Page:Hill's manual of social and business forms.djvu/102

60 next question would then be "How is Hiram?" To answer that, he had simply to telegraph one word. In a letter afterwards, he gave the particulars.

The following rules should be observed in writing:

First. Never use a word that does not add some new thought, or modify some idea already expressed.

Second. Beware of introducing so many subjects into one sentence as to confuse the sense.

Third. Long and short sentences should be properly intermixed, in order to give a pleasing sound in reading. There is generally a rounded harmony in the long sentence, not found in the short, though as a rule, in order to express meaning plainly, it is better to use short sentences.

Fourth. Make choice of such words and phrases as people will readily understand.

Rhetorical Figures.

HE beauty, force, clearness, and brevity of language are frequently greatly enhanced by the judicious use of rhetorical figures, which are named and explained as follows:

A Simile is an expressed comparison.

The Metaphor is an implied comparison, indicating the resemblance of two objects by applying the name, quality or conduct of one directly to the other.

An Allegory is the recital of a story under which is a meaning different from what is expressed in words, the analogy and comparison being so plainly made that the designed conclusions are correctly drawn.

In Hyperbole, through the effect of imagination or passion, we greatly exaggerate what is founded in truth, by magnifying the good qualities of objects we love, and diminish and degrade the objects that we dislike or envy.

Personification consists in attributing life to things inanimate.

A Metonymy (Me-ton-y-my) substitutes the name of one object for that of another that sustains some relation to it, either by some degree of mutual dependence or otherwise so connected! as to be capable of suggesting it; thus cause is used for effect or the effect for the cause, the attribute for the subject or the subject for the attribute.

A Synecdoche (sin-ek-do-ke) is a form of speech wherein something more or something less is substituted for the precise object meant, as when the whole is put for a part, or a part for the whole; the singular for the plural or the plural for the singular.

Antithesis is the contrasting of opposites.

Irony is a form of speech in which the writer or speaker sneeringly means the reverse of what is literally said, the words being usually mockery uttered for the sake of ridicule or sarcasm. Irony is a very effective weapon of attack, the form of language being such as scarcely to admit of a reply.

Paralipsis pretends to conceal what is really expressed.

Climax is the gradual ascending in the expression of thought, from things lower to a higher and better. Reversed, it is called anticlimax.