, Virginia, mysteriously disappeared.Soon afterward the corpse of a large Negro was found inthe Nansemond River ncar the church. TIlere was evidence ofn blow on the head with a blunt instrument. The body wasuorecognizable, but its clothes were identified as similar tothose worn by Smith. Also, a woman friend of Smith whohad not seen the body told the authorities thut if it wasSmith, they'd find a ring with a purple setting on the liUlefinger of the left hand. They did.

The most likely suspect of the murder was Smith's rivalnod successor, the Rev. Ernest Lyons. He was tried, convictedof second-degree murder, and sentenced to eighteen years inprison.

Three years latcr Smith was found alive in North Carolina,where he had absconded with church funds. He wore a ringwith a purple setting on thc Httlc finger of his left hand. Thefateful ring on the corpse in the river had bcen sheer coinci­dence. Lyons had served three years in prison for "murder­ing" a man who was still alive.

There is no complete defense against the sea of improba­bilities that surrounds us. But there are weapons. Armed withprobability theory and statistics, it is possible to face calmlythis world of coincidences and seemingly miraculous events.

Above all, the statistical approach is an antidote againstthe shudder and tbe helplessness we feel in the face of theextraordinary. Mr. Reese figured that the chances against hisgetting that deer picture were 79 billion to one. He may havebeen wrong, of course; but even if he was right. the oddest ofchances is a more comfortable thing to contcmplate than&omething that cnnnot possibly happen but does. At theMonte Carlo roulctte table, red once came up thirty-twotimes in a row. This must have been an uncanny thiog towatch for those who were there, but they too had the com·fort of knowing that it wasn'l a miracle. It was just some­thiog that happens once io four billioo times.

The other way round, the statistical approach is also helpfulbecause it teaches you Ihat you can't always expect the aver­age. Don't believe it if people tell you tbat statisticians reduceeverytbing 10 averages. It just isn't so: they know better thananyone else that an avenge is just one point 00 a curve.

In sbort, tbe statistical view gives you a pretty realisticpicture of what the world is like. We are all apt to assume Ihat.the good, the bad, and the medium are fairly evenly distrib­uted; but the statisticians cao prove that this is wroog. Theirbell-shaped. so-<:alled "normal" curve shows that ordinarily

TUE HARNESSiNO OP CJL\NCB 267

there are more medium cases than either good or bad ones,and there are always some that are very good or very bad.Suppose you are interested in gi rls and classify them as "good­looking," "so-so," and "plain:' Do you expect to find aboutonc-third of each? A statistician will teU you that you mustn'toverlook the exceptional cases at either end of the scale andthat you must be preparcd to see morc of .the average. His"normal" distribution will look like this:

Beautiful 7 po< centGood-looking 24 po< centSo-so 38 po< centPlain 24 po< centUgly 7 po< cent

Look around you, and you'll find that statisticians know athing or two.

Most important, statistics teaches you not to rely on asinglc insta.nce, or even a few. You need lois of cases toestablish a fact-not as true, mind you, but as highly probable.One case is nothing; ten cases arc nothing. A thousand cases?Maybe they show a trend.

But then, of course, it's not always possible to assemble athousand cases, and even if you do, you're apt to run intoerrors and mistakes. The larger the figures, the larger the

, sources of error. In July, 1950, Dr. Roy V. Peel, nationaldirector of the Census Bureau, revealed that even with thebest scientific methods census figures "should be within aboutone per cent of the truth." In September, 1949, the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics discovered it bad underrated thenumber of unemployed by one million.

So, since complete surveys aren't practical and nrc farfrom foolproof, statisticians arc usually content to takesamples. In theory, a small random sample tells almost asmuch as a full survey. But there is a joker in this statement:it's the word random.

If you draw slips with names from a drum, it's supposedlyrnndom. But even in that case statisticians will tell you thatcertain elements may influence your choice. What you thinkis random-like closing your eyes and dropping a pencil ona page--isn't random to a statistician at all. They use printedtables of random numbers, and even with those they're alway!afraid of some bias creeping in somewhere.

For instance, statisticians have discovered that three-fourthsof the popUlation are apt to call "heads" rather than "tails"

268 How TO WRml, SrEAlt, AND T1l1m MORE! EPFECTIVELY

in coin tossing. Why, nobody knows. They have found thatif you arrange five lest questions so that the correct answers~ "'yes," "no," ''yes,'' "DO," "yes," people will unconsciouslyshy away from Ihat pattern. Looks 100 symmelrical 10 beright. They have found thai if you pick a sample of peoplewhose name begins wilh a cenain leller, the sample will bebiased. Names are connecled with Datiollality, and thereforewith income and social slatm.

In social surveys and public opinion polls. random samplingseenu 10 be particularly impossible. True, there is a newsystem-Harea samplins"-that excludes the interviewer'sbins and forces him to question certain people whether hewants to or not; but evcn that method is fllr from foolproof.The older system-"quota sampling"-leaves it to the inter·viewer to make up his quota of interviewees. This is themethod of the GallUp poll and most other public opinionpolls. It never produces a random sample. When you slop tothink about it, that's quite obvious, since interviewers are justlike other people and dislike din, noise. smells, sickness,stllir<limbing. unfriendliness, language difficulties and allthe other embarrassmenlS nnd troubles that make up a trulyrandom sample. No wonder there are about IS per cent morewell-eduented, nlltive-born, one-family.house dwellers in mostquota samples than Ihere are in the American population.

All of this, however, is comparnlively simple. Statistics gel.!really complicated when we get into the business of two-waystatistics-in other worw, correlations. This is where we getinto the statistical solution of problems.

To understand what correlation is all about, leI'S go backfor a moment to that ninetecnth<cDlury genius, John StuartMill-lhe man whose I.Q. was estimated the highest of alltimej the man who learned ancient Greek at the age of three.Having read Aristotle's logic in the originnl when he wastwelve, MiII thought tbat something ought 10 be done aboutit. After some twenty-five years, he did: in 1843 he publishedhis own Logic as a subslitute.

Mill started with an analysis of the methods used in scien·tific resenrch. So, inste:r.d of the old rules of the syllogism, became up with four methods of experimental inquiry. These,he proudly 1Ul110unced, were the only po1Sible ones-"at least,I know oot, nor am I able to imagine, any others.•.. Theycompose the available resources of the human mind fornscertainiog the laws of the succession of phenomena."

Now what are Mill's "methnds"? Dll5ical1y, there are two:the "method of agreement" and the "method of difference"

TilE H"RNESSrNO OP CHANCE 269

-which may be combined into the "joint method of agree­ment and difference." There are also two more specializedmethods: Ihe "method of residucs" and the "method of con.com~tant variations." Mill explains all these with great com.plexlty and Early Victorian detail, but fortunately we don'thave to bother wilh all that. By Ihe time lohn Dewey gotaround to writing his book. on HOI.., We Tlrink in 1910 Mill'srules were just good enough (or a brief footnote, 'statingcasually Ihal only the "joint method of agreement anddifference" was of any use. Well, the "joint method of agree­ment and difference" consists simply in varying one factorwhile keeping all others constant. Long ngo it was phrasedunsurpassably by Professor C. F. Chandler of ColumbiaUniversity: "Vary one thing at a time, and make a note ofall you do."

The effect of this---of varying one thing at a time---cao bemeasured by the stntisticaltecbnique of correlation. You takea large number of cases, measure the variable you are in.terested in, measure another variable for comparison, andwork out the relationship between the two. Basically, it'snothing but a refinement of the kind of thing you do naturallyto find the cause of any elTeet. If you sit under a [amp andthe light goes out, you fetch another bulb and screw it in: youvary one factor, keeping everything else constant. If the newbulb works, you're satisfied you've found the cnuse of tbelight going out. If it doesn't, you vary other factors, one at atime: you try another plug, you change a fuse, and so on.Each step is a scientific experiment in miniature.

So far, so good. But often you do the same thing witholltexperimenting. You see that a change in one factor is ac­companied by a cenain elTect, and you think you've dis~

covered the cause. This is Mill's method of "concomitantvnriation.~." It may work-sometimcs; or it may not. Sinceyou dido't set up the experiment, you can't control nnything,and the effect may have been produced by a million reasonsyou don't know of.

For example, there is the classic case of the village ofPolykastron in Greece. Early in 1950 the United NationsInternational Children's Emergency Fund distributed pow·dcred milk to expectant mothers there. Shortly afterward,Ihe first two women who used it gave binh to twins on tbesame day-the first twin'> born in the village in ten years.The women of Polykastron drew the obvious conclusion;they decided they'd rather flOt usc UN powdered milk.

Why, these were poor Greek peasant women, you say:

270 How TO WRITI!. 51'flAIl:, ,o,r-"D TIIINX MORI! EFFECTIVELY

educated people are not apt 10 make such mistakes. TIut theydo. Conspicuous correlations fool everybody, including sci·entists. For inslance, in 1927 Dr. Manfred Sake! discoveredthat SChizophrenia can be treated by administering overd05~

of insulin. Overdoses of insulin often produce a convulsiveshock. So bundreds of psychilltrists, just like the Greekwomen, drew the obvious conclusion and began 10 Ireatschizophrenia and other mental disea.'\cs by simply givingtheir patients electric shocks and leaving out the insulin. Ata 1950 psychiatric convention, Dr. Sake! slIdly explained thatelectric !lhoch nrc actually harmful and that the insulin cureis really based on restoring n patient's balance of hormones.For over twenly ycars, he said, the standard procedure hadbecn based on a misconccption.

This is the sort of thing 10 kcep in mind before puttingtoo much faith in correllllions. Statisticians hnve even moreimpressive examples. One of them discovered a correlationof .90 between the number of storks' nests in Stockbolm andthe number of babies born there over a period of yean.Another (this was a favorite example of the late ProfessorMOrTis Cohen) found, over a cenain period, a correlalion of.87 between tbe membership of the International Machinists'Union and tbe death rate of the stale of Hyderahad.

You want 10 know the meaning of these 6gures? They looklike percentages hut they are not: they are correlation co­efficients. Let's spend a minute or two on getting the hangof the basic principle.

Correlation coefficients come in assorted sizes between plusone and minus one. Plus one means perfect correlation: if xhappens, y always happens 100. Minu~ one means perfectnegative correlation: if x happens, y never hllppens. Zeromeans no correlation whatever: if x happens, y mayor maynot happen, you can't tell.

For example, I~t's take some fictitious correlation cc;efficients between ag/! and valu/!:

+.90: Value regularly increases wilh age (e.g. Wine)+.45: Value often increases with age (e.g. paintings)

.00: Value has nothing to do with age (e.g. diamonds)-.45: Value oflen decreases Wilb age (e.g. houses)-.90: Value regularly decreases witb age (e.g. news)

I dido't give examples of plus ooe or mious ooe, becauseperfect correlations virtually don't exisi. Statisticians considera correlation of .90 (like that belween Stockholm storh'nests nnd babies) as practically perfect.

And now that J have given you proper warning agaillSt

THE &RSe5StNO OF CliANCE. 271

putting blind failh in correlations, let me show you whatthey are good for.

Take, for instaoce, lln analysis of certain intelligence testsfor boys who wllnted to qualify for the Army or Navy collegetraining program during World War II. Researchers figuredthe averages of the scores for each of tbe forty-eight statesGnd correlated those averages with other statistics. Here aresome of thcir findings:

+.83: Intelligence. lest scores increased with number attelephones per thousand.

+.69: Intelligence test scores increased wilh number offoreign-born per thousand.

+.67: Intelligence tcst scores increased with number ofresidents per 100,000 in Who's Who.

-.01: Intelligence test scores hlld nOlhing tn do withnumber of persons killed in auto accidents per 100,000.

-.53: Intelligence lest scores decreased with pen::enlageof population without library service.

-.53: Intelligence test scores decreased with number atlynchings (1882-1944) per 100,000.

-.66: Intelligence test scores decreased with number ofrural homes without privies per 1,000.

"Without much facetiousness," the researchers summedup, "we interpret these results to mean that the probabilitiesof reaching a high educational achievement arc much greaterif one comes from a high income state which is highly urban,which is not in the South, and which bas such advantages Il.!I

library service available to most of its population, bas a highproportion of foreign-born citizens, n large number of resi­dents in Who's Who, and many telephones."

Or take a stntistical study by Dr. Sheldon Glueck of Har~

yard University and his wife, Dr. Eleanor Glueck. They triedto find the causes of juvenile delinquency. More scientificallyspeaking, they tried to isolate certain factors that distinguishdelinquent boys from those who are not.

Dr. and Mrs. Glueck devoted ten yenrs to their study.Being scientists, they began their study by making certninguesses. Being scientists, they then proceeded to test theseguesses. They assembled mountains of data on five hundreddelinquent and five hundred non-delinquent boys. When theyhad collected all the statistics 00 the factors they were in­terested in, they looked for differences io tbe degree ofcorrelation.

They found, among other things, that the parents of de­linquent boys were often more erratic than those of other

272 How TO WIlrT£, SPIl.U, AND TmNlC: MaRl! EFFECTIVELY

boys; that between-children are more likely to become de·linquent than either first or last children; that delinquent boyswere usually more muscular than othen and scored higherin certain parts of intelligence tests. On the whole, theyfound that delinquency is connected with a boy's home liCe,with his lemperament and character, and with his ability toget aloog witb people. 10 fact, Dr. and Mrs. Glueck drewup a "prediction table" by which su;-year.-olds can be spottedas (uture delinquents if a long list of (actors is known. But,of course, they didn't .tay that this prediction was infallibloor that they had found once and for all the causes of juveniledelinquency. They just reported what they gingerly called a"tentative causal formula or law:'

Now this is eXllctly the kind of thing people are apt to ex..plain by "fate" or "bnd blood" or "slum conditions" or what­ever other pet explanation they are fond of. The Glueck studyis a beautiful example of the scieotific approach. The Glueck.sdidn't look for a single cause; in fact, they didn't look for"a cause" at aU. They looked for certain facton that were 10a certain degree connected with delinquency. And they con·cluded, not that juvenile delinquency was due to this orthat. but that if n combination of certain factors was prescotto a certain degree. the result would probably be a lendencyto delinqueocy.

Of course I don't menn to say thai in everyday life youshouldo't decide anYthing before you b:ave mnde a ten-yeustatistical study, BUI you can use the scientific npproach ll3a model. Instead of tbe black-and-white, single-track, every­one·knows-that·this·is-due·to·that approach, get used to thoidea that this is a world of multiple callses, imperfect correia­tioos, Qnd sheer, unpredictable chance.

It is true that the scientists, with their statistics and theirprobabilities. have made a slab at the harnessing of chance.But they know very well that certainty is unattainable. Ahigh degree of probability is the best we can ever get.

Chapter T\Venty-Nine

HOW NOT TO RACK YOUR BRAIN

It's time to sum up.Have we gotten any closcr to clear thinking after our ex­

cunions into law, ps}'t:bology, science, and statistics? Havewe arrived at any rules?

Well, if you've learned anything from this book.. you'Uknow tbat there can't be any rules. Or rather, that the firstrule of clear thinking is not to go by rules.

However, let', at least draw up a list of reminders. Here itis:

I. Try to remember that everybody, including yourself,has only his own experience to think with.

2. Try to detach your ideas from your words.3. Translate the abstract and general into the concrete

and specific.4. Don't apply general rules blindly 10 specific problems.5. To solve a pUZZling problem, look Cor a seemingly

irrclevnot key factor in the situation and for n seeminglyunsuitable pattern in your mind.

6. Narrow the field of solutions by n.~king "twenty ques-­tions,"

7. Remember that bright ideas are orten wrong and mustbe tested.

8. Don't underrate the influence of chance.I[ you are the kind of person who likes advice highly con.

centrated aod oeatly packaged, this is about the best I cando for you.

Except for one thing. The art of thinking, like every otheran, has also ao element of sheer routine about it-tbe basicmecbanics of the thing-When 10 do precisely what in whatway. The an of writing, for instance, includes, at a lowerlevel, penmanship or typing; the an of painting, a knowledge

273

274 How TO WRlTl!, SPEAR". AND TUJNX MORE EFFECTIVELY

of brushes and paints. In the same way, the art of thinkingincludes a certain amount of mechanics: when to think; whereto find ideas; how to use thinking-tools. So, while it is im·possible to draw up a list of thinking rules, it is quite possibleto give you some definite, practical thinking tips.

To begin with, there arc what is known as "stages ofthought." There is a typical, known sequence 10 the produc.tion of ideas-a sequence that is the same whether theproduct is a symphony, a mathematical theorem, a treaty, oran advertisement. The literature on this fascinating subjectreads like nothing else on earth; it's a branch of psychology,but it was written by chemists, novelists, mathematicians, biol­ogists, poets, and a very fcw psychologists. It is studded withcase histories of artistic and intellectual creation, from Des­cartes and Mozart to Einstein and Thomas Wolfe. It hastwo great classics: Professor John Livingston Lowes' monu·mental study of how Coleridge created his poem Kubla Khan,and Henri Poincare's famous lecture on how he arrived atthe theory of Fuchsian functions,

Among other things, Ihis literature contains at least a dozendescriptions of "stages of thought," nll somewhat similar.Here are four of them:

First, the four stages listed in Thl! Art 0/ Thought byGraham Wallas, a political scientist:

1. Preparation-tbe stage during which the problem isinvestigated,

2. Incubation-the stage during which you are not coo-seiously thinking about the problem.

3. Illumination-the appearance of the "happy idea."4. Verification.Next, the five stnges of Mr. James Webb Young. an adver.

tising man who wrote a little book, A Technique for Pro­ducing Idear:

I. The gathering of raw materials-both the materials ofyour immediate problem and the malerials which come froma conslant enrichment of your store of general knowledge,

2. The working over of these materials in your mind.3. The incubuting slage--where you let something beside

the conscious mind do the work of synthesis.4. The actual birth of the Idea-the "Eurekal I have itl"

stage.5. The fioal Shllpiog and developing of the idea to practical

usefulness.Third, the four stages of Mr. J. F. Young, of the General

How NOT TO RACK YOUR DIUtN' 275

Electric Company, who was interested in "Developing Crea.live Engineers":

1. Definition of the problem.2 Manipulation of clements bearing on solution.3. Period resulting in the intuitive idea.4. The idea is sbaped to practical usefulness.Fourtb, the stages listed by a psychologist, Dr. Eliot Dole

Hutchinson:1. Preparation or orientation.2. Frustration, renunciation or recession, in which for a

time the problem is given up.3. The period or moment of insight.4. Verification, elaboration or evaluation.On the whole, however, psychologists aren't too fond of

this son of approach. Take for instance the 1950 presidentof the American Psychological Association, Dr. J. P. Guilfordof the University of Southern California. ]0 his presidentialaddress he said, with an nir of marked disttlSte:

]0 tbe writings of those who have attempted to give ageneralized picture of creative behavior, there is con­siderable agreement that the complete creative act in­volves four important steps.... The creator begins witha period of preparation, devoted 10 an inspection of his

, problem and a collection of information or material.There follows a period of incubation during which thereseems to be little progress in the direction of fulfillment.But, we are told, there is activity, only it is mostly un­conscious. There eventually comes the big moment ofinspiration, with a final, or semi-final solution, often ac­companied by strong emotions. There usually follows aperiod of evaluation or verillcation. in which the creatortests the solution or examines the product for its fitnessor value. Little or much touching up may be done tothe product.

Dr. Guilford adds:

Such an analysis is very superficial from the psych~

logical point of view. It is more dramatic than it i9.suggestive of testable hypotheses. It tells us almost noth­ing about the menial operations that actually occur. Theconcepts do not lead directly to test ideas •••

Well, that puts Messrs. Lowes, Poincare, Wnllas, J. W.

276 How TO Warn, SPEAI. ,Uo"D Tw:m: Mall! EFFECTIVELY

Young, J. F. Young, Hutchinson, ct al., in their places, butit also gives us an exccllcnt summary of the "considerableagrcement" on the stnges of thought. Dr. Guilford may notlike it, but the body of evidence for the fOUf st.ages of thougbtis there, for all to see.

And now that we have a good composite picture of thethinking process, let's see bow we can practically improve lhemechanics of encb stage.

Let's SI",n with Mr. J. F. Young's tint step, the definitiol1of the problem. For this I can give you four pmctical tips:

I. Wri/e the problem down. The most importtlnt tools lora problem-solver are pencil and paper. [[ you want evidencefor this obvious proposition, take my friends and studentswho were exposed to the two little problems on page 240.Among the solutions done on paper, 80 per cent were right;among those done in the bead, 88 per cent were wrong.

2. Translate 'he problem into simple language. AU trans­lation helps; tmnslation into concrete, plain language helpsmost. J. B. $. Haldane, the famous biologist, claimed that hemade many of his discoveries while writing popular-scienceanicles {or factory workers.

3. II the problem can be stattd mathematically, state ItmQlhematically. Mathematics is a treasure bouse of problem­solving formulll5. If you can use it, by all means do so. Ifyou don't know enough mathematics, pass the problem on tosomeone who does.

4. If Ihe problem can be stated graphically, state it graphi­cally. A gTllph often helps you understand something thatlooks unintelligible io words or figures. Louis Bean, the onlyman who bas been- consistently right in predicting electionresults, says he performs this magic trick with charts andgraphs. Again, if you are not up on this technique, pass theproblem on 10 someone who is.

Next, let's proceed to tbe preparation stage. The firstpractical tip here is simple but basie: Don't rely on yOUT

memory.Everyone's memory is unreliable. And as if this wasn't

enough trouble, we t15ually remember the trivial and forgetthe essential.

Of course you know what silly little things we remember.W. W. Sawyer, ao English mathematician, sums it up nicely:

There are hundreds of things-odd remarks, pointlCS3little slories, lfieb with matches, stray pieces of inlor­matioD--whicb seem to have DO use in life, but which

How NOT TO RACK YOUR DRAIN 277

stay in your memory for years. At school we read ahistory book.... No one remembers the history....But tbere were certain footnotes io it; One about a curatewho grew crop!! in the churchyard and said it would beturnips oext year; a lady who blacked out a picture aodsaid "She is blacker within"; a verse about someonelonging to be at 'em and waiting for the Earl of Chatham--everyone knew these years after they left school.

These are the things we remember. And what are thethings we forget'} At school you learned how to find a squareroot. Can you do it now'} I can't. I bet you can't either.

For your comfort, let me quote the great mnlhematicianHenri Poincare: "I am absolutely incapable of nddiog with·Qut mistakes." And the famous writer Somerset Maugham:"1 often think how much easier life would have been for meand how much time J should have saved if I had known thealphabet. I can never tell where I aod J stands withoUl sayingG, R to mY5elf first. J doo't know whether P comes beforeR or after, aod where T comes in has to this day remainedsomething that I have never been able to get into my head.

Alekhine, the late world chess champion, once playedfifteen blind games simultaneously. After some time heasked an umpire for a cigarette. "How absent-minded of mel"he said. "I left my cigarette case at home again!"

So this is the main instrument we have for thinking. Here'sa fair example of how it works in an actual case. Miss MayLamberton Becker, who for many years wrote the column"The Render's Guide" in the New York Herald Tribune,once got the following inquiry from a reader:

Many years ago I read a novel which J should liketo read again. I do not remember the title or the author•• . . It was an English novel and the chief chnracter wasa mao. I believe he had a title, but I'm not sure aboutthat. He was perfectly formed from the waist up buthis legs were abnormally short.

Miss Becker described the pnx:css by which she arrived atthe answer:

There's no use making a strong effort :\t recall. It islike sitting beside n small, dark pool, keeping your eyefixed on it and expecting something to come up. Whatbad come up immediately, like a bubble to the surface,was a sensc of repulsion, something remembered as mon·

278 How TO Warm, SPEAI:, ANO TnlNl MORl! EFFEC'TIVELY

strous. Then ... I knew I'd read it years ago, early inthe cenlury. Then •.. it was wriuen by somebody winga pseudonym-a short one---foreign-sounding .•. amao's but the wriler WlU a woman. Then , .. the wordSir began 10 emerge from the submerged title; the senseof getting warmer was so strong 1 wenl to Keller'sR~ad~r$ Digest a/ Books and found in no time that itwas Th~ Hiftory 0/ Sir Richard Calmady by Lucas Malet,the daughter of Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Harrison. Thewhole jerky process wenl so rapidly tbat the book Wa3

recovered in less than eight minutes.

The moral is cleRr: Don't rely on your memory but lisewrillCn or p,jnt~(/ sources. Half the secret of good thinkingis Ihe intelligent use of sources.

Luck.ily for you, the use of source materials is easier today!hiln ever before. In the last fifty yean there has been a sortof revolution; it is a thowand times easier for you today touse source materials than it was for Aristotle, Bacon, Des­cartes, Newton, Goethe or any other great thinker of the pasL

This sounds exaggerated but it is true. Up to some fiftyye:lJ'S ngo, bibliography-Ihe hunting of sources-was some­thing every thinker hnd 10 do for himself. If he was lucky,he found what he needed; if not, he missed it. Gregor Mendel'sexperiments in heredity were published in 1866; in 1900they bad to be rediscovered by Correns, de Vries andTschermakoSe)'Seoegg.

Today such n Ihing couldn't happen. Every branch ofscicnce is covered bibliographically, nnd every scientist auto­matically follows the bibliography of his field. And this isnot nil. You, the Inym:ln, can now prepare your thoughtsexactly like a scientis!. The results of scientific thinking areregularly transmilled to you. Scientists rarely bother to telllaymen about their findings; but scores of popUlarizers nowstudy scientific bibliographies and pass on to the laymaneverytbing he ought to know.

There's no excuse any more for by-passing publisbed in­(ormalion; the sum of Ihe world's recorded knowledge is a!

near as tbe nearest library, U you can't get to a library, youcan write or phone; if the material you want iso't there, youcan get il tbrough interlibrary loan.

Of course, reading books, magazines, nnd newspapers isonly half the job. The other half is using all Ihis material inplace of that wretched memory of yours. This means note­laking and filing. How you do it is up to you; pick your own

How NOT TO RACK YOUR BRAIN 279

systcm. Dut notc-taking and filing there has to be; practicallynil the world's ideas havc comc out of notes and files.

The book you are reading now came out of a file drawerwith thirty-five folders--one for cach chapter. Somcthing likethis file drawer is bchind almost every book in existence­including even humor books. (The late Will Cuppy amassedand filed hundreds of three-by-five index cards before writingeach of his charming essays on topics like the minnow orthe dodo.)

But don't get the impression thaL the first stage of thinkingis always a solitary game of shuffiing index cards, Therc's amore sociable way of drawing on other people's IhoughlS:the discussion method.

Discussion method, of course, is only a fancy name forconversation. To shape your thoughts, exchange ideas withothers. Have a group of people sit around and talk, andyou'll find that together they'll have more ideas than ellch ofthem separately. This is a clear case of the whole being morethan its paris. Conversation is the greatest idea gencratorknown to man.

It is impossible to overratc thc idca-producing power ofconversation. Some of the best education is "Mark Hopkin.~

on one end o( the log and James Garfield on the other"; someof the shrewdest business deals are those arranged over theluncheon table; some of the greatest scientific discoverieshave come out of informal chats at annual meetings.

Are there any rules for idea-producing conversation? Well,n few are obvious: keep the talk on the subject; let everyonecontribute something; take notes of what has been said. Afew are not so obvious: don't forget to sum up once in awhile; don't be afraid of pauses. The most important rule ofnil is this: when you're not talking, listen. Don't sit there,unhenring, rehearsing what you're going to say nex!.

How many people should there be in the group? The mini­mum. of course, is two; but wha! is the mnximum? There isno answer, eltcept that everyone should have a chance 10 saysomething. Put a dozen people in a room, and you'll findthat four or five hardly open their mouths.

What's the best composition of the group? Again, there'sno answer. BUI try to get as many viewpoints as possible. Getthe young and the old together, executives and wage earners,farmers nnd profe.ssors, men and women.

Now suppose you havc done your library work, assembledyour notes. talked with others. Are you through with the

280 How TO WIl.Il1!., SPI!.AX, ANn Tuna MOllE EFFECTlVELY

preparation siage? Not quiIe. There are a few more thing!you can do to help your ideas to the surface.

First, remember the twenty questions technique. Practically,this means: Use a check list. Just a few days ago I made Qutmy income tall return. When I went over the check: list ofdeductions, I came upon Tht/ts and Loues and rememberedthat last summer my camera bad been stolen. Result: About$12 saved. See?

DOll·t Slick to n set list of classifiealions, though. Add newones. Shumo your index cards around; redistribute the ma~

terial in your folders. If you find a promising new category,add it to the Iisl; iell come in handy some time. Once, TheNew Yorker ran an item of "lncidental Intelligence": AnellC!:Utive, going through his secretary's files aCter bours,found in the H drnwer a fat folder marked HAPPEN, POS~

SUlLY SOMETHING WILL. That secretary wasn't as dumb asyou may think.

Next. "turn the problem around." OCten a problem C:1n besolved by lool:.ing at it upside down. A mathematician, KarlJacobi, said that this is the basic formula for mathematicaldiscoveries. I am not sure thnt's true: but it's certainly atechnique worlll trying. Arc you dealing with n general rule,n proverbial lruth, a basic principle? Remember what GeorgeSantayana said: "Almost every wise saying has an oppositeone, no less wise, to balance it." Here's a pet example ofmine. You know the saying, "Never strike a cbild in angtr"?Well, Bernard Shaw once wrote this: "If you strike a child,take care that you strike it in anger. , • , A blow in cold bloodneither can nor should be forgiven."

Third, don't be ofnid of the ridiculoos. Alfred NonhWhitehead wrOle: "Almost all really new ide:u have a certoinaspect of foolishness when they nre first produced." There'sa good reason (or lhat. As you have seen, problems are oftensolved by looking at things ill n seemingly unsuitable patlern.There's somelhing (unny about such a sudden shift of focu.~:

in fact, surprise twists are the ba5ic element of humor. II'sdownrigh! ridiculous !O compare a loan 10 Britain to lendinga neighbor a garden bose: bu! that ridiculous idea solved theproblem.

End of preparation Slage. What follows next? Dr. Hutchin­son said it besl: Frustration, Remember that. When you arethrough with the preparntion stage and frustration sets in,don'! worry: it's natural. Relax and give your unconsciousa chance.

To put your unconscious to work, the first rule is to give it

How NOT TO RAa YOUlt BRAm 281

time. As long as you're working frantically to find the solu­tion, your unconscious doesn't have a chance. Relax; do some­thing else; go to the movies; get some sleep.

U you have to solve a problem, turn away from it Cor atime and aUend to some other routine malter. Above all, besure you have time to think. Don't clutter your day with alot of details, Spend some time by yourself-and I mean byyourself: don't be a slave to the telephone.

And don't think that problems are solved between ruDeaDd five only. The unconscious picks its owo times and places.Some time ago a group of research chemists were asked whenand how they got their scientific ideas, Here are some oftheir answers:

"While dodging automobiles across Park Rowand Broad­way, New York."

"Sunday in church as the preacher was announcing thetext."

"At three o'clock in the,morning.""In the evening when alone in the study room.""In the morning when shaving.""In the early morning while in bed,""lust before and just after an attack of gout.""!.ate at night after working intensively for some hours,""Invariably at night after retiring for sleep,""In the plant one Sunday morning about 9 A.M. when no

one was around.""While riding in a very early tmin to another city.""While resting and loafing on the beach.""While silting at my desk. doing nothing, and thinking

about other maners.""After a month's vacatioo, as I was dressing after a bath

in the sea."The classic statement on the maner was made in 1891 by

the German physicist HelmholLZ at a banquet on his seventielhbirthday:

After investigating a problem in all directions, happyideas come unexpectedly. without effort, like an inspira­tion. So far as I am concerned. they have never cometo me when my mind was fatigued, or when I was atmy working table.... They came particularly readilyduring the slow ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day.

A charming picture-but wooded hills on sunny days arebard La come by in modern life. Sleep at night, on the olher

282 How TO Wa.rre, SrEa, A..'-'D TUINX: MORI!. EpPEClTVeLY

hand, is available to us all. And Ihere we run inlo a question.Some of those chemists got their ideas in the evening, someolhers in the morning. Which is the betler time for producingideas?

A surprising answer to this question comes from Dr. Na­thaniel Klcitrnan of the University of Chicago. Dr. Kleitmanfound that everybody runs through a daily cycle of rising andfalling temperature; the mind is creative when our tempcra~

ture curve is up and sluggish when it is down. People, Dr.KJeitman says, fall in three groups: the morning types whobit their mental stride in the morning, Ihe evening types whoare at their best laiC in the afternoon, and the lucky moming~

and.evening types, who have a level high temperature "pla­teau" from morning till evening. If you halc to get up inthc morning, chances arc your mind will sparkle in lheevcning; if you arc a washout at a lntc bridge game, youmay be a champion problem-solver at 6 A.M.

Even if you know what type you arc, you can't alwaysarrange your life and work accordingly. But you can docenain things. U you are a morning type, don't spend thefirst half of your day with dull rouline and try to be creativein the afternoon; if you are an evening type, defer productivework till Ihe end of the day.

Professional writers often furnish good examples ofthinker's schedules. Here are a few:

Ernest Hemingway: "The earliest part of the morning isthe best for me. 1 wake always at first light and get up nndstart working."

John O'Hara: "My working time is late at night. Eveningsl'd go and sit around drinking coffee and talking 10 peopleuntil about midnigbt, then go b3Ck to my room and wrile•• . . Usually 1 kept going Unlit aboul seven o'clock.."

Helen MacInnes: "Afler dark I slart some music I like.sit on lhe living room couch wilh a pad and pencil llnd wrileII chapler,"

Kalharine Brush: "J start at eight each morning and workthrough lunch unlil two-thirty or so. Then I knock off forthe aflernoon and oflen work again in the evening. If I'mnot going to work in the evening, I keep at it longer in tbeafternoon."

Arnold Toynbee, the British historian: "I write everymorning, whether I am in tbe mood or nOI. I sit down 10write stmightaway after breakfast, before dealing Wilh mycorrespondence or any olher busines5, and I do Ihis writinglit home, Then I go for lunch to the Royal Instilute of Inter-

How NOT TO RACK: YOtIl\ BRAIN 283

national Affairs, and, in my office there, from after lunchtill 6:45, dictate my letters, see people, do my work in editingthe Institute's political history of the war, and do my writingfor this history as well. In fact, I give half my day to onejob and half to another, and find refreshment in switchingmy mind 10 and fro in this way."

Claude G. Dowers, the biographer-diplomat: "I prefer thesmallest room I can find for my work and nnificial light,finding this shuts out the prescnt nnd makes for concentra­tion.... Jefferson and Hamilton, Tile Tragic Era, and theBeveridge were written at night while writing editorials forTile Evening World by day. Dinner at 5:30 and fTom 6 to 11I shut myself in my cubbyhole.•.. During seventeen yearsas Ambassador in Spain and Chile 1 have found time towrite by avoiding bridge aod golf."

With these writers, we have passed through the prepara­tion, frustration, and relaxation stages, and have arrived atthe stage of creation. Once the idea is born, tips are un­Decessary-except one: write It down. The best idea isuseless if it is lost and forgotten. Catch your ideas alive.Keep a notebook handyj if you don't have a notebook, finda pad; if you can't find a pad, lIse an old envelope. But don'tlet the idea get away. It may never come back.

I started this chapter with a list of reminders. I'll end itwith a list of tips:

1. Write tbe problem down.2. Translate the problem into plain English.3. If possible, translate the problem into ligures, mathe.

maticol symbols, or graphs.4. Don't rely on your memory but use written or printed

sources.5. Know how to use a library.6. Take notes and keep liles.7. Discuss the problem with albers.8. Use a check list of categories, adding new ones from

time to time.9. Try turning the problem upside down.10. Doo't be afraid of the ridiculous.11. If you feel frustrated, doo't worry. Relax; turn to

other work; rest; sleep.12. Take time to be by yourself. Free yourself of trivial

work. Shut out ioterruptions.13. Know the time of day when your mind works best

nod arrange your schedule accordingly.14. When you get an idea, write it down.

CI"ptcr Thirty

FREEDOM FROM ERROR?

There arc few things in the wo'rd Ibal tlrc as popular as errof.Some errors have been corrected and exposed for ceo·

turies bUI arc as popular as ever; some others fly in the faceof everyday experience but are widely believed in as gospel.

Popular errors have been listed and classified in manybooks; tbe New York Public Library bas over twenty-fiveof them. The oldest is Sir Thomas Browne's Vlligar Errors,published in 1646; one of tbe latest was Th~ Na/ural History0/ NonSttlSe by Bergen Evans, published in 1946. Quite afew of the errors dealt with by Sir Thomas Browne ·werestill popular when Mr. Evans wrote his book three hundredyears later. For example, both books discuss tbe miscoocep·tion "that mao's heart is to the Icf!."

I have no ambition 10 add 10 the shelf of popular~rror

books, but you may be inlerested in a brief list of misconcep­tions I ran across myself, I'll scI them down here in the time-­honored style;

I. That Galileo climbed the Tower of Pisa and droppedtwo cannon balls of different weight 10 disprove Aristotle'stheory that heavier bodies fall faster. (He didn't.)

2. That Voltaire said; "I don't agree with what you say,but I will defend 10 the death your right to say il." (Henever said so. The quotation comes from a book aboutVohaire. written in 1907.)

3. ThaI, in our legal system, the defendant is presumedto be innocent until he is proved guihy, while on the Euro­pean continent he is presumed to be guilty until he is provedinnocent. (Wrong. European law has the presumplion ofinnocence too; in facl. it's in the French Constitution butnot in ours.)

4. That Abraham Lincoln joned down the Genysburg284

FlU!(!OOM PROM ERROR? 285

Address on the back of an old envelope while be was goingto Gettysburg on the train. (On the contrary: he worked onit for weeks and made corrections in it even alur it badbeen delivered.)

S. That in a game of heads or tails, the chances of thenext toss depend on the previous ones. (No. The odds arealways fifty-fifty; "a coin has DO memory.")

6. That Mark Twain said: "Everybody talks about theweather, but nobody does anything about it." (He didn't;supposedly Charles Dudley Warner wrote it in an editorialfor the Hartford Courant about 1890.)

7. That in World War 1I the Army Air Force used color­blind men because they could detect camouflage better thanothers. (Untrue; in fact, e:'l:periments sbowed tbat men withnormal vision did better.)

8. That Adolf Hitler's real name was Scbieklgruber. (Itwasn't. SchickJgruber was the maiden name of his grand.mother; his father was born out of wedlock, but legitimizedas Hitler.)

I rather e:tpect most or all of these popular errors to bepart of your menial equipment; it would be surprising ifthey weren't. Practically everybody believes these things.More than that: people take special pride in their misinfor·mation. Llle magazine once ran a little test entitled "Are YouEducated?,' nnd included familiarity with that old story aboutGalileo as part of the test. A New York newspaper usedthat pseudo-Voltaire quotation as tbe motto on its editorialpage. A book on law for laymen solemnly expounded thatmyth about "our" presumption of innocence. The bookMark Twain at Your Fingertips listed the remark about theweather as a genuine saying by Mark Twain.

Why is t"rror so popular? Even my brief list shows clearlysome of the reasoDS.

In the lint place, error is often more attractive than truth.Real lire is apt to be a drab, humdrum, unglamorous busi­nessj but things.that.aren't-so are usually spectacularly excit­ing and fill us with a tingling sense of wonder and awe. Galileodisproving Aristotle on the 'Tower of Pisa-Lincoln writinghis speech on the train to Gettysburg: Why, can these thing:!ihave actually happened? we ask-and then believe them evenmore strongly just because they seem unbelievable. Not solong ago, Mr. Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a book in whichhe "proved scientifically" that the sun stood still at Jerichoand that scores of other Diblical miracles actually happened.

286 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND TurN" MORl! Epf"ECTIVELY

Scientists enjoyed a hearty 11lUgh, but the general public madethe book n leading best-seller of 1950.

Another thing that makes error popular is that we likc lifeto be nice and simple. Of course, life isn't like that; it'scomplex, irregular, hard to understand, and (;enerally a messything to deal with. But error has a wonderful neatness. Thelaws of probability nre hard to grasp, but anybody can under­stand that the chances of tails coming up next llre betterwhen heads havc comc up ten times. This is utterly wrong,10 be sure; but isn't it wonderful how it simplifies things?

A third reason for our wrong beliefs goes deeper, We be·lieve whnt is com/or/able to believe. If problems are trouble­some, there IIll/st be an easy solution; if we are worried, theremurr be something that will make us feel good, This, I think.is at the bottom of the last two on my little list of errors. Tobe color-blind makes you feel inferior; so there must be somesituntion where it turns Out to be a good Ihing after all. AdolfHitler was painful to live with on the same planet; so peoplederived whntevcr comfort there was from pinning on him theridiculous label Schicklgruber.

The search for comfort in our worries and troubles pro­dUCed the second great best-seller of 1950: Dial/c/ies by L,Ron Hubbard. Like Worlds in Collision by Velikovsky,Di(lIIctics wn.." denounced by all scientists. But since it prom­ised all easy cure for all our mental ills, thousands andthousands of people ate it up.

Dione/ics, in fnci. was only one in nlong line of "comfort"books-the literature on how 10 relax and not to worry aboutanything, These books are commonly classified as nonfictionbooks, but that doesn't mean they are factual. People readthem regardless of whether they contain information ormisinformation, or bow much of either; they take them assedatives.

Some years ago, Miss Lee R. Steiner wrole a disturbingbook about all Ihis, called Where Do Peoplt: Take TheirTroubles? It presented a fantastic gallery of phony adviserspeople go to. Rather than think through their own problems,millions of Americans const,J1t astrologe", graphologists,advice·to-Ihe-Iovelorn columnists, spiritualists, radio counsel­ors. numerologists, palmists, New Thought practitioners, andyoga teachers.

In other words, error is popular because people arc afraidto grow up. Clear thinking means facing the fact that life isfull of dinlcult problems, that we cannot cscnpe rrom pain,discomfort and uncertainty. that we cannot attuin happiness

FREEDOM FROM ERROR? 287

by turning away from reality. As Sigmund Freud said, weneed "education to reality." Once we have had it, we "willbe in the same positioo as the child who has left Ihe homewhere he was so warm and comfortable. But, after all, is itnol Ihe destiny of childishness to be overcome? Man cannotremain a child forever; he must venlure at last intO thehostile world. n

Even if we are willing to face reality and tackle our prob­lems by thinking, we're up against the plain fact tbat thinkingis hard. Sydney Smith said: '" never could find any man whocould think for two minules logether." And Sir JoshuaReynolds wrote: 'There is no expedient 10 which a man willnot resort to avoid the real Inbor of thinking." Thomns A.Edisoo was so fond of this last quotation thai he put up signswith it all over his plant,

Yes, thinking is hard work, and that's why the greatestenemy of thinking is sheer inertia. Some time ago, I ranacross a story in the New York Times that dealt with a UN

. repon on economic help 10 Bolivia.

The reasons for the lack of economic progress [theTimes reported] lie mainly 001 in the lack of knowledgeof what is needed, or even technical know-how in areslricted sense, but in the unwillingness or inability ofgovernments to do what is needed.. , , The U.N. missionfound that studies and recommendations on Bolivia'sneeds, going back forty years, were piled high in govern­ment archives. All studies recommended more or lessthe same thing, lind linle or nothing had ever been doneabout any of them, Knowledge of what to do was ob·viously not the problem.

In a sense, we arc all in Ihe same siluation as the govern_menl of Bolivia. We know whal to do about most of ourproblems, but we don't use that knowledge. We could improveour personal finances by bUdgeting, but we don't budget; wecould improve our health by d.ieling, but we doo't diet; wecould improve our careers by studying, but we don't study.loformation is piled high in our lives' archives, but we don'tuse it. Thinking is too hard.

Of course, we don't like 10 put it so bluntly. Instead, weraliooalize. Thinking isn't 100 hard, we say, but it's impracti~

cal, unrealistic, long-hair Sluff, it won't work. The practicalthing is 10 go ahead without thinking, lellving things the waythey bave always been, doing what everybody else has always

288 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND Tmm: MORn EFFECTIVELY

done. Never mind the rational approach; the irrational wayis familiar and so much nicer and easier.

Whenever scientists come up with new rational solutions toseemingly irrational problems, our first reaction is to resisttheir ideas, Our second reaction is to get rid of them as some~

thing tbought up by cranks, We don't want anyone to en­croach upon the province of lhe irrationlll; we like to have alarge slice of life where we don't have to do any thinking,Nature, art, life nnd death, chance-let's simply accept themithe human mind shouldn't meddle with these things.

Meanwltile, in spite of all this hostility, scientists persist inthe analYlical and mathematical study of the irrational. Wemay shrug it ofT, but there is dynamic symmetry (the mathe~

malical analysis of art design from lhe Parthenon to LeCorbusier's houses), there is the Schillinger system of musicalcomposition on a mathematical basis, llnd there are statisticalstudies of patterns in people's conversations, of cycles in ollremotional ups and downs, of the law th:lI governs the degreeof repetition in the programs of the Bostoo SymphonyOrchestra, and of the rclationship betwccn the number ofmarriages and the number of eity blocks between boys Ilndgirls in Philadelphia. There is the mathematical approach tothe strategy of bluffing in poker, the study of mathematicalbiophysics, the fnetor analysis of human abilities and tempera­ment, and Professor D'Arcy Thompson's classic book OnGrowlh and Form, which deals with the mathematics of suchthing> as splashes and bubbles, bee's cells, the shapes of eggs,hlood corpuscles, chromosomes, falling drops, spirals, stream­lines, corals, snow crystals, elephants' teeth, and the hornsof sheep llnd gOlllS.

This is the sort of thing that makes us feel uneasy; althoughit's all fascinating, we'd much ralher the mathematicillnswould leave these mailers alone. When it comes to practicalapplications, we're apt to be stubborn and resentful. It is thisdistrust of the rational approach thm accounts, in part, forour sales resistance to all forms of insurance and for ourgeneral resistance to such things as health insurllllce, businesscycle theory, City planning, and proportional representation,

Of course, we nil pride ourselves on hllving an open mind,Bm what do we mean by that? More often than not. an openmind means that we stick 10 our opinions and let otherpeople have theirs. This fills us with a pleasant sense oftolerance and lack of bias-bill i/ isn't good enollgh, What weneed is not so much an open mind-readiness to lIccept newideas-but an auitude of distrust toward our own ideas, This,

FREEDOM FROM ERROR? 289

ns I s3id beCore, is the scientific habit of thought: as soon asyou have an idea, try to disprove it. "To h3ve doubted one'sown first principles," Justice Oliver WendeU Holmes oncewrote, "is the mark of a. civiliz.ed man."

To do that is the hardest thing of all. Our first principles,our basic ideas, are those most intimately tied up with our~rsona.lity, with the emotional make-up we have inherited oracquired. Detached, impersonal thinking is almost impossible;it hardly ever actually happens. In 1940 Il team of socialscientists studied the thinking of voters in Sandusky, Ohio, tofind out why they voted the way they did. The scieritists foundthn! people voted according to their income, religion, age,occupation, and so on, following the pattern of their relatives,neighbors, and friends. They did not vote on the basis of adetached, impartial weighing of the issues. "Dispassionate,c3tionnl voters," the survey concluded, "exist mainly in text­books on civics, in the movies, and in the minds of somepolitiC31 idealists. In real life, they are few."

Yes, clear lhinking is rare. To approach it, we need 3bovcnllthlll indispensable quality of the scientific spirit-humility.Uke good scientists, we must be ready to sacrifice some of ourpersonality and habits of thought as we face each new prob­lem. For Iifc's problems are always new, and defy all ready­madc solutions.

TIml's what makes life so intcresting.

PART 2Hints and Devices

Clwptcr TlJirt}/-One

HOW TO WIUm FOR BUSY READERS

Until some fifty years ago, nobody doubted thai practicalwriting must be brief. To be sure, old-style business Englishsounds horrible by present siand.:uds (';Yn. of the 20th insLrcc'd :md contents noted"), but 31lcast our grandfathers knewthe virtue of brevity. Today's executive wouldn't feel rightif he put a simple thought in only eight words. Before heknows it, he has dictated thirty-two: "Your leiter of May 20.1960, llddrcssed to the Executive Director of Ihis organization,h3S been referred to me for reply. I grently npprcciate havingthe in{ormlltion contained in the above communication."Maybe that's better public relations or human relations orwhat nOI, but it d~s waste lin llwful lot of the reader's time.

Cnn the trend be reversed? I think it cnn. All that's neees~

$:Iry is 10 apply newspaper and news-magazine techniques toleiters and reports. American journalism hns learned howto write for busy readers; leCs copy the formula [or govern·ment and industry.

How do journalists save their readers lime? In two ways:{irst. they make it ensy to skip; second. they make it easy toread fast.

II's simple to show readers what to read and what to skip.Newspapers do it by starting most stories with summaryleads. by putting summary headlines on top of those leadsand by using the front p3ge as a quick summary of the p3peritself. The rC3der gets the gist of each siory and or the d3Y'snews at a glance; if be needs just the bare information, be can

290

How TO WRITE FOR BUSY ReADERS 291

skip the rest. Nobody would buy a paper if he had to read itall through to find out what's going on.

The slime can be done with letters, memos, and reporu.They should Slart with summary lead SCnlence:s and para·graphs; they should have headlines and sub-headlines; ifthey're long, their lellds, heads and subheads should be sum­marized on the front page. Leads should give readers the mainpoint nnd nOlhing bllt the mnin point; heads and subheadsshould summarize the leads. They should not be titles-likeSules Department-but real headlines-like Safes Up 64%Last Wuk, (Here's a tip: Reading experts say headlinesshouldn't he ·all caps, but caps ilnd lower case. Don't use theshift lock bUlthe underliner on the 6 key,)

To learn how to save words and Iellers, let's look lit Tillieand other news magazines. They've developed a sort offormula: I'll summarize it for you in ten points.

1. Use lew articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. Re­search shows that twenty-five linle words account for one­third of all English writing: the. and, a, too, 0/, I, in. was, that.it. he, )'011, for, had, is, Wilh, she, has, on, at, have. bllt, me,m)'. not, The alone accounts for 5 per cent; and for 3 per cent.CUlling all unnecess:l.ry thc's. and's, ,lra,'s, ors, etc. will saveenormous amounts of time and paper. As to the, "evidencewe have" is just as good English 3S "the evidence we have";the plural "consumers" says the same as "the consumer."A nd can often be replaced by a comma or semicolon. Thatcan be left out half the time: "he said he agreed" is betlerthan "he sllid that he ngreed." OJ can be saved by using adjec­tive nouns like "the policy anniversary dale" instelld of "theanniversary date of the policy."

2, Use pronOllns rather IlIan repeating nOllnor. Once n busi­ness or government writer has wrinen "The lnler-AlliedDoodle Manufacturing Company, Inc.... he'll happily repeat"The Inter-Allied Doodle Manufacturing Company, Inc."dozens of times. "It" will do just 3S well. Or, betler still andmore informal, "they." .

3. Learn to "jaclor" expreuiotlS. "Factoring," in malhe.­maties, means writing Q (b + c) instead of ab + ac. Use thesame principle in writing. Instead of "operating revenue andoperating costs" write "openl.ling revenue and costs."

4, Use the active rather than the pas.rive voice. This is old,old adviee, But the typical business leller still has "YourlISsisl:mce is needed" instead of "Please help us." A modelletter in a recent textbook begins: "There is being forwaraedto your office under sepnrate cover a full report. , ." Why

292 How TO WilfTll, SP£,4.J; "NO THIl'lX MaRl! EFF£CI1Vl!lY

not "I tim sending you .. ,''7 What's wrong with the first­person pronoun?

5. Use verbs rather than nO/IllS. More old advice, badlyneeded. In most business writing, "we know" becomes "wehave information" and ';tbey do" appears as "they carry onactivities."

6. Use contractiotU. English permits you 10 contract do not10 don', and make one word OUI of two. Why not do it inwriting? What's so dignified aboul memos and reports? Yousp~ak contractions, don't you? There's no law that says youcan't write them.

7. Use shorl names. Once is enough for mentioning fulllong names. After you've written "American Society forScientific Melhods of Squaring the Circle" or "PresidentAdolphus U. K. Popwhiffle," relax and eaU them the CircleSquarers and Popwhiffie.

8. Use figures, symbols, abbrellimiolU, As long a5 yourreader understands, use the shoncst possible symbol. In '60.most people over 16 have the I.Q. to tell a memo (rom aphone call or the NAM from the FTC.

9. Use punctumion to SOl'C words. Commas, colons, paren·theses are often more expressive than words. The colon, forinstance, seems to be the favorile space-saving device ofTime magazine. As they would say. "Time's favorite: thecolon."

10. CUI 01/ needless 'Words. My last rule is a catch-all re­minder thoU every single word eats paper and reading lime,If you've wrinen "prior 10," replace it by "before"; if you'vewritten "factual information;' strike il out and say "facts."My pet example is this bit from a business English textbook;"The informal repon is usually shan in length," Maybe-butIhis sort of writing is just /00 long in l~ngIJr.

These ten rules have nothing to do with good English."correct" grammar, or even easy readability. If you followthem, you may come up with deathless prose or jerky, un­grnmmatical nonsense. But you will save your reader lime-­as I said, up to SO per cent. Figure reading lime aI about200 words a minute for an average executive or professionalsalary, and you'll be nmazed nt the amount in dollars andcents my ten little rules add up to.

It all sounds very simple and easy. And yel it isn'l. Some­how it SecRU hard 10 break away from this sort of thing:"According 10 our agreement your company ill 10 furnishservices periodically on nlternnte days of the week in amounts10 be specified at irregUlar intervals. Due to eireumslancell

How TO WAITE FOR Busy RuDa.s 293

beyond our control, wc herewith ask you to interrupt yourservices for one pcriod only, effcctive Monday, May 30,1960. Please notc that scrvices are to be resumed as ofWednesday, June I, 1960, in the same amount and manner asheretofore."

Whieh is typical 1960 business English npplied to a noteto the milkman. The original rcnds: "Please skip Monday."

Chapter Thirty-Two

HOW TO SAY IT WITH STATISTICS

Sooner or Iluer everyone who writes about facts has to YoTiteabout statistics, too. But how do you presenl statistics to theaverage reader-the man or woman who can't add a row offigures and hates the mere thought of long division?

Dozens of books deal with the preparlltion of tables andgnphs, but I haven't found n single one on the useful artof making statistics painless. I don't say this short chapterwill mlthe gap. But I think my twelve points may help you,

Naturally, I'll have to use a set or statistical data for nnexample. Here's 11 neat one from n recent survey of Timtlreaders. They were asked, "How mueD cash do you carry?"They answered like this:

Men Rcplicrs Women Replius% 0/ men % 0/ women

Less Ihan $S 9.9 Less than SS 14.6$ S to $12 31.0 $5to$7 26.4$ 13 10 $24 21.4 $ 8 10 $12 25.7$ 2S to $49 19.8 SI3 10 S24 18.0S SO to $99 10.2 S25 to $49 9.6$1 ()() and over 5.2 S50 and over 2.9NO! stated 2.5 Not sialed 2.8Average $30.70 Average $1437

Now here nre my twelve points on how to make statisticsreadable:

I. Help your reader spot 'rends. Experiments have shownthat most people Rre poor [Tend,spollers. Don't expect tablesor gr:lphs to tell the story by themselves: they won't. 11'5 youwho'll have to point out the thing Ihnt jumps to the eye­that is, tbat jumps to your eye but not his or hers.

294

How TO SAT IT wml STAnsncs 295

In my examplc, you'd have to say in so many words:Among Time readers, meo carry about twice as much cashos women.

2. Pick lhe right average. There are three statistical aver­ages: the mean (thc sum total divided by the number ofcases); the mediaD (the mid·point between the upper and thelower hall); and the mode (the case that is most common).

Most writers pick the mean as the average. Time magazinedid in my little example. But thc mcao isn't always the bestaverage to use. Quite often the median or the mode will givethe reader a clcarcr picture. Why? Because the three averagesrefer 10 three different ideas.

The mean is the socialistic average. It shows what thingswould be likc if everybody got an cqual share. Reality isn'tIili:e that, and so the meao usually gives a distorted picture.In my example, the mean is $30.70 for men and $14.37 forwomen. ThaI's an accurllte figure, but it isn't realist.ic. If youthink thllt the mean is a good avcnge to use, I'd like to pointout that you, as an avenge American, have four defcctiveteeth and $3 worth of gold in your mouth llnd consume eachyear 100 bottles of soft drinks, 16 lollipops and two ouncesof snufl.

The median is the middle-ol-IIII!-rood llverage. It ShOW3the case that's smack in the middle between the extremes.Usually that gives a beller picture to the reader than the mean.In my example, the median is $13-S24 for men and S8­$12 for women. As. you see, it tells a diffennt story than themean. If your data don't show the median, work it out your­self. It's usually worth it.

The mode is thc fashionable average-lhe pattern lhal isfollowed most oflen, the case you're mosl likely to comeDcross. For datil like "How much cash do people carry?" iI'sthe most revealing of all the averages. If you mel Time read~

en in the street, how much money would they be apt to haveon them? Answer: he, $S-$12: she, $5-$7.

3. Point oul the ranNe. Averages tell only half the story;the other half is the range or spread. Statisticians usc standarddeviations and such to describe the spread: unfortunately,these measures don't mean a thing 10 the ordinary reader. Sothe best you can do is to give a rough idea of the range.Say something like "Women readen of Time carry betwcen$1 and SSO in their purses." As a rule. don't talk: about theaverage withoul giving the range too.

4. Point 011I the exceptions. Statisticians hAve little interestin the exceptions nnd fringe cases; readers love them. Never

296 How TO WaITE, SPEA~ AND TlONc. MOd EJ'1'£CI1VEl.V

waste the opportunity of throwing in a sentence like this:"Among men who read Tim~. quite Il few hllve more than$100 in their wllllet,"

5. DOIl'l bury figures ill text. Readers like fi8ur~ least whenthey are sprinkled all over 11 paragraph. Spare them this sonof thing:

"Among women repliers, 14.6% c3lTied less than 55;26.4% carried $5-$7; 25.7%, $8-$12; 18.0%, 513-524:9.6%, $25-S49: and 2.9%, $50 and over."

6. Beware of tables. Spare your reader tables if you can.Tables are often needed for reference, of eourse: but youcan't expect people 10 read them. So, if possible, cut yourlnblcs to 11 minimum.

BUI then, you'll ask, what can you do with your figuresaside from pUlling them in your text or in tables? Answer:

7. Use spoltables. There doesn't seem to be a word for thething I'm tu..lking about, $0 I had to coin one. A spot tablehighlights a few significant figures by centering them on thepage. It has two or three columns of two to four items andusually no heading.

For example, here is a spot table about what money Timerenders (female) carry in their purses:

84.7%12.5%2.8%

Up to S25Over $25Don't s:l.y

8. Malee )'ollr ficuru rOl/nd. Long figures are hard to read;long figures with decimals arc very hllfd 10 rend. So useround figures. Round tbem 10 the nearest whole number, orten or hundred or thousand or million or billion-whicheveris the unit that tells your SIOry best. H you're writing aboutmoney in people's pockets don't say $30.70; say $31. U you'rewriting about the federal budget, don't say $3,070,549,637.81;s:l.y $3 billion.

Besides, marc often than not a long trail of digits isn'taccurate 10 begin with.

9. Make your {igllres small. Short, round figures ue good:small figures are even beUer. And , mean small: say. thefigures under 13 Ihat are usually spelled out by the printers.Try it wilh percentage figures: Instead of 84.7%, say "fiveOUI of six." Inslead of 12.5%, say "one in eight."

My last three points deal with graphic presentation. Tobegin with, most readers are jusl as poor al chart-and..graphreading as they nre at table-reading nnd trend-spotting. So,

How TO SAY IT Wml STATlS"nCS 297

if you want to help them visually, stay off chans and graphs,Use pictorial statistics; that's what they were invented for.BUI if you do, keep these three poinls in mind:

10. Keep pictorial statistics simple. The liule symbolicpictures are devices to convey ideas. II you {ancy them up,yOU'll defeat your purpose. If you want a symbol of a mweTime reader, simply show a man who reads Time. Don'tpicture a man who reads Time, sitting on his front porch.smolcing his pipe, surrounded by his wife and children. It isn'tfair to the Time reader who is a bachelor, lives in a citynparlmcnt and d~sn't smoke.

11. Explain your symbols. No symbol or picture explainsitself. A man wbo reads Time is clear enough as the symbolof a male Time reader, bur it cannot tell exactly what ismeant. Doe.s the symbol stand for a subscriber? Or does ittake in newsstand buyers? And what about the fellow whoborrows a copy from a {ricnd or reads one in a library?

So don't rely on your symbols to tell all. Use them, butuse words 100 to explain what the symbols mean.

12. Don't try to use pictoria] statistics for two things atollce. Even with little pictures, there's a limit to what readerscan take. To understand a relationship by matching shorternnd longer rows of little men is one thing; to trace complexratios by shuttling back and forth bctween uneven arrays ofvarious symbols is another. My Time example would tempta pictorial statistician to show roW! of lillie men at right androws of folding money at left. Most readers will skip sucha table. Pcople don't like to interrupt their rcading for com­plicated parlor games.

And that ends my twelve points, I hope you'll find themhelpfUl.

Chapter Thirty·Tllrec

HOW TO TEST READABILITY

Readable, according to most dictiollaries, meuns "easy orinteresting to retld." So the readability test in this book hastwo pans. One purt gives you u score of "reuding ease"-unestimute of the ease with which a reader is going to read andunderstand what you have written. The other pan of thetest gives you a score of "human interest"-an estimate ofthe human interest that your presentation (rather than yoursubject) will have for the reader. Together, the two scores giveyou an estimate of both aspc:c1.5 of readability,

Full lest or snmpling1

If your piecc of writing is reasonably shan, or if you wantto be as exact as possible in your readability estimate, applythe readability lest to 1111 the material. Otherwise it is morepractical to take samples.

How to pick s,:tmplcs

If you take samples. be sure to lake enough for a fair test.Ordinarily, three to five samples of an article and twenty-fiveto thiny of a book will do.

Don', try 10 piek "good" or "typical" samples; take themat nndom. It is best to go by a strictly numerical scheme.For instance, take every third paragraph of a shon article orevery other page of a longer piece. Out don't use the intro­ductory paragraphs of your piece as snmples; usually tbeynrc not typical of the style of the whole piece. If you wantto test the readnbility of the introduction, test it separately,

298

How TO TEST RuDAIUUTY 299

Take samples of 100 words each. Stan each umple at thebeginning of a paragraph.

HOI'V (0 count words

Count each word in your piece of writing. If you nrc usingsamples, take each sample and count each word in it up to100. After the looth word, put a pencil marIe.. (In the exam­ples in this book, 100 words are marked by 100')

CoUDI Il3 11 word all leners, numbers, or :!o)'mbols, or gl"OUPS

of leuers, numbe:rs, or symbols, that are surrounded by whitespace. Count contractions and hyphenaled words as oneword. For example, count each of tbe following as one word:1948, $19,892, e.!1., C.O.D., wouldn't, week-end.

How to figure the avenge ~ntenee length

A!J your next step, figure the average number of words inyour sentences. If you test a whole piece of writing, thismeans that you count all the sentences and then divide tbenumber of words by the number of sentences, rounding offthe result. For example, if you have 183 words nod 9 sen­tences, Ihe average senlence length is 20.

If you arc using samples, count the number of sentence9in each sample; then add the number of sentences in allsamples and divide the number oC words in all samples bythe total number of sentences.

In a loo-word sample, the lOO-word mark will usually fallin the middle of a sentence. Count such a sentence as one ofthose in your sample, if the IOO-word mark fails afler morethan half of the words in it; otherwise disregard it. For exam·pie, the sentence "This was not Ihe case" should be countedin if the loo-word mark faUs after the word not, bUl disr~

garded if the loo-word mark falls before it.If you had three IOO-word samples. conlaining 3,9. and 7

sentences, your average sentence length would be 300 dividedby 19. or 16 words.

1n counting sentences. count as a sentence each unit ofthought that is grammatically independent of another senlenceor clause, if its end is marked by a period, question mark,exelamntion point. semicolon, or colon. Incomplete sentencesor sentence rragmenls nrc also 10 be counted as sentcnccs.For example, count as lwO Sentences: What did Ille minister

300 How TO WlUTE, SPEAK, ,IND THIN" MORJ! EFFECTIVELY

lalk abOlll? Sin. Count as two sentences: TI,e Lord is myshepherd; 1 s1la/l not want. Counl as lhree senlences: Therelire IwO lIrgllme/Hs agn;1lS1 this plm],' I. Jt is /00 expcluivc.2. Jt is impracticol. Count as IWO sentences: Res"lt; Nobodycame. BUI count as one sentence only: He regis/trt'd, but fiedid flOI VOle. (Two independent cl:luses. combined into :I.compound senu:nce wilh only a eomma.) Counl as onesenlenee: There werl'" thrt'e pl'"ople present; Mary, Robl'"rt, andJohn. (The words after Ihe colon nrc not a separale unit ofIhoughl.) Count as onc sentence: This pro;eCI is JUpposed to:(a) prol'ide training; (b) stim/llate Sll/U:esfions. (No part ofIhis is an independenl clause. Count such malerial as onesentence even if il is pnragr3phed.)

In di:llogue, count lhe words he said or olher speech tagsas parI of the quoted scmence to which they arc aunched.For example, count as one senlenee: He said; '" hnve to go."Count also liS one sentence: "TIll/t's all very well," he repliet/,show;lI}! clearly thar he (Jidn't believe a word 0/ wlrat we said.

For more examples of how to count senlences, siudy lheseparalion of sentences shown in the Examples. They aremarked in this book by I,

How to figure the nverllge word length

As your next step. figure the average word length in sylla­bles. To do Ih:l!, counl all syllables and divide Ihe lotal num­ber of syllables by the number of words. In Ihe formula,this measure is e",pr~ed as the number of syllables perhundred words: therefore, multiply your resull by 100.

H you lise IOO-word samples, counl the total number ofsyllables in all your samples and divide by Ihe Dumber ofsamples.

801h ways you will gel the number of syllables per hun·dred words.

Count syllables Ihe way you pronounce the word: e.g.,ad.:ed has one syllable. George's IWO. determined Ihree. andpromtllcim;on live. Counl the number of $yllabl~ in symb01!land figures according to the way they are normally read aloud,e.g.. two for S ("dollars"). Ihree for R.F.D. ("are-eff-dee"),and four for J9J6 ("nineteen si"'teen"). However, if a passageconlains lengthy ligures or more Ihan 11 few, your estimatewill be more accurale if you leave these ligures out of yoursyllable counl: in a loo-word sample. be sure to add instead IIcorresponding number of words afler the IOO-word mark.

:Jbw ceur;?SYUA!LU PO

100 WOlDS120 "0

HOW TO U!>E THIS CHoUTTak. ".,.""" a, ....1., "t>d .Oftno<1 yw, ,,, '""WOfd. pt. S.nl....."I~,. ('-hI ..~h you,

"'Sjrllabl•• 1* 100 Word,· fjvv.. (';';hl). t'"loIl.nett..... 01 ,,," prnOl 00' tv!« with 1MUf\l.., line ."."".. f""" "llood<oto e....· .......

130 130

,,, '"IEAOlHGEASfSCOU, '00 1'0 1'.

Very fOI)' " " Very Ea.),

'45 '4590 ,.,,,' " " fo~)'

'50 '5080 8.

Fairly EOlr " " Foi,ly Eo.)' '" '"WOeOS 'lit70 7.SENTENCE, ," " '60 '60Slolldo.d SIClnd",d

60 60 ,.. '"'0 10fairly Dilfitult " " foi.l), Oilri(l,tlt

50 ,. 170 17.

" " 45 45

'" '"Diffino!t .. '0 Oafiab'0 '0 35 JS

'80 IBO

'" 30

" " " " '" '"'0 '0

30 ,. '90 '90Very Oifr",,11 " ". Very Oirr_lt

'0 '0'" '"JS 35 , ,

0 0 200 '00

302 How TO WIlITE, SPEAK, ANO TIIINK MOllE EFFECTIVELY

If in doubt about syllabication rules, use any good dic­tionary.

Count the syllables in all the words, even if this tn:lY

seem "unfair," c.g., in such words as vc},'c/(/ble.f or Califarnia.Otherwise, your estimate will not be comparable to statisticalestimates of other materials.

As a practical shortcut, count all syllables except the firstin all words of marc than one syllable; then add the tOlalto the number of words tested. It is also helpful to "readsilently aloud" while counting.

How 10 find your Rending Elise Score

To find your Rending Ease Score, after you have found theaverage sentence length in words and the number of syllablesper 100 words, use the HOW EASY? chart on page 301.

You can also use this formula:Multiply the average sentence length by 1.015 .•••••Multiply the number of syllables per 100 words

by .846Add

Subtrnct this sum from 206.835

Your Reading Ease Score is .The· Reading Ease Score will put your piece of writing on

0. scale between 0 (practically unreadable) and 100 (easy forany literate person).

What docs the Rending Ease Score menn?

To interpret your Reading Ense Score, usc the table onpage 30 I. It shows yOll, for seven brnckets of scores, a de­scription of the style, magazines where such writing is usuallyfound, and the typical figures for sentence length nnd wordlength.

R~tUfiTl8 Syllahl~J A vuageE~. DucrlplloTl Typical p~r /00 S~ml!'''c~

Score (1/ Style Maga~;,'e W(I,d! L~"l:th90 to 100 Ver)' EllS)' Comics 123 ,SO to 90 EllS)' P"II' IIcllon 131 1170 10 80 Fairl)' E~5)' Slick ticlion 139 I'60" 70 Standard DilleSlS. Timt!,

Mass non·fiction 147 17SO 10 60 F3irl)' Difficutt Harper!, A/lilli/Ie I" 2130 10 so. DHlicllll Academic. ScholDrl)' '" 150" 30 Very Dintc,,!t Scientific, Profess.ional 192 29

How TO TEST RuoABWTY 303

How 10 (ount "p~rsnllnl words"

To find your Human Interest Score. first count the numberof "personal words" per 100 words. If you are testing a wholepiece of writing, divide Ihe lolal number or "personal words"by the total number of words and multiply by 100. H youusc IOO-word samples, count the "p~rsonal words" in eachsample and divide the toul number or "personal words" inall samples by the number of samples.

"Personal words" an:::(1) All first-, sttond-, and third-person pronouns except

the neuter pronouns ;t, i/s, itself. and the prnnouns they.them, their, ,heirs, 'hemselva if referring to things ratherIhnn people. For example, count the word them in the sen­tence When I Sri\\! her {If/rents, I !tardly reco{:nitcd them, butnot in the sentence I looked for 'he books bill couldn', find,htnl.

However. counl he, him, his and she, her, hers always,even where these words refer to animals or inanimate objects.

(2) All words that have masculine or feminine naturnlgender, e.g., Jolm Jone:r, A"ary, fatller, sister, iceman, actress,Do not count common-gender words like teacher, doctor,employee, flMiSlnnt, spOllse, even though the gender may beclear from the context. Count singular and plural forms.

Count a phrase like President Harry S. Truman as one"personal word" only. (Only the word Harry has naturalmasculine gender.) Mr. Smith contains one "personal word"with natural gender, namely Mr.,' Miss Mary n. Jones can·tains two. nnmely Miss and Mary.

(3) The group words people (with the plural verb) nndJolks.

In the examples at the end of the chapter, "personal words"are printed in bold-face type.

HOlV to counl "personnl senlences"

AIl your next step, count the nllmber or "personal sen­tences" per 100 sentences.

If you nrc testing a whole piece of writing, divide the lotalnumber of "person31 senlences~ by the total number ofsentences and multiply by 100. If you use samples, dividethe number of "person III sentences" in all your samples by

304 How TO WRITE, SrEAK, AND TlIINK MORE EFFECTIVELY

the number of sentences in all your samples llnd multiplyby 100.

"Personal sentences" arc:(I) Spoken sentences, marked by quotation marks or

otherwise, often including speech lags like "he said," set offby colons or commas. For example: "I t/rmbt it:' We toldhim, "YOII cal1 take i/ or leave i/." "Don'/ y011 realire I!leimplication.f?" he asked, in sllite of/he fact /hat he obl'jollslydidn't himself.

BUI don't count as "personal sentences" those that includequoted phrases, like TIre Sellalor tlcclued Ihe Admilli~lTa/ion

of doing an "about lace:' Don't count indirect quotations,like The nallle IVIIS misspelled, he explail/ctl.

Count all the sentences included in' long quotulioos, as inExample 2.

(2) Questions, commands, requests, and other sentencC$directly addressed to the re:tder. For example: Does Ihis sOlmdimpossible? Ima.r:ine"whm this means. Do this three times.YOII ShOllldl1't Ol'crrate these rCSlllts. This is a point yOIlnllISt rememher. It means a /0/ to people like )'011 and me.But don't count semenccs that ure only indirectly or vaguelyaddressed 10 the reuder, like This is typical of aliT nationalcharaclcr or YOII flever CO" tell.

(3) Exclamations. For example: It's 1mbelievable!(4) Grammatically incomplete sentences, or sentence frag.

ments, whose full meaning has to be inferred from the can·text. Examples; Do~sl1'l kflow a word of English. Handsome,'!laugh. Well. h~ wt/tn'l. The mifll/te yOIl walked OUI. No.NOI so. No dOl/hI abollt tllM. I was f!0;'IR 10.

Ir a senlence filS lWO or more of these definitions, countit only once.

In the examples, "personal sentences" llre ilalicized.

How to find your Human Interest Score

To find your Human Tnterest Score, after you have counted"personal words" and ';personal sentences," use the HOWINTERESTING? chari on page 306.

You can also use this formula:Multiply the number of "personal words" per 100

words by 3.635Mulliply the number of "penonal sentences" per

I 00 sentences by .314 .... , ,

The total is your Human Interest Score

How TO TEST REAOAlllL1TY 305

The Human Interest Score will put your piece of writingon a scale between 0 (no human interest) and 100 (full ofbuman interest).

What does tbe Human Interest Score mean?

To interpret your Human Interest Score, use this table. Itshows you, for five brackets of scores, a description of thestyle, magllzines where such writing is usually found, andthe typical figures for "personal" words and sentences.

Typical!lIa/laVIle

HumanImerestScore

60 lO 10040 to 6020 to 4010 to 20o to 10

Desuiptloll01 Style

DramaticHighly Intere5tinlilInterestingMildly loter~tini

OWl

Pcr Cent"Pcuolllll

Words"Fiction 17New Yorker 10Digcsts, Time 7Trade 4Scientific, ProfeuioD:l1 2

Per Cent"PcrsOIrnlSell/elleu"

5843IS,o

TItis may help you

In applying tbe twin formulas, remember thai the ReadingEase formula measures length (the longer the words andsentences, the harder to read) and the Human Interest Cormu·la measures percentages (the more "personal" words andsentences, the more human interest).

If you do much testing, you may find it practical to markevery ten words with little penciled numbers, I, 2, 3, etc.Or you may find it worlhwhile to usc a mechanical counter.

After you've had a little practice, it shouldn't lake you morethan 2Y.t minules to test one sample-that is, count 100words and find both the Reading Ease nnd Human Interestscores.

'u CINI Of"JIUONAl WO~IW

25 25

" "" "" "" "" "" ".. "" 17.. "" "" .." "" "" 11

10 10

•• •, ,• •, ,• ,, ,, ,

•

HOW to US! TIllS CHoU', -a .. """ _ -.t row.,., W"",,· r_. (10111 wlIh ,..,..'1'0..-1 SotoI_o,' r.,.... (~l. n.. w.o...._ .l .... poMJI .. ",10, .i,~ ,,,- <0"'"liM oho." 'I"?" "tiv..... 10,...11" " ....

HOMAN lN1fIE$T$COIf

'OOfOO....I

l>nI_ic 80 80 DtO"etIc,." '!I (:lNT Of

'tUSONA.l $IHHNCU"100 '00.. .. .. ..

V.,., W"'lll"il .. .. V.,., Ift'- •...,i"" 80 80,. ".. " ..hol•••,'lllg '" .. ,.,.,,,'lng .. .... ",. ,. .. ,.

NJldly In'....li"il Mildly '.'.t.stin;' ,. ,.,. ,.M '" "

10

.1, • •

How TO TEST READABILITY 307

EXAMPLE 1

From the Bible (Matthew 6:25-29):

"ThereJore I say unto you, Take no thollcht Jar your /iJe,whot yo shall eal, or what yo shall drink; nor yet Jor yourbody, what ye shall pili on. I /s not lhe IiJe more than meat,and the body than raimem? I

"Behold the Jowls oj ,he air: I for they sow not, neither dothey reap, nor cather imo barns; I yet yallr heavenly FatherJeedeth them. I Are yo not milch better Ihan tl,ey? I

"Which oj you by taking thought can add one cubit untohis stature?!

"And why take yo thol/ght Jor raiment? I Consider the liliesoj the field, how1oo Ihey grow; I they toil not, neilher do theyspin. I

"And yet I .say IlntO you, ,hat ellen Solomon in all his glorywas not arrayed like one 0/ these." I

1211 words11 SCDlenec:s

12 ....ords per senlence122 syllables per

100 words

13% "personal" "''Olds100% "persoOll1"

5entencesJ7 "pen.onal" words11 "penonal" seoleo<;c:s Rendina E3le- Score: III HumlUl Interest

Score: 111

NOTE: Many parts of the Dible have extremely high Read­ing Ease Scores. Since this selection is part of the Sermonon the Mount, all sentences were considered quoted, "per·sonal" sentences. The words they and them were not con­sidered "personal," where they referred 10 birds and liliesrather than people. The independent clauses beginning withJor and yet were c:ounled as separate sentences.

308 How TO WAITE, SPEU. AND TI~ MolU! EFFECJ1V£l\'

EXAMPLE 2

From The Lile 01 lohnson by James Boswell (July 21,1763):

Sir, I love the acquaintance 01 young people; because, intI,e /irst place, 1 lion't think mysell growing old. I in the nextploce, young ocqllaimances must last longesl, il tllf~y do last,' Iand Ihen, Sir, yOllng mcn have more virlue l1Ion old men; Ithey have more generous sentiment In every resput. I I lovethe young dOIJ$ of this age: I Ihey have more wit and humourand knowledge 01 lile than we had; I but then the dogs arenot so good scholars. I Sir, in my early years I read veryhard. I II is a sad reflection, but a lrueloo one, that I knew al­mas/ as milch at elghtun as I do now. I My judgment, to besure, was not so good,' I bllt I had all the facu. I I remembervery well, when I was at OxfQrd, an old 8crulenlfln said tome, 'Yollng mnll, ply YDllr book diligently now, and acquire astock of knowledge; I lor when years comtt "pon you, youwill /ind thaI poring upon books will be but an irksometask:" I

Reading E.:lse Score: 811

175 ....ords13 ~rllenctS

2& "penonnl" words13 "perJOnal" sente:nces

13 wDrds per ~nteDCC

124 syllables per100 words

16% MpeBOll;l!" wolll.!100% "penoual"

sentences

Human InterestScore:: 811

NOTE; Again, an ex~mple or 100% direct quotation. Notethe variety or punctuation between the independent sentences.Note also thaI in the first senlenee the dependent clause be­ginning with the subordinllting conjunction becmlSe wns notcounled as a scpaflltc sentence in spite o[ the semicolon.

How TO TEST READABlLITY 309

E.,XAMPLE 3

From The Adventur~.r of Hllckleberry Finn by Mark: Twain:

H Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that be­fore Bile was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could'a' done by and by, I Duck said she could mttle off poetrylike nothing, I She didn't ever have to stop to think. I Be saidshe would slap down a line, nnd if she couldn't find anything torhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down anotherone, and go ahead. / She wasn't panicular: / Bhe could writeabout anything you choose to give: her !O write about jU.$t .so itwas sadfuJ. / Every time a nlan died, or 11 100 woman died, ora child died, abe would be on hand with her "tribute" beforebe was cold. / She called them tributes. I The neighbor5 saidit was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undenaker­/ the undenaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once,nnd then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name.which was Whistler. / She warn't ever the same after that; I.he never complained. but abe kinder pined away and didnot live loog. /

181 words12 senlcnces

IS words per sente:m:c131 syllables per

100 words

14% "personal" words0% "personal"

$enlcnc:cs2' "person31" wordso "per50o:al" 5elltmces RC:II!ina.Ease Score: 81

Humll/l Inlel"e5tS<:orc: 51

NOTE: Huckleberry Finn is wOllen as if the story were toldby Huck to the reader. This quality escapes the fonnula; thepercentage of "personal" sentences is O. Therefore the Hu­mao Interest Score is comparatively low. The dialect wordsare counted just as if they were standard English, e.g., Qin',is counted us a one-syllable word. The word Whistler is notcounted ns a "persona'" word since it refers here to the nameitself rather than the persoo.

310 How TO WEUTI!, SP£AX. ANO TliINIt MORI!. EFpECTIVI!..L't

EXA.l\fPLE 4

From Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift:

I had Ihree hund~d cooks 10 d~ss my vicluals, in littleconvenient hulS built about my house, where they and theirfamilies lived, and prep:ll'ed me two dishes api~e. I I tookup twenlY waiters in my hand, and placed them on the table:I an hundred more attended below on the ground, some withdishes of meal, and sOme wilh borrels of wine, and otberliquors, s.lung on Iheir shoulders; I nil which the wailers abovedrew up as I wnnted, in a very ingenious manner. by certa.incords, liS we draw the bucket up 1I well'in Europe. I A dishofll'lO their meat was II good mouthful, and II borrel of theirliquor a reasonable draught. I Their mutton yields to oore buttheir beef is excellent. I I have had :I sirloin so large, that Ihave been forced 10 make Ihree bilS of it; I but this is rare. IMy servants were astonished 10 see me ent bones nnd all. as in(lur country we do the leg of a lark. I Their geese and turkeysI usually cal ala mouthful, and r must confess Ihey far exceedOUrB. I Of their smaller fowl 1 could take up twenly or thirtyat th~ end of my knife. I

204 words11 sentences

t 9 ....ords per knttl1CO127 syllables per

100 words

15% "personal" words0% "personal"

scnlenus)0 "personal" wormo "penonal" $CD.tences Re:ufutJl Ease Sc:on: 80 HUlJ1I.n InteRSt

Score: .5.5

NOTE: This is II fairly typical exnmple of old English prose.The sentences are longer Ihan Ihey would be in correspondingmodern writing, and since most of litem are compound ratherthan complex, the Reading Ease Score underrates the actualreadabilil)' of such material. On the other hand, the words areconsiderably shaner than those in current writing. Note.by the way, that the words convenient lind ingenious are bothcounted as three-syllable words, following the syllabicationgiven in the American College Dictionary and Webster's.

How TO TEST READABtuTY 311

EXAMPLE 5

From Bleak Howe by Charles Dickens:

I 1001:: care Ihat Ihe Ilecessary preparations were made forMr. Boythorn's receplion, and we looked forward to hi' arrivalwith some curiosity, I The afternoon wore away, however. andhe did not appear. I The dinner-hour arrived. and still he didnot appear. I The dinner was put back an hour, and we weresitting round the fire with no light but the blnze. when thehall-door suddenly burst open, and the hall resounded withthese words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and in astentorian tone: I

"We have been misdirected, }(lrndyce. by a most abandonedruffian, who lold u.s to takelOO the turning 10 the right ilUleadof to the left. I He is the most intolt!Table scoundrel on the faceof the earth. I Hi.s father mllSt have been a most COlUummalevillain, ever to have such a .son. I I wOldd have had thatfellow shot witham Ihe least remorse" I

"Did lie do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inqllired. /"II,ave not lhe slightest dOl/bt lhal the scoundrel has passed

hiJ whole existence in misdirecling uavellersl" relumed theother. I "By my .lOlli, I Illo/lght him Ihe worsl.looking dog Ihad ever beheld, wilen he was Ielling me to lake the lurningtO:oo tIlt! right. I And yet I stood before that fellow face toface, and (lidn', knock hi.s brains Ollt!" I

Re~~ Score: 69 Hum:l.n lnler~t

.xore: 68

218 word$12 sentenc~

29 "person:l.I" words.8 "perwn:t1" seutenl;e$

18 words per sentence141 syl1:l.bl~ per

100 words

13% "person:t1.. words67% "pcrsonnl"

sentenl;e$

NOTe: In counting Ihe words here, the rules were followedstrictly. in spite of the ract that today such expressions asdinnltr.JJoUr llDd hall-door are usually printed without hyphens.

312 How TO WIUTIlo Spl!A.lC., AND Tlm;1C MOllB EPFECTTVE.1.Y

EXAMPLE 6

From Mall S/a/l{!s Alone by Julinn S. Huxley:

Psychologically, one of the most interesting things about birdcourtship is the frequency with which in display the birds willcarry in their beaks a piece of the material of which their nestis buill. / This holds good even for the Adelie penguins.charmingly described by Dr. Levick. / Here the nest is noth­ing but a rim of stones round a depression; / and accordinglyIbe mille pre"ients stones to hil mate as part of hil courtship. /Jnterestingly enough, this action sometimes becomes divenedto serve olher instincts and emotions, such as wonder- / thebirds will present stones to dogs nnd tolOO men / and Dr.Levick c(Jll!e.fses 10 having fell qui/t! embarrtlSUtlllre first limelie IWIS the rccipiCI/I! / Still nnother tale hangs by these stones./ The sitling birds are all the time stealing stones from eachOlher's nests. / Levick painted II number of stones differentcolours, and pillced them at one mllrgin of the nesting area. /Afler this he could mark the r<tte of their progress (all bytheft!) aeross the colony; and found that the red stonestravelled much quicker than the rest. / This is of great tbeo­retic<tl inlerest, for red is a colour which is to all intents and:lOOpurposes absent in the penguin's environmenl-/ and yet theyprefer it above all others. / If a male penguin could grow ared patch be would probably be very quick to gaiD a mate, /

233 wonls14 sentencct

17 wordJ per sentenec144 5yJlnbles per

100 words

4% "personal" words7% "person:tl"

.entences10 "personal" wardsJ "pusoa:u" IeDlenCC RudiDa Ease SCore: 68 Hllm:uJ Inlerest

Seare: 16

NOT!!.: This is a good example of popularized scientificwriting. It is addressed to the general reader and the ReadingEase Score of 68 puts it in the "standard" brocket. Note thatthe abbreviation Dr. is counted as a two-syJlllble word sinceit is pronounced "doctor." The word male is counted as a"personal" word wbere it is used as a noun with masculino

How TO TEST REAOA.lIJU1Y 313

gender; it is not counted where it is used as an adjective. Theindependent clause following the dash after the word wonderand the clause following the dash after the word environmentare both counted as separate sentences since they are separateunits of thought. The sentence ending with an exclamationpoint is considered a "pcrsonal" sentence because it is anexclamation. The other exclamation poinl (wide a sentence)is disregarded.

314 How TO WiUT2, SPEAlto AND THINK: MolU! EFFECIlVE1.Y

EXAMPLE 7

From The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

If it werc only for II vocabulary, thc scholar would becovCtous of action. I Life is our dictionary. I Ycars arc wellspent in country labors; in town; in the insight inlo trades andmanufactures; in frank intercourse with man)' men andwomen; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in alltheir facts a language by which to illustrate and embody ourperccptions. I I learn immcdiatcly from any spcaker howmuch he has already lived, through the poveny or the splendorof his speech. I Life lies behind u. as the quarry from whencewe get titles and UIO copestones for the masonry of today. I Thisis the way to learn grnmmar. I Colleges and books only copythe language which thc field lind work-yard made, I

127 words7 sentences

18 words per :s.tntence14S sylbbles pet

100 words

7o:t. "penonal" wordsO'J' "penonal"

sententeS9 "pet50n:l.)" wordso "petsOna!" sentences Readin& EtI.IiO Score: 66 Human Interest

Score: 26

NOTE: Emerson's style with its epigrnmmatie sentences andabundance of ffictnphors is probably mote difficult to readthan a Rending Ease Score of 66 would show. Note that thewords from Years to perceptions are all counted as one sen­tencc and one thought unit in spite of the six semicolons.

How TO TEST RE.o.DAlllurt 315

EXAMPLE 8

rrom Psychology by William James:

There is an everlasting struggle in every mind between thetendency to keep unchanged, and the tendency to renovate, itsideas. lOur education is a ceaseless compromise between theconservative and the progressive factors. I Every new experi­ence must be disposed of under some old head. I The greatpoint is to find lhe head which has to be least altered to takeit in. I Certain Polynesian natives, seeing horses for the firsttime, called them pigs, that being tbe nearest head. I My childof two played for a week with the first orange that was givenhim, calling it a "ball."JM I He called the first whole eggs hosaw "potatoes," having been accustomed to see his "eggs"broken into a glass, and his potatoes without the skin. I Afolding pocket-eorkscrew he unbesitantly called "bad-scissors."I Hardly anyone of us can make new heads easily whenfresh experiences come. I Most of us grow more and moreenslaved to the stock conceptions with which we have oncc

'become familiar, and less and less capable of assimilating im­pressions in any but the old ways. J OJd-fogyism, in short, isthe inevitable terminus to which life sweeps us on. I

193 words11 sentences

18 words per sentence152 syllable" per

100 words

6% "personnl" words0% "personal"

sentences12 "personal" wordso "personal" sentences Reading Ease Score: 6Q Human Interest

Score: 22

NOTE: William James was famous for his interesting andeasy style. This, passage, according 10 the scoring, is "stand­ard" and "interesting"-a rare exception among textbooks.Notice the technique of easy explan'ntion: The abstract themeof the passage is expressed in the first four sentences. Thenfollow four sentences giving several concrete examples oftwo kinds. The abstract generalization is then repeated andsummarized in two more sentences. Finally, it is rephrasedand pointed up with a colloquial touch as "old-fogyism."

316 How TO WRITE, 51'UK, AND THINK MaRl! EFFECTIVELY

EXAMPLE 9

From Tlte Theory 0/ fhe l.eislue Cla.fs by Thorstein Veblen: •

The case of Ihe fast horse is much like that of the dog. I Hois on the whole expensive, or wasteful and uscJcss--for theindustrial purpose. I What productive usc he may possess, inthe way of enhancing the well· being of the community or mak­ing the way of life easier for men, takes the form of exhibitionsof force and facility of motion that gratify the popularaesthetic sense. I This is of course a substantial serviceability.I The horse is not endowed with the spiritual aptitude forservile dependence in the same measure as the dog; I but heministers effectually to loO his mllster's impulse to convert the"animate" forces of the environment to his own uses and dis­cretion and so express his own dominating individualitythrough them. I The fast horse is at least potentially a race­horse. of high or low degree; I and it is as such that he ispeculiarly serviceable to his owner. I The utility of the fasthorse lies largely in his efficiency as a means of emulation; Iit gratifies the owner's sense of aggression and dominance tohave his own horse outstrip his neighbour's. I This use beingnot lucrative, but on the whole pretty consistently wasteful,and quite~oo conspicllously so, it is honorific, and thereforegives the fast horse a stTong presumptive position of repu­tability.1 Beyond this, the race horse proper has also a similar­ly non·industrial but honorific use as a gambling instrument, I

Reading Ease Scorc: 48 Human InterestSeorc: 22

23S words11 sentences

13 ""elSonal'· wnrdso "pel'Sonal" senten~cs

20 words per sentencc164 ~yl1nbles per

100 word~

6% "personal" words0% "persomll"

sentences

NOT": Veblen was nolorious for his cumbersome style. Thispassage was chosen for its high human interest; however,Veblen's use of words like substantial serviceability and pre­sllmptive position oj repUlability drags down the ReadingEase Score.

• Copyris,hl by The Viking Pre5S. U~d by permission,

How TO TEST RIw>"DIUTY 317

EXAMPLE 10

From The A",hassatJors by Henry James:

This assault of images became for a moment, in the addressof the distinguished sculp{Qr, almost formidable: I Glorinnishowed him in such perfect confidence, on Clllld', introductionof him, a fine, worn handsome face, a face that was like anopen lctter in a foreign tongue. I With his genius in his eycs,his manners on his lips, hia long career behind him and hishonors and rewards all round, the grcat artist, in the coursc ofn single sustained look and a few words of delight at receivinghim, affccted ollr friend as a dazz.ling prodigy of type. IStrether had loo seen in museums-in the Luxembourg as wellas, more revcrcntly, in other days, in the New York of thebillionaires-the work of hiB hand; knowing too that, aftcr anearlier time in Ilis native Rome, he had migratcd, in mid­carec:r, to P<lris, where, with a personal lustre almost violent,lIe shone in a constcllation: I all of which was more thanenough to crown him, for his guest, with the light, with theromance, of glory. I Strether, in contact with that clement ashe had never yet so intimately been, had the consciousness ofopening to it, for the~oo happy instant, all the windows of hismind, of letting this rather gray intcrior drink in, for once, thesun of a clime not marked in his old geography. I

229 words6 SCnlenees

38 words per sentenco143 syllables per

100 words

10% "personal" words0% "personal"

scnlen<;cs24 "personal" wordso "per!iOnal" scnlenCeli Rending Ease Score: 47 Human Interest

Score: 36

NOTE: Henry James' style is extreme in the complexity ofits long sentences. The Reading Ease Score of 47 probablyunderrales the actual difficulty of this passage for II modernreader; however, the high human interest may carry himthrough. Note that the clause after the colon, beginning withthe words all o/which, was considered an independent clausennd counted as a separale sentence, but the pllrtieipial phrasebeginning with the words knowing 100 'hat was not.

318 How TO WRIT!!, SPEAK, AND TIIIN" MORC EFFECTIVELY

EXAl\1PLE 11

From ReCOllS/ruc/ioll in Philosophy by John Dewey: •

The increasing acknowledgmenl that goods exisl and endureonly through being communicated and lhat associ.Hion is themeans of conjoinl sharing lies back of the modern sense ofhumanity and democracy. I It is lhe saving snit in altruism andphilanthropy, which wilhoUI lhis faclor degenerate into moralcondescension and moral inlerference, taking the form of try­ing to regul:lle the affairs of others under the guise of doingthem good or of conferring upon them some right as if it werea gift of charity. I It follows Ihal organization is never an endin itself. I It is a means of promoting rwociation, of multiply­ing effeclive points of contact between persons, directing theirintercourse inlo the modes of greatCst fruitfulness.

118 words01 sentences

)0 words per sentence17S syllable.• per

100 wortl$

3% "pcrsonal" words0% "personul"

senteoces \3 "pcrsonal" wontso "pcrsonal" sentences Reading Ease Score: 29 Human lnterest

Score: 11

NOTE: An example of highly abstrnet, very dilF,cult wtlttng.The importnnce of lhe idea expressed here is almost whollyobscured by the style.

• Copyright by The Ucacon fires,. Used by permission.

Chapter Thirty-Fom

HOW TO RAiSE READABILITY.

Testing readability is nol an end in itself. Orten you will wantto go on from there; if your SCOre turns out to be 100 low,you'll want to know how to raise it, This section showsbrielly how to do that,

Focus on your render

There's no point in controlling readability if you don'tknow who you arc writing for. Find out as much as you canabout your readers' education, rending habits, "ge, sex, oc­cupational background, and so on. Even a clear conceptionof the charncteristies of "the general reader" is better thanwriting in a vacuum,

FOClls on your purpose

What nrc you writing ror1 What do you expect your readersto do? Read your piece casually? Study it? Usc it for ref­erence? Read it for entertainment during leisure hours? Desure of what you are trying to do and write accordingly.

Design your Wl'iting functionally

Once you know your audience and your purpose, you candesign your piece of writing to fil. Ordinarily this means thatyou start raising your readability score by raising the countof "personal words." For easy and interesting reading, astory design is USUally best--eitber sustained oarrative or

31'

320 How TO WRITE. SI'EAK. ANn TIUNK MORl! EFFF.CTIVELY

nnecdotes, illustrative examples, and practical applications,sandwiched between straight exposition. For instructions, thebest d~sign is lhe direct "you" approach, or cookbook style.(Sec Example l4b.)

In other words, you can raise the "personal words" countby using the first and second persons for yourself and yourreader, and by explaining your ideas through the experiencesof people. (See Examples 6, 8. 13, and l.s.) Usc actual peopleif you can: if you use ficlitious characters, be sure the readerknows they ure fictitious.

Arter the "personal words" count, raise the count of "per­sonal sentenccs." In today's professional writing the propor­tion of dialogue 10 nnrrative is rising steadily, To makenarrntive fulty rendllble, diTl.'Ct quotations at key points arcessential. (See Example 15.)

Even without quoted dialogue Ihe conversational approach10 the reader will incrense readability, (Sec Example 3.)

Break up sentences and pnrngmph5

Next, shorten the length of the average sentence. To dothis. look for the joints in complex sentences and change de­pendent clauses to independent clauses. (Sec Example 12.)

There is a natural relation between lhe length of sentencesand the length of puragraphs. Arter you have shortened yoursentences, brenk up your paragraphs to fit the changed rhythm.

Find simpler words

Finally, sllorten the average length of your words. Someof the long, complex words may be technical terms thatshouldn't be changed. As for the rest, remcmber that com­plexity rather lhan lenglh mnkes for reading difficulty. Manycomplex words nrc ahSlrnct nOllns. Change these nouns intoverb~. particularly simple verbs with adverbs. For example,instead of COlrdc.~ccn.fion use look down on. It i~ USUllllybetter to recasl sentences than simply replace one word byanother.

Help your rtnder rend

You will raise your readability scores indirectly if you try

How TO RAts!! RIlADAmLrTY 321

to help your reader in the job of reading. Point out to himwhat is specially significant. tell him to remember what beshould remember. prepare him for what he is going to read,and sUllUllD.fizc for him what be has read.

Learn 10 cut

The most common fault of writing is wordiness; Ihc mostimpOflllnt editorial job is CUlling. Cutting unessentials willmake esscntials stand out bCllcr and save the rcader time.

If your piece of writing is too long, some readers mayskip it altogether. Often you have to design 11 piece of writingto auract readers by sheer brevity,

Readers remember best what they read last. Rearrangeyour writing with that in mind. Do this with words. sen·tences, and larger units. Prepare your reader's mind for youeideas, and then build them up for greatest impacL

Punctunte for readability

Current punctuation pfllctice gives you much leeway. Usepunctuation to speed up rcnding and to clarify the mcaningof words and sentenccs. If you use short sentences, usesemicolons llnd colons 10 show their connection, Underlining(italics) and parentheses will help convey conversational em·phasis or casualness,

As a rule, design your writing for being read aloud.

Don't write down to your render

While you are working on words. sentences, paragraphs,and punctuQtion, don't lose sight of Ihe first and most im·partllnt point: remember your readcn. Don', overrale theirreading habits and skills. bUI don't underrate tbem as humanbeings, Otherwise you'll defeat your purpose.

322 How TO WIUTE, SI'!Wt:. AND TIIINK MORl! EfFECTIVELY

EXAMPLE 12n

From The ConSiitution oC lIle United States (Article I, Sec­lion 10):

No Slate shall enler inlo any trenty, alliance, or confedera.­tion, grant letters of m:lrque and reprisal, eoin money, emitbills of credit, l1mkc :my thing but gold or silver coin a tenderin payment of debts, P:ISS lilly bill of allaindcr, ex post factoJaw, or law impairing Ihe obligation of contracts, or grantany title of nobility. I

No State shall, without the consent of thc Congress, l:1ynny imposts or duties on impons or exports, excepl whatmay be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws,and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by anySlate100 On imports or exports, shall be for the use of theTreasury of the United States; I and all such laws shall besubject 10 Ihe revision and control of the Congress. I

No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, laynny dUly of tonnage. keep Iroops or ships of war in time oCpellCC:, enter into any lIgreement or compaci with anotherState, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless aClUlIl·Iy invaded, or in such imminent dllnger lIS will not lIdmitof delay. I

187 words4 $Cntenel:S

47 lI"ord5 per sentence152 syllables per

100 \I'ords

0% "personal" words0% "peBOnal"

sentenet:So "persona'" wordso "pel'Mlnal" KIllences Re:iluina Ease Score: 31 !iumllll Interest

Score: a

NOTE: The Constitution is. of course, WTillen in eighleenth­century legal English. The words are shoner lind simplerthan those of today, but (he sentences are (ar longer manthose a modern reader is used to.

How TO RAlSE RJwlAIllUTY 323

EXAMPLE 12b

From Our Consliwzion and What II Mea!U by WilliamKottmeyer: •

Article I, Section 10What the States May Not Do

No Slate shall make a treaty or tie itself up with anothercountry. I No State may give people Ihe right to fight or workngninst other countries. I No Stale may stamp its own coinsor print its own money. I

No Stale may usc anything but gold and silver for money. INo State may take away a mun'a properlY. I No Stale maypunish a mon for something not wrong when he did it. I NoStale may make a law to wipe Out written llgreements madein the right way. I

No State may give a mun a noble title (prince, c:Iuke,CIC.). I 100

Unless Congress agrees, no State -may put taxes on goodscoming in or going out of a State, except to keep its inspec­tion laws working. I This tax money shall go to the NationalGovernment. I Congress may change any such State tax law. I

No Slate may tax ship!. I No State may keep an army(except State militia). I No State may make agreements withanother State or with a foreign country unless Congressagrees. I No State may go to war unless it is attacked andcannot delay fightiog. I

186 wordsIS s.ent~IICes

12 word~ per sentence133 ~yllabJes per

100 words

4% "personal" words0% "pcrs.onal"

i1Cntenees6 "personal" wordso "personiiJ" s.emences Reading Ease Scare: 82 Human Interest

Seo",: 14

NOTE: Mr. Kallmeyer's book is an explanation of theConstitution in simple words for use in adult educationclasses. The simplification is carried out mainly by shorten­ing the sentences from an average of 47 words to an averageof 12.

• Copyrighl 1949 by Websler Publishing Co., St. l.<iWs. Used bypermission.

324 How TO WRITe, SI'£AX, AND TIU~1t MOlll! El'FECl1VELY

E.XAMPLE 13a

From Beller Life Insurance uIUrs by Mildred F. Stone:-

JI7(l are in receipt at YOllr leiter requuting a clulnge ot bene­ficiary. I You tailed 10 inform III as (0 IIII! (inal payee in caseIlle said bene/ici(lry predeceased Ihe insured. I Kindly adviseami will contact the lIome office. I

Rell.dina Ea5c Score: 60 Human InlerestScore: 11

)8 words) 5enlences.. Mpcrsonal- words) MpcnoDll1" SCDICDces

13 words per 5Cntenco1sa syllables per

100 WONs

ll'l> "pen.on:!l." words10ll'l> "penoDll1"

sentu:ces

NOTE: M3ybe An e:lC3ggerllted example of the gruff, old­style business letler. Both readability scores seem to'" overratethe readability of Ihis leiter. The Reading Ease Score iscomp:tratively high because of the short sentences, disregard.ing their abruptness. The Human Interest Score is relativelyhigh because of the general personal approach in all letters.

• Copyrll,!n I~SO by Nlltional Underwriter Co., Cincinnati, OILia.Used by permission.

How TO RAls.1! RI!ADADIUTY 325

EXAMPLE 13b

From Beller Life bUl/ranee Letlus by Mildred F. Stone:·

Your change of beneficiary request will be sent to the Com­pany prompl1y as soon as we con give Ihem all necessary in­formation. /

lt1 CllSe you shol/ld all/five MrJ. Evan.~, ",hom do you want 10receive Ille life in:mrance money? / Probably you would walllil III en to go 10 your esWte. /11 so, please sigll Ihe enc:Josedlorm. / II you have oIlier plam please wrile UJ in delOit andwe shall be gtad to lIelp you Illr/hu. I

When you retllrn thi! beneficiary change reqllest send UJ

your policy also so Ihal we con mail them togelher to theHome Office. I Tile changed policy will be refurned 10 youpromptly. /

108 words7 KfItenc:es17 "))eDOlJal" ,,"ords

IS words pet Knteoce141 syl1:lbles pet

100 .....ords

16'1(, "personal" .....ordsJ00.,. "persotlil.1ft

5e1Jtenc:es

7 "personal" KnteDo;d Read1na Euc: Score: n Humnn InterestScore: 89

Non: Miss Stone's rewrite Dims at making the leUer morepleas.ant and friendly rather than more readable. Neverthe­less, both the Reading Ellse Score and Ihe Human InterestScore were raised considerably in Ihe process. Note par­ticularly how the impersonal word benefICiary was changedto Mrs. Evans: note also Ihe colloquial usage of referring 10

the company as "them."

• Copyright 19S0 by National Underwriter Co.. CiaeiM;lti. Ohfo.Used by perm.iuiCIl.

326 How TO WRITE, Sl'EAK, AND TIIINK MORI! EFFeCTIVELY

EXAl\1PLE 143

From Gobble-de-cook or Plain Talk? (Air Materiel Com·mand Manual No. 11·1, 1950):

(I) An employee who has a grievance or Ili~ representativewill normally present Ihe grievance, in the first instance, orallyto Ihe immediate supervisor. I The supervisor will consider itpromptly and impartially, collecting the necessary facts andreaching a decision. I If the employee is not satisfied with thesolution of Ihe problem, he will be advised that he may dis­cuss the problem with the next higher supervisor. I

(2) If the employee feels thai an interview with the im­mediate supervisor would be unsatisfactory, he or hi8 repre­sentative may, in the first instance, present hiB grievance tothe next supervisor in line. I Where anulIl employee feels aninterview with the second supervisor would likewise be un­satisfactory, lIe may seek counsel from the civilian personnelofficer or hiB employee relations counselor, whose role will beto advise and aid him in facilitating the employee's approachto a supervisory level determined approprinlc by the facts inthe particular case. I

Reading Ease Score: 22 Human InlerestScore: 22

153 wnnb5 ICnlcn,es

9 "pel'$(lnnl" wordso "penonal" senlences

31 word$ per senlen,~

182 syllables per100 words

6% "personal" WOlds0% "pcrs<Jn:ll"

ICntences

NOTE: A fair example of Ihe style used in most governmentdocumenls. The sentences arc long and complex. the wordslong and impersonal. Nole Ihe mnny common-gender nDurnlike employee, representative, or sllpervisor. Paragrnplt num­bers were disrcgnrded in coulltiog words.

How TO RAISE 1lJ:ADASIUTY 321

EXAMPLE 14b

From Gobble-de-gook or Plain Talk? (Air Materiel Com­mand Manual No. 11-1, 1950):

Is something abOl/t your job bothering you? IHere arl~ the sleps y011 can take to solve your problem. I In

most ctlSes it will be solved at tile firsl step. I 1/ not, you hm'l!Jhe riCht to keep going on lip 10 Ihe 10/1. I You. may presemYOllr own case or !rave someone do it lor yOIl. I

Talk with your superior. I He has been lord to give a promptand fair answer to all problems. I Usually, a short friendly talkwith hinl will flx things up. I Be hones' and sincere when youtalk with him. I

1/ you led lhat your supervisoruXI will not handle your caselairly, you may go directly to his SlIpen>isor. lOr, if you havegone 10 your supen>isor and he didn't handle your problem tosuit )'OU, yau may still go to his supen>isor. I

II )'011 leel your case has nOI yel been, or will not be,handfed lairly by either 0/ them, go to your personnel lech­nician. I He can't give you a fi1UJ1 answer, but he can tell ,'ouhow to get it, I

117 wordsJJ sentences

14 word' per 'enLencc127 ,yllllbJes per

100 words

!!)% "personnl" word577% "pcrsonll1"

senlences33 "pers.onnl" words10 "penoanl" 5Colences Readlna £;I.sc Sco~: IS lIum:ln Interest

Score: !)J

NOTE: This rewrite WllS done as a demonstration of thereadability fonnula described in this book, The most im­portant chnnge is the use of the second penon nnd the dir«:tapproach. NOle the colloquial touches that make readingeasier, such as contnlctions like didn't and cnn'" idioms likefix things up, and convenational emphases like "his super·visor:'

328 How TO WRITE, SPell, AND TIUNK. MOIlI! EFFECTlVeL.Y

EXAMPLE 15a

From "Ferrier LeclUre. Some observations on the cerebralconex of man;' by Wilder Penfield (Proceeding~ 01 lheRoyal Society, B, v. 134, 1947, pp. 329~347):.This report is based largely on the accumulated experience

of the neurosurgical openlting room, I The cerebral corte:twas stimulnted in well over 300 operations under localanesthesia. I The purpose of these operations was usually torelieve symptomatic epilepsy by local excision of what maybe called an epileptogenic focus in the grey matter of thebrain. I

Success in Ion" procedures like these depends on mutualunderstanding and trust between surgeon and patient. I Dur~

ing all operations included io this series, the result of eachpositive rcspoffiC to stimulation was marked by a numberedor Icttered ticket laid on the COrtex, and100 Ihe result wasdictated through a microphone hanging ovcr the operatingtable. I Photographs were taken of the operative field througha mirror above Ihe operator's head by metlfLS of a cameraplaced outside a window in the wall of Ihe operating room. IThe positions of stimulation tickets were also drawn in 00 aslandard brain chart which was sterilized so that the surgeonmight make his own record in every case wilbout break ofaseptic technique. I

176 words7 sentences

2S words per sentence116 1i~lIablcs per

100 \r,rords

I <;f, "personal" wordsO~ "personal"

sentencesI "personat" WQmo "per$ODllI" 5oCnte:nces Rc:ldina Ease Seorll: 33 Human Intete$t

Score: 3

NOTe.: These are the two introductory paragraphs of ascientific paper thai WAS used as a source (Or Mr. Silverman'sarticle (Ste Example ISb). The style is Iypical of scientificwriting; the technical lerms used are, of course, casy forscientifically trained readers but difficult for laymen. Notethe absence of "personal" words and the consistent use ofthe passive voice-bolb customary in scientific papers.

How 'TO RAISE RE..wAUILITY 329

EXAMPLE ISb

From "Now They're Exploring the Brain" by Milton Silver~

man (Salurday Eve/ling Post, October 8, 1949, pp. 26-27,80, 83·86): •

The patient had been a wise, cheerful, fatherly clergymon. /When they brought him into the hospital, he was bewilderedand a lillie frightened. / His left arm was paralyzed.!

"I guess I'm through," he told the intern on arrival. / "My(lrm wenl weak like tllis last night. / Yesterday I had threeconvulsive auacks, one after Ihe other, ! Eacll time there was afunny dream, lind then I jaimed." /

"Have yOIt been having Ihese al/acks for very long?" IThe clergy-mon nodded. / "For a good many monlhs. ! The

first otle came on a Sunday, jllS/ as I was preparing to give mysermon'loo I There was a dream before that Olle 100. I Thedream almost always comes /irst.'"

When Ihe doctors went over his record, one of them said,"The trouble isn't in hi! arm. , 11 must be in h~ brain, prob­ably on the riglll side. I Those dreams at the beginning of hisaltacks {loint to the temporal lobe. I There is something wronglhere- , maybe a tumor." I

They examined him nnd carried out tests and made X-rayphotographs. I If a tumor was present, it didn't show itself. !They uied a brain-wave study, but this showed ooly somevague dislUrbanee in the right side of:!oo his brain. ,

The doctors explained the siwation to him and said, "We'(Jlike to operale. I'Ve want to go in and see what we can /ind." I

"All righl," agreed Ihe clergyman. , '" pm myself in yourhands. I Do Ihe bUI you can. I 1 want 10 gel bel/cr.' You see,my people need me." ,

So they operated under local aneslhesia and exposed theright side of his brain. , While he was completely conscious,able to move a.nd ta.lk and describe hi~ sensations, they made amap of his brain surface. !

• U$Cd by permission of Mr. Silverman Md Ihe SaW/day EI'C/litl8Port.

330 How TO WRITE, SrEA1i:, AJ\'l) TlllNa.: MORE EFFECTlVE1.Y

289 words30 sentences

10 word5 per senlcm;e13$ syllables per

100 words

I$% "personal" word.l10% "personal"

sentences43 "person31" words21 "pcnooa.!·' senlences Reading Ease Score; 82 Human Imerest

Sc:ore; 16

NOTE: This is the le::ld (opening incident) in a SatllrdayEv~nintl Post article dealing mainly wilb Dr. Penfield's work(see Example ISa.). It is typical of thc pOpUI::lriZlltion tech·nique used in mass·circultltion rnagazines. Exposition is shotthrough with appealing and interesting narl':ltive and thenarrative is heightened in many places by dramatization anddialogue. The case of the clergyman is mentioned briefly inthe body of Dr. Penfield's paper; however, the quoted dialoguehas apparently been reconsltucted or invented by Mr, Silver·man-a device widely used in popular magazine articles. Ofcourse, the two examples are not strictly comparable in sub·stance; but they do show clearly the tremendous differencein readability between a scienli fie paper for fellow scientisUand a popular article for lay readers dell1ing with the samesubject.

CI13pter Thirty-Five

A QUICK SELF-TEST

The readability tcst shown in the last chaptcr was first pub­lished in 1949. It is now widely used by journalists, adver­tising copy writcrs, and other professional writers.

To givc yOll a still simpler 1001 for everyday practical pur·poses, 1 have greatly changed aod simplified thtl! test, so thatyou can go through your writing just once, count cerlainitems, and come out with a single score.

To test your writing---or any piece of written English, forthat maltcr-stnrt by counting the words. Or, if you want tomake your job a little easier, count off exactly 100 words asa sample. Naturally, for a longer piece of writing, you'l! wantto take several samples. For instance, if you want to test anarticle of 3,000 words, you might take five lOO-word samples,picked at random. (It's not a good idea to star! with tbeopening paragraph, since Ihat is usually not representativeof the piece as a whole. The same applies to the ending.)

You'll run into a few questions as to what is a word. &D rule of thumb, count everything as a word thut has whitespace on either side. Therefore, count thc article "a" as aword, and the letter "a" in enumerations, and all numbers,abbreviations, CIC. (ExlImpJes: "1958," "G.O.P.," "1,02,""Ph.D.," ·'c.g.") If an abbreviation point falls in the middleof a word, count il DS one word, not two. Also count as oneword contractions Dnd hyphenated words, for instance,"don't," "I've," "half-baked," "pseudo-science."

All right. You have counted the words. (1 suggest you putn pencil check mark after every ten words, so that you woo'tmake any mistakes. Then put a bigger check mark after thehundredth word.) Now you are ready for the test count.Start again at the beginning and count one point for each ofthe following items:

331

332 How TO W,l.ITe, SreAlIi(, AND TIIINK MORB EPFECTIV]!LY

1. Any word with 3. capital leller in it,2. Any word thnt is underlined or it3.liciz.ed,3. All Dumbe~ (unless spelled out).4. All punctualion marks ucept commas. hyphens, and

abbreviation points. (Periods, colons, semicolons. queSiionmarks, eJlclamation points, quotation marks, parentheses,brackets, apostrophes, crc.)

5. All other symbols, such as ;;, S, t, %, &.6. One exira point each for the beginning Bod coding of

a paragraph.If you havc taken 3. 100·word s3mple, the sum tot3.1 of

your points is your score. If you have lakcn sevcral lDO·wordsamples, add up the points in nil Ihe samples and divide bythe number of S3nlpJes, The result is your average score forthe whole piecc of writing tested. If you counted Ihe pointsin a wholc piece of writing, containing more or less than aoeven 100 words, divide Ihe lotal number of points by Ihetotal number of words and multiply by 100 10 get your score.

Your score is likely to be :lo number somewhere betwcen10 nod 50. Here is whal it means:

Up 10 2021 to 2526 to 3031 10 3SOver 35

FormalInformalFairly PopularPopul3.rVery Populill'

I did again what I did silttecn years ago :lond checked thestyles of various magazines. This is what I found:

Up to 2021 to 2S26 to 3031 to 3SQ"er 35

Columbia Un;vusity Forl/mHarper's, The New YorkerTime, Reader's DigestSmurday Evening PostE//ery Queen's Mystery Magaline

The application for this for your own purposes is clear. Inyour evuyday writing. )'OU can't afford to stick 10 tbe formal,academic style of Ihe Columbia University Forum, Ihe YaleReview, and other learned journals and boob. You must learnto break through 10 the informal style now used in all map­zincs and books addrcssed to the general public. Whicb means,in terms of this test, that )'OU must learn how to score over 20,

To show you what can be done with a rather unpromisingsubject, 1 bave selected an article from tbe Saturday Everl;"g

A QUICK SI!LF-Tt;sr 333

Post, entitled "So You're All Tensed Up," by Harry J. lohn­son, M.D., as told to Steve M. Spencer (March 15, 1958).I ran my test on a large number of samples from that articleand found that the over-all score was 24. (The Post averagescore is much higher than that, due to the fiction pieces.)

The article, I think, is particularly inslrUctive because itWa! the leading article in that issue of the Post and Wa!

written with the help of Mr. Spencer, who is one of the Post'ssenior editor'S_ It's a typical example of professional nonfictionwriling for a mass audience.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

A cynical observer of the American business scenehas remarked that there are only two kinds of executive,those who get ulcers and those who give ulcers to others.As a physician who each year interviews about 1,000men, I cannot agree with such 11 sweeping indictment.Most executives, in my opinion, are pleasant fenowswho work at a reasoll3ble tempo, treat their associateswith understanding and considerntion, and enjoy fairlygood health.

But there are unqu~tionably enough of them in thecynic's two categories to generate plenty of problems inthe world of interoffice memos and commuting brief­cases-problems coming under the gener::al heading oftensioo.

In a survey of tensions, just completed by the LifeExtension Found:llion , , ,

Here is a typical passage from the middle of the article:

Just how demanding, theo, 3re the job requirementsof the average American executive? More than balfsaid they worked a nine-ta-five day, although 40 perceot nrrived at the office at eight and a third workeduntil six. A shade under three quarters of them spendless than five hours a week on homework, and 20 percent spend five to ten hours. Four per cent work len tofifteen hours at home, I per ceot fifteen to twenty hours,and a very busy I per cent said they spend more thaDtwenty hours a week on homework. or those who didtake work home, 22 per cent said they liked it, 57 percent were resigned to it, and 21 per cent "loathed" it.

"How does your wife feel about your business home­work?" we tben asked. Sixty-nine per cent said their

334 How TO WRITP., SPEAK, "NO TillNIC MORE EFFECTJVELY

wives were "untlerslrmding," 19 per cent s:lid Ihey were"indifferent," and 12 per cenl said Ihey were "reselllfuL"

The final paragraph reads:

If you are teMe, il is you yourselC who can do themost to reduce that tension. Change your perspective.When molehills become mountains, ask yourself howimportant the irritating situation will be tomorrow. Buildlip your self-confidence and make Ihe mosl of what youhave. Don't fret about what you don'l hnve. Be tolerant.When someone rubs you Ihe wrong way, ask yoursclfwhat wrong he has really done you, What rcason haveyou to criticize him? Isn'l it usullily jealousy? Finally,the old reliable admonition, he moderate. When youbecome impalient and impetuous, stop and think, Wholoses most by the constnnt rushing and resllessness? Why,you do, of course. So calm down. Take a walk aroundthe block,

Now let's analyze these sample passnges a little. The over­all score of the article, as 1 said, was 24, How did Mr.Spencer do it? Let's look closely al whn( he did with thewords nnd senlences nnd paragraphs 10 gcl Dr. Johnson'sidea! and experiences across to Ihe American public.

To begin with, leI'S compare thc scores of the three sam­ples. That of the opening paragraphs is 15, th:lt of the pas­sage from the middle is 24 (exaetly represenl31ive of thoarticle as n whole), and that of the ending, 29, Mr, Spencerstarted a little slowly and Slimy, thcn ran Ihe course rtf apretty even pace, and finished up in highly dramalic lind ef­fective style.

This 100 is rather typical. The beginning of a magazinepiece-whal Ihe pros call Ihe lead-is often considerably lessinformal than the rest of lhe piece, whereas the ending iswually an altempt 10 leave the reader with some prose fire­works. In Ihis case, the lead was a brief, nOI tOO excitinganecdote, afler which came a simple stntement of what thearticle was: a repa" on a survey of tensions made by IheLife Exlension Foundation. Thc ending is also a classicspecimen of the windup of such an anicle: a succinct sum­mary of what the reader ought 10 do IlS a result of havingread Ihe piece.

Following Ihe now accepled magazine procedurc. thearticle is wrillen in Ihe "I" style "by Harry J. Johnson, M,D.,

A QUICK SI!.LF-TEST 335

as lold to Steven M. Spencer." Also, as you will nOlicc, theclosing p:tragraph is addressed directly to "you," the rcaderof the article.

The specimen passage from the body of the article is anice example of how to handle statislics. Note how expertlyMr. Spencer tells you nbout "more than half," "a shadeunder three quarters," and "a very busy I per cen!." Notealso Ihat the 21 per cent who disliked homework are quotedas having used a much more colorful expression about it:they "loathed" it.

How did Mr. Spencer get all the cllpilal leiters into thearticle thllt brought the score up to 241 LeCs see. First of all,tbere is the frequent appearance of the word "I," which waspossible because Dr. Johnson was Ibe official amhor of thearticle. Secondly, there is the liberal use of names and places.(At onc point in the arlicle, there is a reference 10 a companywhich b3d to remnin 3nonymous. Mr. Spencer did bettcr thanthat. He referred to it as "a company I shllll call Ulcers, Inc,"Nelli, isn't it?) Thirdly, there arc 1111 the short sentences,particularly toward the end of the (m;cle. Each word begin­ning a sentence, of course, adds to the count of capital letters,

Mr. Spencer doesn't do 100 well on italicized words, bUIof course hc gives us a lot of numbers, since he is dealingwith D. statistical subject. Hc is lavish with the; next item Ihatadds to the score-punctuation. There are plenty of periods(Ihe sentences are quite short, on the average), plenty ofsemicolons and colons, and as many quotlliion marks as 3ny­one can reasonably provide, Next, there are apostrophes. Mr.Spencer conlracts most of Ihe words that can be contractedas a mailer of course: he wriles "'wouldn't," "he's," "he'd,""isn't," "I'll," "didn't," "aren'!," "weren't," and "I've,"

Finally, there are Mr. Spencer's paragraphs, which Me

admirably short. I counled the sentences and found that mostof his paragraphs run to three or four sentences, Many haveonly two.

Now leI's apply whllt we have learned from this exampleand set down some simple rules on how to get your scoreoyer 20, (This, of course, will be a brief summary of whlltyou hllve read in Pan I about informal language, the first­person-singular style, how to be exact, and how to use dia·logue,)

1. Use the first person singular wherever possible.2, Mention names, dates, and plnees. Specify, Illustrate,

Cite cases, If you can't use ll.ctual nanles, give fictional ODes,like "Ulcers, loc,"

J36 How TO Warn;, 5reAt=, AND TJllNJ:" MOIU! EFF£CTlVELY

3. Keep your sentences short, so thflt you'll have manyopening words with capitals. If your avenge sentence hasover 20 words, you'll hllve four periods and four first word!beginning with a capital within ellch 100 words of your text.This isn't good enough: it's only 8 basic points for your score.H your average sentence runs to 16 words, you'll have 6periods and 6 beginning capitals to st:m wilh-12 basicpoints. With that it ought to be easy to collect a few more toget over 20.

4. Emphasize words by underlining them. (They'll beitlllicized in print.) A single underlined word may mise theeffectiveness of n lcner enormously. The other day I workedon such a letter with n class of students. Everybody agreedthllt underlining a single word-oll/y-mnde all the differencein the world. So, if you want to cmphn.~ize somcthing, under­line il.

S. Use numbers. Tell about how much, when, al whataddress. Tell the reader at what hour the event happened,even III what minute. (Remember Dragnet? "10: 14 A.M. Wewent uptown.") Identify people by their age. Identify thingsby their price. Identify events by their dale.

6. Usc, as J said before, UI least six periods within a hun·dred words. (Commas nre on Ihe decline. Use as few aspossible. It will speed up reading.)

7. Usc as many queslion marks as you can. This meaDS,if you deal with a qU~lion, formul:uc it as a direct questionwith a queslion marlc. (On Ihe olher hand, exclamation pointsarc practically extinct todlly. Avoid them.)

8. Use parentheses freely to play things down. (See theparentheses I used in poinls 4. S, 6, and 7.)

9. Contract all words thm you would naturally contractin spellking. If you'd say "you'd," write "you'd."

10. Use as much din/ague as you can. Quote what peoplesaid, what they wrote, what they ""ould say, even what theymight say. "But how do you expect me to do thisr' you'llsay. Like this.

11. Keep your paragraphs short. Oon't put more Ihan two.thru, four of your si"teen-word .sentences iota ooe pll.Tllgr:aph.

12. Use other symbols, such as S or &. In other words, usellS much as possible all typewriter keys other than the letters-the digits. the punclUation marks, the shift key, Ibe spacebar, elc. Get variety 00 your page. Make it interesting visllally.

And now, to show you two extremes of prose writing thatI discovered with my test, I'll quote one example of prose

A QUICK S£LF-TEST 337

that tests 95 and nnother that "tests 12. Th~y are worlds apart-in letter and in spiri!.

First, here is a passage from The Case 0/ lhe Baiud Hookby Eric Stanley Gardner:

"When did you get het'eT'"AboUl half an hour ago.""You didn't have any reason to think you'd find a

body?"_"No.""You've seen him before?""No.""Talked with him over the lelephon~?"

"I called his office yesterday, yes.""What timeT'"1 don', know. I would say it was shortly bcfor~ cleven

o'clock.""What did he say?""I had a tentative appo~ntment with him," Mason said,

"1 wanted to cancel it, and mak~ OD~ at a lat~r date.""Have any argument?""Not exactly.""What was your business with him?"Mnson smiled and sh(W)k his head."Come on," Sergeant Holcomb said. "Kick through.

If we'r~ going to solve a murder, we've got to havemotives. If we knew something. about that business youwanted to discuss with him, we might have a swell mo­tive."

"And again," Mason said, "you might nOI."Sergeant Holcomb clamped his lips shut. "Okay," he

said.

This is the ultimate extreme-a score of 95, about four orfive times as high as you would ordinarily get on bread-and­buuer English prose. And yel, this doesn't sound in any wayabnonnal. It's simply a record of a rapid exchange thnt quiteconceivably could have taken place. If it had been done witha tape recorder instead of by way of Eric Stanley Gardn~r's

fertile imagination, it would probably not have looked verydifferent on paper.

Now let's switch to John Dewey's passage with the low,low score of 12. It's from bis book Experience and Nall/re.

Ghosts, centaurs, tribal gods, Helen of Troy and

338 How TO WRITE, SPE.o.K, ,"".-0 TIIINIC MORI! EFFECTIVELY

Ophelia of Denmark are as much the meanings of eventsas are nah and blood, horses, Florence Nightingale andMadame Curie. This s([llement does not mark a discov­ery; it enunciatcs :I tautology. It seems questionable onlywhen its sillnHic::mce is allered; when it is taken todenote that, because they are all meanings of events,they lIll are the same kind of meaning with respect tovalidity of reference. Because perceplion of :1 ghost doesnot signify II subtle, inlangible fonn, filling SpliCC as itmoves about, it does not follow Ihllt it may not signifysome other existential happenings like disordered nervcs,a religious animistic tradition; or, as in the play ofHamlet, that it may not signify an enhancement of theme:ming of a moving state of affairs. The existenlialevents that form a drama have their owo characteristicmeaniogs, which are oat the less meanings of Ihoseevents because their import is drllmatic, not autheoticallycognitive. So when men g'lIher in secret to plot a con­spiracy, their plans are nOI the less meanings of certainevents beclluse they have not been already c:lrried out;and they remain meanings of events even if the con­spiracy comes to naught.

1 must confess that I love this piece of prose. 11'5 so beau­tifully meaningless-and ironically it deals, of all things, withmeaning. What did John Dewey mean by "meaning" here?And just what is an "existential happening" in conlrast 10any other kind of hllppening? Ab, those "existential eventswhose import is nuthentically cognitive"! And the "statementIhal enunciates a tautology"! And "meaning with respect tovalidity of reference"!

No, I don't expeci that you'll commit anything like thisto paper. (If you are the kind of person who is likely to dothai, I must tell you that you·re a pretty hopeless case.) Isimply put this quolation here as a warning example. My testformula will pllt your wriling OD a scnle between Erie StanleyGardner nnd John Dewey. It's up to you to use it as II.

frequent checkup lind to find out whethcr you llre improving(in Ihe direClion of Erie Stanley Gardner) or bncksliding (inthe direclion of John Dewey). If you're slipping, you'd bet­ter lake steps. For the awful truth is that il's much easier towrite like John Dewey than like Erie Sianley Gardner.

A QUICK Seu:-TEST 339

A SAMPLE TESI'

To show in detail how to apply the test, 1"11 use the firstpart of the article "Wonders of Direct Distance Dialing" byFrank J. T:lylor (Reader's Digest, Oetober, 1955, p. 61):

William Freylinck, plant service supervisor of theuhr:lmodern Englewood, N. J., telephone e:tch:lnge, wasshowing me the amazing "brain center" installed therefour years ago. It looked like a pile of diminutive metalbooks within great stacks of cases connected by :I tangleof bright-colored wires. Pushing a dial phone across hisdesk, Freylinck asked, "Know any Dumber out Westyou can c:l1l1"

"Sure, I know a good number neM San Francisco," Ireplied.

"Dial it aod see what happens," he s:lid, pulling a stopwatch from a desk drawer.

Starling with the figures 4·1-5, call prefix for the SanFnneisco area, I dialed my own home, a seven-digitnumber. Within 25 seconds, I could hear the phoneringing, 3000 miles away. My wife was incredulous whenI told her I h:ld dialed ber as easily and quickly as if Iwere phoning from across the street.

But Freylinck was apologetic; the average time to com­plete a call from Englewood by DOD (Direct DistanceDialing) is 18 seconds, The direct circuits may havebeen busy, he explained, and the brain center had lostseven seconds selling up the connection, perhaps by wayof Dallas or some other route possibly 5000 miles long.

DOD is no longer an engineer's dre:im. Ten thousandcustomers of the Eoglewood exchange have been usingthe revolutionary new service since November 1951. Upto a quarter million customers of 3. score of other su­burban exch3.nges h3.ve been dialing long-distance callsfor a shorter period. By the end of this year 56 com­munities will have DOD, and early in 1956 the first twol:arge Cilies, South Bend, Ind., and Hartford, Conn., willswitcb over. After thnt, the remainder of the countrywill go DOD as rapidly as a moderniUltion programcosting billions or dolla~ can be completed; and ulti·Olau:ly all of US will be able to dial directly IllmOSt any

340 How TO WRITE, SPEAK, AND THINK: MORI! EfFECTIVELY

of lhe 58 million phones in tbe Uniled States and Can­ada.

The Bell Telephone S)'Slem's DOD robots were firsttested in Englewood and other suburban nre35 becausethese fast-growing seclions already bod the latesl inequipment, and (he change-over to DDD would not beunduly time-consuming or costly. "We were confidentIhal the machines in these pilot exchanges would work."Freylinck says. "What we didn't know W35 how thecustomers would like the arrangement."

Bell's customers reacted so enthusillSticnlly that the 21associated operating companies in the American Tele­phone ond Telegraph network (Wilh 46 million phones).most of (he independent U. S. compnnics (with eightmillion phones). plus (he Canadian companies (fourmillion phones), soon decided to go ahend with tbedislance-dialing revolution.

Engineer John MCSZllr of the Dell laborniorics recallsIhat the system·s technicians realized, as long lIS fourdecades ago, that they had 10 invent robeLS. AI the J1Itethllt Americans and Canadians were tnlking, more lele­phone operalors would eventually be required than couldbe found. Today, even with automatic dialing, the BeUSystem requires a qunner of a million opermors to hlln­dIe cotlecl, person-la-person, information-please nodother nonllulomatic calls. Bell expects to employ more,rllther (han fewer, operators when DDD blankets thecountry,

To IIpply the lest, do this:Firsl, count the number of word~. There nrc altogether SI9

words in this excerpt. (Here are some or the words that mayraise qucslions in your mind about how to count them:"N. J." is counted as two words because there is while spacebetween the two abbreviations. "4-1-S" mnkes one word: nowhite splice inside. "DOD" is one word, but "Direct DistanceDialing" makes three. "South Bend" is two words. "Fnst~

growing" is one word; so is "change-over." "U. S." counts nsIWO words, like '·N. J,," because it is here printed witbwhile space between "U:' nnd "S." "Person-to-person" makesone word, lind so does "information-please," since it is herehyphenllted.)

The [mil 100 words end afler the word "San" of "SaoFrancisco area"; the second tOO words after the number"5000" in "5000 miles long"; the third 100 words after the

A QUICK SELF-TEST 341

words. "can be completed"; tbe fourth 100 words aftcr "the"and before "American Telephone and Telegraph"; and thefifth 100 words after "person-to-person."

Now count the points for your score like this (it is easiestto add them up as you go along):

Points Counted:Beginning of fint paragraphCapital W in WilliamCapital F in FreyfinckCapital E in EnglewoodN.1.Quotation mark before brainQuotation mark after ct:lIterPeriod after agoCapital I in ItPeriod after wiresCapital P in PushingCapital F in FreylinckQuotation mark before KnowCapital K in KnowCapital W in WestQuestion markQuotation mark after calf?End of paragraphDeginning of second paragraphQuotation markCapital S in Sure1Capital S in SanCapital F in FranciscoQuotation mark1Period aller repliedEnd of second paragraphBeginning of third paragraphQuotation markCapital 0 in DialQuotation mark after happensPeriod after drawerEnd of third paragraphBeginning of fourth paragraphCapital S in Starting4-1-5 (numbers)

Cumufali"e Score:123

•5•189

10111213

"ISI.111819202122232.252.212829303132333.353.3738

342 How TO WRITIl. SrEAi; A.ND TruNK MaRl! EFFECTlVE.LY

POi/Its COllfllecl: Cumulative Scort:Capital S in Sail 39

The score for the first 100 words is 39. Next, count thescore for the second 100 words;

Capital P in Francisco 11 2Period after Ilumber 3Capital W in Withill 425 (a number) 51 63000 (n number) 7Period after away 8Capital M in My 91 (after when) 101 (after her) 111 (after if) 12Period after sireet 13End of fourth paragraph 14Beginning of fifth paragraph 15Capital B in Bllt 16Capital F in Freylinck 17Colon after apologetic 18Capital B in Engle .....ood 19DDD (three capitals) 20Parenthesis before Direct 21Capital D in Direct 22Capltnl D in Dis/fIllce 23Capital D in Dialing 24Parenthesis after Dialing 2S18 (n number) 26Period after secol/cls 27Capital T in Tire 28Capital D in Dallas 295000 (a number) 30

The score for the second 100 words is 30. Next, couotthe score for the third 100 words:

Period after la/Ii: 1End of fifth pamgraph 2Beginning of sixth paragraph 3Capitals in DDD 4

Poinu Count~d:

Apostrophe afler enginunPeriod after dreamCapital T in T~n

Capital E in EnglewoodCapital N in November1951 (n number)Period after /951Capital U in UpPeriod after the word periodCapital B in By56 (a number)DDD (capitals)1956 (a number)Capital S in SOllthCapital B in BendCapital J in Ind.Capital H in HanfordCapital C in COlln.

Period after overCapital A in A/rerDDD (capitals)Semicolon after completed

A QUICK S£LP·T1!ST 343

Cumulative Score:56789

10II1213I'1516171819202122232.2526

The score for the third 100 words is 26. Next, count thescore for the fourth 100 words:

58 (a number) 1Capital U in United 2Capital S in SUI/es 3Capital C in Canada 4Period after Canada 5End of sixth paragraph 6Beginning of seventh paragraph 1Gapital T in The 8Capital D in Bell 9Capitlil T in Telephone 10Capital S in Syswn's 11Apostrophe in System'S 12DDD (capitals) 13Capital E in Englewood 14DDD (capitals) 15Period after costly 16Quotation mark before We 17Capital W in We 18

344 How TO WRITE, SrE.UC, "SO THt"''l:: MaRl!. EFFECTIVELY

Poillts Counted: Cumula/ive Score:Quotation mark after work 19Capital F in Freylinck 20Period after says 21Quotation mark before What 22Capital \V in Wlla/ 23Apostrophe in didn't 24Period after arrangement 25Quotation mark 26End of seventh paragraph 27Beginning of eighth paragraph 28Capital D in Bell's 29Apostrophe in Bell's 3021 (a number) 31

The score for the fourth 100 words is 31. Nexl tcst thefifth 100 words:

Capital A in A muicanCapital T in TdeplroneCapital T in TelegraphParenthesis before with46 (a number)Parenthesis after phollesU.S.Parenthesis before withParenthesis after phonesCapitnl C in C(//UUlimlParenthesis before IOllrParenthesis after phonesPeriod after revO/lllionEnd of eighth paragraphBeginning of ninth paragraphCapital E in Engi/lurCapital J in Joh/lCapital M in MenarCapital B in BellApostrophe in sysum'sItalicized word hndPeriod after rohotsCapital A in II tCapital A in 11II/uicnnsCapital C in CanndiallsPeriod after loulld

I23456789

10II121314IS16J71819202122232'252627

Points Counted:Capital T in TodayCapital B in BellCapital S in System

A QUICK SELP-TEST 345

Cumulative Score;282930

The score for the fifth tOO words is 30. Now count thescore of the remaining 19 woeds of the sample test:

Period afler callsCapital B in BellDDD (capitals)Period after cOllntryEnd of ninth paragraph

12345

The score of the 19 rcmainilnB words is f. Now figure thescore of the whole sample of 519 words:

Score of first 100 wordsScore of second 100 wordsScore of third 100 wordsScore of fourth 100 wordsScore of fifth 100 wordsScore of remaining 19 words

Total

39302631305

161

161 divided by 519 times 100 makes 31. The score of thewhole sample text is therefore 31---one point above the typi­cal Reader's Digest range of ":Fairly Popular" writing.

You can also work out the average score of the text onthe basis of the five lOa-word samples. This will give youexactly the same score of 31 (39 plus 30 -plus 26 plus 31plus 30 makes 156, divided by 5 makes 31). Note, however,that the first paragraph (the "lc3d" of the article) has ahigher score than the rest and is therefore not representative.

Index

Barllett, Vernon, 263Bartlelt's Familiar Quotations,

209Dllum, Vicki, 19SDelln, Louis, 276Decker, May lambertOD, 277Deerbohm, Max, 142Dell, Joseph N., 145Bd/ lor Adono, A, 63Bell Telephone Laboratories,

80Benchley, Robert, 142, 144Berler, Meyer. 157-8, 160Bugler, Or. Edmund, 127Bethers, Ray, 116BeUtr U/e lQSurallce Leuer"

324·2SBeveridge, W. I. B., 2S9Bible, 43, 59-60, 201Bi~op, Jim, 160Blake, Nicholas. 75Bleak House, 311Boas. Franz. 265Bogoras, Waldemar, 265Bohr, Niels, 258Bolivia, 287Boston Symphony Orchestra,

288Doswell, James, 168

346

Bacon, Leonard, 26SBancroft, Wilder D., 246Barber, Noel, 145Barker, Ernest, 2iS

Abstmct, 42Addison, 93Adjectives, 16, 64·9, 90Al/w!l1/11r~s of Ntlc:kleberry

Fi/1/" Tilt, 309Adverbs, 89·90Affixes, 15,25,41·7Agee, James. 66Aiken, Howard S., 78-9Air Mlll~ricl Command, 326-7Alekhine, Alexander, 277AMA Journa/, 94·S, 99·100Ambassadon, Tile, 317American Cancer Society, 261American Sello/ar, Tile, 314Anna Kartn;na, 194Archimedes, 257·8Areopagitica, 23Aristotle, 267A" 0/ Thought, The, 274Associated PreM, 187-92AI/anlic, rhe, 161. 165-6Aytoun and Martin, 204

Bovard, O. K., 154Bowers, Claude G., 28]Breit, Harvey, 168-70Britannica Junior Encyclopedia,

"'Brooke, Rupert, 110Browne, Sir Thomas. 284Brosh, Katharine. 282Bryson, Lyman, 17BulCber and Lang, 202

Cablese, 104CalTritt, Gwen, 170-1Cannon, Walter B., 262Capitals, 121Cardozo, Benjamin, 220CtUe 0/ llle Bailed lJook, The,

337Census Bureau, 267Chandler, C, F., 269Cllemic,JI Abstracts, 12]Chemical Week, 184-5Cherne. Leo M" 76Chevalier, Maurice, 201Chinese, 13-22, 150, 218Chukchee, 197, 265Churchill, Winston, 92Cohen, Morris, 270Coleridge, S. T., 274Columbia University, 185·6,

19'Columbia University FOrl/11I,

331ConDont, James B., 259-60Concrete, 42Conjunctions, 87-8Connectives, 88Constitution of the U.S., 322Conversation, 25-]1. 279-80Cookbooks, 81Correlation coefficients, 270-1Courts on Trial. 22]Cowper, William, 204COlZCns, James Gould, 224Cummings, E. E" 169-70Cuppy, Will, 279

INDEX 347

Dakota, 198Darwin, Charles, 262Day Lincoll! 1Vtl.1' Shot, The,

'>9De Kroif, Paul, 61, 73De Quincey, Thomas, 142Dealh 0/ a So/esmal!, 206Dempsey, David, 162Descartes, Rene, 274Dewey, John, 269, 318, 338Dialogue, 62Diant/ics, 286Dickens, Charles, 311Dictionary 0/ Contemporary

AmcrictJIl Usage, 142Dictionary 0/ Modem English

Usage, 32, 41, 63Disney, Wnlt, 146Displaced Persons Act, 221Don Qlli~ote, 128, 206Douglas, Sen. Paul H., 226Doyle, Arthur Conan, 241-3Dragnet, 336Du Pont, 53-4Dunbar, Dr. Fl3.nders. 252Dunck.er, Karl, 228·9, 231, 235,

261DurantY, Walter, 21

Ecker, Frederick. e.', 175-6Edison, Thomns A., 287Editing, 117·25Einstein, Atbert, 274Ellery Que(!/I's Myst(!ry },faga-

line, 332Emerson, Rlliph Waldo, 314Empson, Willillm, 110Encyclopedia Bri/annica, 83Esldmos, 197Es.says in Idf(!ness, 162Essemiau 0/ English Grammar,

"Evans, Bergen, 142, 284E~ptrience and NalUre, 337

Familiar Quotations, 209Fllrmer. Fannie, 81

348 INDI!X

Fischer, Louis, 27Fisher, Dorothy Canfield, 148-9Five W's, 159Flemin8, Sir Alex:mder, 261Foch, Nina, 247-50Follett, Wilson, 93Folsom, Joseph K., 255Forster, E. M., 255Fowler, H. W., 32-3, 38, 41;2.

63, 93Frank, Jerome, 223French, 194Freud, Sigmund, 110, 287Froman, Robert, 153

Galileo, 284-5Galvani. Luigi, 261Gardner, ErIe Stanley, 165·6.

195, 223, 338General Electric, 260, 274-5German, 193, 195, 201Gettysburg Address, 284-5Gibbs, Wolcott, 72Giraudoux, Jean, 206Glueck, Sheldon and Eleanor.

271-2Gobble-de-Gook or Plain Talk?

326, 327Goethe, J. W. von, 193, 204Goetz, William, 243-4GOllSchaldt Figures Test, 230-

33Graphomania, 126Grattan, C. Hartley, 112-14Gllide to Sliccessful Magrnine

Writing, A, 152, 178Guilford, J. P., 275·6Gulliver's Travels, 310Gunther, John, 148

Hambidge, Gove, 83Harper's. 72, 112-14. 332Hartford COl/rant, 285Harvey, Frank, 146Harvey, William, 261Haworth, Mary, 58, 63. 66HaUitt, WiJljam, 142

Hebrew, 202Heckscber, August, 212-14Helmholt2:. H., 282Hemingway, Ernest, 195, 282Henry Y/1/, 109Hersey, John, 63Highel, Gilbert, 204Hindustani, 194Hitler, Adolf, 285Hobbes, Thomas, 246Holmes, O. W., Jr., 289Homer, 202Hopi. 199/lOlll to Write, 133How We Thillk, 269Hubbard, L. Ron, 286Hughes, Donald J., 172Human interest, 48-56, 305-6Hunt, Leigh, 142Huntington, Ellsworth, 255Hupa, 198Hutchison. Eliot Dole. 276HUJ[ley, Aldous. 169-70HUXleY, Julinn S., 312Hyphens, 70·1

land we, 149-50IDM,78·9Income tax, 188-92Iliside U.s.A., 148IIltdlice,1I Womall's Guide to

Socialism and Capitalism.The, 46

Jacobi, Karl. 28013cobson, Dr. Edmund, 173James, Henry, 31713mes, William. 255. 315Jespersen, Ouo, 93Johnson, Dr. Harry J.• 3334Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 117, 1681ohnston, Sir Harry, 215Joyce, James, 65Jung. C. G., 255/1m and tIle Vni/lSt, Tile, 224

Kekule, 262Kihu, Peter, ISS, 160King's English, Th~. 41Kinsey, Dr. Alfred, 91Kleitm:m, Dr. Nathaniel, 282Knox, Ronald, 201Kotlmeyer. William, 323Kubla Khan. 274Kwakiull, 198

Lodi~J' Hom~ 10l/rnal, 179Lamb, Charles. 142·3Lnnkester. Sir Ray, 215L:lpps, 197Lardner, David, 72Lardner, John, 72L.tuki. Harold J., 44. 41Laubaeh, Frank C., 32Law. 211·25Lawrence, T. E., 203, 204Law)'ers, 31Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 255I.e Corbusier, 288Leacock, Stephen, 134. 142Lerner, MaJ:, 27Lewis, C. Day, 75Life. 94, 96, 99-100. 114, 265,

28'Life Begins at Forry. 14Life of lohnson. 308Lincoln, Abraham, 284Lithuanian, 194Logic. 268Longfellow, H. W., 204Lowes, John Livingstone, 274Luells, E. V., 142Lynes. Russell. 255Lyons, Rev. EfIlest, 266

Macbeth, 205Macinnes, Helen, 282McPhee, Johnny, 241·51A{adl\'oman of Chamat, The.

206Maguinc writers. 152Malcolm. Marjorie, 186-1, 191Mann, Thomas, 111-8

r",-nEX 349

Man Slands Alone. 312Maranaw,32Mark Twain at Your Fingertips.

28SMaugbam. W. Somerset, 211Melbourne, Lord. 237Mendel, Gregor. 218Meredith. George, 63Mering. von. 261Metropolitan Life Insurance

Co., 17$·6Microbe lfUnltrs. 13Mill. 1. S" 268-9Miller, Arthur, 206Milne, A. A., 231Milton, John. 234Mind alld 8m/y, 252Montalgne, 140-3Morley, Lord. 93Mozart, 214Mumford, Lewis. 213-14Murray, Gilbert, 215·16

Nation, The, 66Namra/ lfistory of Nonsense,

The. 284Negatives, 108Ne....sweek, 12New York", The. 34, 94, 97­

100, 120, 213, 265, 280, 332New York UeTIIld Tribune, 132,

212, 211New York /'o.ft, 170,21l-12Ne." York Times. 67, 80, 108,

155-9, 181-2, 287N~", York rimes Book Review,

168New York Times Magatine.

162Nietzsche, Friedrieh, 2S5Nootka, 198Nouns, 16, 90

Od)'ney, 202-4Oersted, H. C., 261O'Hara, John, 103, 282On Growth and Form, 288

350 Jrroex

On tIlt An 0/ WrltillE:, 41Osborn, AIel F., 253Ollr eMu/lllltiOlI lIml What It

Means. 32JOutlille 0/ History, All, 215

Parker, DorothY, 26Peel, Dr. Roy V .. 267Pegler, Westbrook, 72Penfield, Wilder, 328, 330Pwp/e's PIU//orm, Tlie, 27Perkin, William Henry, 261Perkins, Malwell, 210Personal sentences, 303Personal words, 34, 303Pictorial statistics, 297Pitkin, Walter B., 74Pliny the YounGer, 117Poe, Edgar Allan. 241-5Poincare, Henri. 274·7Polesie, Herb, 247-51Pollack, Jack H .. 152Pope, Alexander, 2034Porter, Sylvia F.. 70Prepositions, 87Priestley, J. B., 142-3Prodlletivc Tltinkinl:, 231Proust, Marcel, 37-9Psycholog), (JIlmcs), 315PrydlOlog)' 0/ ReDSOllillg, The,

239PS)'cllOpatllOlogy 01 Everyda)'

Llle, 109.Public Speaking, 128Punctuation, 70-7, 120, 292Pyle. Ernie. 60

Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, 41­2, 117

Ratcliff, J. 0 .. 87Readability, 85-93, 100, 298­

33.ReO//er's Digest, Tlrl', 70, 81,

123·5. 201, 332, 339-45Reading, 101-4Reading ease, 302

Rccmutrllction i" Philosophy,318

Reese, Staber, 265Re!f('ctifms ()II Ihe Rel'olll/lon

of Ollf Time, 44Repplier, Agnes, 161Rest 0/ YOllr Lile. Tlll!,76Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 287Rignano, Eugenio, 239Rinard, Florence. 247-51Roentgen, Wilhelm K., 261Roget, Peler Mark, 47, 86Roosevelt, Franklin D., 235Rose, Billy, 201Ross, Charles G., 154, 160Rothensleiner, John, 205Rovensline, Dr. E. A., 94-9Runyon, Damon, 34Rus.scll, Bertrand, 83RUMian, 194

SI. Louis Pos/_Dlspatch, 154Sakel, Dr. Mllnfred, 270Snndusky, Ohio, 289Sanlayana, George, 280Snpir, Edward, 199SawNJa)' EVl'lIing Post, 142·5,

146, 178, 180, 329-30, 340-3Sa/lmlay Rel'i~w. 58, 65, 107,

212Sawyer, W. W., 276Schiller, Friedrich, 206SchillinGer, Joseph, 288Schlegel lind Tied;, 206Sehopenlllluer, Arthur, 207Schreckcr, Paul, 58Science, 61, 78-84, 257·64Science, 214Sci~"ct and Commonsense,

259S~micolons, 70·5Sentences, 32-9, 120SCI'tn T)'p~s 01 Ambiglllty, 110Se:wal Behavior In the Hlllllan

Male, 91Shakespeare, 59. 60, 110, 134,

206, 210Shaw. lJernnrtl, 46

Shawnee, 198Sheldon, William H., 255Sheppard, Eugenia, 132Sheridan, Richard B., 111Silverman, Mihon, 329-30Slater, Bill, 247-51Smilh, Harrison, 65Smith. Rev. lames, 265Smith, Sydney, 281Solomon Islands, 197Somervell, D. C., 123-5Sonlheimer, Morton, 178Spanish, 201Sparks, Fred, 145Spearman, C., 246Spectalor, 92Speed of wriling, 129-30Spencer, Sleven M" 333-4SpenGler, Oswald, 256Spot tables, 296Statistics, 122,267,294·7Steiner, lee R" 286Stern, Bernhard J., 214·15Stern, Curt, 214·15Stem, Edith M., 152Stichman, Herman T" 213·214Stone, Mildred F.. 324-5SII/ily of History, A, 103, 123-4Swift, Jonathan, 310

Tnylor, Frank I., 339Techniquc for Producing Tdeas,

.A, 274Teeple, E, 1., 257-8That and .,.,hiell, 92-3Tlzt'ory 0/ Ihc Lcisure Clast,

The, 316Thesaurus, 47, 86Thirkcl1, AnGela, 170Tllil Week, 116Thomas, Sen. Elbert D., 223Thompson, D'Arcy, 288Thoreau, H. D., 142Thorndike, E, l .. 106Tlwrndikc·8amharl High

Seh(}(J1 Dielio/wry, 44, 86Thurber, lames, 120Thurstone. L. l., 229

IrmEX: 351

Time, 48, 51, 68·9, 106, 117,131, 292, 295-7, 332

Tolstoy, leo, 194Toynbee, Arnold 1" 103, 123-5,

mTrain, Arthur, 223Translation, 201·8Trollope, Anthony, 129-30Twain, Mark, 134-8, 142·3,

285, 309Type si:u:, 121

Ullman, lo~ph N" 224Uniled Nations, 18, 193, 269,

287U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,

267U.s. News & World Report,

170-2, 184

Valency, Maurice, 206Vandeventer, Fred, 247-51Van Gogh, Vincenl, 243-4Veblen, Thorstein, 316Vclikovsky, Immanuel, 286Verbs, 16,57, 63, 88Vermollt Traditioll, 148Vicloria, Queen, 237Viereck, G. S.. 205Vietnamese, 196Visual nids, 111·17Vocabulary, 24Voltaire, 64, 284Vulgar Errors, 284

Wallace, Mike, 170Wallas, Graham, 274Wnll Strut JOltrll/l/, 182·5Wonderers Nachtli"'d, 204-6Warner. Ch:Hles Dudley, 285Warner, W. lloyd, 255Watkins, Sen. Arthur V., 188-92W:l.1I. J:Lmes, 262We, 150·1lVebslCr's U"nbridgl.'d Dictiol!'

ary, 126, 259

352 INDEX

Wechsler, James A.. 212-14Wells, H. G., 215Wertheim, Dr. H. M., 94-9Werlheimer, Max, 231. 232,

234·6, 246Where Do People Take Tlleir

TrO/lbles? 286Which and Ihat, 86-93Whitehead, A. N., 280Whilnack, Jean, 186. 19tWilson, Charles E., 174Wilson, Edmund, 194Wille, Womell and Words. 201Winterich, John T., 196

Wolfe, Thomas, 274Woollcott, Alexander, 35, 86Worlds ill Collision, 286Wrller alld Psychoa/l(~lysiJ, TIl(~

127Wrller Observed. The, 168

Yale Review, 332Yrarbook of Agriculture, 83Yiddish, 196Young, J. P., 274YOllng, JlLmes Webb, 274Y ol/r Crealive Power. 253