Big Words Vs. Little Words

'i'Ág words aro great favorites with people of Binall ideas and weak oouoeptions. They are ofton eraploycd by men of micd vrhei) they wish to use lunguage that inay best coneeal their thoutfhts. Witli few exccptioüs, however, illiterate end lialf-educated pwOBS U3e more "big words" than peoplu of lliorough edacatiün. ft is a very cotumon hut very great mUtake to eupposo tb it losg words are more genlecl tiian short ones - just flg the same sort of pjople imagine that bigb colors nnd flíttfhy figures improve Ihe style of ikess. They are the 1-iind oí folks who rau't begin but always "uommecce." Tbey don live, but 'reside." Tboy èo't eat and drink, but ' pattrtke of veficsinnents." They are never sick, but "cxtreiuely indisposed." And instead of dymg, at last, they "deeease " Nost, kind reader, iu opposition to all this verbal vanity, il can be sifcly said that tbe e'.reugtli of the English languago ii in the short or "little" words - chieBy monosyllables- and that people who aro in tarncsi seldum uso auy other. Love, bate, augcr, grisf, joy, express tlicmselves in short words and diroot seutences; whüo cunniiif;, falsehood, and a.ffeotation delight in what Eíoraen calis verba sesquipedalh - words ''a foot aud a half long." la faot, the most vigoro'is and expressivo words in the Englisb language are , of ono sylluble, and a lurge proportiou of thom aro of Danisb, Saxoa, and Celtio origia. Our soft, long words are priucipally from ihe Greek aad Latín. That raost cuit and sonorous of negatives, No, is frota tbe Salon ; aud so 3 it an!itheais, Yes. Tho word Homo, too, is Teutonic. The auciont Northmen were short talkers, and managed to condense a world of moaning into a single syllable. Their nords, like their blows, were empbatic ; and the deepor we go into thu "Ivell of Epglíah undefiled" tho more of theui wo find The cleavest and best writors in the Englisb hnguage used, and still us ', motiosyllables as their íuost effoctive missiltí8 in argument. Cobbett hurled them like stones from a sling, and many a grandiloquent Goüah full beforo theni, üf late years, since "vvordpaintiug" carne into faskioQ, and iuflatioo hss been mistaken for eloquence, loug compounds have boen íq vogue, and the brief atd pithy nouns and verbs have ecü shoved aside to make room for patehwork words, which the unelassical reader, who has never delved into the mine of Greek and Latin roots, cannot undoritand without a diutiouary, and in ijumberless iastaaces, as in the case of the word "kedaddlo," et hoc genus omne, even with tliis powerful aid, beeomes discomfited aud is obliged to change his base. All this is in bad taste. Sim plicity and clearuess are the sterling clcmentB of a who'csome literatura. Men who writo aud speak for tho purpose of iustrucüug and interesting th_e masses should employ language tíiat needs no translation to make it conrprehensible to tho graduaíes of the people's colleges - the eommon schools. Ia fact, it is a great mistake to suppose that "big" words are necessary to espress big thoughts. The simpler the dress of a grand idea the better ; and whenever clearness is wanting knowledge fails or is more or less wantiug. Let those who thiuk otherwise recall tbe simple but sublime passage in Genesis : "Let there bo light, and thore w:ts light," and let thein also read the Psalm?, or tho Book of Job, or tho Prophecies, where numberless oxample3 are to be found ín elucidatioa of our position. %u fJJuMptt qtfit-!1