Write it Right

Ambrose Bierce

I have recently been reading Write It Right by Ambrose Bierce, an American short story writer, punctilious grammarian, and wry wit. In this book, Mr. Bierce delineates a blacklist of improper, or at least misused terms. He states his intent as follows:

The author's main purpose in this book is to teach precision in writing; and of good writing (which, essentially, is clear thinking made visible) precision is the point of capital concern. It is attained by choice of the word that accurately and adequately expresses what the writer has in mind, and by exclusion of that which either denotes or connotes something else. As Quintilian puts it, the writer should so write that his reader not only may, but must, understand.

I highly recommend this list, as it is both helpful and humorous to writers who wish to improve the accuracy of their speech. Some of the blacklisted terms have become acceptable to professional English speakers in the past 100 years. It's no surprise that some terms considered slang in 1909 are now acceptable. For example "an hotel" and "an hero" have been replaced by "a hotel" and "a hotel" in American English. Here, however, are just a few of the blacklisted words which still vex careful editors today:

• Anticipate for Expect. "I anticipate trouble." To anticipate is to act on an expectation in a way to promote or forestall the event expected.

• Fail. "He failed to note the hour." That implies that he tried to note it, but did not succeed. Failure carries always the sense of endeavor; when there has been no endeavor there is no failure. A falling stone cannot fail to strike you, for it does not try; but a marksman firing at you may fail to hit you; and I hope he always will.

• Have Got for Have. "I have got a good horse" directs attention rather to the act of getting than to the state of having, and represents the capture as recently completed. [We Midwesterners are particularly guilty of overusing "get" -JJ]

• In for Into. "He was put in jail." "He went in the house." A man may be in jail, or be in a house, but when the act of entrance--the movement of something from the outside to the inside of another thing--is related the correct word is into if the latter thing is named.

• Occasion for Induce, or Cause. "His arrival occasioned a great tumult." As a verb, the word is needless and unpleasing. 

• Poisonous for Venomous. Hemlock is poisonous, but a rattlesnake is venomous.

• Ways for Way. "A squirrel ran a little ways along the road." "The ship looked a long ways off." This  surprising word calls loudly for depluralization.

• Unique. "This is very unique." "The most unique house in the city." There are no degrees of uniqueness: a thing is unique if there is not another like it. The word has nothing to do with oddity, strangeness, nor picturesqueness.