 |
| Ease as a quality of expression begins with writing in a way that comes naturally to you. (Source: Doug Savage) |
Ease as a Quality of Expression
Importance of Ease
The importance of that quality of expression which makes a piece of writing pleasant to read cannot be overemphasized.
It is this quality which gives preeminence to Dryden, Addison, Goldsmith, Irving, Hawthorne, Thackeray, and Newman as masters of style.
These men of genius have the happy faculty of taking the reader from word to word, from sentence to sentence, from paragraph to paragraph, so easily that he finds a pleasure in the printed page not unlike that which he finds in a strain of music or in a beautiful landscape. With such men, ease is in large part the gift of nature, the expression of an attractive personality.
Ease of expression in this its highest form few of us can expect to secure. It will come to us, if it come at all, not as the result of conscious effort (for in language, as in manners, apparent effort is fatal to ease), but as an incidental result of a sincere purpose to express in the best English at our command what we really think and feel.
We may, however, remove obstacles that unnecessarily increase the natural difficulties in the use of language as a means of communication: we may
(1) avoid disagreeable sounds and clumsy expressions,
(2) use as many words as are needed but no more, and
(3) arrange words, phrases, and clauses in such a manner that the flow of thought will not be obstructed by offensive peculiarities in expression.
We should never be satisfied with a first draft, but should revise and revise, with constant attention to details, until the ear and the taste have been gradually trained. In the course of time, difficulties that seemed insurmountable will disappear, and smoothness may become a habit.
  |
