Part 24 (2/2)
Yet within that one second it is possible to print, cut, fold and stack sixteen and two-thirds newspapers!
Watch the second hand make one revolution--a minute Within that minute it is possible to print, cut, fold and stack in neat piles one thousand big newspapers! To do that is putting ”pep” in printing, and Henry A Wise Wood is the man who did it
CHAPTER VIII
STYLE
STYLE DEFINED Style, or the manner in which ideas and emotions are expressed, is as i as it is in any other kind of literary work A writer may select an excellent subject, may formulate a definite purpose, and may choose the type of article best suited to his needs, but if he is unable to express his thoughts effectively, his article will be a failure Style is not to be regarded as mere ornament added to ordinary forms of expression It is not an incidental element, but rather the fundamental part of all literary composition, the means by which a writer transfers what is in his own mind to theideas and emotions The ets the author's thoughts and feelings, the better is the style
The style of an article needs to be adapted both to the readers and to the subject An article for a boys' azine would be written in a style different from that of a story on the same subject intended for a Sunday newspaper The style appropriate to an entertaining story on odd superstitions of business men would be unsuitable for a popular exposition of wireless telephony In a word, the style of a special article demands as careful consideration as does its subject, purpose, and structure
Since it may be assuazines has a general knowledge of the principles of composition and of the elements and qualities of style, only such points of style as are i will be discussed in this chapter
The eleures of speech, (3) sentences, and (4) paragraphs The kinds of words, figures, sentences, and paragraphs used, and the way in which they are combined, determine the style
WORDS In the choice of words for popular articles, three points are important: (1) only such words e person, (2) concrete tereneral ones, and (3) words that carry with thes are more effective than words that lack such intellectual and emotional connotation
The rapid reader cannot stop to refer to the dictionary for words that he does not know Although the special feature writer is lie reader, he need not confine himself to co of many more words than they the technical topics, it is often necessary to employ some unfamiliar terms, but these may readily be explained the first time they appear Whenever the writer is in doubt as to whether or not his readers will understand a certain term, the safest course is to explain it or to substitute one that is sure to be understood
Since rasp concrete ideas iven the preference in popular articles To create concrete ieneral term like ”walk,” for exa word such as hurry, dash, run, race, amble, stroll, stride, shuffle, shamble, limp, strut, stalk For the word ”horse” he may substitute a definite terer, steed, broncho, or pony In narrative and descriptive writing particularly, it is necessary to use words that make pictures and that reproduce sounds and other sense impressions In the effort to ainst bizarre effects and an excessive use of adjectives and adverbs Verbs, quite as much as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, produce clear, vivid ies when skillfully handled
Some words carry with them associated ideas and es and ideas thus associated ords constitute their emotional and intellectual connotation, as distinct fro, or denotation The word ”home,” for example, denotes sihts and feelings associated with one's own house and family circle Such a word is said to have a rich e It also has a rich intellectual connotation since it calls up es Words and phrases that are peculiar to the Bible or to the church service carry with theious worshi+p In a personality sketch of a spiritual leader, for example, such words and phrases would be particularly effective to create the atht very appropriately be invested Since homely, colloquial expressions have entirely different associations, they would be entirely out of keeping with the tone of such a sketch, unless the religious leader were an unconventional revivalist A single ith the wrong connotation raph On the other hand, words and phrases rich in appropriate suggestion heighten immeasurably the effectiveness of an article
The value of concrete words is shown in the following paragraphs taken froas attack:
There was a faint green vapor, which swayed and hung under the lee of the raised parapet two hundred yards away It increased in voluht by the wind It strayed out in tattered yellowish strea itself in twenty yards, until the steady outpour of the green s forward fro whiff, the curling and tulish lines in a wall twenty feet high
As the grayish cloud drifted over the parapet, there was a stifled call from some dozen as was terrible A breath of it was like a wolf at the throat, like hot ashes in the windpipe
The yelloaves of gas becareenish in color as fresh volumes poured out continually from the squat iron cylinders which had now been raised and placed outside the trenches by the Germans
The translucent flood flowed over the parapet, linking at once on the inner side and forauzy pools and backwaters, in which as was blown in their faces over the parapet
FAULTS IN DICTION Since newspaper reporters and correspondents are called upon day after day to write on similar events and to write at top speed, they are prone to use the sa much of an effort to ”find the one noun that best expresses the idea, the one verb needed to give it life, and the one adjective to qualify it” This tendency to use trite, general, ”woolly” words instead of fresh, concrete ones is not infrequently seen in special feature stories written by newspaper workers Every writer who aiuard against the danger of writing what has aptly been teron,” says Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his book, ”On the Art of Writing,” ”is to be perpetually shuffling around in the fog and cotton-wool of abstract ter as you prefer abstract words, which express other s, to concrete ones which lie as near as can be reached to things thehts, you will ree be jargon, your intellect, if not your whole character, will alht, it will dodge; the difficulties it should approach with a fair front and grip with a fir to evade or circumvent For the style is the man, and where a man's treasure is there his heart, and his brain, and his writing, will be also”
FIGURES OF SPEECH To ures as metonymy and synecdoche, which they once learned to define, but never thought of using voluntarily in their oriting
Figures of speech are too often regarded as ornaments suited only to poetry or poetical prose With these popular notions in azines urative expressions have little or no practical value in his work
Figures of speech, however, are great aids, not only to clearness and conciseness, but to the vividness of an article They assist the reader to grasp ideas quickly and they stiination and his emotions
association of ideas is the principle underlying figurative expressions
By a figure of speech a writer shows his readers the relation between a new idea and one already familiar to them An unfamiliar object, for example, is likened to a familiar one, directly, as in the simile, or by iht into relation with the new idea is ure is to si explained, and to make it more easy of comprehension