Getting away from our ongoing catastrophes, a couple of weeks ago Ward Farnsworth, who has written a book on convincing writing, published a come-on, as it used to be called, on The Volokh Conspiracy:
In any event: advisers on English style have long said that it’s best to use Saxon words when you can, because those words are most clear and forceful. If you need a single rule, that’s as good as any. But Lincoln didn’t create his great effects by sticking to one kind of word or another. He created them by skillfully mixing the two kinds of words, and doing the same with other aspects of his language.
For example, [President Abraham] Lincoln especially liked to start a sentence with Latinate words and then end with a Saxon finish. Look at this famous passage from his “House Divided” speech in 1858:
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
The first half of the sentence has lots of Latinate words: opponents, slavery, arrest, course, ultimate, extinction, advocates. Then it ends with 14 words of one syllable in a row, all of them Saxon except “States” (which might as well be). He expresses the hope in large, uplifting words, and the threat in words that are short and simple. The first round sets up the second.
So is Farnsworth suggesting that English is a more expressive language precisely because it’s a hybrid? I’m not sure I’d buy into that without a convincing underlying theory. Just guessing, but I suppose we could postulate that the longer words force the brain to work harder to absorb the point of the first half, while the shorter, sharper ending words accelerates and emphasizes the need for action by not distracting the brain with long words which take longer to process – especially if they’re unfamiliar.
Unfortunately for me, I think the communication context of Lincoln’s time is not much like our current context. I’ve always found reading the Gettysburg a bit baffling, although it’s really just a matter of taking it a bit slow and envisioning, where necessary, what he’s trying to say.
For my part, I prefer uncommon sentence construction and unfamiliar words in order to make the reader slow down and think, at least when I’m trying to write something that I think will require some thought. I’ll have to remember Farnsworth’s recommendations next time I write something.
