PRECEPT IV.—­Observe the proper form of each word, and do not confound such as resemble each other.  “Professor J. W. Gibbs, of Yale College,” in treating of the “Peculiarities of the Cockney Dialect,” says, “The Londoner sometimes confounds two different forms; as contagious for contiguous; eminent for imminent; humorous for humorsome; ingeniously for ingenuously; luxurious for luxuriant; scrupulosity for scruple; successfully for successively.”—­See Fowler’s E. Gram., p. 87; and Pref., p. vi.

PRECEPT V.—­Think clearly, and avoid absurd or incompatible expressions.  Example of error:  “To pursue those remarks, would, probably, be of no further service to the learner than that of burdening his memory with a catalogue of dry and uninteresting peculiarities; which may gratify curiosity, without affording information adequate to the trouble of the perusal.”—­Wright’s Gram., p. 122.

PRECEPT VI.—­Avoid words that are useless; and, especially, a multiplication of them into sentences, members, or clauses, that may well be spared.  Example:  “If one could really be a spectator of what is passing in the world around us without taking part in the events, or sharing in the passions and actual performance on the stage; if we could set ourselves down, as it were, in a private box of the world’s great theatre, and quietly look on at the piece that is playing, no more moved than is absolutely implied by sympathy with our fellow-creatures, what a curious, what an amusing, what an interesting spectacle would life present.”—­G.  P. R. JAMES:  “The Forger,” commencement of Chap. xxxi.  This sentence contains eighty-seven words, “of which sixty-one are entirely unnecessary to the expression of the author’s idea, if idea it can be called.”—­Holden’s Review.

OBSERVATION.

Verbosity, as well as tautology, is not so directly opposite to precision, as to conciseness, or brevity.  From the manner in which lawyers usually multiply terms in order to express their facts precisely, it would seem that, with them, precision consists rather in the use of many words than of few.  But the ordinary style of legal instruments no popular writer can imitate without becoming ridiculous.  A terse or concise style is very apt to be elliptical:  and, in some particular instances, must be so; but, at the same time, the full expression, perhaps, may have more precision, though it be less agreeable.  For example:  “A word of one syllable, is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, is called a dissyllable:  a word of three syllables, is called a trisyllable:  a word of four or more syllables, is called a polysyllable.”—­O.  B. Peirce’s Gram., p. 19.  Better, perhaps, thus:  “A word of one syllable is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a trissyllable; and a word of four or more syllables, a polysyllable.”—­Brown’s Institutes, p. 17.