RHETORIC 70

The Foundation of Good Style

3.6. The Foundation of Good Style

Such, then, are the ingredients of which speech is composed. The foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under five heads.

First, the proper use of connecting words, and the arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of them require. The answering word must be brought in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely separated from it. Nor, except in the few cases where this is appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the one required.

Consider the sentence, “But I, as soon as he told me, for Cleon had come begging and praying, took them along and set out.” In this sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the one required to complete the sense, and if there is a long interval before “set out”, the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style lies in the right use of connecting words.

The second lies in calling things by their own special names and not by vague general ones.

The third is to avoid ambiguities, unless you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing to say but are pretending to mean something.

Such people are apt to put that sort of thing into verse. Empedocles, for instance, by his long circumlocutions imposes on his hearers. They are affected in the same way as most people are when they listen to diviners, whose ambiguous utterances are received with nods of acquiescence. For instance:

Croesus crossing the Halys a mighty realm will ruin.

Diviners use these vague generalities about the matter in hand because their predictions are thus, as a rule, less likely to be falsified. We are more likely to be right, in the game of “odd and even”, if we simply guess “even” or “odd” than if we guess at the actual number, and the oracle-monger is more likely to be right if he simply says that a thing will happen than if he says when it will happen, and therefore he refuses to add a definite date. All these ambiguities have the same sort of effect, and are to be avoided unless we have some such object as that mentioned.

A fourth rule is to observe Protagoras’ classification of nouns into male, female, and inanimate, for these distinctions also must be correctly given.

A fifth rule is to express plurality, fewness, and unity by the correct wording.

It is a general rule that a written composition should be easy to read and therefore easy to deliver. This cannot be so where there are many connecting words or clauses, or where punctuation is hard, as in the writings of Heracleitus. To punctuate him is no easy task, because we often cannot tell whether a word belongs to what precedes or what follows it. Thus, at the outset of his treatise he says, “Though this truth is always men understand it not,” and it is not clear with which of the two clauses the word “always” should be joined by the punctuation.

Further, the following leads to solecism: a sentence does not work out properly if you annex to two terms a third which does not suit them both. Thus either “sound” or “colour” will fail to work out properly with some verbs; “perceive” will apply to both, “see” will not. Obscurity is also caused if, when you intend to insert a number of details, you do not first make your meaning clear. For instance, if you say, “I meant, after telling him this, that and the other thing, to set out,” rather than something of this kind “I meant to set out after telling him. Then this, that, and the other thing occurred.”

To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of METAPHYSICS by Aristotle, subscribe to Castalia Library.

For questions about subscription status and billings: subs@castalialibrary.com

For questions about shipping and missing books: castaliashipping@gmail.com

You can now follow Castalia Library on Instagram as well.