You haven't really understood a word unless you know the proper contexts for its use.
A few weeks ago I came across a document which was worth studying as a piece of prose. The fact that it was written by a well-educated person makes it all the more interesting.
It is a fairly long account of a certain family, the details of which need not concern us here. It is all about a young woman and her in-laws. The young woman derived ‘from the loins of’ (parents’ names) was married early in life. But she remained a ‘nullipara for a decade after her marriage. (A nullipara is a person who hasn’t been able to conceive, who hasn’t given birth to a child. The writer uses the word in a slightly different sense: she didn’t conceive for a long time. Later on she did have children. So it is debatable whether she can be called a ‘nullipara’.)
‘Ten years of mated life passed by with no olive branch to the family.’ ‘Mated’ of course is married. But what is this ‘olive branch’? ‘Olive branch’ is usually used in the context of efforts at peace –making, moves towards friendship in a hostile situation. What does it refer to in the present context? Apparently the young woman was ill-treated in her in-law’s house. Ten years of married life didn’t improve the situation. Was it because of her failure to bear a child?
There was a Sanskrit pundit in the family who was always dreaming of making some sizeable amount of money by his compositions. He wrote profusely and had ‘overweening confidence in his works being requited with a perennial stream of money flowing into his doors,’ But ‘the grim grips of poverty tightened round him every day, instead of loosening a bit by fetching him a few more coins,’
Poor fellow. His profuse compositions fetched him no money. Added to this he had very few friends. ‘His conservative nature did not maintain a large circle of friends, and added to this, his poverty concentrically narrowed down the horizon of friends to almost a negligible number’.
This friendless man, we learn, was ‘sticky and stubborn, with his circumlocution in explaining away his questionable actions, and his inexorability to correction. [This] remains for posterity to ponder.’
This should give the reader a fair idea of a type of prose all too common with some educated people, Words are fascinating. One falls in love with them. One feels a strong urge to use them, to play with them. This love of words shows itself in the indiscriminate use of high-sounding words. ‘A confident expectation of making large sums of money ‘becomes ‘overweening confidence in his works being requited with a perennial stream of money flowing into his doors’. Friends flock to a rich man. From a poor fellow they slink away gradually. This our writer expresses in this way. ’His poverty concentrically narrowed down the horizon of friends to almost a negligible number.’
Words have their proper contexts of use. ‘Nullipara’ has its place in a doctor’s diagnosis. ‘Requited’ is found in such collocations as unrequited love (love not returned); Will she ever requite my love? The Queen requited him with a Knighthood. The meaning broadly is ‘return favour for services done; love, etc. It can also appear in negative contexts like Requite him for the wrongs he has done. In any case it is not just ‘get/obtain.
As for phrases and expressions, they should be no more in number than required by the context—unless the writing happens to be jocular or humorous (He changed his posture from a vertical to a horizontal position) or solemn and grand and weighty (This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red—Lady Macbeth).
Moral: You haven’t really understood a word unless you know the proper contexts for its use. Otherwise what is meant to be grand and effective provokes laughter instead of appreciation. And, in all circumstances except a few, brevity should be the rule. The fewer words, the better. (To get a proper idea of how long and learned words can be used in humorous contexts, see Charles Dickens: David Copperfield; to get a feel of the beauty of these words in a solemn and weighty context, see Milton: Paradise Lost. In the document, too, reviewed above, there are situations where the author’s predilection for ‘learned English’ comes out well. There is, in particular, a description of Goddess Lakshmi in all her majesty and splendour, too long to be quoted. A truly magnificent passage. On Good English in general see ‘What is good English’ and related articles in my book Structure, Style, and Usage (OUP 2005).
A few weeks ago I came across a document which was worth studying as a piece of prose. The fact that it was written by a well-educated person makes it all the more interesting.
