Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/223

Rh

We are not photographers enough to hazard a comment on cold print.

The leading planks of the Opposition policy are declared to be the proper audit of public accounts,...–Times.

'Rhetorical' or–to use at once a wider and a more intelligible term–'significant' repetition is a valuable element in modern style; used with judgement, it is as truly a good thing as clumsy repetition, the result of negligence, is bad. But there are some writers who, from the fact that all good repetition is intentional, rashly infer that all intentional repetition is good; and others who may be suspected of making repetitions from negligence, and retaining them from a misty idea that to be aware of a thing is to have intended it. Even when the repetition is a part of the writer's original plan, consideration is necessary before it can be allowed to pass: it is implied in the terms 'rhetorical' or significant repetition that the words repeated would ordinarily be either varied or left out; the repetition, that is to say, is more or less abnormal, and whatever is abnormal may be objectionable in a single instance, and is likely to become so if it occurs frequently.

The writers who have most need of repetition, and are most justified in using it, are those whose chief business it is to appeal not to the reader's emotions, but to his understanding; for, in spite of the term 'rhetorical', the object ordinarily is not impressiveness for impressiveness' sake, but emphasis for the sake of clearness. It may seem, indeed, that a broad distinction ought to be drawn between the rhetorical and the non-rhetorical: they differ in origin and in aim, one being an ancient rhetorical device secure impressiveness, the other a modern development, called forth by the requirements of Rh