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TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 BY 
 
 T. A. RICKARD 
 
 Editor ot the 'Mining and Scientific Press', San Francisco; formerly editor of the 
 
 'Engineering and Mining Journal', New York, and of 'The Mining Magazine*, 
 
 London. Formerly State Geologist of Colorado; Associate of the 
 
 Royal School of Mines; Author of 'A Guide to Technical Writing*, 
 
 'Journeys of Observation', 'Through the Yukon and Alaska*, 
 
 'The Flotation Process', 'Sampling and Estimation of Ore 
 
 in a Mine', etc., etc., Special lecturer in the 
 
 universities of Harvard, Columbia, McGill, 
 
 Stanford, and California. 
 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JOHN WILEY & SONS, Inc. 
 
 London: CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited 
 1920 
 

 Copyright, 1920 
 
 BY 
 
 T. A. RICKARD 
 
 APR 26 1920 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 •OOK MANU'ACTURER* 
 
 BROOKLYN. N. V. 
 
 ©CI.A566705 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This little book has grown from a set of five lectures delivered 
 before the engineering classes of the University of California 
 in 1916. The text has been revised and expanded for the pur- 
 pose of publication. It is a ticklish task to write on writing, 
 because the effort provokes self -consciousness. Errors there 
 will be, inevitably. The reader is welcome to the pleasure he 
 may feel in detecting them, for the keenness of his criticism 
 will be the measure of his interest in what he is reading. All 
 I hope to accomplish by means of these printed lectures is to 
 cause the members of my former profession "to sit up and take 
 notice." Whether my criticisms prove unacceptable or my 
 suggestions unwelcome does not matter, if the effect is to make 
 the reader, as a writer, careful where before he was careless. 
 The inculcation of rules and precepts is of small consequence 
 compared with the awakening of interest in the proper use of 
 language. If an intelligent man can be made to realize the 
 importance of taking pains in writing, the rest is easy; self- 
 criticism is the beginning of knowledge. Should this book suc- 
 ceed in arousing sympathetic interest in the important matter 
 of literary expression, it will have served its purpose. As a 
 revised edition is anticipated, I ask my readers to inform me 
 of any errors they detect and to favor me with any criticisms 
 they may care to offer, so that together we may labor in the 
 cause of literary workmanship. The text has been read by 
 several friends, to whom I am indebted for criticisms and 
 suggestions. I desire to record my thanks to them, namely, 
 Mr. George M. Wood, editor to the U. S. Geological Survey, 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 Mr. Cornelius B. Bradley, Professor Emeritus of English in 
 the University of California, Mr. Courtenay De Kalb, Mr. 
 Grant H. Smith, and Mr. C. Irving Wright. 
 
 T. A. RiCKARD. • 
 
 San Francisco, 
 May 24, 1919. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface , . , «. . iii 
 
 I. General Principles , , . 1 
 
 II. Naturalness 11 
 
 III. Clearness 19 
 
 IV. Precision 29 
 
 V. Superlatives and other diluents 46 
 
 VI. It, one, with, while 55 
 
 VII. The Relative Pronouns 64 
 
 VIII. Prepositions and preposition-verbs 92 
 
 IX. Hyphens and Compound Words ...... 107 
 
 X. Slovenliness 118 
 
 XL Jargon 134 
 
 XII. Construction of Sentences . 149 
 
 XIII. Composition . . . . .163 
 
 XIV. Style , . 168 
 
TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 It has been stated, by James Barrie, that " the man of 
 science appears to be the only man who has something to 
 say, just now — and the only man who does not know how to 
 say it." The friendly jibe of the novelist contains enough 
 exaggeration to make it humorous to the followers of Huxley 
 and Spencer ; but could any litterateur poke similar fun at the 
 exponents of the avowedly utilitarian branches of science — the 
 men of technology — without suggesting an unpleasant truth? 
 
 Indeed the engineer does bungle language deplorably. He 
 makes a fetish of efficiency, yet he shows no regard for the 
 effective use of one of his most important tools — the pen; he 
 believes devoutly in accuracy, yet he employs a weapon of 
 precision as carelessly as a small boy handles a gun. This 
 inconsistency may be due to causes similar to those indicated 
 by the Academic Senate when it undertook to explain the 
 defective writing of the students in this* university. The 
 Senate suggested that the student is ' 'constantly subjected by 
 his environment to the unedifying influence of myriad examples 
 of poor English," and that he is also affected by ''a certain 
 public prejudice against correctness of expression." With 
 this opinion most of us will agree. Our local newspapers, for 
 instance, tend to spoil the student's taste for good English; 
 later in life, as an engineer, his daily contact with illiterate men 
 inclines him to careless speech and slovenly writing. As 
 Brander Matthews says: ''The uneducated are inclined to 
 resent any speech more polished than their own." 
 
 * The University of California, where these lectures were delivered. 
 
2 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 A distinguished engineer and veteran mine-manager, 
 Arthur DeW. Foote, recently complained to me about the 
 careless writing of the young men that applied to him, by letter, 
 for professional employment. Most of these letters, he said, were 
 so untidy in appearance and in expression that he threw them 
 into the waste-paper basket; but, he added, whenever he 
 received a letter neatly written and clearly expressed he gave 
 it kindly consideration. He told me also that he had found 
 it impossible to promote several bright young fellows on his 
 staff because they did not know how to keep a legible record 
 or how to use English intelligibly. ''Such bad English; drum- 
 mer's English!" he exclaimed. In the course of further con- 
 versation he recalled an interview with the late Professor 
 Christy, of this university, who asked him to give an address 
 to the mining students. ''No," Mr. Foote replied, "the engineer 
 is called upon to do everything but preach; from that he is 
 excused." Christy then asked: "If you were to give a talk, 
 what would be your subject?^' Foote replied: *' Writing; 
 your students need to be taught that. I would not allow any 
 of them to disfigure our mine-records." "But that," pleaded 
 Christy, "is the business of the high-school." "They appear 
 to shirk it," said Foote; "you ought to see that they don't get 
 through the mining-school without some training in the writing 
 of reports and technical papers." 
 
 The engineer graduates of this university are not peculiar 
 in being unable to handle skilfully a tool that they must use 
 as long as they live. In this respect many graduates of other 
 technical colleges are equally deficient. A. S. Hill,* professor 
 of rhetoric in Harvard University, has said: "Every year 
 Harvard sends out men — some of them high scholars — whose 
 manuscripts would disgrace a boy of 12; and yet the College 
 can hardly be blamed, for she cannot be expected to conduct 
 an infant-school for adults." The cure is for engineering 
 colleges to refuse degrees to illiterate students or to those who 
 show no regard for precision of language; meanwhile making an 
 * Whose 'Principles of Rhetoric ' is a most useful textbook. 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 
 
 effort to remedy the defect by giving the necessary instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 There should be no need to lay stress upon the part that 
 writing plays in an engineer's hfe. Until he accomplishes some 
 notable work he is known to most other men only through 
 his writings, in the form of letters, articles, and reports, In 
 default of personal acquaintance, a man — particularly a young 
 man with his reputation yet to make— is likely to be judged by 
 his official letters. From the style of these, his correspondents 
 infer the quality of his mind and the order of his method. 
 The abiUty to write a terse report, to state facts plainly, and 
 to convey information intelligibly wins instant respect for 
 him and opens the door to wider opportunity. Similarly, an 
 article contributed by an engineer to a technical periodical 
 may mark him as well-informed, careful in observation, and 
 accurate in statement. An agreeable and capable writer makes 
 friends — even clients — of his readers. To be known honorably 
 is capital. 
 
 My own experience shows that nicety of phrasing is regarded 
 by many engineers as almost effeminate. Several of those 
 whose writings I have revised would applaud the statement 
 of a Denver editor that literary form is ''a mere frill"; all that 
 is needed, said he, is ''to get there," that is, to say what you 
 have to say in. your own way, no matter how imperfectly, so 
 long as you say it. This goes to the heart of the matter. You 
 may, of course, make yourself intelligible even if you disregard 
 many of the principles of the art — for writing is an art — but 
 this lecture was not intended for those who are satisfied with 
 such a performance. Although you may make yourself under- 
 stood in some measure by following such a method — or lack 
 of method — you cannot convey your ideas clearly, and fine 
 distinctions of meaning will elude you completely. Further- 
 more, such writing will stamp you as uncultured, careless, 
 and therefore not equipped for scientific work. The aim of 
 all of us — not the Denver editor alone — is to "get there,*' 
 that is, to accomplish our purpose. ''For," as Hamlet says, 
 
4 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 "every man has business and desire, such as it is." What then 
 is the purpose of writing? It is to convey ideas: to tell what 
 we have seen, what we think, what we beheve. Language is 
 a vehicle of expression; it was not intended for soliloquy; 
 civilized man does not live by himself, nor does he talk to 
 himself, except when he is drunk. 
 
 Assuming therefore that the purpose of writing is to convey 
 ideas, and that ideas cannot be conveyed without adequate 
 technique of utterance, let us consider how to attain effective 
 expression. No one can attain it without care and without 
 method, least of all when he is discussing technology or explain- 
 ing matters requiring mental effort on the part of both the 
 persons concerned, the writer and the reader. At best human 
 speech is an inadequate vehicle of thought; much of the idea 
 is lost in transit; the part that reaches its destination is travel- 
 worn. Rarely does a thought impinge upon the reader's mind 
 with quite the freshness and the vigor with which it issued from 
 the brain of the writer. To expect to succeed without effort 
 is childish, because it is contrary to experience ; as if a farmer, 
 going to market, were to put his potatoes, not in sacks, but 
 loosely into a wagon that needed repair, and then should take 
 any road that offered, driving without regard to ruts or stones, 
 rapidly and recklessly — just to get there — with the result that 
 many of the potatoes were thrown out of the wagon and those 
 which survived the journey were so bruised as to be unfit for sale. 
 Another farmer, with more sense, puts his potatoes into sacks, 
 which are packed securely in a tight wagon, v/ith axles well oiled 
 and brake in good order. He selects the road that leads as 
 directly as possible to his destination, driving carefully and 
 avoiding obstacles, so as to deliver his potatoes speedily 
 and safely at the nearest market, where they promptly fulfill 
 his purpose. He ''gets there" in the full meaning of the phrase; 
 the other fellow fails, Henry James, in an address at Bryn 
 Mawr, said: ''There are in every quarter, in our social order, 
 impunities of aggression and corruption in plenty; but there 
 are none, I think, showing so unperturbed a face — wearing, I 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES 5 
 
 should slangily say, if slang were permitted me here, so impudent 
 a 'mug' — as the forces assembled to make you believe that no 
 form of speech is provably better than another, and that just 
 this matter of 'care' is an affront to the majesty of sovereign 
 ignorance." 
 
 Before proceeding further I think it proper to say that I 
 speak to you as an elder brother. Like some of you, I was 
 trained to be a mining engineer and I practised my profession 
 for 18 years, until I began to earn my living as a journalist, 
 15 years ago. It is as a technical writer that I address you, 
 as one in sympathy with your profession and keenly aware of 
 the importance of being able to write well. I have long been 
 learning, and I am still learning by the application of the ideas 
 and methods that I offer now for your guidance. I speak to 
 you as a student, not as a master; as an amateur who has 
 become a professional, not as a professor. 
 
 Having practised the art of writing for an essentially prac- 
 tical purpose, I understand the difficulty of it, and also the 
 delight of doing it well occasionally. In my daily work as an 
 editor, revising manuscript, I am often astonished to see how 
 illiterate the scientific man can be, and how little of university 
 culture clings to the engineer. For instance, he will commonly 
 use the word 'data' as if it were of the singular number. 
 
 (1) "The data is [are] plentiful." 
 
 (2) "Much [many] data is [are] available." 
 
 (3) "It was not possible to obtain a value for WO3 in 
 scheelite from so little [few] data." 
 
 (4) "There will be less [fewer] data from which to make 
 an estimate."* 
 
 (5) An officer of the U. S. Geological Survey says: "No 
 data is [are] available concerning the supply of such material." 
 
 (6) A physicist of the U. S. Bureau of Mines says: "Data 
 
 * In the examples quoted to illustrate these lectures, the words that 
 should be omitted, or to which critical attention is called, will be given 
 in italic, and the words to be substituted will be placed between 
 brackets. 
 
6 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 pertaining to these condenser systems is assembled in Table 
 III." 
 
 (7) A State Mineralogist writes: ''The data was [were] 
 obtained by making personal investigations " 
 
 A similar blunder is made with 'phenomenon.' 
 
 (8) A technical journal remarks: "Sir Oliver Lodge re-dis- 
 covered the same phenomena and suggested its [their] appli- 
 cation to purifying the atmosphere." It would be better to 
 say, "and suggested that they be applied to the purification 
 of the atmosphere." 
 
 (9) "Chemists have yet to agree upon the explanation of 
 much [many] of the phenomena to be observed." 
 
 (10) " The use of rods, instead of balls, as a grinding media." 
 Perhaps, as Landor suggested, we ought to anglicize such 
 
 Latin or Greek words and write datums, stratums, phenomenons, 
 as we write factotums and ultimatums, without apologizing. 
 Indeed, one thoroughly capable metallurgist objected to an 
 editorial correction of this solecism. If a university graduate 
 does not know that 'data' is the plural of 'datum,' he is 
 no better informed than the miner who speaks of "them quartz" 
 or of "stratas that prospect." An engineer wrote to me about 
 the "foliae" of the schist in Rhodesia. The plural oi folium, of 
 course, is folia. Those who make such blunders also write 
 about the "ration" of 10:1 and "the Seward peninsular." 
 
 You may say that these blunders arise from ignorance of 
 Latin, but this is not the whole truth; they come from ignoring 
 good usage, and from reading an illiterate daily press. The 
 editor of the San Francisco 'Chronicle' writes: "Armed with 
 this data, the U-boats have crossed the Atlantic to find a more 
 fruitful field for their operations." The editor of the 'Exam- 
 iner' says: "Data is being gathered on intensive farming." 
 It may not be necessary to be a classical scholar in order to 
 write good English — such as John Bright spoke — but I believe 
 it true that some knowledge of Latin and Greek is necessary to 
 an intimate understanding of English, particularly that part 
 of it which deals with technical science, the terms of which are 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES 7 
 
 SO largely derived from the classical languages. Most of our 
 Anglo-Saxon words have been so long used to describe the 
 every-day affairs of life, and to convey simple ideas, that they 
 carry connotations unfitting them to express the new concepts 
 of science and the precise ideas of technology. Our civiHzation 
 came from the Mediterranean; our literature came through 
 Bede, not Beowulf; through the songs of Provence, not the 
 sagas of Schleswig. I submit to you that the Anglo-Saxon 
 tradition has been over-done; the renaissance of learning began 
 in Italy and its voice was Latin.* It speaks in the two classics 
 of English hterature, the King James version of the Bible and 
 the plays of Shakespeare. Nearly two-thirds of the words in the 
 English language are of Latin derivation. I do not refer to 
 colloquial language, but to literature. The idea that the purity 
 and simplicity of our literature depend upon the use of words of 
 Anglo-Saxon origin is based upon a fallacy. In the foregoing 
 sentence "word" is Anglo-Saxon, ''idea" is Greek, but "purity," 
 "simplicity,^^ "litcxature," "depend," "use," "origin," "based," 
 and "fallacy" are all from the Latin. These are the principal 
 words; the grammatical links, of course, are Anglo-Saxon, 
 which is the matrix of English. 
 
 Since the advancement of science in the Victorian period, the 
 vocabulary of technology has grown rapidly, borrowing words 
 from the languages of ancient learning, so that now a scientific 
 man can hardly speak or write intelligently without knowing 
 the derivation of the terms he is compelled to use. Do not use 
 words unless you know their meaning. If your classics were 
 skimped at school, study the dictionary;! above all, read the 
 best writings. "Imitation is the sincerest flattery." There 
 is a good deal of what Marion Crawford called "the everlasting 
 monkey" in man. That reminds me of Stevenson's phrase 
 "sedulous aping." He recommended the imitation of good 
 writers for the sake of acquiring style, and described how he 
 
 * ' The Art of Writing,' by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Lectures VIII 
 and IX. 
 
 t * The Concise Oxford Dictionary ' can be bought for one dollar. 
 
8 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 himself learned to write while a student at Edinburgh, by 
 imitating passages from Macaulay for a month, then copying 
 Froude for another month, then Carlyle, and so on; thereby 
 attaining the felicity of expression for which he became famous. 
 But, be it noted, Stevenson did this for practice only; it did 
 not prevent him from acquiring a style all his own, because he 
 did not subject himself intellectually to another writer by 
 setting him up as an idol. 
 
 If so many of our young engineers write uncouthly, it is 
 because they read so little good literature. The time given 
 to the piffle of the press is lamentable. Our grandfathers used 
 to read the Bible daily; we read the daily newspaper. Even 
 the magazines rarely furnish safe models of writing, and the 
 ordinary textbook is but the dry bones of a great art. If you 
 would absorb style subconsciously read Huxley's essays and 
 Froude's short studies; read Ruskin and Stevenson; read 
 Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' again and Darwin's 'Voyage of 
 the Beagle'; read Washington Irving's 'Alhambra' and John 
 Muir's 'Climbing the Sierras'; but in order to appreciate 
 such books, and learn from them, you must read intensively — 
 the kind of reading that learns its lesson when done once, and 
 once only. 
 
 Of style it is too early to speak, "yet the man of science 
 ought best to know that style and matter can no more be dis- 
 sociated than skin and bone. In scientific prose words should 
 be used as symbols in mathematics."* Our first aim is to be 
 understood. The art of writing is based on scientific method. 
 Science is organized common sense. A blunder — made not 
 infrequently even by scientific men — is to assume that good 
 writing is extrinsic to its subject. On the contrary, "science 
 and literature are not two things, but two sides of the same 
 thing." Huxley said that; and he illustrated his own maxim, 
 so that his writings became as glimpses of the obvious and his 
 lectures as windows into the infinite. Science, I repeat, is not 
 
 * Sir Clifford Allbutt, whose ' Notes on the Composition of Scientific 
 Papers ' can be heartily recommended to the technical student. 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES 9 
 
 divorced from literature, and no valid reason exists why tech- 
 nology should be regarded as if it were legally separated from 
 good English. Technical writing is the precise expression of 
 special knowledge. The information of the average man is 
 like a turbid solution, the technology of an engineer is like a 
 clean precipitate; the one is amorphous, the other crystaUine. 
 *'The development of the mind is an advance from the 
 indefinite to the definite." The technical man in his processes, 
 whether of the mill and mine, or in the reducing operations of 
 his own mind, follows a similar line of action. His constant 
 effort is to distinguish between what he knows and what he 
 thinks he knows, between fact and fancy, between observation 
 at first-hand and information at second-hand. When he 
 begins to place himself on record, he should follow the same 
 mental process, but with a difference : in his technical operations 
 he deals with insentient matter; in his technical writing he 
 must keep in mind the human element; for he is recording 
 himself not in the sand of the sea-shore, but on paper to be 
 read and criticized by his fellows. Thus I come to a fundamental 
 rule : Remember the reader. The Denver editor, who was con- 
 temptuous of the effort to write well, ignored this rule. Spencer, 
 who studied style as an adjunct to philosophy, said: ''The 
 good instructor is one in whom nature or discipline has produced 
 what we may call intellectual sympathy — such an insight into 
 another's mental state as is needed rightly to adjust the sequence 
 of ideas to be communicated." If you wish to communicate 
 ideas, you must think of the other fellow, of the man at the 
 other end of the line of mental communication represented 
 by your writing. Thus, in order to be effective, you must be 
 sympathetic ; you will spare the reader doubt as to the meaning 
 of what you have written, perplexity caused by the turgidity 
 of your style, annoyance at the queerness of your terms, and 
 weariness due to verbosity. You will communicate what you 
 wish to say in language involving the least trouble to the reader. 
 Some trouble he himself must take; for he also must be sym- 
 pathetic and willing to expend his brain-tissue. Avoid tres- 
 
10 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 passing on his patience. ''Those are the most effective modes 
 of expression which absorb the smallest amount of the recipient's 
 attention in interpreting the symbols of thought, leaving the 
 greatest amount for the thought itself." So said Spencer. 
 This is the first great principle of writing : economy of mental 
 effort on the part of the reader. Put yourself in his place, I 
 repeat; if you do so sincerely, you will avoid most of the 
 errors that prevent language from becoming pictorial and 
 that retard the transmission of thought. 
 
 I spoke just now of economizing the mental effort of the 
 reader. The writer can achieve that only by being willing to 
 take pains himself. If you read a technical article, for example, 
 and find that you understand it easily and comfortably, obtain- 
 ing useful information without undue mental fatigue, you may 
 rest assured that somebody else has taken trouble over the 
 article and thereby spared you the labor of probing his meaning. 
 Either the author has made an effort to be understood, or the 
 editor has corrected and revised the manuscript so as to make 
 the rough places smooth. Somebody must put hard work into 
 every technical article that is WTitten for publication; if not 
 the author, then the editor; if both the author and the editor 
 shirk their duty, the reader will have a headache. Therefore, 
 REMEMBER THE READER. As Allbutt says: "A Writer who 
 writes to convince and not merely to see his name in print must 
 learn to lay his mind alongside that of his reader." 
 
 The next desirable thing is to have a reader worthy of 
 respect, so as to stimulate you to honorable effort. Most of 
 the letters, reports, or articles that the engineer is called upon 
 to write are addressed to persons whom he respects. I assume 
 therefore that you are writing to somebody or to some group 
 of persons to whom you wish to convey technical information 
 or scientific opinions effectively and pleasantly. To accomplish 
 this purpose your writing must be natural, clear, precise, and 
 convincing. 
 
11. NATURALNESS. 
 
 The key-note of good writing, as of good manners, is B 
 natural. Sincerity is the first requisite for effective writing. 
 When a man says what he knows or believes, he is Ukely to 
 be interesting, because each human being possesses an indi- 
 viduaHty, a point of view, or a range of sympathy that makes 
 him different from his fellows. To say or to write what you do 
 not think, for the mere sake of talking or writing, is a cerebral 
 exercise that must be performed with extraordinary skill if it 
 is to be attractive. Affectations are rarely attractive, rarely 
 effective. To be natural is to be yourself, not a poseur; to give 
 the reader the best of yourself, instead of re-warming the baked- 
 meats of yesterday. Quotations — which are second-hand 
 thoughts — will serve occasionally when the thing you want to 
 say has been said so well by another that it would be waste 
 of energy to try to say it better; but, as a rule, the utterance 
 of the writer himself is more interesting than the quotation, 
 because the writer brings something of himself to bear on the 
 subject and for the momicnt is more in touch with the reader 
 than any dear departed author. Therefore, say things as best 
 you can in your own way, neither in borrowed words nor in the 
 phraseology that mimics another. Write as if you were speak- 
 ing to a person whom you are anxious to persuade or convince. 
 You will then write better than you speak, because, in the 
 first place, you can be more deliberate, and secondly, you 
 can revise what you have written. 
 
 Speaking and writing are similar mental acts, with a dif- 
 ference: the difference between eating food raw and eating it 
 cooked. Some kinds of food gain nothing by being cooked; 
 likewise some kinds of utterance are not bettered by being 
 written down first; but most expressions of thought, especially 
 
 11 
 
12 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 those that deal with complex ideas, must undergo preparation 
 before they may be digested comfortably. The transactions 
 of engineering societies are overburdened with half-baked 
 chunks of knowledge that provoke mental dyspepsia. How 
 palatable, on the other hand, is the carefully prepared article 
 that has been seasoned with Attic salt, served with a sauce 
 piquante, and dressed with the parsley of pleasant fancy — 
 like the writings of Rossiter Raymond or of Clarence King. 
 
 Composition, however, is less natural than speaking. The 
 pen or the pencil intervenes between the thought and the 
 expression, introducing an element of artificiality, as well as 
 one of deliberation. The spoken word cannot be recalled: 
 the written word can be erased. Yet it is unwise to criticize 
 
 ^ your writing as it proceeds, for such self-criticism tends to 
 embarrassment or self -consciousness. Revise the work care- 
 fully after it is done, not before, so as to avoid chiUing the 
 warmth of composition by cold analysis. You have heard of 
 the centipede that was too much aware of his many legs, and 
 became hopelessly entangled. Inopportune self-criticism will 
 cripple writing, just as self-consciousness prevents most men 
 from becoming satisfactory after-dinner speakers. 
 
 To be natural in writing, you must have something to say: 
 something concerning which you feel impelled to write. To 
 have something to say is the first requisite for effective speaking 
 or writing. Most speeches and many writings are ineffective, 
 if not worse, because, like an unhappy golfer, the speaker or 
 writer does not see the object of his aim; he does not ''keep 
 his eye on the ball." Wait until you have something definite 
 to tell. Only a fool talks for the sake of talking; that is why 
 so many speeches fall flat. It is unnatural for a man to write for 
 
 ^ the sake of exercising his index finger and thumb; that is why 
 so much writing is a weariness of the flesh. Make sure that 
 you have something to say; then say it; and when j^ouhave 
 said it, stop. ''The best spoke in the wheel is the fittest, not 
 the longest." 
 
 The story is told that President Wilson, when a boy, used 
 
NATURALNESS 13 
 
 to read to his father whatever he wrote. Whereupon his 
 father would ask, ''What do you mean by that?" He would 
 explain. ''Then write it," was the advice. If, after writing 
 something, you ask yourself 'What do I mean?' you may 
 discover that you have not written what you meant to say. 
 
 The student while at college, and for some time afterward, 
 is occupied mainly with the effort to acquire knowledge. To 
 write is to convey information to others, which is the reverse 
 of the normal youthful attitude; it involves a pose difficult 
 to assume gracefully or effectively without practice; but such 
 practice should be encouraged, because the effort to record 
 thought involves the mobilization and marshalling of ideas, 
 a disciplinary effort highly beneficial to the student's mind. 
 Therefore it were well if some exercise in writing could be 
 taken during the early process of acquiring knowledge. 
 
 To write naturally, you must exercise the faculty of writing 
 until it becomes flexible and strong. The best way to learn 
 how to swim is to plunge into the water. Most of those who 
 WTite well have written a good deal, but you may be sure that 
 they have not published all of it. Do your preliminary canter- 
 ing in the paddock, not on the racecourse. The good writers 
 obtained their reputation by being wise enough to keep their 
 preliminary trials to themselves; meanwhile they noted the 
 results obtained from the methods used by others. Ben Jon- 
 son said, "For a man to write w^ell there are three necessaries: 
 to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much 
 exercise of his own style." Naturalness comes from exercise, 
 not from lack of care. 
 
 Aristotle said, long ago: "Naturalness is persuasive and 
 artificiality the reverse; for people take offence at an artificial 
 speaker, as if he were practising a design upon them, in the 
 same way as they take offence at mixed wines."* 
 
 Some technical writers^ aiming to be natural, succeed only 
 in being sloppy. 
 
 (1) "If it is inconvenient to keep the muck [waste rock] 
 
 * 'The Rhetoric of Aristotle'. Translated by J. E. C. Welldon, 1886. 
 
14 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 drawn off, tap the dirt-way [ore-chute] a few feet up, on the 
 opposite side of the man- way." 
 
 The writer is describing a method of mining and uses the 
 language of an uneducated laborer, perhaps with the idea that 
 it sounds 'practical.' Here are two more examples: 
 
 (2) ''With the advent [completion] of the new mill, which 
 has a capacity of over 100 tons per day, the haulage problem 
 becomes one for careful consideration [important]." 
 
 'Advent' means the season before the Nativity; it is also 
 used when referring to an important arrival, not the starting 
 of a stamp-mill. The last sentence in the quotation exempli- 
 fies the use of an abstract phrase instead of a concrete word. 
 The language is 'natural' to a semi-literate promoter but not 
 y^^ to an educated engineer. Do not mistake vulgarity for ease, 
 nor inaccuracy for freedom. 
 
 (3) "The process is said to have done such satisfactory 
 work that other plants [operators] have been contemplating 
 [considering] the installation [sidoption] of the process [it]." 
 
 This also illustrates an uncouthness that simulates natural- 
 ness. The writer, a graduate of a university, has fallen into 
 the style of those about him in a mining community. The 
 'contemplation' of plans, the 'installation' of plants, the 'inau- 
 guration' of methods, and the 'prosecution' of developments 
 are the stock-in-trade of local reporters and of the equally 
 illiterate persons that play the mining 'game' on the frontiers 
 of industry. The imitation of them should be beneath an 
 educated engineer. 
 
 Young men, when about to describe a mine or explain a 
 metallurgical process, are prone to start with the idea that they 
 must indulge in 'fine' writing; meaning thereby a style pitched 
 several tones higher than is habitual to them. When they 
 prepare matter that is to be printed, they affect a vocabulary 
 "-' and a phraseology foreign to them; like the queer persons that 
 have 'society' manners as distinguished from their behavior at 
 home. There are public occasions, of course, when an added 
 dignity of bearing is befitting. For similar reasons, it is proper 
 
NATURALNESS 15 
 
 that the irresponsibility and ease of ordinary talk should give 
 place to deliberate thoughtfulness when one is making a busi- 
 ness statement or preparing matter for print; but the extra 
 effort should not entail a pomposity that smothers the subject 
 in verbiage. The attempt to write in a key higher than that 
 of conversation need not provoke insincerity or affectation. 
 It requires only more care and more deliberation. Write as 
 if you were addressing an honored senior in your own profession 
 to whom you desire to convey information; do not try to 
 impress him with your skill as a stylist, but make yourself 
 perfectly clear, so that he may have the benefit of any facts or 
 ideas that you can place at his service. As a warning, I quote 
 the following description of the Mount Morgan lode, in Aus- 
 tralia : 
 
 (4) ''It may be considered as consisting of a network of 
 veins, traversing on the one hand a metamorphic matrix of a 
 somewhat argillo-arenaceous composition and on the other 
 hand what appears to be a feldspathic tufaceous igneous rock." 
 
 V This is metamorphosed English pseudomorphic after flap- 
 doodle. Much of the geologic description that poses as pro- 
 fundity is rhetorical rot. Similarly the technical terms need- 
 lessly used by half-educated writers remind one ''of the French 
 that is spoken by those who do not speak French." 
 
 A Tasmanian geologist described an ore deposit as due to 
 "the effects of a reduction in temperature of the hitherto 
 liquefied hydro-plutonic solutions, and their consequent regular 
 precipitation. These ascended in the form of metallic super- 
 heated vapors which combined eventually with ebullient 
 steam to form other aqueous solutions, causing geyser-hke 
 discharges at the surface, aided by subterranean and irre- 
 pressible pressure." What can you make of this "geyser-like 
 discharge" of language? You will find, if you take the trouble 
 to translate the pretentious terms, that the description conveys 
 a minimum of information with a maximum of sound: "Full 
 
 ^ of sound and fury, signifying nothing;" or, as Ruskin has said, 
 "Great part of the supposed scientific knowledge of the day is 
 
16 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 simply bad English, and vanishes the moment you trans- 
 late it." 
 
 Here is another sentence written by a young man who 
 also mistook sound for sense: 
 
 (5) "Since the installation of their air-compressor, a new 
 campaign of development has been inaugurated, operations 
 have been extensively prosecuted, more particularly in the 
 Carboniferous limestone, which is usually so prolific of values, 
 due to the well recognized leaching of mineral solutions emanat- 
 ing from the plutonic magma." 
 
 Many of these words are out of place; a bishop is installed, 
 a president is inaugurated, a criminal is prosecuted, a rabbit 
 is prolific. Incidentally, it may be noted that the water that 
 leached the limestone probably came from above, not from 
 below; originating in rain-fall, not from the depths. These 
 grandiose words, being inappropriate, fail to convey a definite 
 meaning; they only make a confusing noise. Probably he 
 meant to say: 
 
 ''The use of the new compressor has greatly expedited 
 operations, particularly in the Carboniferous limestone, which 
 has been enriched by mineral solutions." 
 
 This, however, is not satisfactory, because the sentence 
 contains discrete ideas, wholly unrelated; therefore they should 
 be separated, thus: 
 
 ''The use of the new compressor has greatly expedited 
 operations, particularly in the Carboniferous limestone. This 
 is important, because the limestone has been enriched by 
 mineral solutions and therefore is a likely place to find ore." 
 \/ Samuel Johnson exclaimed: "Witness the immense pom- 
 posity of sesquipedalian verbiage;" and we know how he him- 
 self sinned in that way. George Meredith, a master of words, 
 recorded his objection to "conversing in tokens not standard 
 coin," which is what 'prosecute,' 'install,' and 'prolific' are in 
 such a context; they are not legal tender in the forum of 
 technology; they are like Canadian quarters, British shillings, 
 or French francs tendered to a merchant at Chicago or Denver, 
 
NATURALNESS 17 
 
 legal though they be at Montreal, Manchester, or Marseilles. 
 As you know, I hold that the use of words of Latin origin, 
 usually of more than one syllable, is helpful, if not indeed 
 unavoidable in expressing ideas current in technology, but 
 writing becomes incoherent when words are used because of 
 their sound rather than their sense. Such usage bespeaks a 
 snobbishness of mind, the aping of erudition, a mere pretence. 
 If a man knows what a thing really is, he describes it as black 
 or white ; if he does not know what it is, he masks his ignorance 
 by saying in long words that it partakes of the general quality 
 of grayness. The young writers who clothe meagre observa- 
 tion in elaborate words soon fall into the habit of using terms 
 that they do not understand, and therefore fail to make them- 
 selves understood, if indeed they do not convey information 
 that is positively false. The employment of words that are 
 unfamiliar to the writer, and that therefore are inconsistent 
 with his own way of saying things, serves but to cripple his 
 power of expression. He may get into a tangle by dragging 
 strange words from afar. When he does find himself thus 
 entangled he should cut loose, stating things in his own way, 
 that is, in plain words that he understands thoroughly. Again 
 I say: remember the reader. If you do, you will win 
 respect as a writer. The man with only a smattering of his 
 subject splashes all over it with words of learned sound and 
 unlearned meaning, because the ability to make such a noise 
 is more easily acquired than the reality of knowledge. Huxley 
 said that if a man really knows his subject, "he will be able to 
 speak of it in an easy language and with the completeness of 
 conviction with which he talks of an every-day matter. If he 
 does not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the 
 technical phraseology which he has got up."* In his lectures 
 to working-men Huxley showed how the fundamental truths 
 of science could be stated in the simplest and most illuminat- 
 ing speech, without loss of accuracy. Indeed, the ability to 
 
 *The concluding phrase illustrates how a great writer may lapse into 
 poor English. 
 
18 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 \' explain scientific or technical matters to the unlearned is a test 
 of the thoroughness of a teacher's understanding of his subject. 
 If, for example, you care to test your grasp of engineering or of 
 geology, try to impart what you know to a younger brother 
 or sister. That is a good test of your understanding and of 
 your use of language. 
 
III. CLEARNESS. 
 
 The notion prevails that writing is a knack : that the skilful 
 use of the pen is a gift of nature. This is an error. Dogberry 
 may be responsible for it; he said: ''To be a well-informed 
 man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by 
 nature." Since Dogberry said it, we may be sure that Shake- 
 speare thought otherwise. Ability of any sort may be partly 
 innate, but my own observation and experience lead me to 
 conclude that most of the easy writers have become so by 
 constant practice. As I recall those who have won reputations 
 with their pens, I remember that most of them have written a 
 great deal and have taken particular pains to improve their 
 style. The suggestion that proficiency in the difficult art is a 
 happy accident calls forth an ironic smile. The larger part of 
 the great writing in our literature is the result of persistent 
 effort. An easy fluency has been the undoing of many; their 
 flamboyant and fantastic scribbling has proved as perishable 
 as froth. 
 
 This criticism applies to technical writing also; in order 
 that a technical description or discussion may hold the interest 
 of the reader, at least long enough to cause him to read it to 
 the end, the writing must be done carefully and systematically; 
 otherwise it will fail in its purpose of conveying information. 
 Clearness is absolutely essential. "It is not enough to use 
 language that may be understood ; it is necessary to use language 
 that must be understood."* 
 
 From first to last, remember the reader: that is a rule 
 never to be forgotten in any kind of writing except the diary. 
 The diarist can shoot his words into the air; yours are aimed 
 at the intelligence of a sympathetic human being. Consider 
 him; if you do, you will escape half the pitfalls awaiting you. 
 * Quoted by Hill from Quintilian. 
 19 
 
20 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Clearness of statement depends, first, on the choice of words; 
 next, on the order in which they are arranged; then, on the 
 sequence of clauses composing a sentence; and, finally, on the 
 arrangement of sentences in a paragraph. 
 
 Select the word that is appropriate to your thought : the 
 word that pertains to the thing described. 
 
 Food is wholesome ; climate is healthful ; a person is healthy. 
 
 A foundation is permanent; an orebody is persistent. 
 
 A climate is equable; a contract is equitable. 
 
 Judgment is held in suspense; sediment, in suspension. 
 
 A problem is unsolvable; a mineral, insoluble. 
 
 The force of steam was discovered; the steamboat was 
 invented. 
 
 We measure distance in linear feet, but pedigree by lineal 
 descent. 
 
 Good writing depends not so much upon a large vocabulary 
 as upon the choice of words. The wrong word derails the 
 thought; the needless word is an obstruction. A writer who 
 flings needless words about him is like a swimmer who splashes ; 
 neither makes speed. The blue pencil of the editor is the symbol 
 of amputation because we recognize that it removes the useless 
 members of the literary structure. Revision commonly denotes 
 pruning. The dominant fault of the incapable writer is the 
 employment of too many words. Even practised writers err 
 in this respect; for example, H. G. Wells is fond of doubling 
 his adjectives, thus: 
 
 (1) ''In the preceding chapters there has been developed, 
 in a clumsy, laborious way, a smudgy, imperfect picture." 
 
 More than one adjective may be needed to describe an 
 object, but each adjective should have a distinct meaning. 
 Whether the adjectives in ''smudgy, imperfect picture" over- 
 lap may be questioned. The proper use of adjectives and the 
 use of proper adjectives can be studied profitably by any 
 writer, however experienced. 
 
 Verbosity is a sign either of carelessness or of lack of time 
 for proper care. PHny wrote to a friend, nearly 1900 years 
 
CLEARNESS 21 
 
 ago, '^I have not time to write you a short letter, therefore I 
 have written you a long one." 
 
 Avoid words you do not know fore and aft. Don't be 
 tempted into the use of high-sounding terms that may serve 
 to cover ignorance. Comprehensive words like 'development' 
 and 'evolution' are often mere noise and smoke, not penetrat- 
 ing shot. As the old lady was grateful for ''that blessed word 
 'Mesopotamia'," so that comfortable word 'metasomatic' 
 has cloaked many nebulous notions of ore deposition. Like- 
 wise 'dynamic' is sadly overworked by perplexed geologists. 
 
 (2) "The dynamic power that shattered the mountains 
 and created fissures in which the ore is now found." 
 
 So far as is indicated, the "power" might have been dynamite. 
 It is amusing to recall how Ruskin twitted Tyndall for a 
 similar indiscretion. Tyndall had referred to a certain theory, 
 which was in debate, affirming that it, and the like of it, was 
 a "dynamic power which operates against intellectual stagna- 
 tion." Whereupon Ruskin commented thus : ^' How a dynamic 
 power differs from an undynamic one, and, presumably, also, 
 a potestatic dynamisfrom an unpotestatic one — and how much 
 more scientific it is to say, instead of — that our spoon stirs 
 our porridge— that it 'operates against the stagnation of our 
 porridge'. Professor Tyndall trusts the reader to recognize 
 with admiration." 
 
 If you do not know how to characterize something you have 
 seen, do not imagine you have done your duty when you have 
 labeled it a 'phenomenon'. That is a generic term conveying 
 to the scientific mind the idea of an observed fact, especially 
 with relation to what is subject to change, as opposed to the 
 essence of things; in a loose and popular acceptation it carries 
 an impression of the unfamiliar; in either case the label 
 'phenomenon' explains nothing. Macaulay said : "I have often 
 observed that a fine Greek compound is an excellent substitute 
 for a reason." 
 
 In a recent controversy* a clever technician had much to 
 * Trans. Inst. M. and M., London, Vol. XXIV, page 178. 
 
22 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 say about '^orogenic" when discussing the source of ore in veins. 
 He made bold to play with it for awhile, but Greek terms, like 
 razors, are not to be flourished recklessly. He had to be told 
 that 'opos means mountain and that 'orogenic' relates to 
 mountain-making, not to the genesis of ore. Be warned there- 
 fore: know what words denote before you use them. 
 
 The rule is to use the word that will be understood by the 
 reader and that at the same time expresses the meaning best. 
 "Too many cooks spoil the broth" is a simple statement, which 
 'Punch' transformed jocularly into "A superfluity of culinary 
 assistance is apt to exercise a detrimental effect upon the 
 consomme.''^ That is the language of a newspaper reporter. 
 
 Avoid using words of similar sound, but of different mean- 
 ing, in the same context. 
 
 (3) When preparing this lecture I wrote: ''By the ivay, 
 I must ask you not to weigh the value of my admonitions 
 entirely by the manner in which they are conveyed to j^ou." 
 Noticing the similar sound of 'way' and 'weigh', I deleted the 
 introductory clause. 
 
 (4) "The main whistle answers with two long blasts, thus 
 notifying all the men on the hill that the blasting is over." 
 Substitute 'calls' for "blasts." 
 
 (5) "The requirement from the management [managers] of 
 reports to stockholders, giving a detailed account of their 
 stewardship, will be corrective of [correct] many of the abuses 
 of managejnent [corporate responsibility]." 
 
 (6) "The proportion of the rainfall that sinks into the 
 ground naturally varies according to the character of the 
 underlying rocks. But, whatsoever the nature of the rocks may 
 be, they are etc." 
 
 This was written by a geologist pre-eminent for good writ- 
 ing — James Gcikie. The "naturally" does not refer to 'nature', 
 it means 'obviously' or 'necessarily'. 
 
 (7) A hydrographer writes: "This is well illustrated by 
 well records." 
 
 (8) "In the description of many of the localities described.'^ 
 
CLEARNESS 23 
 
 (9) ''The problem is not simple. The best solution would 
 be to roast the ore carefully, forming a silver sulphate, which is 
 soluble in hot water." 
 
 (10) ''The first light on the solution of the problem was the 
 discovery that the gold was soluble in a solution of an alkaline 
 mono-sulphide." The first phrase italicized can be deleted; 
 and to prevent the awkwardness of using 'soluble' with 'solu- 
 tion', it would be an agreeable change to write that "the gold 
 dissolves in a solution of an alkaline mono-sulphide." 
 
 When writing concerning a chemical solution, do not refer 
 in the same paragraph to the solution of the problem; likewise, 
 when writing on geology, do not, in the same context, refer to 
 the rock formation and to the formation of the ore deposit. 
 The use of a word in different senses causes confusion of thought 
 in the mind of the reader. 
 
 (11) "The guides were held so strongly by the heavy mass 
 of unset [moist] concrete that the jar from passing skips only 
 settled [fixed] them more firmly into place, and the initial set 
 was not broken." 
 
 He may mean the 'set', or hardening, of the cement, but as 
 
 he is writing concerning shaft-work, he may be referring to 
 
 a 'set', or structure, of timber; therefore he should insert 'of 
 
 the concrete', or 'of timber', to explain. This use of 'unset', 
 
 settled', and 'set' in the same context is bewildering. 
 
 (12) "This spherical shape can be maintained only if the 
 pressure on the inside is greater than without. Surface-tension 
 only can account for this excess." 
 
 Here 'only' is used twice and with different meanings. The 
 second one should be replaced by 'alone'. The first sentence 
 can be improved thus. 
 
 "The spherical shape cannot be maintained unless the 
 pressure &c." 
 
 (13) "A loose knot is one not held firmly in place." 
 
 (14) "The ore, or the vein itself even, is hard to trace." 
 
 (15) "This machine is preferable /or the /our reasons already 
 indicated." 
 
24 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes said: ''People that make puns are 
 like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad-tracks." 
 
 When you use a word that has more than one meaning, 
 make clear the sense in which you are using it, by the context 
 or by an explanation. Of two words that may be employed in 
 the same sense, select the one susceptible of a single interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 (16) "He prepared a partial account of the events that pre- 
 ceded the strike." Was his account prejudiced or was it only 
 incomplete? 
 
 (17) ''This required the partial [part of the] time of a man 
 who might be using this time [employed] to better advantage." 
 
 (18) "Sometimes partially [partly] formed pyrite crystals 
 have barite between them, and the galena crystals are partial 
 [incomplete] and enclose some barite." 
 
 (19) The 'New RcpubUc' says, "In order to justify the 
 sternness of the protest- the case itself should be at least par- 
 tially established." Casos may be established partially, that 
 is, with partiality. The editor meant 'in part' or 'partly'. 
 
 (20) "The work described herein forms part of a partially 
 completed [an uncompleted] study of sulphur di-oxide." 
 
 A 'partially' completed work may be one that is complete 
 in part or one that is generally unfinished. 
 
 (21) "It is impossible to amalgamate coal-tar thoroughly 
 with the pulp in the agitating-tank." 
 
 In milling, 'amalgamate' refers to the combination of 
 mercury with one or both of the precious metals. To use this 
 term as a synonym for 'mix intimately' or 'emulsify' is bewil- 
 dering. 
 
 (22) "John W. Smith, the late manager of the Wild-Cat 
 mine, was unable to make it pay." 
 
 Is Mr. Smith dead? Was he the former or was he the 
 deceased manager? Or was he merely unpunctual? If he was 
 alive when the sentence was written — and he was — he should 
 have been described as "lately [or recently] the manager". 
 
 Avoid needless indirection, as by using a double negative. 
 
CLEARNESS 25 
 
 (23) ''The details of the methods used abroad are not un- 
 known to American chemists." 
 
 He proceeds to state that they are thoroughly known. 
 
 (24) ''The inefficiency [efficiency] of labor at these mines 
 has increased [decreased] very little." 
 
 The affirmative is preferable to the indirect negative, for 
 example : 
 
 (25) "In this part of Mexico the vitreous type of rhyolite 
 is not unco7nmon [common]." 
 
 (26) "There is no reason to believe that the mine is as rich 
 as represented." 
 
 "There is reason to believe that the mine is less rich than 
 represented." 
 
 Possibly the ore was such as to render mining unprofitable, 
 then "less rich" should give place to 'poorer'. 
 
 The choice of the right article is important. 
 
 (27) "Reduce the loss in the residue to a [the] minimum." 
 He said 'a' as an elegant variation on 'the', which he had 
 
 used twice just before, but the use of 'a' before minimum sug- 
 gests that he did not know what was the minimum attainable. 
 
 (28) "I used a process in which manganese oxide serves as 
 purifier of the electrolyte." 
 
 He means: "I used the process in which manganese oxide 
 serves to purify the electrolyte." It was a particular process, 
 well known to those interested in the subject — that of refining 
 copper. 
 
 (29) "He used the method that he had learned while at 
 Broken Hill, in Australia." 
 
 The 'method' is not explained or described; it remains 'a 
 method'; therefore 'a' should replace 'the'; otherwise his 
 readers are likely to be puzzled. 
 
 Do not confuse time with place. For example: 
 
 (30) "The ore sometimes [in places] has a distinctly banded 
 structure." 
 
 (31) "Such ore deposits are oi frequent occurrence [numer- 
 ous or of common occurrence] in Nevada." 
 
26 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (32) "This kind of ore is frequenthj met with in Colorado.'' 
 One does not 'meet' ore either once or many times; the 
 
 sentence should read: 
 
 ''This kind of ore is found in many mines in Colorado.'' 
 
 (33) " Meta-cinnabarite is not a very common mineral, 
 and when [where] it does occur [is found] there is usually some 
 cinnabar with it.^'' 
 
 Delete 'very' and 'with it', thus placing 'meta-cinnabarite' 
 and 'cinnabar' in emphatic positions at the beginning and end, 
 respectively, of the sentence. 
 
 (34) "The pyrite outcrop is always [everywhere] oxidized." 
 
 (35) "These crystals are sometimes [in spots] as much as 
 an inch in diameter." 
 
 (36) "Richer ore is invariably found when [where] the 
 lodes are in the sandstone." 
 
 (37) "Ai times [in places] the vein pinches to a mere thread." 
 
 (38) "The vein when [where] it is thickest breaks into small 
 stringers." 
 
 The use of the correct adverbial phrase is more descriptive, 
 it evokes the correct image and thereby fulfills the purpose of 
 language. 
 
 (39) "This coal has been measured in several instances [at 
 several points or in several places]." 
 
 (40) "True conglomerate was observed on rare occasions 
 [rarely or at points widely separated]." 
 
 (41) "Only part of the time [in places] will erosion expose the 
 formation for our study." 
 
 (42) "The formation in which the deposits occur is horn- 
 blende-schist, which near the surface is often [in several places] 
 altered to chlorite-schist." 
 
 The introductory clause is not commendable ; he is speaking 
 of one ore deposit; he uses the plural unnecessarily, and employs 
 that tiresome word 'occur'. He means to say that the 'ore- 
 bearing rock', or the 'rock enclosing the ore deposit', is horn- 
 blende-schist. 
 
 (43) "When [where] the cost of sulphuric acid is high, and 
 
CLEARNESS 27 
 
 where the quantity of shale to be retorted is small, then [there] 
 and in such case it is possible that the probable financial results 
 would not warrant the expenditure of capital required to con- 
 struct the plant for the manufacture of the ammonium sul- 
 phate." 
 
 It is not a question of time but of place; he is referring to 
 the exploitation of shale in remote localities, ''And in such 
 case" is redundant; it is a mere frill. So also are the words 
 ''it is possible that". He means that where sundry conditions 
 prevail there "the financial result probably would not warrant 
 the expenditure." 
 
 (44) "The rich veins diminish often in richness as depth is 
 gained." 
 
 If they diminish "often" they must soon be done to a fraz- 
 zle. It does not require a Byzantine logothete to inform the 
 student that the adverb must be put as near as possible to 
 the word it modifies. Here 'often' modifies 'diminish' and it 
 might precede that verb, but, more truly, 'often' modifies the 
 whole statement and it would be better to say "Often the veins 
 diminish in richness as depth is gained." But he does not mean 
 'often'; he means that 'many' or 'most' of the veins become 
 impoverished with increase of depth, and he ought to say so. 
 
 As the stage reeled close to the edge of the precipice the timid 
 passenger asked the driver, "Do people often fall over the edge 
 here?" "No", said the driver, "only once." 
 
 (45) "These rocks are nearly always red." 
 "Most of these rocks are red." 
 
 (46) "These pebbles are aZmos^ nez;er striated." 
 
 "Few of these pebbles are striated," or "Only a few of the 
 pebbles are striated." 
 
 (47) "The rock contains much altered plagioclase." He 
 means not a large proportion of altered plagioclase but much- 
 altered or greatly altered plagioclase.* 
 
 *From G. M. Wood's 'The Principal Faults Found in Manuscripts 
 Submitted for Publication by Members of the United States Geological 
 Survey.' 1907. 
 
28 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 * Where' is used awkwardly when not referring to place: 
 
 (48) ''I gave another tabulation where the addition of lime 
 has a marked retarding effect on the slime settlement.'' 
 
 Substitute 'showing that' for 'where', and use 'settling of 
 slime' at the close. 
 
 Do not hesitate to define a term the meaning of which may- 
 be doubted. When you do so, avoid the use of terms that 
 themselves need to be explained. As Samuel Johnson said: 
 " To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse than 
 that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always 
 be 'found. For as nothing can be proved but by supposing 
 something intuitively known, and evident without proof, so 
 nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to 
 admit of definition." 
 
 Dr. Johnson sinned grossly against his own precept; for 
 example, he defined a 'network' as "that which is reticulated 
 or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the 
 intersections." A fisherman, when a witness in court, defined 
 a net as "little square holes with string tied around them." 
 
 Dean Swift defined an archdeacon as "a man who per- 
 formed archidiaconal functions." Which left things worse 
 than ever. 
 
 Do not define in terms that need to be defined; do not spare 
 definitions. Many technical articles lead nowhere simply 
 because the writer has not made it clear whither he is driving. 
 To discuss the persistence of ore ih depth, for example, is 
 hopeless unless the principal terms, 'ore' and 'depth', are defined. 
 Definitions tend to clear the thought of the writer just as they 
 clarify the understanding of the reader. 
 
IV. PRECISION. 
 
 "The chief aim in style ought to be absolute precision' ^ 
 said Flaubert. "There is only one noun that can express your 
 idea, only one verb that can set that idea in motion, and only 
 one adjective that is the proper epithet for that noun." Let 
 this be your motto. The engineer aims to be exact in all his 
 measurements; he should measure his language with similar 
 exactness. The technical term is a word of precision. It is not 
 only precise, it is a word-saver. To the unscientific the earth is 
 "si ball slightly flattened at the poles, something like an orange". 
 To the scientific it is "an oblate spheroid". A similar contrast 
 between the precision of the technical term and the vagueness 
 of common words is afforded by a conversation between Ivanhoe 
 and Rebecca: 
 
 " 'What device does he bear in his shield? ' asked Ivanhoe. 
 
 ' Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock painted 
 blue on a black shield.' 
 
 'A fetterlock and shacklebolt azure', said Ivanhoe" — using 
 the technical terms of heraldry. 
 
 It is good style in writing, however, to adapt your manner 
 of expression to the intelligence and experience of the person or 
 persons to whom the writing is addressed. The description of 
 a mine should be worded differently according as it is intended 
 to inform a mining engineer, a director, or a bishop, remem- 
 ber THE READER. 
 
 It is as incorrect to write in a technical way for a non- 
 technical reader as to write in a popular way for a technical or 
 scientific reader. That is the best style which enables the writer 
 to place himself in the closest mental touch with his reader, to 
 establish a maximum of sympathetic understanding. Let 
 your precision be proportioned to your accuracy. You should 
 not try to be precise in matters that do not admit of accuracy, 
 
 29 
 
30 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 any more than you should be vague in matters that require 
 exactness. The technical writer must be sincere. Sincerity is 
 the first essential of all good work. It is absurd to state the 
 average value of the ore in a gold mine to three places of deci- 
 mals of a pennyweight, or its equivalent in money, because 
 no sampling and assaying can be done so accurately as to give 
 results trustworthy within limits so narrow. 
 
 The engineer for the Globe & Phoenix mine in Rhodesia, 
 for example, stated the average assay-value of the gold ore in 
 that mine on June 30, 1910, at 32.259 dwt. per ton. The three 
 decimals were only a florid decoration. The same engineer 
 gave the total tonnage of the ore as 174,788. The last three 
 figures signified nothing; they were only an arithmetical frill. 
 He could not ascertain the average gold content within half a 
 pennyweight per ton, nor could he estimate the available ton- 
 nage of ore within a thousand tons. The sequel proved that 
 even these Umits of accuracy were beyond his skill. 
 
 Another engineer gave the average value of the gold content 
 of the ground to be dredged on the Natomas property, in Cali- 
 fornia, to four decimals of a cent per cubic yard. On January 
 1, 1909, he estimated a yardage of 342,995,536 and a gross 
 yield of 9.9395 cents per cubic yard. In each set of figures the 
 last three were merely pretentious. Such meticulous precision 
 is an impertinence to the profession; it is an imposition on the 
 shareholders. The estimate was wrong by several million 
 dollars. 
 
 Do not express a forecast in terms of history nor an approxi- 
 mation in terms of measurement. In short, in writing a tech- 
 nical report, remember that good style calls for sincerity. As 
 elaborate precision of statement is out of place in an inexact 
 generalization, so also beauty of phrasing may defeat the 
 purpose of writing if it be intended to accomplish a non- 
 aesthetic purpose. Ruskin wrote so exquisitely that people 
 missed the moral of his utterance in the enjoyment of his 
 assonant periods. He recognized the fact too late and expressed 
 his regret. In a lecture on 'The Mystery of Life', in 1868, 
 
\/ 
 
 PRECISION 31 
 
 he said: 'Tor I have had what in many respects I boldly 
 call the misfortune to set my words sometimes prettily together; 
 not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack of doing so; 
 until I was heavily punished for this pride by finding that many 
 people thought of the words only and cared nothing for their 
 meaning." 
 
 Suit the style to the purpose; fitness is the essence of good 
 taste. 
 
 Words like 'percentage' are terms of precision; so are deci- 
 mals; they should not be used in making approximations or 
 rough estimates. 
 
 (1) ''The operation will take about 1.5 hours." 
 
 The statement is an approximation and should read: 
 "The operation will take about an hour and a half." 
 
 (2) "About 50% [half] of the old hands returned each sea- 
 son." 
 
 (3) "The tailings from the vanners consist of approximately 
 75% sands and 25% slimes." 
 
 To say '75%' is not an approximation; it is a precise state- 
 ment, not warranted in this instance. Note the unnecessary 
 plurals. 
 
 "The tailing from the vanners consists of three parts sand 
 and one part slime." 
 
 (4) "This increased the percentage [proportion] of colloids 
 in the flotation cell." 
 
 (5) "A large per cent [part] of the oil lost will probably be 
 recovered." 
 
 The word 'percentage' should not be used without reference 
 to exact figures; it is a term of precision and should not be 
 employed recklessly. 
 
 (6) "The underflow has a specific gravity of 1500." 
 
 Do not use zeros where they are meaningless. He wrote 
 1.500 instead of 1.5, and the type-setter did the rest. 
 
 The hankering for the abstract is exemplified by the vogue 
 attained by 'value' and 'values' in mining reports. In a stope 
 or in a mill the use of 'value' in this way may cause no con- 
 
32 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 fusion, even if it be an objectionable colloquialism, but in 
 technical writing it should be taboo, as the very type of all that 
 is non-descriptive and unscientific. ''This mill is intended to 
 extract the values in the ore" is a vague way of stating that the 
 mill is designed to extract the gold or silver, the copper or 
 the zinc — in short, the valuable metals in the ore. In one 
 mill the zinc, for example, may be not only valueless but a 
 deleterious impurity; in another the copper may be insufficient 
 in quantity to be extracted profitably, but sufficient to inter- 
 fere with the saving of the gold by cyanidation. 'Value' is 
 the worth or desirability of a thing; it is an attribute, not a 
 substance. A man w^ho designs a mill "to catch the values" 
 might as well build a railroad to pursue a quadratic equation. 
 
 (7) "In sinking, the values were lost." Meaning that the 
 ore failed, or discontinued. 
 
 (8) "And then the gold values are precipitated on zinc 
 shavings." No, it is the metalHc gold that is precipitated; 
 you can precipitate a panic by reckless banking, but you 
 cannot precipitate anything so intangible as 'values' on some- 
 thing so tangible as 'zinc shaving'. As the farmer said, "It ain't 
 in the nature of things". 
 
 (9) A mining engineer sent a cablegram from Nigeria 
 stating: "There are many years' work ahead and from actual 
 results the ground is good in values. '^ 
 
 The ground might be rich in vulgar fractions! 
 
 (10) "All values can be freed from the gangue by better 
 crushing." The gangue will be much reheved when these 
 ghosts are exorcised. 
 
 (11) "It might be supposed that the beating of such 
 particles of metallic values [metal] against the side of the tube- 
 mill would anneal them and put such values [them] into leaf 
 form." 
 
 (12) "The gold values are not chemically united in pyrite 
 as a sulphide of iron and gold." 
 
 He means: "The gold is not chemically combined with the 
 iron in the pyrite as a sulphide of iron and gold." 
 
PRECISION 33 
 
 (13) '' Better values are, however, obtained above the 1970- 
 ft. level as the lode is opened out on.^^ 
 
 '^ Richer ore is being exposed in the course of stoping above 
 the 1970-ft. level." 
 
 (14) ''Rich sands in which the gold and platinum values 
 are flaky and coated." 
 
 Here Values' is interjected from force of habit. 'Value' 
 cannot be "flaky or coated". Delete "values". The plural 
 of 'sand ' is not required. 
 
 (15) "Along the rivers the values are coarser than in the 
 beaches." 
 
 He is referring to the particles of platinum; he should say so. 
 
 (16) "The highest copper values are concentrated along the 
 post-dacite faults." 
 
 "The copper is concentrated along the post-dacite faults." 
 Sufficient examples have been quoted. The misuse of this 
 word is among the most objectionable of technical solecisms. 
 It connotes utter lack of precision. In every case it tends to 
 befog the meaning, for even if the reader guesses that the 
 writer is referring to a particular metal or mineral, the use of 
 Value' suggests such a proportion of the metal or mineral as 
 will yield an economic — that is, a profitable — result. Only too 
 frequently 'value' is used to designate mineral or rock con- 
 taining too little of the valuable metal to be a source of profit — 
 that is, to be 'ore'. In short, the woolly use of 'value' becomes a 
 means of conveying an untruth. No word in the vocabulary 
 of the mining engineer requires to be used with greater care 
 than 'value'. It is a disgrace to the mining engineering pro- 
 fession that this term should be employed so loosely. Sir 
 Clifford Allbutt has said truly: "It is strange that scientific 
 men who habitually work in dimensions of a ten-thousandth 
 of an inch are either blind to gross confusions of argument and 
 to false refractions of meaning or regard them with indifference." 
 One of the greatest enemies to precision in technical writing 
 is the use of the abstract instead of the concrete. An abstract 
 noun denotes quahty, state, or action, apart from anything 
 
34 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 possessing the quality, state, or action. For instance, in pre- 
 paring my first lecture, I wrote 
 
 (17) ''Words are intended jor the conveyance of ideas J^ 
 But I corrected myself: 
 
 ''Words are intended to convey ideas." 
 
 (18) Again, I wrote: "If you do so, you will succeed in 
 avoiding most of the grosser errors." 
 
 This I changed to : 
 
 "If you do so, you will avoid most of the grosser errors." 
 
 Prefer the concrete to the abstract. The use of the abstract 
 
 tends to circumlocution; it produces obscurities that are fatal 
 
 to precision. 
 
 (19) "Repair work was greatly facilitated hy the presence 
 of chutes every 25 ft. along the drifts." 
 
 How can "the presence" of a chute facilitate repairs? It 
 is the use of it that helps. He meant: 
 
 "The work of repair Avas facilitated by using the chutes, 
 which had been placed at intervals of 25 ft. along the drifts." 
 
 (20) "Such deposits of quartz are not valuable unless they 
 are close to cheap transportation.^^ 
 
 The abstraction 'cheap transportation' is a mere indirection 
 in place of the concrete idea expressed by 'railway' or 'steamer' ; 
 he does not say which. 
 
 (21) "When tungsten ore occurs in disseminated grains, 
 it is more difficult of detection [to detect] than when it is found 
 in masses of considerable size." 
 
 (22) "It is this accumulation of ore which [that] is at the 
 same time the cause of present conditions and a preventative of 
 an early release of the embargo." 
 
 This statement is burdened with many useless words. 
 "Preventative", of course, is a sophomoric blunder. Even 'a 
 preventive' is a roundabout way of stating what he means. 
 I suggest a change to : 
 
 "This accumulation of ore threatens the market and pre- 
 vents an early release of the embargo." The embargo refers 
 to the refusal of the local smelters to treat more ore. 
 
PRECISION 35 
 
 (23) " When the oxygen in air is gradually reduced very little 
 effect may be noticed before the occurrence of iinpairment of 
 the senses and loss of power over the limbs." 
 
 A loss of power in the writer's pen may be noticed like- 
 wise. His two abstract nouns, 'occurrence" and 'impairment', 
 becloud his meaning almost to the vanishing point. He means: 
 
 ''When the oxygen in air is reduced gradually, the effect 
 may not be noticed until the senses are weakened and the 
 power to control the limbs is lost." 
 
 (24) "As pig-iron was used for the precipitation of [to pre- 
 cipitate] the copper." 
 
 (25) "Fine grinding was introduced, and with it the more 
 or less complete eliminatioii of amalgamation as one of the 
 means of extracting the precious metal from the ore." 
 
 To introduce "the elimination of amalgamation" is not good 
 form in literary society. 
 
 "Fine grinding was adopted, and amalgamation became 
 no longer necessary to extract the gold from the ore." 
 
 (26) "In order that the subsequent sinking through the 
 rock to the coal-bearing veins could be proceeded with^ 
 
 The statement is improved by substituting the direct phrase 
 for the circumlocution, thus: 
 
 "In order to sink through the rock to the coal-seams without 
 further delay." 
 
 (27) "He continued the drift so long as the richness of the 
 ore lasted and then he ceased his exploration^ 
 
 "He continued to drift only as long as the rich ore lasted." 
 
 (28) "The mill-superintendent found that he improved 
 the extraction of the gold by a previous precipitation of the copper 
 in the ore." 
 
 "The mill-superintendent found that he could extract 
 more gold if he first precipitated the copper in the ore." 
 
 (29) "If the feast-days were not of such frequent occurrence 
 [so frequent]." 
 
 (30) " Much has been done in the investigation and study of [to 
 investigate] the local geology." Investigation involves study. 
 
36 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (31) "The glass model of the mine is most instructive 
 and illuminating in setting forth the nature of the development, 
 exploitation and geological features of the property." 
 
 ''The glass model shows admirably the development, 
 exploitation, and geology of the mine." 
 
 (32) ''Anything that tends toward atrophying [to atrophy] 
 the power of the individual." 
 
 Nothing tends so much to atrophy the function of writing 
 as the frequent use of the abstract instead of the concrete. 
 As Spencer said: "Exactness is not only unappreciated by, but 
 even repugnant to, minds in low stages." 
 
 (33) "It seems rather a waste of opportunity to fall back 
 on 'basic salts' when there are so many other scintillating 
 resources open to our pencil-and-paper speculative chemistry.'' 
 
 He spent too much effort in scintillating and not enough on 
 correct expression; he uses 'chemistry' for 'chemists', the 
 abstract for the concrete, and thereby spoils his rhetorical 
 outburst. 
 
 In nouns, prefer the concrete to the abstract ; in verbs, choose 
 the active voice rather than the passive, and the positive rather 
 than the negative. 
 
 (34) "An outline of the process may be of help to those not 
 familiar with cyanidation." 
 
 Delete the three words indicated. 
 
 (35) "These alloyed metals are the most difficult of solu- 
 tion [to dissolve]." 
 
 (36) "By a refusal to recognize the union he secured an 
 assurance of freedom in his operations." 
 
 "By refusing to recognize the union, he assured himself 
 freedom in his operations." 
 
 (37) "These demands for supplies must be anticipated, 
 often as much as six months, to allow the certainty of the goods 
 being on hand when needed.'' 
 
 The last clause should read, "so as to have the goods on 
 hand when needed". 
 
 (38) "This makes it necessary to determine the vakie of 
 
PRECISION 37 
 
 all sorts of property, a task which [that] will he -productive of 
 [create] endless disputes." 
 
 The direct statement is more explicit. 
 
 (39) ''This makes the use of coal for generating power 
 prohibitive." 
 
 "This prohibits the use of coal for generating power." 
 
 (40) "This will he dependent upon other conditions." 
 "This will depend upon other conditions." 
 
 "A remarkably cheap machine" is better than "A machine 
 of remarkable cheapness." 
 
 "He increased the speed of the machine" is better than 
 "The machine was given an increase of speed." 
 
 As Quiller-Couch says: "The first virtue, the touchstone 
 of a masculine style, is its use of the active verb and the con- 
 crete noun. When you write in the active voice, 'They gave 
 him a silver teapot', you write as a man. When you write 'He 
 was made the recipient of a silver teapot', you write jargon." 
 
 Those who hanker for the abstract also use the plural 
 unnecessarily. 
 
 (41) "An effort to ohtain further reduction in working costs." 
 Here we have an abstract noun and the plural used to make 
 
 a vague statement, instead of saying: 
 
 "An effort to reduce the working cost still further." 
 
 (42) "The extra costs to he met with as depth is obtained." 
 Why the plural of cost? Note also the childish "to be met 
 
 with". He means: 
 
 "The increased cost to be incurred as depth is attained." 
 
 (43) "The ores occur in limestone and are thoroughly 
 oxidized, so that the occurrence of galena is rather uncommon." 
 
 He was writing about the ore of a particular mine remarkable 
 for containing a peculiar kind of galena used in the apparatus 
 of wireless telegraphy. 
 
 "The ore is found in limestone and is thoroughly oxidized, 
 so that galena is rare." 
 
 (44) "Resulting in less losses of gold and lower costs, 56 to 
 35 cents per cubic yard." 
 
38 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Why the plural? He means: 
 
 *'The result being a smaller loss of gold and the reduction 
 of the cost from 56 cents per cubic yard to 35 cents." 
 
 (45) ''The discoverers were guided to the outcrop by the 
 occurrence of the gold in the gravels of the neighborhood.'^ 
 
 The 'occurrence' did not guide them, but the gold they 
 found. 
 
 "The discoverers were guided to the outcrop by the gold 
 they found in the gravel near-by." 
 
 Why gravels? Because it sounds more comprehensive, more 
 inclusive, more magnificent. The squandering of that valu- 
 able inflection, the plural, is all part of the love for the abstract, 
 the dislike of the concrete. In the above example the writer 
 referred to a deposit of gravel, possibly to more than one deposit 
 of gravel, but not to several kinds of gravel. One might suppose 
 that each bit of stone in such an alluvial deposit was a 'gravel' 
 and that the accumulation of them made 'gravels'. Illiterate 
 men undoubtedly retain this idea. As used in geology, 'gravel' 
 is a term covering a particular kind of deposit and the collective 
 form of such a deposit. In the same way careless writers talk 
 about "a vein in the slates", recalling the individual slates on 
 which they did sums when small boys, or thinking of the 
 'slates' used for roofing. In geology, 'slate' is a rock char- 
 acterized by a cleavage independent of the planes of sedi- 
 mentation. ' Slates' should refer to several series of such rocks. 
 The man who uses 'gravels' and 'slates' when he means to 
 refer to a deposit of the one kind or to a rock of the other kind 
 has squandered a useful inflection; and when he really needs 
 the plural to indicate several kinds or deposits of either 'gravel ' 
 or 'slate' he is unable to do so. 
 
 Until a few years ago it was the invariable custom when 
 referring to various mill-products to speak and write of 'slimes', 
 'sands', 'tailings', 'middhngs', and 'concentrates'. The singular 
 had dropped out of use. Indeed, habitual carelessness of speech 
 had developed such an absurdity as the use of 'tailings' to indi- 
 cate the pyritic concentrate collected in the stamp-mills of 
 
PRECISION 39 
 
 Colorado, and the employment of ^rock' to designate the copper 
 ore of Michigan. Engineers write of the 'ores' of a mine that 
 produces only one kind of ore and talk of the 'rocks' that a vein 
 traverses when it is wholly encased in one kind of rock. 
 
 This is a mormonism of style; it leans toward the vague 
 and poetic, as we speak of ''the sands of Time". It bespeaks 
 that inveterate love of the abstract against which I have been 
 warning you. In technology, the unnecessary plural (I had 
 written "these unnecessary plurals", but corrected myself) is 
 an obstacle to precision. For instance, a 'concentrate' is the 
 product of a concentrating process; if several such products 
 are obtained, as happens frequently, they are called correctly 
 'concentrates'. Thus: 
 
 (46) "At Broken Hill the mills produce lead and zinc 
 concentrates, the lead concentrate being more easy to sell 
 than the zinc." 
 
 Does not the discriminating use of the plural inflection help 
 to make the meaning clear? Here is another good example : 
 
 (47) "An intimate mixture of the pyritic and the lead con- 
 centrates is made, resulting in a product assaying 15 oz. alike 
 in gold and silver, and about 25% lead." 
 
 These two products of concentration, characterized by pyrite 
 and galena, respectively, are mixed to form one product before 
 shipment to the smelter. 
 
 (48) "Seven different slimes were tested, the results being 
 given herewith. These slimes are derived from as many ores, 
 from different parts of the mine or from several dumps."" 
 
 Note the value of the plural in 'slimes', 'results', 'ores', 
 'parts', and 'dumps'. 
 
 The pulp in a mill, when classified, is separated into a coarse 
 product, 'sand', and a fine product, 'slime'. More than one 
 kind of these products is made. 
 
 (49) "An experiment was made on two sands having the 
 following analyses. Which sands is the finest? ^^ 
 
 He meant "Which sand is the finer?" A more intelligent 
 writer says: 
 
40 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (50) ''Here, as at El Oro, one can calculate exactly the 
 extraction from a sand whfen the sizing-test has been made." 
 
 The discard from a mill or machine is the 'tailing'. Suppose, 
 as often happens, that the discards from several similar machines 
 are mingled while on their way to be re-treated by another 
 kind of machine, how are you to express the idea if you have 
 beggared yourself of your distinction between singular and 
 plural? 
 
 (51) " This idea of not returning the middling to the machine 
 that has separated it, has been adopted as a vital principle of 
 the mill. The middlings of the classifying jigs (products No. 
 8 and 9) and the hutch-product (No. 13) are crushed sepa- 
 rately through fine rolls. The crushed product has the char- 
 acteristic that practically all the galena freed by crushing is 
 found in the fine sand and slime, and that the oversize of a 22- 
 mesh screen (0.6 mm. aperture) does not «ontain sufficient 
 free galena to make it worth while to concentrate the over- 
 size before re-grinding." 
 
 Note the intelligent use of the singular of 'middling' in the 
 opening sentence and the effective use of the plural imme- 
 diately afterward. If the plural of 'sand', 'slime', 'oversize', 
 and 'product' had been employed in the fashion of the ordinary 
 careless writer, the meaning of the statement would have been 
 fogged. It is not easy to write clearly on such highly technical 
 operations, and it is impossible to do so unless we use every 
 device for making fine distinctions. One of the elementary dis- 
 tinctions is furnished by the plural; why throw it away? 
 
 On this detail in technical writing I have insisted for many 
 years, and not without effect. When the leaders in technical 
 science in South Africa decided to prepare a comprehensive 
 treatise on the mining and metallurgy of the great goldfield of 
 the Witwatersrand they issued a style-sheet requesting con- 
 tributors to use 'slime', 'concentrate', 'tailing', and so forth, 
 unless the reference was to several of these products. Many 
 American technical writers and practising engineers have 
 adopted my suggestion. Other mormonisms persist. Writers 
 
PRECISION 41 
 
 speak of 'fines' but they do not say 'coarses'; why not use 
 'fine' in contrast to 'coarse'? Writers on the geology of mining 
 districts often speak of 'schists', 'hmestones, and 'sandstones', 
 when the reference is to one, and only one, terrain or formation 
 of schist, limestone, or sandstone. Here again the idea lurks 
 in the background that a layer of limestone is a limestone, a 
 bed of sandstone is a sandstone, and a lamina of schist is a 
 schist. It is impossible to tell from the statements of such 
 writers whether they are speaking of several formations or of 
 several kinds of limestone or schist. 
 
 (52) "The vein crossed the bedded sandstones." 
 He means "the beds of sandstone". 
 
 (53) "The banded ironstones have been much disturbed 
 and shattered." 
 
 This refers to a single formation of banded ironstone; he 
 has his eye on the multiple bands of the ironstone. 
 
 (54) "The slates being highly silicified cause the main lode 
 shear-lines to split." 
 
 He means that 
 
 "The slate, being highly silicified, causes a splitting of the 
 shear-zone that constitutes the main lode." 
 
 Coal for domestic use in England was formerly called 'sea- 
 coals', because it came by sea and because each piece was sup- 
 posed to be a 'coal', and Englishmen stiil speak of 'coals', 
 meaning 'coal ' in the sense in which the word is used in America, 
 where the plural may be used to signify different kinds of 
 coal. 
 
 Note the fondness for the plural in references to depth : 
 
 (55) "In this mine the ore has been followed to great 
 depths.'^ 
 
 He means "to a great depth". 
 
 (56) "Rich ore has been found to considerable depths.^* 
 
 In such phrases the plural causes vagueness, and, pre- 
 sumably, to ignorant persons it seems more impressive for that 
 reason. As a technical statement it loses in precision and in 
 effect. Substitute the singular and see for yourself. 
 
42 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Better, however, than either the singular or the plural of 
 'depth' would be the actual measurement in feet, for the term 
 'depth' is relative and means little apart from some standard 
 by which it may be measured. 
 
 Here are some more examples of the unnecessary plural: 
 
 (57) ''The labor situation on these fields is critical." 
 
 This is a common British vulgarism. The reference is to a 
 particular goldfield, that of the Rand. ' Fields' is bucolic. 
 
 (58) "In January we treated 3186 tons of concentrates and 
 produced 2711 tons of calcines^ 
 
 One kind of concentrate was treated, yielding a uniform 
 calcine. 
 
 (59) "Our costs for roasting are of little value on account of 
 the shortness of the period." 
 
 Why the plural? He refers to one item of expense, not 
 several. 
 
 (60) "Extensive tracts of alluvialsJ^ 
 
 He meant "an extensive tract of alluvial groimd", but 
 thought it grander to use two plurals. 
 
 (61) "These estates contain important deposits of iron ores 
 as well as gold and copper ores J' 
 
 Only one kind of iron ore — hematite — was known to exist, 
 therefore the plural is misleading. The property consisted of 
 one consolidated group of mining claims, therefore 'estates' is 
 only a sample of careless magniloquence. 
 
 A professor writes concerning the treatment of quicksilver 
 "ores" by flotation. He had in mind the one important ore 
 of quicksilver, cinnabar, and was not referring to native 
 mercury, electrum, or meta-cinnabarite. Moreover, in dis- 
 cussing a metallurgical process, he would have been more pre- 
 cise if he had referred to the mineral itself (cinnabar) rather 
 than to 'ore', much less "ores", and added a note concerning 
 the nature of the gangue. 
 
 (62) " His present whereabouts are unknown. The editors 
 of the 'Atlantic Monthly ' ". 
 
 This appears in a foot-note. The use of the plural verb 
 
PRECISION 43 
 
 suggests that he might be in several places at the same moment. 
 The editors do not know the particular place where he hap- 
 pens to be, and the use of the singular verb would convey the 
 correct idea without puzzling the reader further. 'Where- 
 abouts' is not a true plural, but merely a variant of there- 
 about'. 
 
 The choice between singular and plural is a matter of hap- 
 hazard to many writers. For instance. United States, Govern- 
 ment, Cabinet, committee, company, management are given 
 a plural verb more often than the singular. Sometimes both are 
 used in the same context. The American Ambassador to the 
 Court of St. James, in transmitting a diplomatic note from 
 Washington to the British Government under date of December 
 28, 1914, used the plural and the singular impartially after 
 'Government', thus: 
 
 (63) "The Government of the United States have viewed." 
 
 ''The Government has so often exhibited." 
 
 "The British Government were satisfied." 
 
 "This Government is forced." 
 
 "The Government of the United States do not intend." 
 
 "This Government is informed." 
 
 "The Government of the United States are informed." 
 
 "The Government believes.''^ 
 
 "The Government of the United States expresses J^ 
 
 It is correct to say : " The United States is a great country" ; 
 also "These United States have increased in number since the 
 Civil War." The United States is a political entity. 
 
 The Government is a unit. The members of it are united 
 for purposes of national administration. The Cabinet is a 
 select committee of the party in political control; the politicians 
 in the Cabinet are men of various aptitudes. We say "The 
 company is about to buy another mine", if this refers to the 
 act of a corporation. So, hkewise, "The management was highly 
 respected", and "The committee consists of nine persons". In 
 all these words the collective sense is impHcit and the use of the 
 singular makes it clear that the writer is speaking of collective 
 
44 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 action or unified decision. If not, then the plural becomes 
 necessary; thus "The members of the committee were unable to 
 agree" is better than "the committee was not agreed". 
 
 The choice between the singular and the plural verb after 
 a subject containing numerals is likely to perplex the technical 
 writer. Thus, he will say either 
 
 (64) "Fully 1000 tons of ore was crushed" or 
 "Fully 1000 tons of ore were crushed." 
 
 The phrase '1000 tons of ore' signifies a quantity con- 
 sidered as a unit, not the separate tons, therefore the verb 
 should be in the singular. While concord requires that a verb 
 shall agree in number with its subject, yet when the meaning 
 is in conflict with number, it is well to allow logical considera- 
 tions to prevail over the grammatical, so that subject and verb 
 are in different number, thus : 
 
 (65) "5000 oz. of gold was produced." 
 
 (66) "$40 was collected." 
 
 (67) "Three feet was then cut off the pipe." 
 
 (68) "Twenty years is a long time." 
 
 (69) "Forty yards is too far." 
 
 (70) "Twice two is four." 
 
 (71) "Two-thirds has been lost." 
 
 All the above are sanctioned by good usage. We say "1000 
 tons was crushed" because the idea of 'ore' is implicit and we 
 are thinking of the tonnage in mass and not of a thousand 
 separate tons. Such a locution refers to an amount in weight 
 and not separate things. On the other hand, we might say: 
 ''Five tons were tested in one-ton lots"; but it is preferable to 
 say: "Five one-ton lots were tested". Again, in "Forty 
 barrels of oil was stored in the tank", the quantity measured 
 in barrels is regarded as a unit; whereas in "Forty barrels of 
 oil were stored in the warehouse" the verb may be plural if 
 the oil is contained in 40 separate barrels meant to be con- 
 sidered individually. 
 
 (72) "11 cc. of iodine solution were [was] used to titrate." 
 Here 'was' is inconsistent with the grammar, but con- 
 
PRECISION 45 
 
 sistent with the idea, namely, that iodine to the amount of 
 
 11 cc. was used in the titration. 
 
 In such statements the idea of quantity is impHcit, thus: 
 "An 11 cc. quantity (or volume) of iodine solution was 
 
 used." 
 
 "A 1000-ton quantity (or weight) of ore was crushed." 
 The idea of quantity being impHcit, the word for quantity 
 
 is omitted, and we have the adjectival phrase alone remaining 
 
 as the apparent subject. 
 
 Two nouns may indicate one subject: *'A block and tackle 
 
 is employed." 
 
 Collective nouns are sometimes joined to plural verbs when 
 
 the statement is meant to apply to the individuals of a group, 
 
 thus: 
 
 (73) ''The people are one and they have one language." 
 
 (74) ''The public have various opinions." 
 
 This view of the matter is stretched by some writers to 
 sanction such phrases as : 
 
 (75) "The Smith & Jones Co. have built a new mill." 
 
 (76) "The management have refused to raise wages." 
 Such usage is not to be commended, because the building 
 
 of a mill or the raising of wages is an act directed by the 'com- 
 pany' or the 'management' as a unit, not by the various mem- 
 bers as individuals. 
 
V. SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS. 
 
 The purposes of composition are various; one purpose, for 
 instance, is to make a record for the writer's own use, as in a 
 diary. That does not involve responsibiUty to others. There 
 is also the writing meant to influence opinion, to be persuasive 
 and pleasing. With such writing we need not concern ourselves 
 at this stage of our study. The prime purpose of technical 
 writing is to be informative — to convey information — there- 
 fore it must be clear beyond the chance of misunderstanding. 
 
 Such clearness is impossible if meaningless or wrong words 
 are sprinkled through the text. Discard the trivial words that 
 are constantly at your elbow. Brush aside a host of vapid 
 ' superlatives. Metternich exclaimed: ''The superlative is the 
 mark of fools." It is a false emphasis, like the underlining in 
 a school-girl's letter. For example, the little word 'very' 
 can be deleted nine times out of ten; it is an impediment to 
 terse and perspicuous writing, as the multitudinous hand- 
 baggage of the British tourist is to his travel. 'Very' supposes 
 comparison. A mine with a 1000-ft. shaft is very deep to the 
 scribe who writes from the Joplin district, in Missouri, but it 
 seems a shallow hole to a man living at Calumet, Michigan. 
 A vein that is 10 feet across may be considered very wide at 
 Cripple Creek, Colorado, but it is only a 'stringer' to the miner 
 at the Homestake, in South Dakota. Ore assaying S20 in gold 
 is very rich at Treadwell, Alaska, where 5000 tons of $2 ore is 
 crushed daily, but it is relatively low-grade to the pocket- 
 ^ miner at Alleghany, in California. It is all a matter of com- 
 parison; unless your reader knows your standards of depth, 
 width, or richness, your 'very' has no significance. 
 
 (1) "Where erosion was very rapid or oxidation very shallow" 
 is a statement that immediately raises the question: What is 
 the writer's scale of rapidity or shallowness? 
 
 46 
 
SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 47 
 
 (2) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says: ''It is certain that the 
 Germans were very outclassed upon the three days of June 
 which I allude /o." 
 
 The 'certain' and the 'very' suggest exaggeration. An 
 adverb, such as 'greatly' has been omitted before "outclassed". 
 He misplaced 'to'; for he meant "the three days in June to 
 which I allude." 
 
 The use of 'very' may defeat its purpose. Some words, 
 like 'perfect' and 'unique', cannot be qualified. If a thing is 
 'perfect', no 'very' can make it more so. To say that a machine 
 "makes a very perfect separation of the slime from the sand" 
 is tantamount to saying that it makes an 'almost perfect', 
 which is an 'imperfect', separation. A perfect separation is 
 100%, which is the limit of that kind of perfection. 
 
 ' Unique' is a word that allows no qualification. 
 
 (3) "The manager of the Mount Boppy refers to one of 
 the most unique sections of the mine." 
 
 Here the superlatives smother each other. If several such 
 "sections" existed in the mine, none of them was unique. 
 The one first disclosed may have been unique; the second 
 killed the uniqueness of it. 
 
 (4) "A rather unique suggestion." 
 
 (5) "The process is somewhat unique." 
 
 If a thing be unique, that sufficeth. Similarly, such words 
 as 'obvious', 'vertical', 'straight', 'moral', and 'honest' are not 
 intensified by using an adverb; they are weakened. "A very 
 vertical shaft" and "a perfectly straight adit" suggest the gild- 
 ing of refined gold. 
 
 (6) "Constructing a tramway in a perfectly straight fine." 
 A straight fine is the perfection of straightness. 
 
 (7) "It is very obvious that the mine is worth the price 
 asked." 
 
 It is obvious or it is not ; it can neither be more obvious nor 
 almost obvious. From the unnecessary emphasis we may sus- 
 pect that it was not obvious that the mine was worth the price. 
 
 (8) "Guncotton is pressed into the requisite form in a wet 
 
48 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 state, in which condition it is very safe to handle." The 'Very" 
 weakens ''safe", because the over-emphasis raises a doubt. 
 
 (9) "Lord Roberts is a very honest man" said the 'West- 
 minster Gazette'. This suggests that perhaps poUtically his 
 honesty was considered not above suspicion. 
 
 (10) "Charles E. Hughes is exceedingly honest, extremely 
 moral, but not in the least progressive" said 'The Examiner'. 
 Here the superlatives sap the strength of the sentence, and 
 reduce it to mere verbiage. 
 
 (11) "The formation of the insoluble lime tungstate is 
 very rare and has only been observed in one or two instances." 
 
 This statement is weakened by false emphasis. "The 
 formation of the insoluble lime-tungstate is rare." That 
 suffices. 
 
 These remarks do not refer to idiomatic phrases such as: 
 "In very truth, he is a man." Idiomatic phrases are a law 
 unto themselves. Here 'very' is an adjective; as also in "the 
 very roots of human life". 'Very' makes a strong adjective, 
 but a weak adverb. I will add this: if you employ 'very' 
 infrequently, you will find it very useful, on occasion. 
 
 Even a word like 'great' has little meaning if worked to 
 death. A newspaper reporter, describing the submarine 
 *Deutschland', said: 
 
 (12) "The great hull has been pressed out of one sheet of 
 steel. The only break in the smooth contour is at the bow 
 where her great anchors hang. But even here it is hardly a 
 break, for the anchors fit snugly into great pockets that still 
 maintain the roundness of the hull. The conning tower rises 
 like the hump of a camel in the great boat's back." 
 
 'Most' is another word much over-worked and likely to 
 hinder the flow of thought, as water is retarded by a riffle. 
 
 (13) "The ore deposit is most extraordinary." 
 
 (14) "This can be done most effectually in one way only." 
 'Doubtless', 'without doubt', and 'undoubtedly' are inter- 
 jected in a careless way as an equivalent for 'perhaps' or 
 or 'probably', instead of being held to their true significance. 
 
SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 49 
 
 (15) '' Doubtless the vein will persist in depth." 
 
 (16) ''The men, without doubt, are honest in their inten- 
 tions, but their methods are most objectionable." 
 
 ' Certain' is a word of uncertain meaning. 
 
 (17) *'A certain kind of oil is necessary in the flotation 
 process." 
 
 Here 'certain' is used as a synonym for 'specific', but it would 
 be better to specify what kind of oil is required. Delete 
 'certain' and state whether it be pine-oil, wood-creosote, or 
 olive-oil, for example. 
 
 (18) "Tuberculosis occurs to a certain extent among the 
 miners." 
 
 In this example 'certain' either means nothing or it implies 
 uncertainty. 
 
 (19) "There is a tendency to limit the profit to a certain 
 [fixed] percentage of the capital employed." 
 
 Avoid the habitual use of 'certain', so that when you do 
 employ it there will be no uncertainty as to your meaning. 
 
 'Certainly', like its corresponding adjective, is another 
 bluff word; more full of sound than significance. Here is a 
 quotation from the New York 'Annalist' : 
 
 (20) ''Certainly, Dr. Jastrow's article is stimulating to 
 thought and can be read with interest by British bankers, 
 remarks this authority. But one finds few to accept his con- 
 clusions as a whole. Certainly American banking enterprise 
 is finding an outlet in South America; certainly, also, America's 
 new banking system should help New York to take an increas- 
 ing share in international finance; certainly, also, British banks 
 in South America will need all their skill and energy in the 
 future." 
 
 These four 'certainlys', one of which might be emphatic 
 while the four cancel one another, are like the coughs of a 
 self-conscious speaker. The addition, twice, of 'also' increases 
 the clumsiness of the performance. 
 
 'Considerable' is a woolly word, usually out of place in a 
 technical statement. 
 
50 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (21) ^'Considerable [numerous] data of this kind are given 
 by Lewis and Shorter " 
 
 (22) "Considerable [deep] oxidation explains the absence 
 of sulphides." 
 
 (23) ''A considerable amount of ore was sent to custom- 
 mills before the company built its own mill." 
 
 Some, even approximate, figure should replace 'con- 
 siderable', which depends for its value upon the writer's — not 
 the reader's — notion of what is a large tonnage. 
 
 (24) "The plans for a plant of any considerable magnitude 
 are not warranted." 
 
 Delete ''considerable" and substitute a phrase that is more 
 specific. Is it the cost that is the obstacle or the lack of suf- 
 ficient ore? Then write either "The plans for an expensive 
 plant are not warranted by the funds available" or "The plans 
 for a plant of large capacity are not warranted by the tonnage 
 of ore assured." 
 
 'Some', like 'considerable', is used in a loose, and usually 
 meaningless, way. 
 
 (25) "Scotland produced some 3,500,000 tons of oil-shale." 
 
 (26) "This mine has yielded some 100,000 oz. of gold." 
 
 (27) "This process has met with some considerable success 
 in the treatment of antimonial gold ores." 
 
 In each case 'some' is redundant; it means 'about' or 
 'approximately', and that is suggested sufficiently by the 
 round figures. The last quotation is so woolly in texture as 
 to be ludicrous. 
 
 ' More or less' is another phrase it is well to discard in tech- 
 nical writing, which aims to be precise. 
 
 (28) "The ore has been subjected to more or less oxida- 
 tion." 
 
 (29) "The workmen are more or less inclined to resent the 
 order." 
 
 Delete 'more or less' in these examples. 
 
 (30) "The application of more or less complicated formulas 
 is superfluous." 
 
SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 51 
 
 (31) ^'The impression that the bases of calculation are 
 more or less certainties [certain]." 
 
 ' More or less' is rarely needed, least of all in a discussion of 
 accurate methods of appraisal. 
 
 (32) ''Leaving no record other than scanty ruins, rnore or 
 less perfectly [now] entombed in the drifting sand-dunes." 
 
 Do not imagine that the interlarding of qualifying phrases 
 like 'more or less', 'to a greater or less extent', or even adverbs 
 like 'about' and 'approximately', adds to the accuracy of your 
 information or to the precision of your statement. 
 
 (33) "Crystals penetrated to a greater or less extent the sub- 
 stance of the rock fragments." 
 
 (34) "The spaces between have been more or less completely 
 filled by cementing materials." 
 
 (35) "Ore-shoots are likely to be associated to a greater or 
 less degree with fissures." 
 
 These three quotations come from the same technical article 
 by a geologist who mistook the decoration for the substance of 
 scientific truth. 
 
 'Probably', 'perhaps', 'about', and 'rather' are sprinkled 
 in the sentences of engineers with the idea apparently of indi- 
 cating carefulness of statement, but care is shown better by 
 precision than by studied moderation of language. 
 
 (36) "A sampling plant was built perhaps five years ago." 
 Ascertain when it was built and give the date. 
 
 (37) "The lode is probably about ten feet wide." 
 Measure the lode and give its average wddth, as best you 
 
 can. All such averages are subject to a reasonable discount; 
 the insertion of 'probably' and 'about' will not avail if the 
 average width of the lode prove to be six feet. 
 
 (38) "The quartz is rather hard and the walls are very 
 straight." Delete the words italicized. Likewise in the two 
 following quotations: 
 
 (39) "The movement of minerals shows a rather remarkable 
 concentration." 
 
 (40) "This is 7)wre especially true of the smaller veins." 
 
52 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 'Present' and 'presence' are often redundant; so are 'found 
 to be' and 'known to be'. 
 
 (41) "The metallic minerals present in the ore." 
 
 (42) " The presence of other sulphides was [were] noted in 
 this ore." 
 
 (43) "The sandstone is known to be jointed in places." 
 
 (44) "In this region the deposits are found to be low-grade." 
 In these four examples the words italicized are superfluous. 
 'Et cetera' or 'etc' is improper after 'for example', or 'such 
 
 as'. 
 
 (45) "The ore contains various sulphides, such as galena, 
 blende, pyrrhotite, etc.'' 
 
 Delete "etc." and insert 'and' after "blende". 
 
 (46) "After the copper sulphides, such as chalcocite and 
 chalcopyrite, etc., are reduced to a fine state of comminution." 
 
 The "etc." is not wanted. He had in mind these two sul- 
 phides, and no others. The "etc." suggests that he had some- 
 thing up his sleeve. 
 
 This silly little abbreviation is also used to round a state- 
 ment or to make it seem more inclusive, thus : 
 
 (47) "Natives are employed in stoping, tramming, tim- 
 bering, etc.'' 
 
 (48) "Telluride ore is found in the Contention, Old Judge, 
 Telegraph, Sarah Jane, etc." 
 
 He had mentioned all the mines in which, so far as he knew, 
 telluride ore had been found. The "etc." was a mere flourish. 
 It reminds one of items in the social column of a local news- 
 paper, such as: 
 
 (49) "Mrs. Ebenezer J. Judkins gave an elegant dinner 
 party, her guests being Mr. and Mrs. Algernon H. Smith, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Adams Wheelock Brown, and others." No one else 
 was present, but it sounded fine and large to add "and others". 
 
 'However', 'therefore', 'nevertheless', 'moreover', and sim- 
 ilar adverbial connectives should be used sparingly. They are 
 better placed parenthetically within the sentence than at the 
 beginning. 
 
SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 53 
 
 The British have a way of disarming criticism by using 
 qualifying words and phrases hke 'somewhat', 'on the whole', 
 'be this as it may', 'we venture to conclude'. Gracious as these 
 may be in some forms of expression they should be excluded 
 from technical writing, which is best when most explicit and 
 least upholstered. 
 
 (50) "The working costs have not been abnormally high, 
 running, as they have done, only a trifle in excess of the average 
 of the whole of the Witwatersrand." 
 
 The statement is meant to disarm criticism by its gentle 
 verbiage. 
 
 (51) "A sampling plant was built perhaps five years ago." 
 
 (52) "A somewhat important development is announced 
 from El Oro." 
 
 (53) "It is rather rare to see such a rich vein." 
 
 This "orgy of moderation", as it has been called, is almost 
 a disease among our British friends; it has grown from their 
 love for "the emphasis of under-statement", as Thomas Hardy 
 calls it. British technical writers appear to shy at plain state- 
 ments of facts as if it were bad form to be explicit. This fault, 
 however, is not unknown in America. The editor of the 
 'Saturday Evening Post' says: 
 
 (54) "That war, on the whole, lowers the morale of the 
 personnel is possible." He tries to give dignity to a bit of piffle 
 by inserting a qualifying phrase. 
 
 (55) "The average run of ore contained about 30% sflica, 
 more or less J ^ 
 
 He must have been decidedly uncertain about it, for he 
 protects his 30% both fore and aft. 
 
 The secret of a vigorous style is the rejection of the super- 
 fluous word. 
 
 Permit me to quote Henry James again; he was addressing 
 students — young women of the highest type — when he said: 
 "I am asking you to take it from me, as the very moral of these 
 remarks, that the way we say a thing, or fail to say it — fail to 
 learn to say it — has an importance in life that it is impossible 
 
54 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 to overstate — a far-reaching importance, as the very hinge of 
 the relation of man to man." 
 
 Henry James spoke thus ''in those days when his sentence 
 was a straight young thing that could run where it liked, 
 instead of a delicate creature swathed in relative clauses as an 
 invalid in shawls."* 
 
 * Rebecca West. 
 
VI. IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE. 
 
 Freeman, the English historian, said that he had learned 
 from Macaulay "never to be afraid of using the same word or 
 name over and over again if by that means anything could be 
 added to clearness or force. Macaulay never goes on, like 
 some writers, talking about 'the former'-and 'the latter', 'he' 
 'she', 'it', and 'they', through clause after clause, while his 
 reader has to look back to see which of several persons it is that 
 is so darkly referred to." He might have learned also from 
 Macaulay that a preposition makes a feeble ending for a serious 
 statement. 
 
 How often do you hear 'the former' and 'the latter' in con- 
 versation? Good conversation is a -guide not to be disdained. 
 When you must use 'the latter', do not confuse it with 'the 
 last'. 
 
 (1) "Cheap labor, cheap fuel, and cheap transport are 
 essential, the latter [last] being particularly important in base- 
 metal mining." 
 
 (2) "The apparatus may be used to determine such gases 
 as h3^drogen sulphide, chlorine, oxides of nitrogen and some 
 others, as well as sulphur di-oxide. In the case of the latter 
 [last] two, etc." 
 
 The last two mentioned are "sulphur di-oxide" and "some 
 others". He should have stated which two and he should have 
 avoided that jargonese phrase "in the case of". 
 
 Sir Clifford Allbutt ridicules the false sense of tautology. 
 As an example, he quotes : 
 
 (3) "In the first series the reaction was present on 37 
 occasions, in the second series it occurred 32 times, while in the 
 third it was observed in 27 instances." 
 
 This should be : "In the first series the reaction was observed 
 37 times; in the second, 32 times; and in the third, 27 times." 
 
 55 
 
56 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 It might even be better to delete ''times" in the second and 
 third clauses. 
 
 Cobbett says: ''The word 'it' is the greatest troubler that 
 I know of in language. It is so small and so convenient that 
 few are careful enough in using it. Writers seldom spare the 
 word. Whenever they are at a loss for either a nominative or 
 an objective to their sentence, they clap in an it.^' 
 
 (4) "The cartridge has fuse attached to it and it is split 
 before it is shoved up." 
 
 The first 'it' refers to the cartridge, the second to the fuse, 
 and the third again to the cartridge. 
 
 (5) "About two years ago, when it was found necessary 
 io erect a new school-building, it was thought by many that 
 some attempt should be made to give instruction to those 
 engaged in mining. It was decided, therefore, to establish a 
 mining-school in connection with the high-school and it proved 
 a success." 
 
 A medley of different 'its' in a single sentence, like the 
 above, is undesirable; the mixture of the indefinite or imper- 
 sonal 'it' (the first three in the example) with the concrete 'it' 
 (the fourth, which appears to refer to the "mining-school") 
 is confusing. The sentence is bad, not only because of this 
 mixture, but because of the repetition of 'it'; the phrasing can 
 be accepted as far as the word 'school-building', which might 
 be followed by "many thought that some attempt should 
 be made to give instruction to those engaged in mining. A 
 mining-school therefore was established in connection with the 
 high-school and proved successful." Such phrases as "it was 
 found necessary" and "it was decided" are not objectionable, 
 as expressing public necessity or public decision, but they should 
 be used sparingly. 
 
 (6) "The ore is scattered through the formation, and it is 
 difficult to follow." 
 
 Which was difficult to follow, the ore? the formation? If 
 the ore, "it" is unnecessary; if the formation, "and it" should 
 be replaced by 'which'. 
 
IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 57 
 
 (7) "The air-compressor also operates the sinking-pump, 
 so that it is an economical machine." 
 
 Was it the pump or the compressor that proved economical? 
 
 (8) "The fire at the Champion mine made it necessary for 
 the company to shut-down its mill, and it is probable that it 
 will remain idle for several months, until it is in a position to 
 produce the usual supply of ore." 
 
 Here are five 'its', three of which appear to represent con- 
 crete things. Does the fourth refer to the company, the mill, 
 or the mine? The fifth 'it' may refer either to the mine or to 
 the company. As an alternative I suggest: 
 
 "The fire at the Champion mine compelled the company 
 to shut-down the mill, which will remain idle for several months 
 or until sufficient ore can be supplied." 
 
 (9) ''The thickness of the strata described as chalk by the 
 driller is much greater in the southern field and it rests, in four 
 cases out of five, directly on sand." 
 
 What rests? "The southern field"? No, the chalk. The 
 'and' can be replaced by 'where'; and 'chalk' had better be 
 repeated instead of using the confusing 'it'. 
 
 Do not hesitate to repeat a word in order to make yourself 
 clear. Perspicuity is the better part of elegance. 
 
 (10) "For reasons that need not be discussed, a solute that 
 lowers the swr/ace- tension of a liquid concentrates at the sur- 
 face of the solution, but this process of concentration, called 
 'adsorption', takes a certain definite time to reach its full 
 value. Now, if a film of the solution is stretched, a new surface 
 is produced and this new surface at the moment of production 
 possesses greater sur/ace-tension than the rest of the surface, 
 because the sur/ace-adsorption has not had time to reach its 
 full value." 
 
 In this paragraph the writer has used the word 'surface' 
 repeatedly in order to make himself clear. He is discussing a 
 particular force, surface-tension, and avoids the risk of mis- 
 understanding by giving it in full again and again. He might 
 have used 'tension' without the adjectival 'surface' after 
 
5S TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 '' possesses greater", and he might have omitted 'surface' 
 before 'adsorption' near the close of the paragraph; but if he 
 erred, he erred on the right side. He is deahng throughout with 
 essentially surficial phenomena and he emphasizes the fact. 
 For that reason the repetition is to be commended. 
 
 Please do not weigh the value of my admonitions entirely 
 by the manner in which they are conveyed to you. I have 
 read a sufficient number of books on grammar, composition, 
 and writing tc know that the exponents of these subjects — 
 some of them far better equipped than I — commit many of the 
 errors against which they warn their readers. My position 
 is much like that of the honest, but bibulous, clergyman who 
 told his congregation: ''Do as I say, not as I do." 
 
 An ungainly use of 'with' is noteworthy in technical writ- 
 ings. 
 
 (11) In preparing the second lecture I had written: " 'Cer- 
 tain' is a word with an uncertain meaning", but I changed 
 "with an" to 'of. 
 
 (12) "The vein has a north-east strike with [and] an easterly 
 dip." 
 
 (13) "The vein becomes richer with [in] depth." 
 
 (14) "The Bolivians produce good ore and concentrates 
 with [at] a small outlay of expense." 
 
 Here 'with' is more objectionable. The ore and concentrate 
 are produced at a small cost. Delete "outlay of". 
 
 (15) ''With the value of the boliviano as fixed by law, the 
 difference of exchange becomes burdensome." 
 
 This is worse. He should have said: "Since the value of 
 the boliviano is fixed by law, the difference, etc." 
 
 (16) "With the high smelting rate existing in England and 
 the practical impossibility of getting ore into Germany for 
 reduction, it seems that with fair offers in price the American 
 smelters will be able to command a supply of tin ore from 
 Bolivia." 
 
 This is still worse. He means: " In consequence of the high 
 smelting-rate etc.", and when he uses 'with' a second time he 
 
IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 59 
 
 means that ^^if fair prices are offered, the American smelters 
 should be able etc." 'Existing' and 'practical' are redundant. 
 
 (17) ''Why are the ore-shoots limited to the middle andesite 
 with [whereas] the earlier [lower] and upper flows [are] barren?" 
 
 Here 'with' is used in place of 'whereas'. He might have 
 said: "The lower and upper flows of andesite being barren, 
 why are the ore-shoots limited to the middle flow?" 
 
 (18) "The world's production of each of the three base 
 metals was 1,000,000 tons with [but] lead slightly exceeding 
 [exceeded] copper and zinc." 
 
 The sense of equal production is better expressed by put- 
 ting the "each" after "tons". He might have phrased the 
 last clause thus: 
 
 " but the production of lead slightly exceeded that of 
 
 copper or zinc." 
 
 (19) "Even with slimes that settle well with lime, this 
 .nethod is undesirable." 
 
 He means "This method cannot be recommended even when 
 applied to slimes that are made to settle by aid of lime." 
 
 (20) ''With a crushing device which utilizes the principle of 
 abrasion peculiar phenomena are sometimes presented." 
 
 This is jargon. He means: "Crushing devices that utilize 
 the principle of abrasion sometimes produce peculiar phenom- 
 ena." , 
 
 (21) ''With the new furnaces in operation, smelting with 
 the cheapest fuel available at present, with cheap power from 
 waste gases, and with the Pierce-Smith convertor operating, 
 the plant will be completely up to date." 
 
 This is a sample of journalese. 'With' stands for 'when'. 
 
 "When the new furnaces are in blast, when the Pierce- 
 Smith convertors are in operation, when cheap fuel is used 
 and when the waste-gases are utilized to generate power, this 
 plant may be considered thoroughly up-to-date." 
 
 (22) "With the exceptiori of [except for] the altitude, the 
 conditions are favorable to mining." 
 
 (23) "With [in consequence of] the rising cost of machinery, 
 
60 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 foodstuffs, and labor, and with [as against] a fixed value for their 
 output, the gold mines are facing unprecedented conditions." 
 
 In the 13th book of the 'Say of Confucius' it is recorded: 
 *'0n matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. 
 If names are nob right, words are misused. When words are 
 misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy 
 and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and 
 justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a 
 gentleman must be ready to put names into speech, to put 
 words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words." 
 
 'While' means 'during the time that' or 'for as long as'. 
 It is a mistake to use it for other purposes. 
 
 (24) "The orebearing sandstones, which dip eastward, are 
 locally termed 'vetas', while [whereas] those dipping eastward 
 are known as 'ramos'." 
 
 The reference is not to time but to the direction of dip. 
 It is well when using foreign terms, such as the Spanish words 
 in the above quotation, to insert the English equivalent in 
 parentheses, thus 'vetas' (veins) and 'ramos' (branches). 
 
 The same writer mixed his prepositions : 
 
 (25) "These beds of sandstone have been found to contain 
 ore at [to] a depth of over 1600 ft." 
 
 He did not mean that they were ore-bearing only at 1600 
 ft., but that they continued to be ore-bearing down to 1600 feet. 
 
 (26) "Enormous quantities of agricultural waste from the 
 farms are disregarded, while [although] they contain elements 
 from which valuable substances can be derived." 
 
 (27) "This refers to experiments where [in which] roasting 
 was tried." 
 
 Another objectionable mannerism is the use of the indefinite 
 pronoun 'one'. This is distinctly a British habit, but man}- 
 Americans affect it, and, being common among well-bred people, 
 it has a vogue against which a careful writer should be on his 
 guard. In technical writing it is a plain nuisance. 
 
 (28) ''One dined late, therefore one did not walk to the club 
 until ten o'clock ", instead of 
 
IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 61 
 
 "I dined late, therefore I did not walk to the club until 
 ten." 
 
 (29) "I am engaged in reciting the incidents in one's [my] 
 hfe." This is a panicky attempt to escape egotism in an 
 autobiography. 
 
 The 'Westminster Gazette' says: 
 
 (30) ''Then cricket will become a sport without nerves, 
 and one of which one will willingly become a spectator." 
 
 Lord Rosebery remarks : 
 
 (31) "The less 07ie says about a toast one knows nothing 
 about the better for one's self and the audience." 
 
 Note the preposition-verb and the misplaced preposition. 
 J. L. Garvin wrote recently in 'The Journal' of the Institute 
 of Journalists as follows : 
 
 (32) "This you say is a talk by a journalist to journalists! 
 So one had often declined. At last, in answer to the latest and 
 most urgent invitation from French friends, one determined 
 to go, and now the wonder seems that one did not go before." 
 
 He means that he had often declined to visit the front in 
 France, until at last he determined to go and then wondered 
 why he had not gone before. Substitute 'I' for 'one' through- 
 out. The statement is only interesting as referring to the 
 ideas and movements of the speaker, the versatile editor of the 
 'Observer'. 
 
 (33) ''One had noticed that in Cornwall the miners had 
 never been able to get rid of the influence of the smelters in 
 selling their ore." 
 
 Again the mock-modest 'one' is associated with a preposi- 
 tion-verb. The observation is uninteresting unless backed by 
 the personality of the observer. He might have said: 
 
 "I had noticed that the miners in Cornwall had been unable 
 to escape the dominance of the smelters." 
 
 (34) "One used generally to prospect with a cocoa-nut 
 shell, and when one wanted to try a piece of ground on a bigger 
 scale the thing would be to take down a tree, beat the bark off, 
 spread it out, and use that as a launder. One would follow this 
 
62 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 by doing something else. One also came across very curious 
 furnaces," and so forth. 
 
 This is quoted from the Transactions of the Institution of 
 Mining and Metallurgy. It is the rambhng description of a 
 modest man, shrinking from being too downright and avoiding 
 even the semblance of pedantic accuracy; hence the woolly 
 texture of his verbiage. He was writing about prospecting in 
 the Malay peninsula. His description has no scientific value 
 unless it be the testimony of an eye-witness; being such, he 
 ought to accept the responsibility and use the definitive 'I'. 
 
 (35) "In 07ie instance one had anything but a positive 
 discharge and a positive feed, whilst in the other, one had both 
 of these points absolutely defined." 
 
 Note again the clash between the numeral one and the 
 pronoun one. This quotation, referring to heavy stamps, is 
 also from the Transactions of the premier mining-engineering 
 society of England. Part of the wearisome use of one is due to 
 the custom of reporting in the third person — the or alio obliqua. 
 This is objectionable in matters of scientific testimony. A 
 record in the first person is safer and more intelligible. 
 
 The American uses 'they' as an indefinite pronoun, as if to 
 compensate for abstaining from the use of 'one' a VAnglaise. 
 
 (36) "It took thirty years to introduce oil flotation and 
 they are now erecting a monument to the memory of the woman 
 who [that] first discovered the process." 
 
 'They' stands for the pubhc or those interested in mining. 
 'First' is redundant. 
 
 To return to our indefinite pronoun: a technical writer is a 
 scientific witness; his testimony is valuable because he vouches 
 for the accuracy of it; if he hide his identity under the mock- 
 modesty of the indefinite pronoun he contravenes the purpose 
 that is supposed to prompt his utterance. To begin a statement 
 in the first person may seem assertive, but it simply asserts 
 the responsibility of the writer, identifies the witness, and 
 places him on record as testifying to the fact. To begin with 
 'one' is to start under a cloud of impersonality, to evade respon- 
 
IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 63 
 
 sibillty, and to pose as a nebulous nonentity. In technology 
 it is necessary to sacrifice elegance to precision; the writer 
 on technical subjects is expected, not to pose, but to speak 
 to the point without wasteful circumlocution or mincing 
 affectation. 
 
 Some people seem to consider the first person positively 
 indecent — they shun it. Of course, unnecessary egotism is 
 objectionable, and the needless repetition of 'I' is a fault, but 
 the intrusion of self into a matter that is personal, as testimony 
 must be, does not come under the ban of good taste. On the 
 other hand, the indefinite pronoun has its use, of course, when 
 one desires to be impersonal. Thus "One may well be afraid 
 when the lions roar" is a pleasant way of expressing the idea 
 of fear without attributing timidity to any person in particular. 
 "One is loath to impugn the President's motives" is a proper 
 way of suggesting more than an individual questioning of his 
 motives. Likewise when one is generalizing, the introduction 
 of the ego may be unnecessary or even annoying; thus: "The 
 training of mining men has usually been so broad that I find 
 [one finds] them at home in almost any branch of military 
 engineering." However, in technology the need of 'one' in 
 such contexts does not arise often. 
 
 I have criticized two Britishisms, not out of ill-will, but for 
 a definite purpose, and I have referred to one or two American- 
 isms in exactly the same spirit. To my mind Britishisms and 
 Americanisms are equally objectionable; they are provin- 
 cialisms detrimental to the currency of the English language, 
 which is the common heritage of both peoples. The official 
 language of the United States, a language that originated in 
 Great Britain, is spoken in the same way by those who speak 
 it well on both sides of the Atlantic. I can assure you that Mr. 
 Eliot and Mr. Choate, for example, speak exactly the same 
 language as Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour; and if any of us 
 speak or write differently from them, we may be using British 
 or we may be using American, but we are not using English. 
 
VII. THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS. 
 
 An educated man is distinguished from others neither by 
 his clothes nor by his knowledge; he is remarkable not for the 
 things he says, but for the way he says them. You cannot 
 even stand with him under an archway in the rain without 
 finding him out. He may talk only of the weather. His words 
 and his phrases alike may be simple. What distinguishes him 
 is the arrangement of his words; however desultory his talk, 
 it will be methodical; he has habituated himself to foreseeing 
 the part to be played by each word he uses, and the place to 
 be taken by each sentence he utters. On the other hand, the 
 uneducated man, though shrewd and well-informed, will relate 
 facts and events as they recur to him, generally in disorder; 
 in his effort to recollect and in his attempt to rectify forget- 
 fulness, he will pause irregularly, filling the intervals with 
 meaningless phrases, such as ''and then", ''and so", or "said 
 h(^ to me", "said I to him", and even the continuous parts of 
 his story will be told confusedly, because he has not learned the 
 proper use of words.* 
 
 My own experience as an editor of technical manuscript 
 has taught me that ignorance of the proper uses of 'that' and 
 'which' is a fruitful cause of obscurity and confusion. The 
 relative pronouns have distinct functions, and no writer can 
 express himself clearly until he has learned to discriminate 
 between these functions. 
 
 (1) "The company is about to erect a leaching-plant for 
 the silver-tin concentrate which did not find a remunerative 
 market either in England or Germany." 
 
 'Concentrate that' would mean only the particular portion 
 for which a remunerative market was not found. 
 * Borrowed, and changed, from Coleridge. 
 64 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 65 
 
 'Concentrate, which' would mean all the silver-tin con- 
 centrate. 
 
 ' Concentrate which' could have either meaning. 
 
 (2) (a) ''The engineers that refused to submit were dis- 
 charged." 
 
 (6) ''The engineers, who refused to submit, were dis- 
 charged." 
 
 The first means that only a few recalcitrant engineers were 
 dismissed, whereas the second means that all the engineers 
 were recalcitrant and all of them were dismissed. 
 
 (3) "The Trail smelter is treating ore from the Sunshine 
 mine at a profit which runs only $6.10 per ton." 
 
 Is the profit $6.10? No; for that would be ample, and 
 would render 'only' superfluous. It is the ore that assays only 
 $6.10 per ton. Substitute 'that' for 'which' and the meaning 
 becomes clear. At the same time re-arrange the sentence thus: 
 
 "The Trail smelter is treating, at a profit, ore from the 
 Sunshine mine that assays only $6.10 per ton." 
 
 The clause "at a profit" may seem to be interjected awk- 
 wardly, but it is placed where it will be emphatic, as it should 
 be. 'Profitably' might be substituted. 
 
 (4) "All the ore from the lower level that is not now under 
 water is being sent to the mill." 
 
 What is under water? The lower level? or only a part of 
 the ore on the lower level? If the lower level is meant, 'which' 
 should replace 'that' and two commas are needed to complete 
 the relative clause, thus: 
 
 "All the ore from the lower level, which is not now under 
 water, is being sent to the mill." 
 
 The dangers of punctuation can be lessened by writing: 
 "Since the lower level is not now under water, all the ore from 
 it is being sent to the mill." 
 
 If a part of the lower level is under water the sentence should 
 read: 
 
 "All the ore from the part of the lower level that is not 
 under water is being sent to the mill." 
 
66 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (5) ''I recommend the flotation process that has been 
 developed so successfully in Australia for the treatment of 
 the ore at Miami." 
 
 He does not say what he means. He recommends the 
 flotation process in general and intends to remark incidentally 
 that it has been developed successfully elsewhere; he is not 
 recommending a particular flotation process noteworthy as 
 having been developed in Australia. He can express his mean- 
 ing clearly by changing 'that' into 'which' and by placing a 
 comma before 'which' and after 'Australia'. It will be better 
 to re-arrange the sentence thus: 
 
 "For the treatment of the ore at Miami, I recommend the 
 flotation process, which has been developed so successfully in 
 Australia." 
 
 The relative pronouns serve for reference and connection. 
 ^Who', its possessive 'whose', and its objective 'whom' should 
 properly refer to living things, usually persons, sometimes 
 animals. By poetic license we may speak of "the city whose 
 future is assured". But it is inadvisable to say : "The smelter 
 whose operations are profitable". Poetic hcense is not permis- 
 sible in technology. So we may say: "The smelter, which 
 is operating at a profit, continues to produce the usual quantity 
 of bullion." 
 
 Historically Svhose' is the possessive of 'what' as well as of 
 'who', and it is still used as equivalent to 'of which', par- 
 ticularly when the latter produces an awkward construction.. 
 Hill states the rule* thus: 
 
 " 'Whose' is used of anything with animal life or of anything 
 personified; 'of which' is used of anything without animal 
 life, unless euphony requires 'whose'." He suggests that it 
 sounds better to say : 
 
 (6) "The Lilliputians ask Gulliver to destroy the nation 
 whose ships he had already taken" than 
 
 "The Lilliputians ask Gulliver to destroy the nation of 
 which he had already taken the ships." 
 
 * 'Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition', by A. S. Hill, p. 729. 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 67 
 
 Yet Professor Hill approves 
 
 (7) ''A lady inquired if a monthly magazine, the name of 
 which was unknown to me, had yet arrived." 
 
 Preferring this to 
 
 '^A lady inquired if a monthly magazine, whose name was 
 unknown to me, had yet arrived." 
 Shakespeare says in familiar hues: 
 
 (8) ''The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
 
 No traveler returns" 
 But, as I have already suggested, the usage of poetry should 
 not be imitated in prose, least of all in technical writing, in 
 which precision is imperative. 
 
 'Which' is not inflected; it refers usually to things only, 
 not to persons. 'That' also is not inflected; it refers to both 
 persons and things; it cannot be modified directly by a prepo- 
 sition. We do not say "The man in that we trusted", although 
 colloquially we may say: "The man that we trusted in" — 
 an awkward clause. To 'trust' a man and 'to put your trust 
 in' a man express different shades of meaning. Therefore we 
 decide to say "The man in whom we trusted", or, simply, 
 "The man we trusted". Likewise we would not say "the 
 house in that Holmes was born", nor would we care to say 
 "the house that Holmes was born in", but "the house in which 
 Holmes was born". Thus good usage leans to the side of 
 euphony. 
 
 The use of 'that' for referring to persons is considered old- 
 \/ fashioned by many, even incorrect by some. Webster's dic- 
 tionary defines a 'director' as "one that directs". The Century 
 dictionary says "one who directs". My own experience leads 
 me to agree with Webster. Here 'one' stands for 'the kind of 
 person' ; it is specific, not general. I would say 
 
 (9) "The man that said so is worthy of respect", and not 
 "The man who said so, etc." 
 
 As we shall see later, 'that' should introduce a definitive 
 clause. It is generally conceded to be required when a superla- 
 tive is attached to the antecedent : 
 
68 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (10) ''The most careful man that I could find." 
 "He was the greatest geologist that ever lived." 
 
 'That' is also preferred with a word of exclusive or com- 
 prehensive meaning, such as 'only' or 'any'. Thus: 
 
 (11) "The only mineral that I recognized." 
 "Anybody that goes this way is in danger." 
 
 The use of 'and which' presents another difficulty to young 
 writers — and old ones too. This phrase should not be employed 
 unless it is preceded by another subordinate clause introduced 
 by 'which'. It is correct to say: 
 
 (12) "He went to the Hercules mine, which he examined 
 and which he hopes to buy." 
 
 It is not proper to say: 
 
 (13) "This is the kind of cyanide I prefer, ana which I 
 expect to use in the mill." 
 
 Here 'which' should be deleted, and 'it' inserted after 'use'. 
 An alternative would be to delete 'which' and the second 'I', 
 as well as the comma, thus: "This is the kind of cyanide I 
 prefer and expect to use in the mill." 
 
 (14) "It may be possible to operate profitably a small 
 plant using shale conveniently situated ajid which can be 
 mined at a low cost." 
 
 "It may be possible to operate profitably a small plant if 
 it is supplied from a deposit of shale so situated as to be mined 
 cheaply." 
 
 The chief difficulty is to discriminate between the use of 
 'that' on the one hand and of 'who' or 'which' on the other. 
 Most writers seem to consider 'that' and 'which' interchange- 
 able; therefore they employ 'that' as an agreeable variant of 
 'which', and get into trouble. Since 'that' also plays the 
 part of a conjunction, an adverb, and a demonstrative pro- 
 noun, they prefer 'which' to 'that' when choice appears per- 
 missible. 
 
 I shall take special pains to discuss the uses of 'that' and 
 'which' because my own experience has caused me to appre- 
 ciate keenly how necessary it is to have a thorough under- 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 69 
 
 standing of the distinctive functions of these pronouns. The 
 main distinction is this: 
 
 The function of 'that' is to define and to restrict; 
 the function of ' which' is to explain and to supplement. 
 
 At this point I am in honor bound to inform you that 
 several authorities hold a different opinion; but I must add 
 emphatically that in the course of my work as an editor of 
 technical manuscript, and in revising my own writing, I have 
 been impressed by the fact that the observance of this rule, 
 regulating the use of 'that' and 'which', tends to clearness of 
 expression. 
 
 (15) "This is the house that Jack built." 
 
 The words 'that Jack built' restrict or limit the meaning 
 of 'house'; the sense is not complete without them; therefore 
 'that' is the pronoun to be used here, in accordance with the 
 general rule that if the relative clause is clearly essential to the 
 meaning of the statement — that is, if it limit or define the ante- 
 cedent noun — 'that' should be used, and not 'which' or 'who'. 
 
 Another familiar example of the restrictive use of the pro- 
 noun 'that' is furnished by 
 
 (16) "The man that has plenty of good peanuts." 
 
 On the other hand, the supplementary or explanatory clause 
 requires 'which'; for example: 
 
 (17) "Dogs, which of all animals are most friendly to man, 
 sometimes bite their masters." 
 
 (18) "Houses, which are made to live in, should be built 
 with a view to comfort." 
 
 In these examples the relative clauses have a logical relation 
 to the principal statement; they are explanatory and supple- 
 mentary to that statement. 
 
 (19) "The mill, which was quite new, was destroyed by 
 the snow-slide." 
 
 Here 'which' introduces a secondary statement, supple- 
 mentary to the main one, which asserts the principal fact con- 
 cerning the destruction of the mill. If 'that' had been used, 
 the idea conveyed would be that one mill out of several, namely, 
 
70 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 the newest of them, had been destroyed. Here 'which' is cor- 
 rect. The commas mark the beginning and the end of the inter- 
 jected clause. 
 
 Relative clauses, as I have said, are divisible into 'defining' 
 and 'non-defining'. The function of the defining clause is 
 to limit the antecedent, which is the noun or clause to which 
 the relative pronoun refers; it may express lirnitation in 
 several ways; but whichever way it may perform its work, it 
 is essential to and inseparable from the antecedent. 
 
 (20) "A process that will extract both metals will be 
 adopted." 
 
 Here the clause "will extract both metals" is introduced 
 by 'that' because it defines "the process". Remove the 
 defining clause ("that will extract both metals") and nothing 
 remains; to say "a process will be adopted" means nothing. 
 
 (21) "The process, which is of recent invention, extracts 
 both the gold and the silver at a low cost." 
 
 Here the clause "is of recent invention", introduced by 
 'which', is non-defining; it is a bit of incidental information 
 and can be omitted without affecting the principal statement 
 concerning the extraction of "both the gold and the silver at a 
 low cost". 
 
 (22) "The flotation process which is no longer in the experi- 
 mental stage can be applied to an ore of this kind." 
 
 Here the clause introduced by 'which' can be lifted without 
 spoiling the sense, because it merely introduces supplementary 
 information. Commas should be used before 'which' and after 
 'stage'; otherwise the sentence is unorganized. 
 
 The best test for distinguishing between the two kinds of 
 relative clauses is essentiality. The non-defining clause may 
 serve in a measure to define or to limit by reason of its descriptive 
 nature; so also the defining clause may contribute toward com- 
 ment or explanation ; but the test of being essential can be met 
 only by the defining clause; the information given by it must 
 be taken at once, or both it and its antecedent are useless.* 
 * Sec 'The King's English'; p. 79. 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 71 
 
 A simple rule for the use of 'that' and Svhich' is given by 
 Alexander Bain, and commended by Edwin A. Abbott in his 
 little guide-book, 'How to Write Clearly'. The rule is: ''When 
 using the relative pronoun, use 'who' and 'which' where the 
 meaning is 'and he', and 'and it', etc., 'for he', 'for it', etc. 
 In other cases, use 'that' if euphony allows." Thus: 
 
 (23) "I heard this from the mine manager, who [and he] 
 heard it from the man that was in charge of the work." 
 
 In this example 'that' cannot be replaced by 'and he', but 
 the 'who' can. The clause following 'who' is continuative and 
 supplementary, but the clause following 'that' is distinctly 
 restrictive; it defines. 
 
 Abbott also says: " 'Who' and 'which' introduce a new 
 fact about the antecedent, whereas 'that' introduces something 
 without which the antecedent is incomplete or undefined." 
 Thus, in the above example, "I heard it from the mine man- 
 ager" is a complete statement; 'who' introduces additional 
 information concerning him, namely, his having heard about 
 "this" from another man; but the phrase beginning with "the 
 man" is incomplete without the distinguishing clause "that 
 was in charge of the work". 
 
 Here is another good example: 
 
 (24) "I met the boatman who took me across the ferry." 
 
 If this should imply, "I met the boatman and he took me 
 across the ferry", then a comma ought to precede the 'who' 
 introducing the continuative clause, but if I am referring to 
 the particular boatman by whose help I had crossed, I ought to 
 say: 
 
 "I met the boatman that took me across the ferry." 
 Hodgson makes a similar distinction; he says that 'who' 
 and 'which' should connect two co-ordinate sentences, whereas 
 'that' should be restrictive, limiting, and defining. Thus: 
 "Margaret Finch, who died in 1740, was 109 years old" may 
 be divided into two co-ordinate clauses, accordingly : " Margaret 
 Finch died in 1740, and was 109 years old." But "Blessings 
 on the man that invented sleep" can no more be resolved into 
 
72 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 two sentences than can ''Blessed be the inventor of sleep''. 
 The use of 'who' without a comma as in "Blessings on the man 
 who invented sleep" is saved by the continuation of the sense. 
 
 Let me suggest another simple test: a clause introduced by 
 'who' or 'which' usually should be set off by commas. Correct 
 punctuation indicates that the clause is supplementary. If 
 the commas spoil the sense, 'that' should be substituted or the 
 sentence should be re-written. Again, 'who' or 'which' usually 
 refers to the word immediately preceding, but 'that' may 
 throw the reference back to a word or an idea earlier in the 
 statement. Thus: 
 
 "The Trail smelter is treating ore from the Sunshine mine 
 that assays only $6.10 per ton." 
 
 The assay refers to 'ore', not 'mine.' 
 
 (25) "A party of soldiers from Camp Douglas were [was] 
 guarding some horses belonging to the garrison which [that] 
 had been sent to graze in Bingham canyon." 
 
 So writes a historian. It was the 'horses', not the 'garri- 
 son', that had been sent to graze, and the use of the correct 
 pronoun makes this clear. 
 
 (26) "I quote from Sir J. J. Thomson's 'Discharge of 
 Electricity through Gases', who made a thorough investigation." 
 
 The 'who', coming after the name of the treatise, fails to 
 throw the reference back to Thomson. A re-arrangement is 
 required, thus: 
 
 "I quote from 'Discharge of Electricity through Gases' 
 by Sir J. J. Thomson, who made a thorough investigation." 
 
 (27) "The defunct American Bank of Alaska, at Fairbanks, 
 owns a number of claims on this creek, which fell into its hands 
 for money loaned." 
 
 If the creek fell into its hands, as is asserted, the stocks held 
 by the bank must have been much watered. The 'which', 
 being preceded by the comma, ties the reference to the imme- 
 diately preceding word 'creek', although the reference should 
 be thrown back to 'claims'. Substitute 'that' for 'which' and 
 delete the comma. 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 73 
 
 (28) "Resolved, that drinking places, which are haunts of 
 vice, are dangerous and should be eliminated." 
 
 This resolution was submitted at a brewers' convention. 
 They did not mean that all public drinking-places were ''haunts 
 of vice". They meant to ''eliminate" only such drinking-places 
 as were haunts of vice. The clause was meant to be restrictive, 
 but the substitution of 'which' for 'that' made it continuative. 
 
 In describing plant or machinery, which consists of a 
 number of correlated parts; likewise in describing a process, 
 which consists of inter-dependent operations, it is necessary 
 to define, to specify the part played by each member of the 
 series, and to make clear the relation of one to the other. In 
 order to accomplish this purpose, the relative pronouns must 
 be used discriminatingly. For example, in describing a mill 
 for concentrating copper ore: 
 
 (29) "The rolls discharge into a wire screen, the mesh being 
 varied from 1 to IJ in. according to the proportion of moisture, 
 which ranges from 5 to 13%. The undersize is carried to the 
 conveyor that serves the preceding screen, while the oversize 
 goes to an elevator which takes it to a fourth set of screens, 
 similarly adjusted." 
 
 The 'that' serves to introduce a defining clause essential 
 to the description. The first 'which' introduces a secondary 
 item of information. The second 'which', after 'elevator', 
 is equivalent to 'and it' ; the clause is continuative. 
 
 Here is the description of a filter for de-watering con- 
 centrate : 
 
 (30) "It consists of a revolving drum on which is stretched 
 a porous medium of canvas that is immersed in the concentrate 
 during a part of the revolution, the concentrate being drawn 
 to the canvas by the action of a vacuum induced within the 
 drum so as to suck the pulp, which, becoming de-watered, is 
 detached by compressed air, releasing the vacuum." 
 
 The immersion of the canvas is essential. The 'which' can 
 be replaced by 'and it'. 
 
 jMany of our best writers and speakers ignore the distinction 
 
74 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 between 'that' and Svhich', deeming it a matter of euphony 
 only. In consequence, they fail to express themselves clearly. 
 In a speech of international importance, Mr. Lloyd George, 
 the British Premier, said: 
 
 (31) ''Nor are we fighting to destroy Austria-Hungary or 
 to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned 
 lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which are predominantly 
 Turkish in race." 
 
 This means that the Allies are not fighting to deprive 
 Turkey of Asia Minor and Thrace. Mr. George appears to 
 give the supplementary information that these two regions are 
 "predominantly Turkish in race". What he means to say is 
 that the Allies are not fighting to deprive Turkey of the Asiatic 
 and Thracian lands that are predominantly Turkish in race, 
 such as Turkey proper and Anatolia, but they do expect to 
 end Turkish misrule in Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, 
 and Palestine. 
 
 President Wilson is a skilful writer, and he appears to appre- 
 ciate the defining function of 'that' most of the time, but not 
 always : 
 
 (32) "The German government denies the right of neutrals 
 to use arms at all within the areas of the sea irhich [that] it has 
 prescribed, even in the defence of rights ivhich [that] no modern 
 publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend." 
 
 In the above quotation, both of the clauses introduced by 
 'which' restrict and define, therefore 'that' is preferable. It 
 makes the statement clearer and stronger. 
 
 The Council of National Defense is responsible for the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 (33) "If you do not own a smelter, may we ask you to 
 instruct the smelter ivhich [that] smelts your ores to furnish 
 one-sixth of the lead-content of the ore which [that] it accepts 
 from you in July on the Government order and notify them 
 that you will accept in settlement for that amount of lead in 
 your ore the price that the Government is paying." 
 
 The first 'which' should be replaced by 'that' because it 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 75 
 
 introduces a restrictive clause; so also the second 'which', for 
 the same reason. The first 'that' in the quotation is a con- 
 junction, the second is a demonstrative pronoun, and the 
 third is a relative pronoun (used this time correctly, instead of 
 'which') introducing a defining clause. Each 'that' is employed 
 correctly, but they are crowded unhappily. The entire state- 
 ment is infelicitous. The word 'smelter' is used first to signify 
 a metallurgical plant and then to signify the manager or the 
 owner of such a plant. To whom does 'them' refer? Pre- 
 sumably the owners of the smelting plant. 
 
 (34) "They could take anything in Russia, which they con- 
 sidered worth the trouble. The Russians can never drive them 
 out of the vast stretches of Russian territory which they now 
 occupy." 'The New Republic'. 
 
 Delete the comma before the first 'which' and substitute a 
 'that'. The second 'which' is not needed. 
 John Graham Brooks says: 
 
 (35) "One of the most careful of our critics who studied 
 us for three years felt this danger." 
 
 How many of these critics studied us for three years? 
 'Who' can be replaced by 'and he'. The sentence can be better 
 organized, thus: "A most careful critic, who studied us for 
 three years, felt this danger." 
 
 Sidney Colvin, in the 'Introduction' to 'The Letters of 
 Robert Louis Stevenson', says: 
 
 (36) "Once more, it may be questioned whether among the 
 many varieties of work which [that] Stevenson has left, all 
 touched with genius, all charming and stimulating to the 
 literary sense, all distinguished by a grace and precision of 
 workmanship which are the rarest qualities in English art, 
 there are any which [that] can be pointed to as absolute master- 
 pieces, such as the future cannot be expected to let die.'^ 
 
 The "precision of workmanship" of Stevenson's literary 
 executor suffers, I think, by the use, twice, of 'which' for 
 'that', because in each case the pronoun introduces a defining 
 clause. The second 'which' is correct. 
 
76 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 In contrast, permit me to quote an eloquent and informing 
 sentence by Charles M. Gayley, who, in 'Shakespeare and 
 The Founders of Liberty in America', describes Richard 
 Hooker thus: 
 
 (37) ''In Sandys and Shakespeare we recognize the religious 
 ideal of freedom tempered by reverence, the political ideal of 
 liberty regulated by law and conserved by delegated authority, 
 the moderation, tolerance of divergent opinion, the broad and 
 sympathetic confidence in progress rather than in rigidity or 
 finality, that are characteristic of the most philosophical writer 
 upon politics, the broadest minded, most learned, and most 
 eloquent divine of sixteenth-century England." 
 
 Note how the five antecedent clauses are introduced by 
 'that' so as to accentuate the completeness of the description. 
 This fine utterance would have been wrecked by the use of 
 'which', weakening the keystone of this symmetrical Uterary 
 arch to the memory of the great philosopher of the Shake- 
 spearian epoch. 
 
 There is an exception to every rule. Your comprehension 
 of a rule will be tested by recognizing the exception, for it is 
 then that you learn how to follow the spirit of the rule intelli- 
 gently, not mechanically. 'That' is not available for all 
 restrictive clauses, for in some of them the conjunction 'that' 
 may lead to an awkward repetition of the word. For instance, 
 
 (38) "He said that he had examined a mine in the Leadville 
 district which is in a position to furnish large quantities of 
 manganese." 
 
 'Which' should be replaced by 'that'; in consequence, the 
 conjunction 'that' would be too near the pronoun 'that'. This 
 would be awkward. Delete the first 'that', because it will be 
 understood; also re-cast the introductory clause thus: "He 
 spoke of having examined a mine, etc." 
 
 Whenever a sentence appears doubtful in the light of any 
 rule, it is probable that the sentence, not the rule, needs 
 changing. When in doubt, re-build the sentence. 
 
 (39) "Jones, who was one of the men whoin [that] I brought 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 77 
 
 from Colorado, would not leave his work, which ensured the 
 completion of the job which [that] I had much at heart." 
 
 The Vhom' and the second Vhich' can be deleted, and the 
 latter half of the statement changed, thus : 
 
 ''Jones, who was one of the men I brought from Colorado, 
 would not leave his work; thus his fidelity ensured the com- 
 pletion of a job I had much at heart." 
 
 (40) ''A pipe-line therefore is laid down the shafts, which 
 carry water to sprays set under the timbers." 
 
 This refers to protection from fire underground. The 
 'shafts' do not "carry water to the sprays"; the reference is to 
 the 'pipe-lines'. The relative pronoun is not required. 
 
 "A pipe-line therefore is laid down each shaft, to carry water 
 for sprays set under the timbers." 
 
 (41) "In the mountains of the State there are hidden 
 rare minerals, besides gold, copper, and silver, which are able 
 to produce some of the metals most needed in the iron and steel 
 industries." 
 
 The 'which' refers to 'rare minerals', not to 'gold, copper, 
 and silver'. 
 
 "In the mountains of the State are to be found not only 
 ores of gold, silver, and copper, but also minerals that might 
 yield some of the rare metals needed in the iron and steel 
 industry." 
 
 (42) "There were very few miners, who escaped without 
 serious injury." 
 
 This might be resolved into "and all escaped", whereas if 
 'that' had been used, without the comma, the truth would 
 have been stated, namely, "Almost all the miners were seri- 
 ously injured" or "Only a few miners escaped serious injury". 
 
 The foregoing examples serve to illustrate the advantage 
 to be gained by re-writing an awkward or ambiguous sentence. 
 A doubtful meaning is worse than a grammatical error. Do 
 not hesitate to re-build the sentence if it seem unsafe. 
 
 (43) "Hoisting was done through the centre compartment 
 only, by means of two 15j-cu. ft. buckets used alternately 
 
78 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 and dumped automatically on top into the car by means of a 
 chain hung from the head-frame which was hooked into a 
 ring on the bottom of the bucket holding the bottom stationary 
 and allowing it to tip on an incline-door and chute, thereby 
 discharging its contents." 
 
 The head-frame was not hooked to the bottom of the 
 bucket! 'Which' refers to the chain. Splitting into two sen- 
 tences and proper punctuation will clarify the meaning, thus: 
 
 "Hoisting was done through the central compartment only, 
 by means of two 15|-cu. ft. buckets, which were used alter- 
 nately and dumped automatically at the surface into a car 
 by means of a chain hanging from the head-frame. This 
 chain was hooked to a ring on the bottom of the bucket so as 
 to hold it stationary while it was being discharged upon an 
 incline-door and chute." 
 
 Here 'which' introduces a supplementary statement, fol- 
 lowed by further information. 
 
 (44) "The road vibration alone will loosen nuts and 
 rivets, which if not attended to in time will cause serious 
 trouble." 
 
 The road does not vibrate; it is the motor-truck, to which 
 the statement refers, that vibrates. The 'which' does not refer 
 to 'rivets' but to 'loosen'. Re-cast the entire statement, and 
 avoid the preposition-verb 'attended to', thus: 
 
 "The vibration of the truck while on the road will loosen 
 the nuts and rivets; and this, if neglected, will cause serious 
 trouble." 
 
 The last example again serves to show that it is best not to 
 tinker with a bad sentence, but to re-write it. By so doing you 
 not only make a useful correction, but you learn to improve 
 your composition. Mistakes, when corrrected, become stepping- 
 stones to the attainment of skill in writing, as in life generally. 
 
 It may seem that I have laid excessive stress on the dis- 
 tinction between the relative pronouns, particularly as it must 
 be granted that the practice of reputable authors is indis- 
 criminate. So good a teacher as Professor Hill says that "in 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 79 
 
 this matter the ear is a surer guide than any theory'^, and he 
 imputes the use of 'that' in such, hues as 
 
 (45) ''Hearts that once beat high for praise" (Moore) 
 "Thoughts that breathe and words that burn" (Gray) 
 
 not to any grammatical theory but to euphony, because 
 '' 'that', following without intervening pause a plural noun 
 ending in 's', is easier to speak and more agreeable to hear than 
 'which' would be".* But to this I must demur; the 'thats' 
 in these quotations are doing their duty. Sense should not be 
 sacrificed to euphony, particularly in technical writing, in 
 which grace of diction is frankly subordinated to clearness and 
 precision. Take the following example: 
 
 (46) "The company will erect a plant to treat the residues 
 that were not saleable during the War." 
 
 The 'that' — let us suppose — is used for the sake of euphony, 
 to avoid collision between 'which' and the final 's' in 'residues'. 
 The statement now means that a plant is to be erected for the 
 treatment only of such residues as were unsaleable during the 
 War, whereas the writer meant to say, and would have said 
 it if he had used 'which', with a comma, that all the residues 
 were unsaleable and were to be treated locally in the company's 
 new plant. 
 
 James P. Kelleyf quotes Hill as having defined 'ease' as 
 the "quality which makes language agreeable", but on the 
 next page he himself writes : " ' The quality that makes language 
 agreeable' manifests itself in many ways." He adds: "The 
 writer who goes to work to exhibit the pleasing features of 
 his style is on dangerous ground; let him beware lest he violate 
 the first prijQciple of ease." It was to 'ease' perhaps that he 
 sacrificed the 'that' after "writer", and to euphony that we 
 owe his use of it in the next quotation, given herewith : 
 
 (47) "He ^to doesn't care will never learn to write; and he 
 that cares will 'take suggestion as a cat laps milk'." "He who" 
 repeated would suggest the braying of an ass. 
 
 * A. S. Hill, Op. cit. Page 126. 
 
 t In 'Workmanship in Words', a stimulating textbook. 
 
80 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 No; euphony is too uncertain a guide for the technical 
 writer; it may cajole him into ambiguities not to be risked in 
 the serious work he has in hand. He is more likely to attain 
 clearness of style if he will make up his mind whether he 
 intends to define or to comment, using 'that' for the first 
 purpose, and 'who' or Svhich', with commas to set off the com- 
 menting clause, for the second purpose. 
 
 It may be argued that because the great masters of our 
 language are inconsistent in their use of 'that' and 'which', 
 therefore it is not for technical writers to attempt to make 
 the distinction. I think it is, if we can increase the clearness of 
 our expression thereby „ For instance, Ruskin says: "Out of 
 the infinite heap of things around us in the world, human 
 invention^ chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly 
 grasp, and presents this group to the spectator in the form best 
 calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with 
 delight." This is the writing of a past-master, yet, I suggest, 
 * 'which" introduces a defining clause and therefore should give 
 place to 'that'. He is explaining how human invention chooses 
 a small number of things out of a heap of things, and it chooses 
 to select the particular things it can grasp thoroughly; there- 
 fore 'that' is preferable; it expresses the meaning more clearly 
 than 'which'. Let it be noted, moreover, how Ruskin avoids 
 the unnecessary 'thats' and 'whiches', as, for example, in the 
 introductory sentence in the above quotation, where he might 
 have written: "Out of the infinite heap of things that are 
 around us in the world". Most of us use these relative pro- 
 nouns too much, creating needless difficulties for ourselves. 
 I am tempted to quote Ruskin further, partly because the 
 quotations are delightful in themselves, but mainly to show how 
 his indifference to the distinction betvveen 'that' and 'which' 
 is a defect in his splendid writing. I shall quote from the 
 fourth volume of 'Modern Painters' because it deals with 
 geology. He speaks of the motion given to water by the moun- 
 tains : 
 
 (48) " Every fountain and river, from the inch-deep stream- 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 81 
 
 let that crosses the village lane in tumbling clearness, to the 
 massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters 
 in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, 
 to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, 
 extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's sur- 
 face is of course necessary, before any wave can so much as 
 overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we 
 enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant 
 brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which 
 every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a per- 
 petual sign; that the dew and rain fallen on the face of the 
 earth shall find no resting-place; shall find, on the contrary, 
 fixed channels traced for them, from the ravines of the central 
 crests down which they roar in sudden ranks of foam, to the 
 dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture, round which 
 they must circle slowly among the stems and beneath the 
 leaves of the lilies; paths prepared for them, by which, at some 
 appointed rate of journey, they must evermore descend, some- 
 times slow and sometimes swift, but never pausing; the daily 
 portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for them 
 at each successive sunrise, the place which has known them 
 knowing them no more, and the gateways of the guarding 
 mountains opened to them in cleft and chasm, none letting 
 them in their pilgrimage; and, from far off, the great heart of 
 the sea calling them to itself!" 
 
 He uses 'that' twice to introduce a restrictive clause, but he 
 also uses one 'which' for a precisely similar purpose. Is it not 
 preferable to say, ''the place that has known them"? The "of 
 course" is a blemish; the statement in which it appears is no 
 more self-evident than many others in the same paragraph; 
 it mars the dignity of the diction. Delete the "of course" 
 and the comma after "necessary". Note how skilfully he uses 
 "down which", "round which", and "by which", in sequence, 
 to describe the course of the water. Note also the effectiveness 
 of the two 'ands', in "their play, and purity, and power", to 
 emphasize the manifold consequences of nature's ordinance; 
 
82 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 but he uses too many 'ands', for instance, the one before ''how 
 seldom", where he joins two separate ideas. 
 
 Here is another fine passage to show the use of these trouble- 
 some pronouns. He is speaking of the beauty of the district 
 between Valorsine and Martigny. 
 
 (49) ''The paths which lead to it out of the valley of the 
 Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees, 
 like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire 
 over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, 
 but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient popula- 
 tion. Along the ridges of the rocks, smoothed by the old 
 glaciers into long, dark billowy sweUings, like the backs of 
 plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow coloring of 
 the tufts of moss and roots ivhich, little by little, gather a 
 feeble soil over the iron substance ; then, supporting the narrow 
 strip of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the 
 spade ; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving 
 upon a rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out 
 like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with 
 perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steep- 
 est places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering 
 their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes 
 them, with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of 
 fountains; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, 
 yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the 
 lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil." 
 
 This ''play of human speech" is so exquisite that it is safe 
 to infer the toil of the true artist. Note the imagery : the paths 
 like "winding stairs"; the rounded rocks like "plunging dol- 
 phins"— the porpoises of unpoetic fact; "the crest of corn 
 upon the rocky casque" ; the meadows " Uke inlets of lake among 
 the harvested rocks". Note also the large proportion of simple 
 Anglo-Saxon words, rendering the few Latin words particularly 
 effective. But what of the 'thats' and 'whiches'? The first 
 'which' should be replaced by 'that' because it introduces a 
 definition of "the paths", namely, those leading to this district 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 83 
 
 from the Rhone. The second Svhich' is acceptable, because 
 it introduces a descriptive clause, not essential to the argument. 
 However, a comma is needed before it, to supplement the semi- 
 colon after it. The first, and only, 'that' should be replaced 
 by a Vhich', because it introduces a supplementary clause, 
 not a defining or restrictive clause. Moreover, the use of Svhich' 
 would be acceptable because it would avoid the repetition of 
 'that' three lines lower. However, 'which' might be unpleasant 
 between "streamlets" and "seem". Ruskin was writing some- 
 thing akin to poetry, and may be deemed beyond the criticism 
 that applies to technical writing, which is endangered by listen- 
 ing for euphony. 
 
 These quotations suffice to illustrate how Ruskin ignored 
 the distinction on which I have ventured to lay stress. Other 
 skilful users of English show the same disregard; for example, 
 Huxley. He is speaking of the formation of coal: 
 
 (50) "When the fallen trunks which have entered into the 
 composition of the bed of coal are identifiable, they are mere 
 double shells of bark, flattened together in consequence of the 
 destruction of the woody core; and Sir Charles Lyell and 
 Principal Dawson discovered, in the hollow stools of coal trees 
 of Nova Scotia, the remains of snails, millipedes, and salaman- 
 der-hke creatures, embedded in a deposit of a different char- 
 acter from that which surrounded the exterior of the trees. 
 Thus, in endeavoring to comprehend the formation of a seam 
 of coal we must try to picture to ourselves a thick forest, formed 
 for the most part of trees like gigantic club-mosses, mares- 
 tails, and tree-ferns, with here and there some that had some 
 resemblance to our existing yews and fir-trees. We must sup- 
 pose that, as the seasons rolled b}^, the plants grew and devel- 
 oped their spores and seeds; that they shed these in enormous 
 quantities, which accumulated on the ground beneath; and that, 
 every now and then, they added a dead frond or leaf; or, at 
 longer intervals, a rotten branch, or a dead trunk, to the mass." 
 
 This is quoted from one of his popular lectures, revised 
 before publication, of course, but still not an example of his 
 
84 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 most finished style. Nevertheless, it illustrates his power as 
 an expositor of science to the unlearned. 
 
 Three relative pronouns are used, besides the compound 
 ''that which". This obviously is necessitated by euphony. 
 Even when the two pronouns, one demonstrative and the 
 other relative, are separated we use 'that which' instead of 
 'that that'. Likewise by analogy most writers prefer 'those 
 which' or 'those who' to 'those that' ; thus : 
 
 (51) "In those low-grade mines which call for rigid econ- 
 omy." 
 
 Returning to our quotation from Huxley; the first 'which' 
 introduces a restrictive clause. It is true, by placing a comma 
 before "which" and after "bed of coal", the clause could be 
 treated as supplementary and descriptive, because Huxley 
 had previously introduced the idea of coal being formed from 
 fallen trees, but in the opening sentence of this paragraph he 
 is undoubtedly defining the "fallen trunks" as the subject under 
 discussion. The 'that' before "had some resemblance" is 
 acceptable, for it is followed by a restrictive clause. The 
 second 'which' likewise is correct, for it introduces a supple- 
 mentary and non-essential bit of information. 
 
 I shall quote from Huxley again, and from the same 'lay 
 sermon' : 
 
 (52) "Let us suppose that one of the stupid, salamander- 
 like Labyrinthodonts, which pottered, with much belly and little 
 leg, like Falstaff in his old age, among the coal-forests, could 
 have had thinking power enough in his small brain to reflect 
 upon the showers of spores which kept on falling through years 
 and centuries, while perhaps not one in ten miUion fulfilled its 
 apparent purpose, and reproduced the organism which gave 
 it birth : surely he might have been excused for moralizing upon 
 the thoughtless and wanton extravagance which Nature dis- 
 played in her operations. But we have the advantage over 
 our shovel-headed predecessor — or possibly ancestor — and can 
 perceive that a certain vein of thrift runs through this apparent 
 prodigahty. Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have had 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 85 
 
 always before her eyes the adage, 'Keep a thing long enough 
 and you will find a use for it'. ' She has kept her beds of coal 
 many millions of years without being able to find much use for 
 them; she has sent them down beneath the sea, and the sea- 
 beasts could make nothing of them; she has raised them up 
 into dry land, and laid the black veins bare, and still, for 
 ages and ages, there was no living thing on the face of the earth 
 that could see any sort of value in them; and it was only the 
 other day, so to speak, that she turned a new creature out of 
 her workshop, who by degrees acquired sufficient wits to make 
 a fire, and then to discover that the black rock would burn." 
 
 Six relative pronouns appear. The first calls for no remark; 
 it introduces a bit of unessential, but delightful, description 
 concerning the labyrinthodonts — they ' 'pottered with much 
 belly and little leg, like Falstaff in his old age". The second 
 'which' begins a restrictive clause, for, it seems to me, the 
 words that follow, from "kept" to "birth" are essential to the 
 statement, as is further suggested by the use of the definite 
 article before "showers of spores". He is referring to showers 
 of spores of a particular kind. The third 'which' undoubtedly 
 should be replaced by 'that', for he defines the organism as 
 the particular one from which the spore was born. The fourth 
 'which' might be omitted; if not, then it also should give place 
 to a 'that', for it introduces a restrictive clause. The fifth 
 relative pronoun is a 'that', as it should be; but if he uses it 
 here why does he not use it where the previous 'which' appears? 
 Evidently he employs them undiscriminatingly. Then comes a 
 'who', following "workshop", but with no reference to that 
 word. By substituting 'that', and deleting the comma the 
 sense is carried back to "new creature" and connected with the 
 subsequent clause. He has used the conjunction 'that' immedi- 
 ately before and after 'who', so he might have preferred the 
 latter for the sake of euphony ; but it is more probable that he 
 used 'who' in order to evoke the image of man's progenitor. 
 
 It will be noted that, in these quotations, Huxley uses 'and' 
 too frequently. He might have employed other connectives. 
 
86 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 The 'and' before ''Sir Charles Lyell", in the first quotation, 
 is particularly bad because he uses it to join two discrete ideas; 
 moreover, he is compelled to use another 'and' immediately 
 afterward to link the names of the two geologists. The writ- 
 ings of these great men are not immune from criticism, which 
 neither lessens our appreciation of their skill nor diminishes our 
 enjoyment of their work. 
 
 The reading of the best writings suggests that the general 
 rule for the use of 'that' to introduce clauses expressing an 
 essential Hmitation, restriction, distinction, or definition is 
 subject to exception; it includes locutions that are unaccept- 
 able. In attempting to further the cause of precision, we must 
 not offend unnecessarily against usage that is old, honored, 
 and persistent. As the word 'that' plays the part not only of 
 a relative pronoun, but also of a demonstrative pronoun, an 
 adverb, and a conjunction, it is desirable to spare it. Evidently 
 sub-rules are needed. These can be found by analyzing the 
 best writings. We have seen how an occasional 'that' can be 
 dropped without harm. "A house not built by hands" has 
 precision, conciseness, perspicuity, and dignity in greater 
 degree than the alternative form, "A house that is not built 
 by hands". I venture to suggest four sub-rules: 
 
 (A) When the antecedent and the subject are brought 
 together so that misunderstanding is impossible, as in the 
 sentence just quoted, it is well to omit the 'that'. 
 
 (B) When the indefinite article precedes the subject [for 
 example, "a person"], the pronoun 'who' or 'which' should 
 introduce the subsequent clause [for example, "whom you are 
 anxious to persuade"]; but when the definite article is used 
 Y'the person"], the pronoun 'that' should be employed to intro- 
 duce the subsequent clause ["that you are anxious to please"]. 
 
 In the first example, "a person" is not an individual but 
 the representative of a group; in the second, the reference is 
 to an individual to whom, or for whose sake in particular, 
 something is to be done. Every relative clause tells something 
 about the noun in the antecedent clause, and, therefore, in a 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 87 
 
 sense, is adjectival; it serves in one way or another to describe, 
 and by so doing to suggest restriction; yet it may not dis- 
 tinguish or particularize; it may not point to it as necessarily 
 the one thing of its kind in the world to which reference is being 
 made. Then Svhich' is preferable. When, on the contrary, 
 the idea of another thing with the same name is implicit, and 
 the subsequent clause says in effect, 'This is the one I am 
 talking about, not any of the others', then 'that' is demanded. 
 
 (53) ''The police captured a thief who had a mole on the 
 end of his nose, an ear missing, six toes on his left foot, and, 
 whose thumb-print belonged to subdivision 67 of class G." 
 
 There may have been no trouble in identifying him, yet 
 the clause giving all this information begins properly with 
 'who'. On the other hand: "The police caught the thief that 
 they sought" points to one only; it separates him from others 
 more completely than all the ear-marks given in the preceding 
 quotation. 
 
 (C) When a person or thing has been mentioned previously 
 and designated as possessing some quality that differentiates 
 him or it from others of his or its class, then 'who' or 'which' 
 is preferable to 'that' in beginning a clause designed to recall 
 the quaUty. "The Denver editor, who was contemptuous of 
 the effort to write well, ignored this rule." My previous men- 
 tion of him, as the man that wanted "to get there" in his own 
 sHpshod way, made it unnecessary to identify him; therefore 
 the clause after 'who' is a supplementary clause, by way of 
 reminder only. 
 
 (D) The relative clause ceases to introduce a necessary 
 definition whenever the antecedent has been defined by a 
 possessive pronoun; therefore 'who' or 'which' should replace 
 'that'. 
 
 (54) "My brother, who enHsted two years ago, has returned 
 from France." 
 
 (55) "Our methods, which may commend themselves to 
 you, are the product of long experience.'' 
 
 The relative pronouns are used far more than is necessary^ 
 
88 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 and the lavish use of them invites needless trouble for both 
 the writer and the reader. Several substitutes are available. 
 
 (a) When the relative pronouns have led you into a verbal 
 entanglement, cut loose, and start again with 'and this'. 
 
 (56) ''He enlarged the mill, which enabled him to lower the 
 cost per ton." 
 
 It were better to say: 
 
 "He enlarged the mill, and this enabled him to lower the 
 cost per ton." 
 
 (b) Another means of escape from a choice of relative pro- 
 nouns is to begin a new sentence with a semicolon followed 
 by 'this'; for example: 
 
 (57) "He enlarged the mill; this enabled him to lower the 
 cost per ton." 
 
 (c) The defining clause can be replaced by the present 
 participle, but be sure you have a noun for it! 
 
 (58) "I have seen an Australian gold ore that resembles 
 this." 
 
 "That resembles" can be replaced by "resembling". 
 
 (d) The infinitive is a common substitute, thus: 
 
 (59) "He was the first that succeeded [to succeed]." 
 
 (60) "This is not a man that will save [to save] money." 
 
 (e) The relative pronouns are used often to introduce a 
 clause giving a reason, whereas the explanatory clause should 
 begin with 'since', 'because', or 'although'. 
 
 (61) "The company is about to erect a leaching-plant for 
 the silver-tin concentrate for which [because] it did not find a 
 remunerative market [for it] either in England or Germany." 
 
 (62) "Mines, which are usually regarded as sources of 
 wealth, are often the cause of much financial loss." 
 
 Here 'which' can be replaced by 'although', with a re- 
 arrangement of the sentence, thus: 
 
 "Mines are often the cause of much financial loss, although 
 they are usually regarded as sources of wealth." 
 
 (64) I wrote, "Delete the first 'that', which will be under- 
 stood." Later I substituted 'because it' for the 'which'. 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 89 
 
 (f) 'By which', 'in which', and other awkward locutions can 
 be replaced by 'whereby' and 'wherein'. 
 
 (65) "The method by which [whereby] this result can be 
 achieved." 
 
 (66) "It is a process in which [wherein] the nicest chemical 
 adjustment is essential." 
 
 I have drawn attention already to the occasional omission 
 of the relative pronoun as favorable to perspicuity rather than 
 to obscurity. Landor, in his ' Imaginary Conversations', makes 
 Horn Tooke quote Cato, after Middleton : 
 
 (67) "The high office which you fill and the eminent dis- 
 tinction that you bear." 
 
 To which Dr. Johnson replies: 
 "Much better without both 'which' and 'that'." 
 Later Tooke says: "The rejection of 'that' in the proper 
 place is a cause of peculiar elegance, for it bears heavily on our 
 language. The Romans were fortunate to avoid it by means 
 of the infinitive of their verbs." 
 
 (68) "He said that he would be glad to accept the appoint- 
 ment." 
 
 'That' can be omitted. 
 
 (69) "Sulphide ores which [that] have [had] been previously 
 untouched were shipped in large quantities." 
 
 Why fuss about the relative pronouns needlessly? State 
 simply : 
 
 "Sulphide ore previously untouched was shipped in large 
 quantity." 
 
 Note the superfluous plurals; he was referring to only one 
 kind of sulphide ore. 
 
 (70) "It follows that the liquids which are near their critical 
 point will have small surface-tensions." 
 
 'That' should replace 'which'; but neither is needed. When 
 corrected, the statement would read as follows: "It follows 
 that liquids when near their critical points will have small 
 surface-tensions." 
 
 (71) "Substantial evidence is at hand which goes to 
 
90 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 show that floatable minerals have the positive sign of elec- 
 tricity." 
 
 'Which' should be 'that', because it introduces a defining 
 clause, but the change would bring the relative pronoun 'that' 
 close to the conjunction 'that', and this w^ould be awkward. So 
 it were better to say: 
 
 "There is ample evidence to show that floatable minerals 
 have the positive sign of electricity." 
 
 " To hand " is a frill ; if the evidence is known, it is 'to hand '. 
 "Substantial" may be a synonym for 'important' or 'strong', or 
 'actual', as opposed to illusory. It is a mistake to use a word of 
 many meanings without indicating the particular one intended. 
 Remember the reader. Also remember that all rules must 
 give way to the main objective, which is to make oneself under- 
 stood beyond a doubt. If a sentence fails in this purpose, how^- 
 ever correct grammatically, re-arrange it. Re-consider what 
 you want to say and start again. Don't tinker with defective 
 writing, for by so doing you run the risk of retaining one of the 
 defects. Good writing calls for care — persistent care; it calls 
 for a literary conscience that refuses to be satisfied with unfin- 
 ished work. 
 
 Kelley says: "There be not many so weU born, well 
 trained, and well read, and withal so informed with the spirit 
 of goodness and beauty, as to be effectually called to the higher 
 ranges of literary expression; and even for such there is no 
 short and easy road — though there is indeed a royal road — 
 to their destination. But there are, and will continue to be, 
 countless writers of higher or lower degree w^ho ought to do 
 their work far better than they have done it, and far better 
 than ordinary writers have ever done it. For all such it is 
 important that they should at least know what to avoid; 
 and knowing what to avoid is in effect knowing what to aim 
 at and what to strive for. To trained workmen I do not profess 
 to give instruction; but because in my own experience to have 
 my attention called to an error has been so often the beginning 
 of an effort henceforth to avoid it, I have confidence that any 
 
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 91 
 
 other sincere workmen will be interested and helped if I make 
 them think of faults to which they have paid little attention 
 hitherto." 
 
 I quote this with keen pleasure because Mr. Kelley says, 
 better than I can, what I would like to say. 
 
VIII. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 
 
 The function of a preposition is to indicate the relation of 
 one thing to another; it is necessary therefore to select the 
 preposition that suggests that relation. Such selection will be 
 controlled by the requirements of the context and by idiomatic 
 usage. 
 
 (1) D'Israeh says: /'The conversations of men of letters 
 are of a different complexion with the talk of men of the world." 
 
 ''The conversations of men of letters are of a complexion 
 different /ro??z that of the talk of men of the world." 
 
 (2) Hallam says: "This inspired so much apprehension 
 into printers that they became unwilling to incur the hazard of 
 an obnoxious trade." 
 
 "This inspired printers with such apprehension that etc." 
 
 (3) A. C. Benson says: "I want to learn to distinguish 
 between what is important and unimportant, between what is 
 beautiful and ugly, between what is true and false." 
 
 One does not distinguish 'between' what is beautiful and 
 ugly or 'between' any other single thing; one does distinguish 
 between what is beautiful and what is ugly; but what he 
 really wanted to do was to distinguish the beautiful from the 
 ugly, the true from the false. 
 
 (4) A physicist writes: "During the experiments a record 
 was made on [of] the effect produced by various concentrations 
 of sulphur di-oxide gas on [upon] the senses." 
 
 (5) A metallurgist writes: "The two kinds of flotation 
 concentrate are conducted through [by] concrete launders to the 
 elevators." 
 
 (6) An engineer says: "We must offer a protest over 
 [against] this latest order." 
 
 The use of the appropriate preposition is essential to per- 
 spicuity. "One virtue of style is perspicuity", said Aristotle. 
 
 92 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 93 
 
 For example: 'to' denotes done, terminated, or finished; 
 'from' denotes beginning; and 'by' denotes agency. 
 
 Inside, outside, and alongside do not require an 'of after 
 them. 
 
 (7) "Alongside of this eccentric and disturbing force" 'The 
 Saturday Review'. 
 
 (8) "Outside of the market for military uses, a premium 
 can be obtained for electrolytic zinc." 
 
 (9) "The boat was moored alongside of the wharf." 
 In each case 'of should be deleted. 
 
 A common error is to place 'of after 'all', as in 
 
 (10) "All of the men refused to work." 
 
 (11) "He expected to roast all of the ore." 
 A mining engineer protests: 
 
 (12) " Under [in] these circumstances I refuse to agree to 
 your proposal." 
 
 A veteran mining engineer reminisces: 
 
 (13) "Which led to my first introduction to that firm, the 
 best known British firm in that country, and whom I subse- 
 quently returned to work for in after years, and have since 
 kept up a close professional connection with.'' 
 
 Note the misplaced prepositions, ending the paragraph with 
 one that is insignificant. The statement might be revised thus: 
 
 "Which led to my introduction to Brown, Jones & Co., which 
 is the best known British firm in that country and one for 
 which I worked in after years; indeed, I may say that I have 
 maintained a close pr©fessional connection with Brown, Jones 
 & Co. to this day." 
 
 The mention of the firm's name makes the statement 
 clearer and more informing. 
 
 (14) A superintendent writes: "It was proposed to widen 
 the blades 7 to 11 inches." If he means that the width is to 
 be increased by more than 7 inches, he should insert 'by' 
 after 'blades'; but if he means, as he does, that the width is 
 to be increased from 7 inches, as it is now, to 11 inches, he 
 should insert 'from' after 'blades'. 
 
94 
 
 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 English idiom requires certain prepositions to follow certain 
 nouns, adjectives, or verbs. The following list is far from 
 complete, but it may prove suggestive and useful : 
 
 Abound in 
 
 Accord with 
 
 Account for 
 
 Acquiesce in 
 
 Adhere to 
 
 Adverse to 
 
 Averse from 
 
 Agree to a proposal 
 
 Agree with a person 
 
 Capable of 
 
 Capacity for 
 
 Consist of (composition) 
 
 Consist i?i (definition) 
 
 Commence by doing something 
 
 Commence with an act 
 
 Commence from a point 
 
 Compare with 
 
 Demand for a thing 
 
 Demand of a person 
 
 Differ from 
 
 Different from 
 
 Full of 
 
 Indifferent to 
 
 In view of facts 
 
 With a view to doing something 
 
 Labor under a difficulty 
 
 Labor for a person 
 
 Labor in a good cause 
 
 Labor at a task 
 
 Live for riches 
 
 Live by labor 
 
 Live on an income 
 
 Look after a business 
 
 Look at a thing 
 
 Look into a matter 
 
 Look over an account 
 
 Look for a missing article 
 
 Need of 
 
 Necessity for 
 
 Overcome with fatigue 
 
 Overcome by entreaties 
 
 Provide for the future 
 
 Provide against the evil day 
 
 Provide oneself with something 
 
 Pursuant to 
 
 In pursuance of 
 
 Ready for a journey 
 
 Ready with an answer 
 
 Ready at arithmetic 
 
 Reckon o?i a result 
 
 Reckon with a contingency 
 
 Reckoning with a person 
 
 Responsible for an action 
 
 Responsible to a person 
 
 Result of an examination 
 
 Result in a failure 
 
 Result from a previous event 
 
 Satisfied of a fact 
 
 Satisfied with a little 
 
 Satisfaction in an improvement 
 
 Secure from harm 
 
 Secure against attack 
 
 Suited to the occasion 
 
 Suited for a part 
 
 Tamper with 
 
 Tinker at 
 
 Vary from 
 
 At variance with 
 
 Versed in 
 
 Conversant with 
 
 Prepositions commonly transfuse something of their own 
 meaning into the word with which they are compounded. 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 
 
 95 
 
 In technical writing it will be found that words of Latin 
 origin help to make nice distinctions of meaning and establish 
 the precision for which we strive constantly. The short and 
 simple Anglo-Saxon may suit the poet's purpose, but the 
 engineer will discover that many old-fashioned English words 
 have associations and meanings unfitting them for his special use. 
 This applies to the numerous preposition-verbs, which, idiomatic 
 though they be, and an essential part of our language, should be 
 avoided or used sparingly by the technical writer. They came 
 into every-day use long before modern science was developed 
 and they carry with them the looseness of meaning character- 
 istic of colloquial speech. Note the following equivalents: 
 
 Call for 
 
 Demand, require 
 
 Carry out 
 
 Perform, conduct 
 
 Deal with 
 
 Treat, discuss 
 
 Decide on 
 
 Select 
 
 Do away Avith 
 
 Discard 
 
 End up 
 
 Conclude 
 
 Fall off 
 
 Decline, decrease 
 
 Go into 
 
 Investigate, examine 
 
 Go on with 
 
 Continue 
 
 Keep up 
 
 Maintain 
 
 Keep out 
 
 Exclude 
 
 Look for 
 
 Anticipate, expect 
 
 Look upon 
 
 Regard 
 
 Make up 
 
 Compose 
 
 Make use of 
 
 Utilize 
 
 Make up to 
 
 Compensate 
 
 Prove up 
 
 Confirm 
 
 Put in 
 
 Insert 
 
 Put up with 
 
 Endure 
 
 Refer to 
 
 Mention 
 
 Result in 
 
 Cause 
 
 Speed up 
 
 Accelerate, hasten 
 
 Try out 
 
 Test 
 
 Work out 
 
 Devise 
 
 (15) ''As regards the miners, a much more serious prospect 
 of social disaster had been, it was hoped, done away with [pre- 
 vented or obviated]." 
 
96 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (16) "The various innovations were tried out [tested] 
 before being used." 
 
 (17) '^The company has been meeting with [obtaining] 
 profitable results at Cochasayhuas." 
 
 As an editor I have become convinced that the excessive 
 use of preposition- verbs is a serious obstacle to precision and 
 clearness in writing. The habit of using them is more British 
 than American, but it is an obstacle to perspicuous writing 
 wherever the English language is spoken. 
 
 (18) 'Punch' published a series of cartoons to show 'What 
 our artist has to put uj) vjithJ 
 
 The most cultivated of Englishmen trip over their prepo- 
 sitions, largely because they employ so many preposition- 
 verbs, which require the most careful handling. For example, 
 Arthur J. Balfour said: 
 
 (19) ''There must be men in the House [of Commons] who 
 see that of all the evils the Constitution can suffer from rash 
 legislation is the most dangerous." 
 
 'To suffer from' is idiomatic — I cannot call it incorrect — 
 but you will note the confusion caused by the misplacing of 
 'from'. In speaking, 'from' is pronounced immediately after 
 'suffer', leaving a slight interval before 'rash', but in reading 
 'from' appears linked to 'rash legislation'. He meant to say: 
 
 "There must be men in the House who see that of all the 
 evils threatening the Constitution, the most dangerous is rash 
 legislation." 
 
 I am aware, of course, that Shakespeare can be quoted in 
 defence of such a placing of the preposition; for example: 
 
 (20) "What a taking was he in when your husband asked 
 what was in the basket." 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act III, 
 sc. 3. 
 
 (21) "I have a letter from her 
 
 Of such contents as you will wonder a^." 'Merry 
 Wives of Windsor,' Act III, sc. 6. 
 
 One can find examples of similar usage in the writings of 
 Addison, Goldsmith, Jane Austen, Ruskin, and Stevenson, as 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 97 
 
 shown by Professor Hill"', no mean authority on correct usage; 
 but, on examination, it will be found that the examples quoted 
 usually represent colloquial expressions. In technical writing 
 the preposition-verb does not give the precision required. 
 Shakespeare's characters spoke naturally, so they spoke 
 imperfectly. I can find no just warrant for quoting slips of 
 conversation as guides for correct usage in deliberate writing. 
 I prefer Professor Hill's conclusion: ''A good author does not 
 hesitate to put a preposition at the end of a sentence, when, on 
 grounds of clearness, force, or ease, he thinks it belongs there; 
 but often, perhaps usually, he finds that it belongs somewhere 
 else." I submit that whereas sometimes the shifting of the 
 preposition may contribute to ease it rarely ministers either to 
 clearness or force. 
 
 (22) 'The Westminster Gazette' says, ''One of the con- 
 clusions at which Lord Rosebery has arrived at in the study of 
 Dr. Johnson is that he would have made a splendid journalist." 
 
 It seems to me that a "splendid journalist" would not have 
 used his prepositions so carelessly. Delete the second 'at'. 
 
 (23) 'The Times' speaks of "the unfailing enthusiasm which 
 Mr. Roosevelt has met withy It were better to say, "the 
 unfailing enthusiasm with which Mr. Roosevelt has been 
 received." 
 
 (24) E. F. Benson writes: "Lucia flicked off with the tassel 
 of her riding whip a fly that her mare was twitching its skin to 
 get rid o/." 
 
 Evidently he forebore from writing 'her skin', because it 
 might have suggested that the lady Lucia was being twitched. 
 
 (25) Hilaire Belloc, the military critic, writes: "First, as 
 to the points the bombardment of which from the air one reads 
 of almost daily in the present development of the aerial offensive 
 by the Allies — which, by the wa}^, is proving the increasing 
 superiority of the allied air navies." 
 
 What a bombardment of prepositions! 
 
 * 'Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition', by Adams Sherman Hill, 
 pp. 489-490. 
 
98 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 American authors make similar blunders; for example, 
 William Dean Ho wells concludes an article thus: 
 
 (26) ''This is the climax I have been working up to, and I 
 call it a fine one; as good as a story to-be-continued ever ended 
 an instalment withJ^ 
 
 He makes a childish anti-climax by using an insignificant 
 little preposition as his last word. 
 
 (27) A social reformer writes: ''It is palpable that radical 
 revision of laws, w^hich have diverted so many milhons of 
 dollars into the pockets of the non-producing legal fraternity, 
 is called /or." 
 
 "There is palpable need for a radical revision of the laws 
 that have caused so many millions of dollars to be diverted into 
 the pockets of the unproductive legal fraternity." 
 
 (28) Robert K. Duncan writes: "It should be the young 
 man's business to learn ail the chemistry and cognate knowledge 
 that he can lay his hands upon in the laboratory; and his 
 brain alongside of in the study library." 
 
 Note how the prepositions become coupled awkwardly in 
 this quotation, which is full of literar}^ atrocities. 
 
 (29) An engineer writes : " The gold-mining industry w^hich 
 the Government looks to for its supply of gold." 
 
 The 'to' should precede 'which'. 
 
 A reviewer in the 'New Republic' begins a paragraph thus: 
 
 (30) "He had met with [found or seen], in China in 1803, 
 an old commentary of one of the books of Confucius." 
 
 The six prepositions in this quotation tumble over one 
 another in a heedless way; note the consecutive use of 'in' 
 twice and of 'of thrice. 
 
 C. W. Barron, in the 'Boston News Bureau', writes: 
 
 (31) "Governments in Europe are breaking up. Govern- 
 ments in Mexico are one after another breaking down.^' 
 
 Does he mean that the change from the Czar to the Bol- 
 shevists is upward and from Diaz to the Villistas downward? 
 Quien sabef The feeble prepositions are burdened with too 
 much philosophy. 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 99 
 
 President Wilson said recently: 
 
 (32) ''One can feel sure that Franklin would have succeeded 
 in any part of the national life that it might have fallen to his 
 lot to take part in.'^ 
 
 The use of 'part' in two different senses is confusing. He 
 meant : 
 
 "One can feel sure that Franklin would have succeeded 
 in any department of the national life." 
 
 The same distinguished writer said : 
 
 (33) "If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with 
 with a firm hand." 
 
 'Dealt with' stands for 'punished'. 
 
 If the literati blunder so absurdly, it is no wonder that 
 casual writers go astray; they use prepositions in order to 
 intensify their verbs; for example, to 'test out', to 'win out'. 
 
 (34) "He tested out the process." 
 
 (35) "He is sure to win out in this competition." 
 
 I note that the other day Colonel House ''sat in with the 
 Big Four", and more recently I heard a man say: ''Jones lost 
 my umbrella on me." 
 
 A San Francisco newspaper recorded the fact that a bogus 
 British peer had made the acquaintance of a soubrette on 
 board ship coming from Honolulu. The reporter stated that 
 the young man had "met up with" the young woman. Pre- 
 sumably to 'meet' a person is one thing; to 'meet with' him 
 suggests more than a chance encounter; and to 'meet up with' 
 him may be tantamount to a scandal in high life. 
 
 The New York ' Morning Telegraph' remarks : 
 
 (36) "When we first joined out with the Allies". 
 
 A common phrase is "to join in with"; the 'in' however has 
 no meaning, and that is why, probably, the scribbler of the 
 'Morning Telegraph' substituted 'out', which also is redundant, 
 if not worse. 'Out' suggests 'asunder', and therefore conflicts 
 with the meaning of the verb 'join'. 
 
 Many preposition-verbs are idiomatic, as I have said; 
 they are part of our language, but they should be used sparingly 
 
100 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 in technology, which cannot suffer careless colloquialisms 
 without serious loss of clarity. It may be proper to settle down 
 in the country in order to settle up one's debts in the city. 
 Some of these preposition-verbs are not lightly to be dispensed 
 with, but the technical man should not melt down a charge and 
 melt up a slag, nor should he test out a process or prove up an 
 orebody. He ought to do away with these meaningless httle 
 obstacles to clear speech. In German such preposition-verbs 
 are compounded, and in English it would help if we 'shut- 
 down' a mill or 'opened-up' a mine. Usually a single and more 
 explicit word is available. Frequently the prepositicn-verb is 
 followed by a preposition, as illustrated in the examples already 
 quoted. Here are others: 
 
 (37) "The richest mine I met with in my travels." 
 
 In speaking, the first preposition ('with') follows the verb 
 ('met') without a pause, so that the second preposition ('in') 
 is given its separate value; in reading, such a sequence of 
 prepositions becomes ungainly or even obscuring. 
 
 (38) "The sulphides came in on the next level. '^ 
 "Sulphides began to appear on the next level." 
 
 He was referring to the fact that the bottom of the oxidized 
 zone had been reached. 
 
 (39) "This plan is being carried out on the Violet claim." 
 "This plan is being followed [or "This method of work is 
 
 being applied"] on the Violet claim." 
 
 (40) "They are piled on to the thickness of six or eight 
 inches." 
 
 "They are piled six or eight inches thick." 
 The 'on' is redundant, because 'pihng' means the heaping 
 of things upon one another. 
 
 (41) "The tar by-product was difficult to dispose of to the 
 tar-distillers." 
 
 "It was difficult to market this tar by-product among the 
 distillers," or "to sell this by-product to the distillers." 
 
 (42) "Three separate tests were carried on in this appa- 
 ratus." 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 101 
 
 '' Three separate tests were made [or performed] in this 
 apparatus." 
 
 An authority on the art of writing says: 
 
 (43) '' What should we aim ai in learning to write Eng- 
 lish?" 
 
 My reply to him is that, among other things, we should aim 
 to avoid preposition-verbs. Each of the preposition-verbs in 
 the foregoing five examples can be replaced to advantage by a 
 more significant word. 
 
 The authority on writing might have said: 
 
 " What should be our aim [purpose, or object] in learning 
 to write English? " 
 
 Here are further examples, with suggested corrections: 
 
 (44) ''The ore is hard and requires to be shaken up with 
 [shattered by] powder." 
 
 (45) ''The final decision was not arrived at [reached] for 
 several hours." 
 
 (46) "Classification was exhaustively dealt with [considered 
 or discussed]." 
 
 (47) "They will not accept credits unless backed up with 
 [by] a proper gold reserve." 
 
 (48) "Nor did any one of them describe a practical form 
 of apparatus for conducting the proposed operation m." 
 
 He meant an "apparatus for performing the proposed 
 operation." 
 
 (49) "The investigations were not confined to 'oils' alone, 
 as many substances which for the purposes of this process 
 acted in a similar manner to oils were experimented with.'^ 
 
 "The experiments were not confined to 'oils' alone; they 
 were applied to substances that acted like oil." 
 
 (50) "The vanning-shovel shows the condition of the tin 
 ore which [that] one has to deal with.''^ 
 
 Substitute 'crush', 'concentrate', 'treat', according to the 
 meaning intended. "Deal with" says nothing. 
 
 (51) "This depends on whether any more can be got out 
 [extracted] at a profit." 
 
102 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (52) ^' Those who have gone in for [undertaken] serious 
 work." 
 
 (53) ''Oil can be made iise of [utiHzed] to float mineral." 
 
 (54) ''The output has been much interfered with [hindered 
 or curtailed] by pohtical disorder." 
 
 (55) "In the end the copper companies won out.^'' Delete 
 "out". 
 
 (56) "In this part of Mexico the more vitreous rhyolites 
 are met with.^^ 
 
 This suggests an encounter with a band of Yaqui Indians on 
 the warpath. Substitute: 
 
 "In this part of Mexico, the vitreous type of rhyolite is 
 common." 
 
 (57) "The feeding of the machine is carefully attended to 
 [regulated]." 
 
 It is the result of the attention, not the act itself, that is to 
 be emphasized. 
 
 (58) "The sinter cools off and disintegrates." Delete 
 "off". 
 
 But the worst blunders arise from the misplacing of these 
 wretched little prepositions. 
 
 (59) "These are matters which the Chamber of Mines 
 might with profit devote a few minutes /o." 
 
 "These are matters to which the Chamber of Mines might 
 profitably devote a few minutes." This is roundabout; re- 
 write the sentence, thus: 
 
 "These are matters that the Chamber of Mines might 
 consider." 
 
 (60) "This is kind of you; I cannot find words to thank 
 you 2>?." 
 
 This is another example of transposition. 
 
 "I cannot find words in [or 'with'] which to thank you." 
 
 (61) "Corrosive water, which resulted in the formation of 
 rust on the steel tubes and the gradual closing of the openings, 
 was a serious obstacle." 
 
 Here we have a weak preposition-verb ('result in') and an 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 103 
 
 abstract phrase joining to obscure the sense. Probably he 
 meant to say: 
 
 "Corrosive water was a serious obstacle, since it formed 
 rust, which gradually closed the steel tubes." 
 
 (62) "As an illustration of how the activities of corpora- 
 tions affect our daily Hfe, I thought it would be interesting to 
 find out how many people were employed by the corporations 
 I would have to deal with in coming from New York to Denver." 
 
 This was written by an experienced writer. He might have 
 said : 
 
 "To illustrate how far the activities of corporations affect 
 our daily life, I thought it would be interesting to ascertain 
 how many people were employed by the [railroad] corporations 
 with which I would have to deal while coming from New York 
 to Denver." 
 
 (63) "The properties which it now consists of are many 
 old and new claims." 
 
 He means: "The properties of which it now consists include 
 many old and new claims." However, further correction is 
 needed, namely, the deletion of the words in italic, all of which 
 are redundant. The plural of 'property' is not required. 
 "The property now includes both old and new claims." 
 
 (64) "The ore is broken alciig with the barren rock." 
 
 (65) "Over against this pessimistic report, we have the 
 sanguine opinion of Professor Smith." 
 
 'Along' and 'over' are needless and awkward. 
 
 (66) " When oil is shaken up [agitated] with water or some 
 [other] liquid with which it is not miscible, an emulsion is 
 formed." The oil, owing to its specific gravity, would rest on 
 top of the water before agitation, which would actually result 
 in shaking it down. ' Shaken up ' conveys an incorrect idea. 
 
 (67) " The permission to go on with [continue] their business." 
 
 (68) " I submit that the consistent way of meeting the want 
 is for such a reserve to be provided for in the initial capital- 
 ization." 
 
 The prepositions crowd each other. He means to say: 
 
104 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 ''I submit that the proper method is to provide for such a 
 reserve when arranging the original capitaHzation." 
 
 (69) ''This matter has been [was] dealt with [discussed] in 
 my last chapter/' 
 
 (70) ''Many miles of the railway were constructed and 
 connected up with the old line out of Mersina and Alexandretta." 
 Delete 'up'. 
 
 (71) "Writing on a subject one is interested in is a fasci- 
 nating entertainment which I have often indulged in.'' 
 
 The entertainment must have been all his, not his reader's, 
 if he misplaced his prepositions in this way. He should have 
 written : 
 
 "Writing on a subject that interests one is a fascinating 
 entertainment, in which I have often indulged." 
 
 Preposition- verbs are idiomatic; for that very reason they 
 lend themselves to misunderstanding: 
 
 (72) "How did you come to fall into the pond?" said the 
 farmer to the dripping lad, still clutching his fishing-rod. "I 
 didn't; I came to fish", he sobbingly replied. 
 
 (73) A soldier running to the rear is asked : "What are you 
 running for f' He retorts: "You should say, 'What are you 
 running /rom'.^" 
 
 A typical example is: 
 
 (74) "The richest mine I met with in my travels." Apart 
 from the awkwardness of coupling two prepositions that are 
 not related to each other, this quotation exempHfies the use 
 of a preposition-verb that itself has no significance and serves 
 only to set aside the verb that tells the meaning, namely, 
 whether the writer 'visited', 'inspected', or 'saw' the mine, or 
 whether he merely heard about it from others in the course of 
 his travels. ' Met with' is one of those old colloquial idiomatic 
 phrases that say nothing. Similar criticism applies to many 
 other preposition-verbs; they are wholly unsuited for use in 
 technical writing, which aims to convey crystallized ideas and 
 precise information. 
 
 The preposition has many uses, and they are made more 
 
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 105 
 
 significant by avoiding misuse. Here are some examples of 
 good usage. 
 
 (75) ''The oil and water (as an emulsion) is fed in at the 
 centre and thrown out at the circumference." 
 
 Here "in" and ''out" are antithetic. The singular verb is 
 correct because the "oil" and the "water" are considered as a 
 unit. 
 
 (76) "The flask containing the extract was placed on a 
 water-bath; after most of the ether had been distilled off, 
 the residue was transferred to a small separating-funnel of 
 known weight." Here the "off" is emphatic. 
 
 The preposition- verb is idiomatic; so also sometimes is the 
 placing of the preposition at the end of the sentence; our 
 language derives these idioms from the Anglo-Saxon, or Low 
 German, part of its origin. In German one says: 
 
 (77) "MachenSiedieThiire^u." 
 
 Old-fashioned provincial people in the West of England still 
 say: "Shut the door io." 
 
 (78) A Cornish miner will say: " Where be going ^o.^ " 
 The gain of emphasis by placing a preposition at the end of 
 
 a statement survives, usefully, in such a phrase as: "Just 
 now Russia is a good country to come from.^^ This was writ- 
 ten by an engineer who had arrived in San Francisco from a 
 copper mine in Siberia; the statement is not only idiomatic 
 but highly expressive, for the three significant words are 'now', 
 'Russia', and 'from'; of these the last is the most significant; 
 it gains significance by being last. 
 
 In such sentences the preposition has an adverbial value; 
 as also in 
 
 (79) "He has gone out.'' 
 
 (80) "He told him to sit wp." 
 
 In the first lecture I quoted Huxley. You will remember 
 what he said of a writer who used big words needlessly: "He 
 will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical 
 phraseology which he has got up.'' Here "up" is adverbial. 
 It ends the sentence unpleasantly. "Got up" could be replaced 
 
106 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 advantageously by 'prepared', or 'concocted', or 'learned'. 
 It would be an improvement to substitute 'that' for 'which', 
 so that the last clause would read "that he has learned". 
 
 An authority* says: "The common behef that a sentence 
 ending with a preposition is on that account incorrect is a mis- 
 take; such sentences abound in good literature." True, but 
 defective sentences also abound in good literature, and great 
 writers occasionally make errors in composition. The homely 
 usage illustrated by "shut the door to" may have idiomatic 
 excuse, but I submit to you that such phrases are inappro- 
 priate to careful speech and quite inappropriate to precise 
 writing. I can assure you, as an editor, that the habit of 
 employing preposition-verbs, and the consequent liability to 
 misplace the preposition, will hinder you in the acquisition of 
 such a style as is best adapted to the discussion of technical 
 subjects. 
 
 I have said enough concerning the use of prepositions; 
 I trust that you will pay attention to this detail; if you do, you 
 will, I feel sure, learn to write more clearly. In my own writ- 
 ing I have found attention to this matter a great help, and that 
 is why I have discussed the subject at some length. Above all, 
 remember what the old lady said: "A preposition is a poor 
 thing to end up a sentence with.'^ 
 
 * E. C. WooUey, in his 'Handbook of Composition', page 37. 
 
IX. HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS. 
 
 A severely technical article, however well written, cannot 
 be an agreeable form of literature. It suffers from the defects 
 of its qualities. One defect is a congestion of language, due 
 to a multiplicity of adjectival nouns. The sentences are packed 
 with words of unpleasing sound, charged with complex ideas, 
 crowding one another so closely that the phraseology moves 
 like an ice-pack in Bering Sea or a log-drive in a river; the 
 undercurrent of meaning may move confidently, but the sur- 
 face is obstructed. 
 
 To regulate the flow of language, so as to indicate the rela- 
 tion of adjoining words, it becomes necessary to use hyphens. 
 Hyphens are unlovely assistants, regrettable necessities, but 
 without them the writer of technology must fail to convey his 
 thought, or must seek a mode of expression so roundabout as 
 to exhaust the reasonable limits of time and paper. For example : 
 
 (1) "High speed tool steel is much in demand by manu- 
 facturers of munitions." 
 
 The sense of the first four words, one an adjective and the 
 others nouns, is not obvious to the uninitiated; the meaning is 
 that there is a demand for a steel suitable for making tools that 
 serve as cutting instruments when run at high speed (in such 
 machines as lathes, planes, and drill-presses). This is said, and 
 said clearly, by inserting two hyphens thus : 
 
 '^ High-speed tool-steel is in much demand by manufac- 
 turers of munitions." 
 
 The use of hyphens is not generally understood by engineers ; 
 either they do not employ them sufficiently to make themselves 
 clear, or they sprinkle them like the sand that an earlier gene- 
 ration used, for drying the ink, before blotting-paper had been 
 invented. 
 
 107 
 
108 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Consider the difference between 
 
 cooling floor and cooling-floor 
 
 sinking pump '' sinking-pump 
 
 level floor '' level-floor 
 
 iron furnace ^' iron-furnace 
 
 paper mill " paper-mill 
 
 zinc box " zinc-box 
 
 sample bottle " sample -bottle 
 
 tin plate *' tin-plate 
 
 bent rod " bent-rod 
 
 melting point '^ melting-point 
 
 burning oil " burning-oil 
 
 A 'cooling floor' is one that is growing cold; a 'cooling- 
 floor' is one on which hot ore is cooled; it is a floor /or cooling. 
 A 'sinking pump' is a pump that is sinking or subsiding; a 
 'sinking-pump' is a pump to be used in sinking a shaft; it is a 
 pump /or sinking. A ' level floor' is one with a uniformly horizon- 
 tal surface; a 'level-floor' is the floor of a level in a mine. A 
 'paper mill' is one made of paper; a 'paper-mill' is one that 
 makes paper. An 'iron furnace' is a furnace made of iron; 
 an 'iron-furnace' is one used for smelting iron ore. A 'zinc 
 box' is made of zinc; a 'zinc-box' contains zinc, as, for example, 
 the box in which zinc is placed to precipitate gold from cyanide 
 solutions. A 'sample bottle' is a sample of bottles; a 'sample- 
 bottle' is a bottle to hold a sample. A 'tin plate' is a plate of 
 tin; 'tin-plate' is iron that is plated or covered with tin. A 
 'bent rod' is a rod that is bent, but a 'bent-rod' is a detail of 
 a conventional engineering structure. A 'melting point' is a 
 point that is melting; a 'melting-point' is the point at which 
 melting begins. A 'burning oil' is oil that is burning; a 
 'burning-oil' is an oil suitable for burning. The 'solid surface' 
 is the surface of a body that is not sohd underneath, whereas 
 the 'solid-surface' is the surface of a soUd, and it is as well to 
 say so, by aid of the hyphen, instead of indulging in round- 
 about explanations. 
 
HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 109 
 
 A 'single stamp-mill' is a lonesome mill. 
 
 A 'single-stamp mill' is a mill consisting of batteries of one 
 stamp each, like the Nissen, instead of the usual five stamps 
 per battery. 
 
 A 'single-stamp-miir is a mill containing only one stamp, 
 after the Lake Superior fashion, where one big steam-stamp 
 does the work of 150 ordinary gravity-stamps. 
 
 A 'crude ore-bin' is an ore-bin of crude construction. 
 
 A 'crude-ore bin' is a bin made to contain crude ore, that 
 is, ore as it comes from the mine, before it has been crushed, 
 concentrated, or subjected to other preliminary treatment. 
 
 A 'crude ore bin' is an example of crude writing. 
 
 Hyphens are not agreeable things, as I have said, but they 
 are a great help in technical writing. For instance: 
 
 (2) "The crushed section of No. 2 shaft had to be entirely 
 recovered and retimbered." 
 
 What does he mean? The shaft has been timbered again 
 or 're-timbered', that is clear; but has the shaft collapsed and 
 has it been 'recovered', that is, restored, or has only the cov- 
 ering of the shaft been shattered, so that the shaft has had to 
 be 're-covered'? If he had used the hyphen in 'retimbered', 
 it would have made clear his whole statement by giving sig- 
 nificance to the omission of the hyphen in 'recovered', but as 
 he omitted the hyphen in the one place, where it was wanted, 
 he may have omitted it in the other also, so that one can not 
 determine whether the shaft has been 'recovered ' or 're-covered '. 
 The difference is important, a^s measured in money and time. 
 
 The following are wrong: 
 
 (3) Air transmission-pipe. 
 
 (4) Dry vacuum-pump. 
 
 (5) Tungsten filament-lamp. 
 
 (6) The standard Merrill screw zinc-dust feeder. 
 
 (7) Stock solution-tank. 
 
 (8) Compressed air-motors. 
 
 (3) It is a pipe for transmitting air, not an airy pipe of 
 transmission; therefore the hyphen should be transferred thus: 
 
110 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Air-transmission pipe. 
 
 (4) The emphasis is on the dry vacuum, not on the dryness 
 of the pump. It should be 
 
 Dry- vacuum pump. 
 
 (5) The filament is made of tungsten, not the lamp. Hence 
 Tungsten-filament lamp. 
 
 (6) The word 'screw' modifies 'feeder'; he meant 
 The standard Merrill zinc-dust screw-feeder. 
 
 (7) The solution was kept in stock, not the tank; he meant 
 the tank in which the stock solution was kept, thus : 
 
 Stock-solution tank. 
 
 (8) The air is compressed, not the motor. It should be 
 Compressed-air motor. 
 
 Out gf a single article I take the following examples of 
 compound words. I shall give them to you first without the 
 hyphens and you will note what a jumble of meanings they 
 suggest. Then I shall insert the necessary hyphens and you 
 will see how the thought emerges: 
 
 (9) Crushing plant conveyor belt. 
 Crushing-plant belt-conveyor. 
 
 The traveling belt that conveys the ore to the plant where 
 it is crushed. 
 
 (10) Electric bell overhead alarms. 
 Electric-bell overhead-alarms. 
 
 Alarms were placed overhead, and these alarms consisted 
 of bells operated electrically. 
 
 (11) Ball check air inlet valves. 
 Ball-check air-inlet valves. 
 
 They are valves that check the admission of air by means of 
 balls acting automatically. 
 
 (12) A screw conveyor chain driven from the classifier shaft. 
 
 A screw-conveyor chain-driven from the classifier-shaft. 
 
 This is a screw the turning of which moves the pulp, con- 
 veying it to another part of the mill. The screw is turned by 
 means of a chain that is driven from the shaft that also drives 
 the classifying machine. 
 
HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 111 
 
 (13) 'The motor is connected to the tube mill gear shaft 
 by silent chain drives and Hill clutches." 
 
 'The motor is connected to the tube-mill gear-shaft by 
 silent-chain drives and Hill clutches." 
 
 This motor furnishes the power that causes the tube-mill 
 to revolve, such power being transmitted to the cogs on the 
 perimeter of the tube by means of a noiseless chain, the sprocket- 
 wheel of which is engaged and disengaged by a Hill clutch. 
 
 Other examples follow : 
 
 (14) ''The blast furnace gas will be delivered to a bag 
 house through 600 ft. of brick dust chamber." 
 
 Note how a few hyphens, properly placed, clarify the 
 sentence : 
 
 "The blast-furnace gas will be delivered to a bag-house 
 through 600 ft. of brick dust-chamber." 
 
 The chamber is not made of brick-dust. 
 
 (15) "These cannel coal tar oils are high in paraffine." 
 
 No clear idea emerges until a couple of hyphens are placed 
 in their right places : 
 
 "The cannel-coal tar-oils are high in paraffine." 
 
 (16) "From this base line right angled lines were extended 
 in the direction of the dip of the vein." 
 
 The sentence should be written: "From this base-line 
 right-angled lines were extended on the dip of the vein." 
 
 (17^) "The best compound condensing poppet valve steam 
 engine will produce an indicated horse-power hour on 12 pounds 
 of steam." 
 
 When I read the last example I was reminded of the lady 
 in Kansas after the tornado had passed. It is related that 
 " she looked up from her washing and found the air thick with 
 her intimate friends." The broken limbs of this sentence must 
 be joined with grammatical splints, these useful hyphens of 
 which we are speaking, thus: 
 
 " The best compound-condensing poppet-valve steam-engine 
 will produce one indicated horse-power per hour on 12 pounds 
 of steam." 
 
112 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (18) ''As to the dressing of the amalgamated plates, he 
 concluded that 12 hour intervals were the best." 
 
 Was it 12 intervals of one hour or was it intervals of 12 hours 
 each? He meant 12-hour intervals. 
 
 (19) Similarly: ''A train of ten ton cars" leaves it ques- 
 tionable whether it be ''a train of ten 1-ton cars" or "o. train of 
 10-ton cars." 
 
 (20) "Each of the two hundred foot sections." Is it ''each 
 of the 200-ft. sections" or "each of the two 100-ft. sections"? 
 
 Compound adjectives preceding the noun that they qualify 
 require hyphens, as "first-class ore", "3-inch pipe", "five-mile 
 haul". This applies to compounds with 'well' and 'ill', like a 
 "well-estabhshed industry" or "an ill-advised action", but 
 hyphens are not desirable after longer adverbs modifying adjec- 
 tives, as in "hastily written report" or "nearly completed 
 work". 
 
 Hyphens are of great service in technology, however ugly 
 they may seem to the litterateur, to the writer of polite prose. 
 No engineer can afford to ignore them if he desire to write 
 clearly. 
 
 (21) "The average shoe-and-die consumption in a stamp- 
 battery". 
 
 The wear of shoes and dies concurrently is the subject. 
 
 (22) "An early design of central-discharge ball-tube mill". 
 The two hyphenated words modify "mill". This would 
 
 not be expressed by "central discharge ball tube-mill". It is 
 a mill of tubular shape in which steel balls are used to expedite 
 grinding, the pulp being discharged through a central opening. 
 'Ball' and 'tube' modify 'mill' equally. 
 
 (23) "His theory is what one might term a resolution 
 theory." As if he were a man of high resolve. It should be 
 're-solution', referring to the secondary dissolving of the gold. 
 
 Note similarly the difference between 'retreat' and 're-treat' : 
 
 (24) "Mining was started at the edge of the ore on the top 
 sub-level and carried downward level by level: this retreating 
 method was desirable for two reasons." 
 
HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 113 
 
 He says what he means, the hyphen is not needed; but it 
 is necessary in the tollowing statement: 
 
 (25) ''The method of re-treating the taihng was intro- 
 duced by a clever metallurgist named Smith." 
 
 Note how much clearer the meaning is conveyed by 'half- 
 way' than by 'halfway'. 
 
 Now you have seen how important a function is served by 
 the hyphen. No cast-iron rule can be formulated to guide you 
 in this matter, but I may say to you that a varying degree of 
 intimacy exists between words. Three degrees of intimacy are 
 to be noted: 
 
 A. Mere juxtaposition, or neighborliness, of separate words, 
 indicating a loose connection. 
 
 B. Hyphenation, implying intimacy without an entire 
 loss of individuality. 
 
 C. Compounds, expressing a singleness of meaning. 
 Roughly the three states in which two adjacent words may 
 
 exist can be represented by single blessedness, betrothal, 
 marriage. The hyphenated condition, like an engagement, 
 may be broken, and a word may form a new combination with 
 another word for which it has affinity. After a time, two words 
 may have been hyphenated so long that they acquire a single- 
 ness of meaning, they are married, and are treated as a unit. 
 For example, 'today', 'tonight', and 'tomorrow' require no 
 hyphens. The retention of them is due to unthinking con- 
 servatism. The 'to' in 'today' has no significance apart from 
 'day'. The word expresses a single idea and the hyphen is 
 a meaningless survival. It has been estimated that 150,000,000 
 persons write these three words, 'to-day', 'to-night', and 'to- 
 morrow', three times daily, on average, and that the omission 
 of the hyphen would save an amount of energy in the aggregate 
 equal to that required to propel an ordinary passenger-train 
 round the world. Let us save the energy thus squandered and 
 use it in placing our hyphens where they are needed. 
 
 In hyphenated terms Uke 'cooHng-tower' and 'precipitating- 
 tank' the first member of the couple is a gerund; it is a verbal 
 
114 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 noun identical in form with the present participle; but the 
 participle • is an adjective, and the gerund is a noun that has 
 the power to govern another noun. In these and similar com- 
 mon hyphenated terms (for example, ^amalgamating-tables', 
 'condensing-chamber', 'leaching-vat') the preposition 'for' must 
 be understood; we mean 'a tower for cooling gases', 'a tank 
 for precipitating solutions', and so forth. If the phrase have 
 this meaning, the hyphen should be inserted; if not, it should 
 be omitted. A 'precipitating solution' is one that is in the act 
 of precipitating ; if the reference is to a solution for precipitating 
 something else, the hyphen would indicate this meaning, thus, 
 a 'precipitating-solution'. A 'fro thing-agent' is an agent for 
 making froth, not one that froths. 
 
 In technical writing it is necessary to compound words in 
 order to condense the phrasing, and the hyphen is a means of 
 doing so, but the careful writer will avoid throwing words 
 together in a telegraphic style that leaves the sense obscure. 
 Aristotle said that the use of compound words, "such as 
 Lycophron's 'many-visaged heaven', 'vast-crested earth', and 
 'narrow-passaged strand' " was in bad taste. He remarked 
 also that they were "eminently serviceable to dithyrambic 
 poets, whose style is noisy". The moral is to avoid careless 
 compounding and to indicate careful compounding by hyphen- 
 ation. 
 
 (26) "Too much air increases the fuel consumption [con- 
 sumption of fuel]." 
 
 (27) "The Bureau of Mines made a study of fume losses 
 [losses in fume]." 
 
 (28) "This is done to prevent edge wear [wear at the 
 edges]." 
 
 (29) "The rubber belt manufacturers [of rubber belts] have 
 shown great interest in this subject." 
 
 (30) "Except where a gulch marks a stream-course [the 
 course of a stream]." 
 
 (31) "The assay is given a borax glass cover." 
 
 A hyphen between borax and glass would help to clarify 
 
HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 115 
 
 the description, but it is better to avoid the adjectival use of 
 'borax-glass' by saying "a cover of borax-glass". 
 
 (32) ''The appraisal system is technically an admirable one." 
 "The system of appraisal is admirable technically." 
 
 (33) "A water spray cooled the air." 
 
 It was the water, not the spray, that cooled the air; there- 
 fore it is better to say: 
 
 "A spray of water cooled the air." 
 
 (34) "The air and power consumption was not determined." 
 "The consumption of air and of power were not determined." 
 
 (35) "A typical copper flotation taiUng screen and copper 
 analysis follows which illustrates this point." 
 
 What a jumble! He means: 
 
 "A screen analysis, with assays, of the flotation tailing from 
 a typical copper ore will illustrate this point." 
 
 In each of the foregoing quotations it is possible to use a 
 hyphen to mark the relation of the compounds, but it is not 
 desirable, the meaning being made clearer by straightforward 
 writing involving the use of a preposition to indicate the rela- 
 tion between the words. 
 
 (36) "Heavy metal salts". 
 
 He means 'heavy-metal salts', but it is better to write 
 "salts of the heavy metals". 
 
 (37) "Chlorite is present as a persistent alteration product 
 from biotite." 
 
 Is it a product of persistent alteration or a persistent prod- 
 uct of alteration? 
 
 (38) "The machine that weighs the mixed ore and con- 
 centrates charge." 
 
 Here the four words before 'charge' constitute an adjectival 
 clause; the meaning is held in suspense too long, and the 
 effect is confusing. He means: 
 
 "The machine that weighs the charge of ore and con- 
 centrate." The charge is obviously a mixture. 
 
 (39) "Allow a full air draught [draught of air] to pass 
 through." 
 
116 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (40) "Specially designed cars". 
 "Cars of special design". 
 
 The adjectival use of nouns and the consequent coupling of 
 nouns is carried to an excess that is disagreeable. Often it 
 clouds the expression or entails unnecessary hyphenation. 
 
 (41) " iif me samp/m^ is never an easy task." 
 "The sampling of mines is never an easy task." 
 
 (42) "The vein course was indicated by a mere seam." 
 "The course of the vein was indicated by a mere seam." 
 Hyphens are required between the two words itahcized in 
 
 each of the two sentences last quoted. They can be avoided 
 by the alternative phrasing. 
 
 (43) "The air volume [volume of air] is calculated from its 
 velocity in a drift." 
 
 (44) "This greatly reduced the gas consumption [consump- 
 tion of gas]." 
 
 (45) "There are no cost figures [figures of cost] as yet." 
 
 (46) "A battery charging and changing station." 
 "A station for charging and changing batteries." 
 
 (47) "An additional 10% of the sulphur is allowed as 
 furnace oxidation loss [for loss by oxidation in the furnace]." 
 
 (48) "This is true of powdered coal fired reverberatories," 
 "This applies to reverberatories (or reverberatory furnaces) 
 
 fired with powdered coal. " 
 
 In this last example, as quoted, the three words preceding 
 'reverberatories' constitute an adjectival clause. Such tumbhng 
 of words together has become an ugly characteristic of tech- 
 nical writing; it avoids hyphenation, it is true, but only at the 
 cost of a worse construction, if anything so unsj^stematic 
 and inarticulate can be thus dignified. More than any other 
 defect, this habit renders technical writing not only non- 
 literary but uncouth. So, take pains to avoid it, either by 
 using the necessary prepositions or by an intelligent use of 
 hyphens. 
 
 The 'fifty-first' means the one coming after fifty, but the 
 * fifty first' are the fifty that come first, the first fifty. 
 
HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 117 
 
 (49) "Light house-keeping is not good for Hght-house 
 keepers." 
 
 Finally, consider the difference, the pathetic difference, 
 between 're-covering' an old umbrella that is out of repair, 
 and 'recovering' a new umbrella, perhaps a Christmas gift, 
 that you had lost. 
 
X. SLOVENLINESS 
 
 Slovenliness is as disgraceful in words as in clothes. 
 Much writing that we recognize as poor in style is merely 
 sloppy. Just as some students postpone the necessary shave 
 or forget to change their collars, so young engineers drop their 
 articles, definite and indefinite, or omit prepositions where they 
 are required, as if to compensate for those they use unneces- 
 sarily. 
 
 (1) "[During] the preceding summer I went to Nevada.'^ 
 
 (2) ''The work will begin [on] Saturday." 
 
 (3) "Influenza seriously affected many mines [during] the 
 last three months." 
 
 (4) "Flotation in America [during] the last two years has 
 made tremendous strides." 
 
 The sign of the infinitive should not be omitted; this is a 
 common blunder. 
 
 (5) "All such work helps [to] solve the problem of efficiency." 
 The verb be is used both as a principal and as an auxiliary. 
 
 (6) "At first the work was interesting and [was] liked by 
 most of the men." 
 
 (7) "The drop of crusher lubricating oil could not get into 
 the bin and mix with the ore." 
 
 The adjectival use of nouns leads to a jumble; he means 
 "The lubricating oil on the crusher could not drip into the 
 bin and mix with the ore." 
 
 (8) "Construction of the mill started [on] August 12, 1915, 
 at which time 75% [three-fourths] of the excavation was com- 
 pleted." 
 
 Abridgements that leave the reader to guess the writer's 
 meaning are bad. Theodore Roosevelt wrote: 
 
 (9) "While camped on the Nzoi, the honey-birds were 
 almost a nuisance." 
 
 118 
 
SLOVENLINESS 119 
 
 Roosevelt and his party, not the honey-birds, were camped 
 on the Nzoi. Such elHptical phraseology is slovenly. 
 Do not omit the connecting pronoun. 
 
 (10) ''Their vein is not as wide, nor the ore as rich, as the 
 Combination." 
 
 ''The vein in their mine is not as wide, nor the ore as rich, 
 as that in the Combination." 
 
 (11) " Many mining booms such as [those of] 1906 and 1916." 
 
 (12) "A rate of drilling much superior to [that of] the old 
 piston-drill." 
 
 A finite verb must agree with its subject, says the rule. 
 
 (13) "One of the most brilliant contributions to geology 
 that has [have] been made." 
 
 The correct form sounds awkward; the attractive form is 
 wrong; avoid both. The clause "that has been made" is 
 redundant. 
 
 (14) "Anyone can measure with a glance, when they are 
 tired." 
 
 Ruskin, who wrote this, meant 'when he is tired' or 'when 
 tired'. 
 
 Participles are commonly misused by novices. The dangling 
 of a participle at the beginning of a sentence contravenes the 
 rule of grammar that the substantive to which a participle 
 relates must appear in the same sentence. For example: 
 
 (15) "Approaching the vein, the serpentine is seen to be 
 decayed." 
 
 "As we approached the vein, we observed that the serpen- 
 tine was decayed." 
 
 (16) "Examined carefully no fossils were detected." 
 "Although I examined the rocks carefully, I could detect 
 
 no fossils" or "Although the rocks were examined carefully, 
 no fossils were detected". 
 
 (17) "Turning westward there is a striking change." 
 "Turning westward the observer beholds a striking change." 
 
 (18) "In going seaward the boulders become smaller." 
 "Toward the sea the boulders are smaller." 
 
120 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Even practised writers are frequently guilty of the error of 
 using participial phrases having no logical relation to the clauses 
 preceding. Thus : 
 
 (19) "The sandstones are massive, occurring chiefly in the 
 lower half of the formation." 
 
 ''The sandstones, which are massive, are chiefly in the lower 
 half of the formation." 
 
 (20) ''The output of the mine is about 100 tons daily, its 
 assay-value being $50." 
 
 "The daily output of the mine consists of 100 tons of ore, 
 averaging $50 per ton." 
 
 Another misuse is illustrated in the sentence: 
 
 (21) " The vein has a general width of 1 to 6 inches, widening 
 [but] in places [it widens] to 12 inches." 
 
 Here the participle is used as an adversative, or contra- 
 dicting, term. 
 
 (22) "The limestone occurs resting [rests] upon the quart z- 
 ite." 
 
 (23) "These dikes were found cutting [cut] the granite." 
 
 (24) "The cliff rises facing [faces] the river." 
 
 The choice of the wrong subject-nominative leads to wordi- 
 ness: 
 
 (25) "The drainage of the area is accomplished [drained] 
 by three streams." 
 
 (26) " The collection of the statistics is done [are collected] 
 by correspondence." 
 
 Delete the first three words in each of the two foregoing 
 sentences. 
 
 (27) "Confirmation of these reports cannot be obtained 
 [confirmed]." 
 
 As says George M. Wood,* from whom the three pre- 
 ceding examples are borrowed: 
 
 "The writers of these sentences, having 'used up their 
 verbs' in their subject-nominative, could find no suitable 
 
 * 'Suggestions to Authors' by George McLane Wood. U. S. Geological 
 Survey. An extremely useful pamphlet. 
 
' SLOVENLINESS 121 
 
 predicate-verbs and were compelled to employ instead more 
 auxiliaries or inappropriate words." 
 
 The use of 'due' at the beginning of a sentence in the sense 
 of 'attributable' is a common error, for the reason that a causal 
 phrase, which is adverbial, should not be introduced by an 
 adjective. 
 
 (28) "Z)w6 [owing] to the psychological attitude of labor 
 [Labor] and the scarcity of skilled operatives, it is far more 
 difficult than ever before to secure high efficiency." Delete 
 "psychological", which is redundant. 
 
 (29) "Such problems are nearer solution, due [thanks] 
 to the researches of Bragg and others." 
 
 (30) "This is explained by the fact that this substance, 
 due to [in consequence of] the predominating effect of the 
 calcium, coagulates the slime." 
 
 (31) "Due to the nature of the ore, it is expected to obtain 
 a smelting ratio of seven of ore to one of coal." 
 
 Here 'due to' stands for 'in consequence of or 'owing to'. 
 Again : 
 
 (32) "Due to the rise in copper, many mines are being 
 re-opened in this district." 
 
 Those who fall into this bad habit are also likely to begin 
 their statements thus: 
 
 (33) "Indicative of the success of the method is the cost 
 which is now 60 cents per ton." 
 
 This can be improved: 
 
 "The success of the method is indicated by the low cost, 
 which is now only 60 cents per ton." 
 
 'Tend' is a word that prolongs a sentence without adding 
 to the sense. Many writers enfeeble a verb by inserting the 
 superfluous 'tend'. 
 
 (34) "The use of flotation tends to aid [aids] the saving of 
 copper in chalcocite ores." 
 
 (35) " Such methods tend to cheapen [cheapen] the operation." 
 Unemphatic words at the beginning of a sentence usually 
 
 precede roundabout statements: 
 
122 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (36) ^^ Because the surface tends to contract with a definite 
 force does not mean that it is coated with anything hke a rubber 
 membrane." 
 
 It would be better to write: 
 
 ''The fact that the surface contracts with a definite force 
 does not prove that it is coated with anything hke a rubber 
 membrane" or ''The contraction of the surface does not mean 
 that it is coated, etc." 
 
 Here is another example of a poor beginning: 
 
 (37) "5t/ such a system I beheve we could establish a 
 toreign trade based on honesty of goods which other nations 
 would find it hard to take from us." 
 
 Here "by" is a weak introductive. He means: 
 
 "Such a system, I believe, would serve to establish a foreign 
 
 trade so well based on honesty of goods that other nations would 
 
 find it hard to compete with us." 
 
 'While' is another little word much misused. Instead of 
 
 being restricted to its primary function as an adverb of time, 
 
 it is employed as a conjunction synonymous with 'whereas', 
 
 'though', 'but', or 'and'. 
 
 (38) ^^ While [whereas or although] coal and iron command 
 high prices, oil has become cheaper." 
 
 (39) "At some points the ore is 4 feet wide while at others 
 it narrows to 6 inches." 
 
 Insert a semicolon after "wide" and delete "while". 
 'Along these lines' and 'along this line' is a common crudity. 
 It is neither precise nor clear. 
 
 (40) " Examinations along these lines were made every 
 year." 
 
 "Examinations of this kind (or for this purpose) were made 
 every year." Perhaps "similar examinations" would express 
 the meaning, which is still left in doubt. 
 
 (41) "The development of the mine along this line is sure 
 to prove successful." 
 
 "The development of the mine in accordance with thi& plan 
 is sure to prove successful." 
 
SLOVENLINESS ' rz'6 
 
 (42) ''Investigations along petrographic lines are not 
 needed." 
 
 "Petrographic investigations are not needed." 
 'Occur' and 'occurrence' are over-worked, especially by 
 geologists. They are words to be used sparingly. 
 
 (43) "The other mineralogical occurrence [mineral] I found 
 in the Gila Canyon Consolidated Copper Co.'s mine." 
 
 (44) "There are seldom any signs of secondary copper 
 enrichment, unless it be the occasional occurrence along cracks 
 of pyrite." 
 
 He means: "Signs of sulphide enrichment are rare, except 
 where the pyrite has been deposited along cracks." "Occa- 
 sional occurrence" suggests time; he means place; here and 
 there the pyrite was detected by him along the cracks. 
 "Cracks of pyrite" is a bad phrase. 
 
 (45) "The gold occurs [is] distributed over a large area." 
 
 (46) "The fluorspar mines occur [are] in Pope and Hardin 
 Counties." 
 
 Usually 'occur' takes the place of a word that is more 
 specific. 
 
 (47) "Hardwood trees occur on these slopes." 
 The word he needed was 'grow'. 
 
 (48) "In parts of the mine where the fault occurs, the veins 
 are shattered and impoverished." 
 
 He means that where the veins are crossed by the fault, 
 they are shattered and poor in gold. 
 
 (49) "The telluride occurs in [lines or encrusts] the interior 
 of the cavity." 
 
 A 'cavity' is a void, considered with reference to the cir- 
 cumjacent material. "The telluride encrusts the cavity." 
 
 (50) "Underlying this decomposed garnet in the formerly 
 barren crystalline lime [are] the secondary zinc ores occur.'' 
 
 Delete 'occur' and end the sentence with a significant word. 
 
 Writers who overwork 'occur' are likely to introduce their 
 statements with 'there is' and 'there are', both of which are 
 poor locutions — the mere tuning of language. 
 
124 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (51) ''Wherever the galena occurs there is an increase of 
 silver in the ore." The man that wrote thisfailed to say where 
 or how the galena was distributed in the lode or vein, and thus 
 omitted a necessary item of information. 
 
 ''Wherever the galena is seen, there the ore is richer in 
 silver. 
 
 (52) "Small packages can be easily carried and there is 
 not the incentive to drop them by the carriers." This can be 
 amended thus: 
 
 "Small packages can be carried easily, therefore the carriers 
 are not tempted to drop them." 
 
 (53) "There are few Cornishmen employed at Treadwell." 
 
 (54) " I question whether there is any probability of succeed- 
 ing with this process." 
 
 These statements may be improved thus: 
 "Few Cornishmen are employed at Treadwell.'* 
 "I question whether the process can succeed." 
 
 (55) "There are more men killed in metal-mining in the 
 United States, in proportion to the number employed, than in 
 the country's coal mines." 
 
 Here ' there are ' merely detracts from the force of the state- 
 ment; start with "More men are killed" and note how much 
 more direct and forceful it is. 
 
 'It is' belongs in the category of feeble introductions. 
 
 (56) "It is the belief of the miners that the ground now 
 worked may be a slide." 
 
 "The miners believe that the ground etc." 
 
 (57) "It is a sign of richness in gold when the quartz is 
 ribboned." 
 
 "The ribboning of the quartz indicates richness in gold." 
 Begin and end a sentence with an emphatic word, as far as 
 
 may be practicable without stilting the phraseology. 
 
 Avoid redundancy. In the following examples the italicized 
 
 words should be deleted: 
 
 (58) "The railway should be finished in nine months 
 time." 
 
SLOVENLINESS 125 
 
 (59) ''It requires several weeks or months time to treat the 
 ore." 
 
 (60) ''The mine is three miles distant from the mill." 
 
 (61) "Timbers are set at a distance of 4 ft. 2 in. centre to 
 centre." 
 
 (62) "The peak is 12,750 ft. high above sea-level." 
 
 (63) " Manganese if present can be precipitated at the same 
 time as the iron." 
 
 It must be present in order to be precipitated. 
 
 (64) "It is best to use zinc sheets 2 feet by 3 feet in size." 
 Do not attempt to be impressive by piling one word on 
 
 another. 
 
 (65) "Records were started with this ultimate end in 
 view." 
 
 (66) "He cannot return home before the final completion 
 of the mill." 
 
 (67) "This oil will serve equally as well as oleic acid." 
 
 (68) "The roasting will require probably about seven hours 
 time." 
 
 Study the meaning of words so that you will not employ 
 'evince' or 'evidence' when you mean 'show'; 'phenomenal' 
 when you mean 'extraordinary'; 'transpire' for 'become 
 known'; or 'problematical' for 'doubtful'. As you obtain 
 literary taste, you will abhor 'advent' as a synonym for 'in- 
 troduction' or 'arrival'; 'situation' for 'state'; 'eliminate' 
 for 'extract'; 'avoid' for 'destroy'; 'proposition' for 'pro- 
 posal'; 'contemplate' for 'plan' or 'intend'; 'balance' for 
 'compensate'; and 'unethical' for 'improper'. 
 
 (69) "The stamp-mill held its own until the advent [intro- 
 duction] of the cyanide process." 
 
 (70) "The treatment of the pyritic copper ores awaited the 
 advent [application] of modern smelting methods." 
 
 (71) "The cyanide situation [scarcity of cyanide] in Northern 
 Ontario." 
 
 (72) "A tramway will be built around Mineral lake to 
 eliminate [avoid] the use of barges." 
 
126 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (73) ''The proposition [proposal] made by the union was 
 rejected." 
 
 (74) "The erection of one smelter and the completion of 
 others now contemplated [planned or proposed]." 
 
 (75) '' It would be unethical [improper] to disclose my reason 
 for withdrawing from the case." 
 
 (76) ''The natural expectation would be that they [each] 
 (Carranza and Villa) will each [would] start in to eliminate 
 [destroy] the other." 
 
 No man with a right feeUng for language would be guilty 
 of such lapses. Acquire good taste by reading good literature : 
 Huxley and Spencer, Thoreau and Lowell. Read ' The Atlantic 
 Monthly ', ' The Outlook ', and ' The World's Work ', not the 
 magazines that adopt the language of the street. 
 
 If you read only second-rate stuff, you will lose the taste 
 for good English, and the quality of your own writing will suffer, 
 until you may even be guilty of such lapses as the following : 
 
 (77) "There are companies arranging to install commercial 
 size units of several new inventions. It is far from probable 
 that all these schemes will prove successful and therefore one 
 anticipates hearing of disappointments experienced by the 
 pioneers in this work." 
 
 He may have meant to say : 
 
 "Several companies are arranging to erect working units 
 based upon new inventions. It is unlikely that all these 
 schemes will prove successful, and one may anticipate that the 
 pioneers will suffer many disappointments." 
 
 (78) "In practically every instance, operators plan to make 
 the fuel item a self-contained proposition." 
 
 He is speaking of oil-shale, and he means : 
 
 "Most of the operators plan to use the shale itself for fuel." 
 
 (79) "These often contain cassiterite, sometimes in profit- 
 able quantities, but long before the water sorted gravels are 
 reached the wolfram has disappeared, though it comes from the 
 same lodes as the tin ore where it almost invariably occurs in 
 considerably greater quantities." 
 
SLOVENLINESS 127 
 
 Probably he meant: 
 
 ''In many localities these alluvial deposits contain suf- 
 ficient cassiterite to be mined profitably, but long before the 
 water-sorted gravel is reached the wolfram has ceased to appear, 
 although it is derived from the tin-bearing lodes, in which 
 it is invariably the predominant mineral." 
 
 That may not have been his meaning; the worst of such 
 writing is not its ungainliness but its obscurity. It may not be 
 intended to be beautiful, but it certainly is intended to convey 
 information, and in that it fails. 
 
 (80) '' In a cross-cut on the 14th level in ground to the east 
 of the main drift along the line of the larger ore shoot a vein 
 of quartz was struck, which on being followed soon developed 
 values, and further on extraordinary values." 
 
 Would you think of engaging the services of an engineer 
 showing so Httle intelligence? He may have meant to say: 
 
 ''On the 14th level a cross-cut going eastward from the main 
 drift, that is, the one along the line of the larger ore-shoot, 
 struck a vein of quartz, which, on being followed, began to show 
 ore and a little farther yielded ore of extraordinary richness." 
 
 (81) "There has never been any doubt that the problem 
 of dry concentration would some day be solved and its present 
 successful advent should not be passed by without at least an 
 investigation." 
 
 Was it the "advent" or the "problem" that merited atten- 
 tion? How does one 'pass by' an 'advent' even in the dark? 
 
 "It never was doubted that dry concentration would some 
 day prove successful, therefore this latest experiment is well 
 worthy of attention." 
 
 Use words so that each one may be significant. We keep 
 different tools for different kinds of work, thereby gaining 
 efficiency. Keep each word to its allotted task. Do not dull 
 the edge of a chisel by using it as a screw-driver. 
 
 'Differentiate' refers to a physical process of becoming 
 different; it is not a correct synonym for 'discriminate' or 
 'distinguish'. 
 
128 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (82) "It would not be fair to differentiate [discriminate] 
 against him." 
 
 'Designate^ is to specify or particularize, not to choose, 
 appoint, or name. 
 
 (83) ''He designated [appointed] Jones foreman." 
 'Visualize' is to make visible, to imagine vividly, not to see, 
 
 describe, or illustrate. 
 
 (84) "He was unable to visualize [imagine] the horrors of 
 War." 
 
 'Discount' is to deduct from an amount or make allowance, 
 not to expect, anticipate, or offset. 
 
 (85) "The manager discounted [anticipated] the caving of 
 the stope." 
 
 These examples should serve as warnings to the engineer, 
 who nowadays makes a fetish of efficiency, and writes articles 
 upon it in ineffective language. 
 
 An American provinciaHsm that is gaining ground is the 
 use of a geographic noun as an adjective, thus: 
 
 (86) "A California [California n] mining engineer '\ 
 
 (87) "The Alaska [Alaskan] method of drift mining.'* 
 
 Our daily papers show such head-lines as 'Good Italy 
 Harvest'; 'Great Albania battle'; 'U. S. Victory'. In these 
 the corresponding adjective is desirable: Italian, Albanian, 
 American. Undoubtedly such newspaper usage is corrupting; 
 technical writers should take care not to copy the habits of 
 the ilHterate. 
 
 Careless writers, with a fondness alike for the abstract word 
 and the unnecessary plural, also show a preference for vague 
 terms when precise ones are available. They use the present 
 participal of a verb in place of the noun itself; thus 
 
 capping 
 
 instead of 
 
 cap 
 
 cropping 
 
 11 
 
 outcrop 
 
 filling 
 
 (< 
 
 fill 
 
 faulting 
 
 it 
 
 fault 
 
 heavy stulling 
 
 11 
 
 big stulls 
 
SLOVENLINESS 129 
 
 (88) "A capping [cap] of leached monzonite covers the ore/' 
 
 (89) ''There are [is] no croppings [outcrop] of the vein to 
 guide the prospector." 
 
 (90) ''The fillings [fill] in the old stopes can be milled at 
 a profit." 
 
 Abstraction is carried to inanity by scribblers who change 
 
 nations 
 
 into 
 
 nationalities 
 
 authors 
 
 (( 
 
 authorities 
 
 events 
 
 (( 
 
 eventualities 
 
 persons 
 
 " 
 
 personalities 
 
 characters 
 
 (( 
 
 characteristics 
 
 It is well to look askance at words ending in 'ism^ 'istic^ 
 and 'ization', for they come of a vacuous tribe.* 
 
 Technology knows no political boundaries. The part of it 
 written in English goes around the world. We exchange freely 
 with the British and their cousins overseas. The English 
 language is the common heritage alike of the American and 
 the Briton, both of whom befoul it with vulgarisms and colloqui- 
 alisms that are understood only locally or regionally. In order 
 that technical literature may pass current wherever our language 
 is spoken, and even in foreign countries where it has to be 
 translated laboriously, it is our duty to discard local terms or 
 provincial phraseology. For example, 'reef as used for 
 'lode' in Australia and 'ledge' as used for 'vein' in California 
 are both objectionable terms. An orebody underground 
 has no resemblance to the rock that imperils navigation, nor 
 does a vertical outcrop resemble a shelf, f 
 
 The Australian puts his ' mullock ' [waste rock] in a ' paddock ' 
 [enclosure] while the American puts his 'dirt' [ore] in a steel 
 'tank' [bin]. The 'mullocker' at Bendigo is equivalent to the 
 'mucker' at Tonopah, and each is a 'shoveler' in good English. 
 I need not multiply examples of bucoUc terms and illiterate 
 
 * Allbutt. Op. cit. Page 144. 
 
 t A 'ledge' of oil-shale is correct, because the shale is nearly horizontal 
 and projects from the face of a hill like a shelf. 
 
130 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 localisms. They disfigure technology and obstruct scientific 
 thought. Why should a scientific man — for that assuredly 
 describes the mining engineer — go to the illiterate workman 
 for his terms? If you wish to learn how to break rock ask 
 the Cornish or the Italian miner, by all means, but if you wish 
 to use the delicate instrument of expression accurately ask 
 those who are trained in the art. As graduates of a university 
 you are expected to obtain your terminology from the library, 
 not from the stope ; you should shape your phraseology on that 
 of the college, not on that of the bunk-house. 
 
 (91) ''These tanks [steel bins] have proved satisfactory, 
 especially to the mill-men, who are relieved of all ore-bin 
 muckingJ' 
 
 He means that they are relieved of the labor of shoveling 
 inside the ore-bin. 
 
 Such adoption of local vulgarisms by careless writers may 
 be defended by shallow critics as one phase of that absorption 
 of new elements by which a language grows. Of course, the 
 English language is a living organism fed continually out of 
 the varied human experience of our peoples — the American 
 and British predominantly, but also the others who speak it 
 across the seven seas. All of which in no wise excuses a literate 
 engineer in displacing recognized technical terms by half-baked 
 provincialisms. 
 
 To write well you need self-restraint — a grip on yourself. 
 The notion prevails in some quarters that it is effeminate to use 
 words with nicety, that the practical man is expected to fling 
 them about him with careless vigor. That is a mistake. An 
 educated man is discipfined in words as in conduct. Indeed, 
 the self-discipline of writing is a splendid training for any engi- 
 neer. It teaches him how little he knows accurately, and spurs 
 him to gain a more thorough understanding. The turbid pulp 
 in a mill is made clear by passing through classifiers and settlers, 
 so that the metal is precipitated in a pure and crystalline form. 
 Similarly ideas, odds and ends of information, stray bits of 
 observation, if passed through the mind in the act of writing 
 
SLOVENLINESS 131 
 
 are co-ordinated, classified, and systematized into workable 
 shape, into definite form, ready for immediate use. 
 
 In technology we should try to keep each term for a specific 
 duty. 
 
 ' Locate ' and ' location ' should be restricted to the delimit- 
 ing of a claim. If we use these words in other senses, we cause 
 confusion. 
 
 (92) ''He located the mill on Deer creek." 
 
 Did he ' locate ' a mill-site or did he build a mill on the creek? 
 
 (93) ''The superintendent located [found] the ore-shoot on 
 the fifth level." 
 
 (94) "He is now located at Silverton." 
 "He lives at Silverton now." 
 
 (95) "The mine is located in Northern Rhodesia." 
 
 Delete 'located', or substitute 'situated'. 
 
 'Carboniferous' and 'carbonaceous' have different mean- 
 ings. They should not be used interchangeably. 'Carbon- 
 iferous' referred originally to the geologic division of time 
 associated with the formation of coal, but all Carboniferous 
 strata do not contain coal. It is now simply the name of a 
 geologic period, and is given a capital 'C 'Carbonaceous' 
 means carbon-bearing, or containing carbon; it may be used 
 to describe a black shale. A rock may be both Carboniferous 
 and carbonaceous, as in Missouri, where a limestone belonging 
 to the period immediately succeeding the Devonian is black 
 with the product of decomposed vegetal [not 'vegetable'] 
 remains. 
 
 'Calcining' and 'roasting' are not synonyms. The first 
 should be applied to a process for removing carbon di-oxide 
 from carbonates, such as limestone, or for dehydrating a 
 hematite ore; the second should be restricted to a process for 
 the expulsion of sulphur by heat in the presence of oxygen. 
 
 'Tank' is a term sadly over-worked. It means a large 
 vessel used for storing liquid. A large vessel employed for con- 
 ducting a chemical process may better be called a 'vat'. This 
 distinction is not often observed, but it can be made to advan- 
 
132 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 tage in technical writing. Recently the word 'tank' has been 
 used for a cylindrical steel ore-bin. This use only serves to con- 
 fuse. An engine of war lately devised has been called a 'tank', 
 although it is more like a glyptodon or some other monster of 
 the primeval slime. We can forgive the 'boys' in the trenches 
 anything, but not the metallurgist that calls an ore-bin a 
 'tank,' as if in mockery of these dry days. 
 
 A 'chute' is a sloping channel down which material is 
 passed; a 'shoot' is an orebody of recognizable shape and in- 
 clination in a lode. 
 
 Those who consider such distinctions of no consequence will 
 call a machine for getting rid of slime a 'slimer', ignoring the 
 fact that the suffix 'er' indicates an agent, so that a 'slimer' 
 is a thing that makes slime. The process of 'de-sliming' is 
 conducted on a 'slime-table'. The same scribbler would talk 
 of ' dewatering ' a shaft, ignoring the fact that we use ' unwater ' 
 to signify that operation, while we use 'dewater' to indicate 
 the removal of excess water in a pulp. Again, consider the dif- 
 ference between 'recovery' and 'extraction'. In subjecting 
 a copper ore to concentration the percentage of the copper in 
 the concentrate is a 'recovery', but it is not an 'extraction', 
 for that is the work of the smelter. By using technical terms 
 thoughtfully we increase our vocabulary; the careless use of 
 words means the loss of distinct meanings; on the other hand 
 the discriminating use of words assists accurate expression. 
 
 'Section' is often used improperly. A section is a division 
 of the public land containing 640 acres. It is also the view along 
 an imaginary slice of anything, like a geologic section or the 
 section of a machine, intended to exhibit the interior. We ought 
 not to use it as a synonym for 'region', 'district', or 'locality', 
 as in: 
 
 (96) "The South-West is an arid section [region]." 
 
 (97) "In this section [district] the mines produce gold only." 
 Engineers should keep technical words for appropriate 
 
 uses, otherwise they lose their special significance. A ' tuinicl ' is 
 a gallery or bore that goes through a hill or mountain from 
 
SLOVENLINESS 133 \ 
 
 daylight to daylight, as a railway tunnel does. A level that 
 enters a mountain from the surface, to become the main artery 
 of a mine or to drain the water from the underground workings, 
 without going through to the other side of the mountain, is 
 an 'adit' — a term used by miners from time immemorial. 
 
 It is well to note that mistakes are rarely solitary; like 
 sorrows ''they come not single spies, but in battahons". Let 
 me impress upon you the fact that if you are careless about one 
 detail — apparently unimportant — you are hkely to take no 
 thought about others. Whether or not you accept my dictum 
 concerning the use of this or that word or the rejection of this 
 or that method of statement is of minor importance as compared 
 with your acceptance of my general argument: that it is 
 worth while to use words precisely and to build sentences 
 logically. The man that learns to master the little words will 
 acquire mastery over the big phrases. Genius has been called 
 an infinite capacity for taking pains. The definition is incom- 
 plete, but it recognizes the first requisite of all good workman- 
 ship : the effort to be thorough. 
 
XI. JARGON. 
 
 The dictionary defines 'jargon' as ''barbarous or debased 
 language". This description does not suffice. Quiller-Couch 
 has said, it is "a kind of writing which, from a superficial 
 likeness, commonly passes for prose in these days, and by 
 lazy folk is commonly written for prose, yet actually is not 
 prose at all.'' The two main vices of jargon, he says, are "that 
 it uses circumlocution rather than short straight speech", like 
 the Babu who reported his mother's death by saying: "Regret 
 to inform you, the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the 
 bucket." Its other chief vice is that "it habitually chooses 
 vague woolly abstract nouns rather than concrete ones", hke 
 the newspaper statement, "He was conveyed to his place of 
 residence in an intoxicated condition", instead of saying, 
 "He was carried home drunk." Jargon is "an infirmity of 
 speech", it is not journalese, but akin to it. "Like respect- 
 abihty in Chicago, jargon stalks unchecked in our midst" 
 and renders much technical writing ridiculous. It deals in 
 periphrasis instead of going straight to the point, it loves the 
 abstract rather than the concrete, it dabbles in w^ords of sound 
 rather than meaning. Avoid it, despise it, if you purpose earn- 
 estly to write well. "In literature as in life he makes himself 
 felt who not only calls a spade a spade but has the pluck to 
 double spades and re-double."* 
 
 Jargon is rampant in technical publications. Catalogues 
 and other advertisements are conspicuous offenders, but with 
 these the critic is not concerned, except in so far as such 'write- 
 ups' pretend to follow the style set by technical journals and 
 by the transactions of technical societies. Here is an example, 
 taken from a reputable paper: 
 
 * These quotations are from a lecture delivered at Cambridge by Sir 
 Arthur Quiller-Couch. 'The Art of Writing'. 1916. 
 
 134 
 
JARGON 135 
 
 (1) "The next proposition was to take out the rock to a 
 depth of 20 ft. and build up an underpinning wall to carry the 
 weight of the caisson and make the permanent seal to keep out 
 all water. To avoid the possibility of jarring loose any of 
 the temporary sealing blocks or breaking back under them the 
 rock which was of a slatey nature, this excavation was started 
 by channeling out for a depth of 5 ft. all around the shaft 
 about 1 ft. inside of the blocking. The rock was then taken 
 out in the ordinary manner with two shaft-bars and four rock- 
 drills in operation. To further prevent the jarring of this block- 
 ing the rock was taken out in 5-ft. benches only. This made 
 the work necessarily slower, but it was deemed advisable and 
 so proved, for, notwithstanding the care exercised, certain 
 leakages occurred which made the rock excavation slow on 
 account of the shifting of pumps, taking off and putting back 
 suction pipes, etc. This rock, as above mentioned, was a species 
 of sand slate which would break back a considerable distance 
 from the line of holes." 
 
 I shall not attempt to revise it, for it needs to be re-written 
 by one possessing the detailed information that the writer has 
 attempted, unsuccessfully, to impart. To many it may not 
 seem utterly bad, but it is obvious that only absolute need of 
 the information would induce anybody to read it. 
 
 The foregoing example shows how the English language is 
 mishandled in America; now I shall give you an example to 
 show how our language is maltreated in the country of its 
 origin. The following quotation is taken from a book on petro- 
 leum recently pubhshed in London. 
 
 (2) "In this vaporizer, which works efficiently with any of 
 the refined flash-proof lamp oils, the mixture is only heated to the 
 comparatively low temperature of 300° to 400"" F., in which con- 
 nection it is well to understand that the more perfectly an oil 
 is atomized the lower is the temperature necessary to its 
 combustion, which is an advantage, if not off-set by the neces- 
 sity for a more than corresponding complexity of apparatus, 
 which in this case, as will be seen, requires an air pump and for 
 
136 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 the fuel to be contained in a tank subject to a pressure of 8 to 
 15 lbs. per square inch; and this again obviously necessitates 
 a separate hand pump, or a pressure supply for starting." 
 
 The errors are so many that the entire paragraph needs to 
 be re-written. Why does he hyphenate 'flash-proof and not 
 ' lamp oils ' and ' air pump ' or ' hand pump ' ? He uses ' which ' 
 with irritating frequency; he employs the abstraction 'com- 
 plexity of apparatus' instead of the concrete 'complex appara- 
 tus', besides a plain error of grammar, namely, "requires . . . 
 for the fuel to be contained." The writer is an educated engi- 
 neer, but he disregards the obligations of an educated man. 
 
 Here follows an attempt to describe the operation of a 
 machine-drill in a mine: 
 
 . (3) "Following the shooting, the mucker begins his work, 
 the drill man climbs to the top of the muck, and by the time the 
 four feet of ground shot down is mucked out, he is again ready 
 to shoot his round of holes." 
 
 "Muck", "muck", "muck" — it is the very muck of writing. 
 The word means filth or manure. It is used as a synonym 
 for 'dirt', the miner's term for broken rock. Thus 'muck' 
 refers to the shattered rock resulting from blasting, which is not 
 in the least filthy. Shovelers, that is, those who shovel the 
 broken rock into the car at the face of a level or cross-cut, are 
 now called 'muckers'. What gain is there? 'Shoveler' is 
 significant, 'mucker' is the rubbish of words. 
 
 The next example comes from a description of the small 
 locomotives used in mines. It reads: 
 
 (4) "Face gathering, wherein the locomotive must enter the 
 room, imposes conditions which call for distinctly special 
 treatment in the design and equipment of a locomotive of high 
 efficiency. The ordinary haulage locomotive in nearly all cases 
 is totally unfitted to this work, which involves operation in 
 narrow quarters, around sharp curves, over poorly laid tracks, 
 etc. The locomotive of real value in room work is one which, 
 by reason of proportions and construction, will go wherever a 
 mine car will run, and with equal faciUty. It must be compact, 
 
JARGON 137 
 
 no wider than the wheels, with short wheel-base and small 
 wheels, and without long overhang at either end." 
 
 This is the sort of thing that makes a technical description 
 seem hke a cryptogram or a slab of picture-writing from 
 Nineveh. To any one versed in the subject of locomotives 
 for underground use, this paragraph is inteUigible, but only 
 that. It succeeds in making the subject as uninteresting as 
 possible and places the meaning as much beneath the surface 
 as the locomotive itself. 
 
 The last two examples come from ' write-ups ', the trade name 
 for a eulogistic description of a manufactured article, prepared 
 in the interest of the manufacturer and written by a man more 
 accustomed to the use of a screw-driver than a pen. The 
 worst writing concerning technical matters is to be found in 
 such disguised advertisements. They ought to be attractively 
 written, to serve their purpose; in failing to do so, they illus- 
 trate the essential ineffectiveness of bad writing. 
 
 Grammatical correctness is no excuse for a statement that 
 is likely to cause trouble to your reader. He must have your 
 consideration always if you expect to be recognized as an ef- 
 fective writer. A technical journal states: 
 
 (5) "The specifying by a mining company that no man may 
 be employed by it unless he be a member of such an organiza- 
 tion, though undoubtedly legal, is as contrary to social justice 
 as the specifying that no member of any organization will be 
 employed, or the refusing to recognize any employee as repre- 
 senting anyone or anything except himself as an individual." 
 
 That reminds one of a passage in 'AHce in Wonderland'; 
 "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it 
 might appear to others that what you were or might have been 
 was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared 
 to them to be otherwise." 
 
 Here is more technical writing of a supposedly serious sort: 
 
 (6) "The expenditure involved is only justifiable with the 
 assured certainty of very large ore reserves having values 
 materially above operating costs." 
 
138 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 "The expenditure involved would be justified only by the 
 certainty of an adequate reserve of profitable ore." 
 A respectable engineer writes: 
 
 (7) ''They would go to the lay-out and see if it was checked 
 out; if found out to be laid out, the lay-out foreman would spend 
 his time in looking for it, and if he could not find it he would get 
 out a new one." 
 
 Such stuff is a disgrace to the profession; moreover, it is 
 proof of such want of intellectual power as to argue against the 
 possession of technical understanding. 
 
 Shun outworn figures of speech, like 'a bolt from the blue', 
 'the swing of the pendulum', 'the cry is still they come', 'after 
 us the deluge', 'the Mecca of their pilgrimage', 'the Phoenix 
 from his ashes', 'open Sesame', and 'the labors of Hercules'. 
 They rarely give point to technical description; usually they 
 are mere tags, in the reporter's style — a style to be scrupulously 
 avoided in technical writing. Abstain from the use of such 
 verbal inanities as 'festive', 'pristine', 'erstwhile', 'material- 
 ize', and 'eventuate'. These are precious to the reporter, 
 but taboo to the intelligent writer. 
 
 Take note of the fact that nonsense remains nonsense how- 
 ever much you may disguise it in a veil of words. We think 
 in words, and when we lack clear words we lack clear thoughts. 
 Clear thinking is necessary to effective speech or writing. 
 The forceful utterances and keen analyses to be remarked 
 occasionally in men devoid of academic training show that the 
 question of clear statement depends upon logic. Correct 
 speech — grammatical speech — is logical speech. The following 
 is a quotation from an address delivered by a prominent finan- 
 cier in San Francisco: 
 
 (8) " Let us learn, then, to realize that each has his dominion 
 and his empire of domination, in which by the exercise of these 
 qualities that are alike in spelling success each may rise to a 
 position of leadership, with potentialities of power as great in its 
 sphere of action as that one of the many, to whom we look for the 
 time being, because of some particular preferment as a leader." 
 
JARGON 139 
 
 This is balderdash. It is "the dehrious trimmings" of 
 language. 
 
 Early Victorian elegance has no place in technical writing; 
 for example: 
 
 (9) ''The ore was relieved of its moisture through the 
 medium of drying kilns." Meaning that: 
 
 "The ore was dried in kilns." 
 
 Nor do we want late Nevadan uncouthness: 
 
 (10) " With the installation of the new air-compressor under- 
 ground development is being prosecuted more rapidly." 
 
 Is the air-compressor underground or is it being used for 
 development underground? Should a comma come before or 
 after the word 'underground '? The rapid progress is not being 
 made "with the installation" of anything, but by the new 
 compressor, operating more machine-drills. You do not 
 prosecute a development; for that involves the pursuit of an 
 abstraction. 
 
 (11) "The tributer is assisted in the prosecution of his work 
 by being given supplies." 
 
 'Prosecution,' in this context also, is a foolish word, apart 
 from being an abstract noun. Slovenly writers who use such 
 words also use too many others. He meant to say: 
 
 "The tributer is assisted in his work by being given 
 supplies"; meaning candles, dynamite, caps, and fuse. 
 
 (12) "Gold Mountain was turned down by a succession 
 of eminent engineers." It would be more to the point to give 
 the names of some of the engineers. 
 
 (13) "He extracted the gold in the residue, thus doing away 
 with [obviating] the necessity for [need of] re-handhng it." 
 
 It was not the 'necessity', but the 're-handhng', that he 
 wished to avoid. Was it the gold or the residue that he was 
 trying not to 're-handle'? He meant to say: "He extracted 
 the gold in the residue, thus avoiding re-treatment." 
 
 Slovenliness in writing is due not to poverty of ideas but 
 to careless thinking. It may escape censure because the major- 
 ity of readers are uncritical and too patient. Given a careless 
 
140 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 writer and an equally careless reader, you have a perform- 
 ance about as profitable as a lecture to the deaf. 
 
 (14) ''The Lake Superior copper mines are making a good 
 recovery from the disorganized condition in which the long 
 persistence of the strike put them." 
 
 Here you have the abstract phrases "the lon^ persistence" 
 and ''making a good recovery" instead of a concrete statement 
 saying that the strike had lasted long and that work at the mines 
 had been resumed. ' Mines ' is not the real subject of this 
 statement, but the work being done in them. He — and he 
 was an editor — meant to say: 
 
 "The working force at the Lake Superior copper mines is 
 being re-organized and operations are being resumed after the 
 long strike." 
 
 Statements that seem intelligible and are accepted by the 
 patient reader without protest may yet fail to convey informa- 
 tion accurately; and the docile reader — for every man that sub- 
 mits willingly to the attraction of an article, and reads it, 
 is in a docile mood — either loses interest presently because of 
 the vagueness of the discourse or struggles against the obstacles 
 of clouded style until he is inclined to attribute the difficulty 
 to a temporary mental inability of his own. The headaches 
 of young students in their struggle to conquer knowledge from 
 text-books are due more to the defective literary technique 
 of the writers of the text-books than to difficulty inherent in 
 the subject or to stupidity on the part of the learners. 
 
 (15) "The vein is a quartz fissure with a width of 1 to 6 ft., 
 a dip of 50° to the north, and a filling of galena, sphalerite, 
 pyrite, and chalcopyrite." 
 
 How can it be a fissure filled with quartz — for that is a 
 quartz fissure, not a fissure in quartz — if it is filled with the 
 four other minerals specified? Nor is the fissure attached to a 
 width or a dip. He meant : 
 
 "The vein is from 1 to 6 ft. wide, it dips 50° north, and con- 
 sists of quartz containing galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and chal- 
 copyrite." 
 
JARGON 141 
 
 'Encounter' Is a word greatly over-worked. It means to 
 meet hostilely or in conflict. The use of it in varying senses 
 tends to vagueness. 
 
 (16) ''The rocks indicate to the miner when encountered the 
 general lower limits of the volcanics." 
 
 He means that where (not ' when ') a particular rock is found 
 underground, there the lower limit (not 'limits') of the volcanic 
 series is indicated. Therefore he might have said: 
 
 "These rocks, wherever found in the mine, indicate that 
 the lower limit of the volcanic series has been reached." 
 
 (17) "The ore-bearing volcanics are seemingly of more 
 importance to the district from a gold-producing standpoint than 
 was at first supposed." 
 
 He meant that the volcanic rocks had a greater influence 
 upon the deposition of gold in the district than had been sup- 
 posed. He used 'seemingly' three times in eight hues of his 
 manuscript, and you can infer from that how careless he was. 
 
 (18) "Some difficulties ai3 encountered by the formation of 
 sodium sulphate in the roasting furnace, which dissolves to- 
 gether with the sodium chromate." 
 
 Here 'encounter' means 'caused'. The wrong use of 
 'which' makes the writer state that the furnace 'dissolved'. 
 The omission of the hyphen suggests that the furnace was 
 'roasting'. 'Together' is redundant. What he meant to say 
 was: 
 
 "During the process of roasting, sundry difficulties are 
 introduced by the formation of sodium sulphate, because it 
 dissolves with the sodium chromate." 
 
 All these pluralities, generalities, and abstractions are the 
 mark of jargon. As Quiller-Couch says: "To write jargon 
 is to be perpetually shuflfling around in the fog and cotton-wool 
 of abstract terms: to be forever hearkening, like Ibsen's Peer 
 Gynt, to the voice of the Borg exhorting you to circumvent 
 the diflficulty, to beat the air because it is easier than to flesh 
 your sword in the thing." 
 
 Avoid extravagance. One of the chief obstacles to precision 
 
142 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 in writing is prolixity, the employment of superfluous words. 
 Shy at such phrases as 'with regard to', 'in respect of, 'at 
 the same time', 'as a consequence of, 'in connection with', 
 'from the standpoint of, 'on the basis of, 'of such a character', 
 'to any extent', 'according as to whether', 'on the whole', 
 'more or less', and so forth. Occasionally one or another of 
 these unlovely locutions may be useful or necessary, but 
 resort to them grudgingly, treating them as first cousins to 
 jargon, which is the newspaper prostitution of our language. 
 
 (19) '^With regard to the process, the principal difficulty 
 that arose in connection with the operation of it was the large 
 amount of dust; the success of it therefore depended as to 
 whether it could, or could not be collected without incurring 
 a more or less prohibitive expense." 
 
 The 17 words underlined are mere 'empties' in the train of 
 thought. Note too the careless use of ' it ' ; the first and second 
 refer to ' process ', but the third refers to ' dust '. He might have 
 said: 
 
 "The success of the process depended upon the economical 
 collection of the dust made during the operation." 
 
 (20) " For it is well known that man's methods are ever 
 changing while Nature's laws upon which they depend are 
 invariable." 
 
 Two unnecessary and insipid clauses are interjected under 
 the false impression that they give dignity to the statement. 
 How much stronger it sounds thus: 
 
 "For while man's methods are ever changing, Nature's 
 laws are immutable." 
 
 (21) "Mistakes in assaying are far commoner than is 
 generally thought to be the case.^^ 
 
 "Mistakes in assaying are more common than is generally 
 supposed." 
 
 (22) "Perhaps a few notes as to some of my experience in 
 connection with mining in Colombia will be of interest." 
 
 "Perhaps a few notes on my mining experience in Colombia 
 will be interesting." 
 
JARGON 143 
 
 (23) ''The special difficulty in the case of flotation arose 
 in connection with the treatment of the concentrate." 
 
 This might be changed to 
 
 ''The special difficulty in using flotation presented itself 
 when treating the concentrate." 
 
 Or, preferably, 
 
 "The main obstacle to the use of flotation was difficulty in 
 treating the concentrate." 
 
 (24) ''Any lumps of more or less [nearly] pure chalcocite 
 were but superficially altered." 
 
 A mining journal says: 
 
 (25) "A particularly striking thing of the last Anaconda 
 report is the exhibit of that company as the great metallurgical 
 concern that it is.'' 
 
 The superfluous words are indicated. The statement can 
 be amended thus: 
 
 "The latest Anaconda report exhibits that company as a 
 great metaUurgical concern " or 
 
 "This report exhibits the Anaconda as a great metallurgical 
 enterprise." 
 
 Another author wrote thus: 
 
 (26) "So far as the writer is aware, the process has not been 
 applied to any ore in this country, but there can be no doubt 
 that there are many instances where it could be successfully 
 apphed." 
 
 This is a windy performance. What he wanted to say was : 
 "So far as I know, the process has not been tried in this 
 
 country, but there must be many ores to which it could be 
 
 applied successfully." 
 
 (27) "Probably flotation is due to a combination of phe- 
 nomena which [that] are rather high in the scale of complexity." 
 
 "Probably flotation is due to a combination of complex 
 phenomena." 
 
 (28) " From the standpoint of [according to] this theory." 
 
 (29) "This is too important a matter to be treated from a 
 careless point of view [carelessly]." 
 
144 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (30) "From a genetic point of view the genesis of the coral- 
 line limestone have [has] been most carefully studied." Delete 
 the words italicized. 
 
 The last three examples are borrowed from * Suggestions to 
 Authors' by George M. Wood, the editor of the U. S. Geologi- 
 cal Survey. 
 
 Such words as 'case', 'instance', 'nature', 'degree', 'char- 
 acter', and 'condition' should be used sparingly and with 
 discrimination. 
 
 (31) "So in the case of these veins we have present a reversal 
 of the unusual case where native copper turns to sulphide in 
 depth." 
 
 This statement is typical of a kind of jargon that mas- 
 querades as ornate speech. He meant to say: 
 
 "Thus these veins reverse the experience usual in mining, 
 namely, the change from native copper to sulphide mineral in 
 depth." 
 
 (32) "In the case of copper it is not advisable to leach the 
 ore." 
 
 "It is inadvisable to leach the copper ore." 
 
 (33) "The surface is of a very uneven character.'^ 
 Delete the words italicized. 
 
 (34) "The soft nature [softness] of the rocks." 
 
 (35) "The lowlands in some cases [places] contain lakes, the 
 most conspicuous instances being Crystal, Glen, and Portage 
 lakes. 
 
 Here 'instances' is an elegant variant of 'cases'. It should 
 be deleted. 
 
 (36) "This is the only instance in the district of a copper 
 mine that is wholly in the granite." 
 
 "This is the only copper mine in the district that is wholly 
 in the granite." 
 
 (37) "/n every case an alteration product should be identi- 
 fied with extreme care." Delete the words italicized. 
 
 As Mr. Wood suggests, the victim of this habit of using 
 'cases' and 'instances', or some other similar abstract term, 
 
JARGON 145 
 
 should ask himself what he means by the word. What is the 
 concrete thing about which he is writing? He is Hkely to 
 discover that he is indulging in mere verbiage. 
 
 (38) ''The miners returned to work in most instances." 
 They went to work in overalls. He meant: ''Most of the 
 
 miners returned to work." 
 
 (39) "Even in Carboniferous areas, only in one or two 
 instances do the veins carry ore." 
 
 Substitute 'places' for 'instances'. Perhaps he means 
 "only one or two veins carry ore.' 
 
 (40) "The accident was due to the dangerous nature of 
 the work and the fissile character of the rock." 
 
 It was not; the accident was due to the weakening of the 
 rock by fissuring and the sudden fall of a large piece upon the 
 miner working below. 
 
 (41) "A singular degree of mineralization marks the dis- 
 trict." 
 
 Meaning that "intense mineralization characterizes the dis- 
 trict." 
 
 (42) "The auriferous mineralization is distributed through- 
 out the ore and consists of metallic gold and gold associated 
 with iron pyrites." 
 
 This is thoroughly bad, from beginning to end. 'Minerali- 
 zation' is the condition of being mineralized; how can a condi- 
 tion be 'auriferous', that is, gold-bearing. Next, how can 
 'mineralization' be distributed throughout the ore; it is an 
 abstract idea; he means gold, thus: 
 
 "The gold in the ore occurs free and associated with iron 
 pyrite." 
 
 The word 'situation' is beloved by jargoneers; it is a type 
 of the abstract, of the general, and of the woolly. 
 
 (43) "To meet this situation [difficulty] as it developed, 
 sand-filling [the filling of slopes with sand] was introduced in 
 1908." The same writer continues: 
 
 (44) " Previous to this date some of the older mines had 
 been showing signs of movement, and it became evident that 
 
146 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 preparation was necessary to meet this tendency, which was bound 
 to increase in intensity as mining progressed." 
 
 'Tendency' goes well with 'situation'; both are abstract 
 terms, the mere fog of an idea. He meant to say: 
 
 " Previous to that year some of the older workings had shown 
 signs of movement, so that it became evident that a syste- 
 matic effort must be made to check the settling of the ground, 
 a condition sure to become worse as mining progressed." 
 
 (45) "He first went to Goldfield to examine a mining situ- 
 ation [mine] and then located [remained or resided] there for 
 good." 
 
 To examine a situation is like fighting a chimera. 
 "He first went to Goldfield to report on a mine, and decided 
 to live there." 
 
 (46) "This serious situation with respect to dye-stuffs has 
 been splendidly met by the chemists of the country." 
 
 "This serious need of dye-stuifs has been met splendidly 
 by the chemists of the country," or 
 
 " This serious deficiency in dye-stuffs has been overcome with 
 splendid success by the chemists of the country." 
 
 (47) "The situation in regard to fuel is so alarming as to 
 call for the most careful consideration." 
 
 He means: "The shortage of fuel at this time is so alarming 
 as to demand serious thought." 
 The same writer continues: 
 
 (48) "Our greatest [best] opportunity for success in meeting 
 the fuel situation [escape from the dilemma] lies in eflficient 
 combustion." 
 
 A mining lawyer writes: 
 
 (49) "An apex could not exist in situations [under condi- 
 tions] not greatly dissimilar [similar] to those in the Jim Butler 
 case." 
 
 (50) "The labor situation is passing through a period of 
 unrest." 
 
 'Situation' is a mere abstraction; it is 'labor' that is un- 
 restful. 
 
JARGON 147 
 
 (51) ''He took an option on an interesting situation [promis- 
 ing prospect] on Canyon creek." 
 
 (52) "He liked the situation [the mine or property] and de- 
 cided to invest his money in it." 
 
 Probably he speculated with his money; to the unthinking 
 a 'speculation' is synonymous with an 'investment'. 
 
 (53) "The easing up of the oil situation was in sight." 
 "The passing of the crisis in the oil industry was assured." 
 As might be expected, the jargoneer loves such an abstract 
 
 term as 'values'. 
 
 (54) "In my tests made with a view of [to] studying the 
 form in which lay the values [the gold and silver exist] in such 
 tailings I have been unable to detect any values [precious metals] 
 in the tailing from our ore." 
 
 How would he make tests to determine "the form" of the 
 gold and silver until he had ascertained the fact that they 
 existed in the tailing? When a writer makes such statements, 
 he is not to be trusted. 
 
 'Problem' is another word dear to the jargoneer in search 
 of abstractions with which to obscure his want of accurate 
 knowledge. 
 
 (55) "One of our serious problems is clean water." 
 
 He means: "One of our chief hindrances (or handicaps) is 
 the lack of clean water." 
 
 (56) " The problem presented by this difficulty engages the 
 attention of metallurgists." Delete the words italicized. 
 
 (57) "The water problem is a drawback to concentration." 
 "The large amount of water required is an obstacle to con- 
 centration." 
 
 'Standpoint' is a jargonistic decoration. 
 
 (58) "The portion of the range that is of interest from 
 an economic standpoint extends due east and west about six 
 miles." 
 
 "The portion of the range that is of economic interest ex- 
 tends due east and west for six miles." 
 
 'Eliminate' is another first cousin to jargon. 
 
148 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (59) ''The presence of barite or gangue will in most cases 
 eliminate the possibility of using gravity concentration." 
 
 He was writing about oil-shale. 
 
 "The presence of barite or other heavy minerals will usually 
 prevent the use of gravity concentration." 
 
 (60) ''One company has succeeded in treating this shale 
 in a small retort, and is contemplating the installation of [plan- 
 ning to erect] a larger plant." 
 
 To ^contemplate the installation' is pure jargon. 
 
 (61) "The method has been employed in connection with 
 the Herreshoff furnace installation.'^ 
 
 "The method has been applied to Herreshoff furnaces." 
 
 (62) "The problem of water-losses was taken up coincidently 
 with the stack-loss determinations." He is referring to the 
 metallurgy of quicksilver. 
 
 " The loss in water was investigated at the same time as 
 the loss in fume." 
 
 It is likely that many of the examples quoted by me will 
 seem to you by no means bad; in fact, they represent the kind 
 of writing that is so common as hardly to call for comment by 
 those whose critical faculties have not been awakened; yet, I 
 assure you, the avoidance of just such jargon is essential to 
 good writing. Jargon defeats its purpose; the thought fails 
 to reach its destination; the cross-currents distract the tired 
 reader's attention, they interrupt the vo3^age of his thought, 
 which drifts with the flux of words and becomes stranded at 
 length on a shoal of verbiage. Brevity is the soul of wit; 
 conciseness is the essence of clarity; every unnecessary 
 word tends to obscure. 
 
XII. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES. 
 
 In order to write clearly — that is, so as to be understood 
 beyond question — you should know not only what your words 
 denote but how to build your sentences: you must not only 
 choose your words carefully but you should construct your 
 sentences properly. To achieve proper construction, you must 
 obey the laws of syntax, because the meaning of clauses and 
 sentences depends upon the order of words. A sentence is a 
 combination of words that expresses thought : it says something 
 about something. A clause is a subordinate sentence; it is 
 part of a larger sentence. The Greeks call an editor a avvraKj-qs 
 (suntaktes), he who assembles the parts of a sentence. Hence 
 our word ^syntax' for the branch of grammar that treats of 
 the sentence and its construction. English is essentially a 
 non-inflected language ; and in that respect it is unlike not only 
 Latin and Greek but its modern rivals, French and German. 
 This lack of inflections, to indicate the relation of words, 
 makes it supremely necessary that in English our words shall 
 be placed in correct order, for we depend upon the order to 
 indicate the sequence of thought. Any deviation from the 
 logical sequence may endanger the meaning; for example: 
 
 When spies were feared in England at the beginning of the 
 War a local paper stated: 
 
 (1) ''The authorities are now looking for a gray motor- 
 car driven by a woman who is thought to have a wireless appara- 
 tus inside." 
 
 A technical journal announced: 
 
 (2) ''We pubhsh an article on errors latent in the sampling 
 of mines by Mr. Blank." The mention of the author should 
 have followed "article". 
 
 (3) "He blew out his brains after bidding his wife good-bye 
 with a shotgun." 
 
 149 
 
150 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 (4) ''Mrs. Smith was killed on Wednesday morning while 
 cooking her husband's breakfast in a shocking manner." 
 
 (5) ''The owner of this property fishes and shoots himself." 
 
 (6) "The concentrating table was covered by the foreman 
 with a new face of rubber." 
 
 (7) "The samples were preserved for analysis in a paraffin- 
 sealed flask." 
 
 (8) "Care should be taken to see whether such wells are 
 contaminated by frequent analyses." 
 
 The foregoing examples of incoherence break the rule 
 that "the relation of each word and each clause to the context 
 should be unmistakable." Another rule says: "Clauses that 
 are grammatically connected should be kept as close together 
 as possible." As a further warning I quote the following: 
 
 (9) "The expedition, which left Fairbanks March 13, ex- 
 pected to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley early in May, 
 but was delayed three weeks cutting a passage three miles long 
 through ice with hand-axes thrown across the ridge by an 
 earthquake last summer." 
 
 That must have been a weird earthquake! it threw hand- 
 axes across a ridge! Even if you place "with hand-axes" 
 after "passage" you find yourself saying that the hand-axes 
 were "three miles long". Note the slovenliness of style: the 
 omission of 'on' before "March 13," of 'while' before "cutting", 
 and of 'it' before "was delayed". The statement can be 
 amended thus: 
 
 "The expedition . . . was delayed three weeks by having 
 to cut with hand-axes a passage three miles long throug^h ice, 
 which had fallen across a ridge in consequence of an earth- 
 quake last summer." 
 
 Place clauses in their logical order; the inversion of ideas 
 is confusing. 
 
 (10) "Combined with geological abiUty of an unusual 
 degree, he was an all-around engineer." 
 
 No sensible man talks in this way; the phrasing is stilted 
 and obscure. It is better to say: 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 151 
 
 "He was not only an all-around engineer, but also an ex- 
 cellent geologist." 
 
 (11) ''Due to the richness of the new orebody on the 
 tenth level, the mine has paid dividends." He means that: 
 
 "The mine has been able to pay dividends, thanks to 
 the richness of the new orebody on the tenth level. " 
 
 (12) "Compared with what I had seen in Nevada, Rho- 
 desia is a poor goldfield." This may be changed to: 
 
 "I would consider Rhodesia a poor goldfield, as compared 
 with Nevada." 
 
 Take care that your demonstrative pronouns are made 
 to refer to the right thing. 
 
 (13) "A number of mines have adopted the use of cars to 
 take the place of 'cans'. These hold from 1500 to 2000 lb. 
 apiece." 
 
 The second sentence refers to the 'cars', not the 'cans'. 
 
 "A number of mines have substituted cars for cans. Each 
 car holds from 1500 to 2000 lb." or 
 
 " In a number of mines the 'cans' have been replaced by 
 cars, each holding from 1500 to 2000 lb. 
 
 (14) "Because a process is cheap does not prove it desir- 
 able." 
 
 (15) "It is because he was a scientific man that he insisted 
 upon research." 
 
 In these two examples the causal clause is made substantive, 
 thereby producing an awkward inversion. It would be better 
 to write: 
 
 "A process is not desirable merely because it is cheap." 
 
 "He insisted upon research because he was a scientific 
 man." 
 
 Kelley says: * "It should be insisted on again and again 
 that if two forms of expression are both open to criticism, the 
 chances are very large that something else could be better than 
 either. Begin anew, and hammer out for yourself a sentence to 
 which you can think of no reasonable objection. So a young 
 * James P. Kelley, 'Workmanship in Words'. 
 
152 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 writer learns his trade, and so a veteran keeps his style fresh 
 and clean." 
 
 I should delete 'on' after 'insisted'; also the 'very' before 
 •'large'; again, I should avoid the preposition-verb 'think of 
 and say "a sentence to which you can see no reasonable objec- 
 tion". However, the advice is admirable. 
 
 Do not compare things with qualities, the concrete with the 
 abstract. Correspondence in form promotes lucidity and ease 
 of statement. 
 
 (16) "He saw these issues more clearly than any [other] 
 man." 
 
 (17) "No other man in the country has done more to 
 advance the study of economic geology." 
 
 In the first quotation the 'other' is needed; in the second, 
 it is out of place. 
 
 An intelligent interest in the rules of composition need 
 not stiffen the writer's manner, nor make him pedantic. 
 
 Connectives should be placed carefully, and when used 
 in couples they must correspond. 
 
 Both, and; 
 
 (18) "I went both because I feared and because I hoped." 
 Either, or; 
 
 (19) "The division of profits made by either govern- 
 ments, banks or industries." 
 
 Delete 'either' and insert a comma aftei 'banks'. 
 Not only, but also; 
 
 (20) "This was not only according to law, but also accord- 
 ing to justice." 
 
 On the one hand, on the other hand; 
 Neither here nor there. 
 
 (21) Either in the city or in the country. 
 Do not omit to repeat the preposition. 
 
 (22) "Poets are either born in London or remote country 
 places." 
 
 The 'either' is misplaced and 'in' is omitted before 're- 
 mote'. 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 153 
 
 "Poets are bom either in London or in remote country 
 places." 
 
 Neither, nor; 
 
 (23) "I looked neither forward or back.'^ 
 This likewise contains an error. 
 
 '' I looked neither forward nor back." 
 
 These seem small matters to the slovenly writer, but they 
 are of the essence of clear writing. As Kelley says: 
 
 ''No great difference? There is no great difference between 
 lifting two pounds and lifting one pound; but I will not have 
 my shoes weighted with lead. In the single and simple case, 
 no great difference; but construct a complicated sentence in 
 defiance of the laws of thought, or a long discourse with con- 
 stant disregard of what is normal in structure and formally 
 clear, and the reader will be wearied and repelled unless your 
 work is in other respects so good as to please him in spite of your 
 slovenliness — and even if you please him, very likely you will 
 have failed to make him understand you, and thereby to 
 persuade or convince or instruct him as you would wish to do." 
 
 Young writers drift easily into long sentences, entan- 
 gling their ideas in a wilderness of words. They shun the 
 short sentence, preferring to link one thought to another 
 by the aid of many 'ands', as an after-dinner speaker ekes 
 out his lame remarks with a frequent 'urr' or 'err'. To err 
 is human, to forgive divine; but it is hard to condone the 
 unnecessary 'and'. Don't be afraid of short sentences or of 
 using the period. 
 
 (24) " This quality of diffusion indicates molecular mobility; 
 and a good example of this is furnished by etc." 
 
 "This quality of diffusion indicates molecular mobihty, 
 a good example of which is furnished by etc." 
 
 (25) "The methods employed in the underground work 
 vary with the nature of the ore deposits and have been de- 
 veloped to suit the local conditions encountered in the various, 
 mines." 
 
 This is verbose and confused. 
 
154 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 "Mining methods have been developed to suit local con- 
 ditions, as modified by the varying structure of the ore deposits." 
 
 (26) ''At the Zaaiplaats tin mine the cassiterite has mainly 
 occurred in the Red granite ; and, the author particularly notices 
 that the color of granite round the pipes was often of a much 
 deeper red; and, that a great deal of tourmalinization had 
 taken place." 
 
 This requires several corrections: ''At the Zaaiplaats 
 tin mine, the cassiterite is found chiefly in the Red granite. 
 The color of this granite is deeper in places around the pipes 
 [ore-chimneys], where also tourmalinization is marked." 
 
 Such sentences are written by men that cannot claim lack 
 of experience in writing. Here is a shocking example from the 
 'Times', of London: 
 
 (27) "The cities we remember from childhood, un visited 
 since, grow in our minds and become glorious and visionary. 
 The memory itself is only a material which the mind uses, as 
 in dreams it uses some fact of waking hours. There was a 
 bridge, perhaps a mean iron bridge, and a few trees, and some 
 decent houses beyond it. But all the mean details are for- 
 gotten, and the scale is so altered that the bridge seems to have 
 spanned a deep valley with great arches, and to have been a 
 causeway leading into a city of palaces and overshadowing 
 trees. And along the causeway crowds were drawn into the 
 city and traffic coming from a great distance, as if to a festival. 
 And there is a memory also of the sky itself as momentous — 
 towering clouds flushed with the sunset, and the causeway 
 shining after rain, and all the people in the streets enjoying 
 the beautiful hours, with music [that was really a German 
 band] adding a glory of sound to the glory of light and form 
 and movement." 
 
 The excessive use of 'and' spoils an excellent piece of 
 writing. 
 
 'And' is used as a feeble continuative by writers uncer- 
 tain of the relation between their ideas. 
 
 (28) "Jackson went and examined the pump." That 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 155 
 
 might be true; he might have gone toward the pump and 
 then incidentally he might have examined it; but what the 
 writer really meant was: 
 
 "Jackson went to examine the pump." 
 
 (29) " He told him to be sure and [to] attend to this matter." 
 
 (30) " When costs in California and Europe were compared — 
 $75 here and [as against] Spanish mercury imported at $40 
 per flask — it became evident that an import duty was desirable." 
 
 (31) "It is sometimes [may be] found that the screening 
 from one lot of ore is sufficiently rich to be shipped with the 
 selected ore and [whereas] that from the next lot will be too 
 poor." 
 
 (32) "Practically all the belts are 30 in. wide, 7-ply, and 
 have 3^ in. rubber cover on the carrying side, and yg in. on 
 the pulley side." 
 
 We see what he means, but it can be said more clearly: 
 "The belts are 7-ply and 30 in. wide; they have a yg in. 
 
 cover of rubber on the carrying side and i^ in. on the pulley 
 
 side." 
 
 (33) "The mining world is indebted to the initiative of 
 John Wiley & Sons for meeting so great a want, and they 
 have been fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Peele as 
 the guiding spirit to translate the conception into achievement." 
 
 Here the ^and' is introduced to correct a badly organized 
 statement. When re-written it reads thus: 
 
 "John Wiley & Sons have placed the mining world under 
 obligation by their initiative in meeting so great a want, and 
 they have been fortunate in securing, etc." 
 
 (34) "Wet methods of treating the concentrate were not 
 at all satisfactory, as there was a large amount of black residue 
 in the concentrate that could not be decomposed by sulphuric 
 acid and ferrous sulphate, and which carried high silver values." 
 
 If 'which' is replaced by Hhat', the last clause would refer 
 back to 'residue', but the chief fault lies in tying an important 
 assertion to the end of the opening statement by means of the 
 'and'. He means: 
 
156 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 ''Wet methods of treating the concentrate proved unsatis- 
 factory because it contained a large proportion of black resi- 
 due, rich in silver, that could not be decomposed by sulphuric 
 acid and ferrous sulphate." 
 
 (35) ''It is obvious that the calculations can be shortened 
 when one set of apparatus and conditions are used continu- 
 ously for analyses." 
 
 He is connecting unlike ideas in a confusing manner. 
 
 "It is obvious that the calculations can be simplified by 
 using the same apparatus under identical conditions during a 
 series of analyses." 
 
 Sentences without logical connection should not be linked 
 by a feeble 'and'. The reason for the connection should be 
 made clear by using the proper connective or by inserting an 
 explanatory clause. 
 
 (36) "For the retorting of lean shale, the Scottish retort 
 gives fairly satisfactory results, but it is by no means perfect, 
 and [although] it has been claimed that it is possible to so [so to] 
 improve the retort as to make it less costly both to construct 
 and to operate." 
 
 (37) "It is certainly not wise to construct small plants 
 which are to be operated to recover both oil and nitrogen 
 contents, and it will be especially poor business should it be 
 also necessary to manufacture the acid required for the pro- 
 duction of ammonium sulphate." I suggest: 
 
 "Certainly it is not wise to erect small plants that are 
 to be operated to recover both the oil and the nitrogen con- 
 tents, more particularly in a locality where it becomes neces- 
 sary also to make the acid required in the production of 
 ammonium sulphate." 
 
 Adjectives should follow each other in the order of thought. 
 
 (38) "The orebodies are easily mined and large." 
 
 The 'easy mining' is a consequence of 'largeness', and 
 that is the order in which the adjectives should be given. 
 
 (39) "The ore is subjected to costly and prolonged treat- 
 ment." 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 157 
 
 The idea of costliness follows upon the prolongation of the 
 treatment. 
 
 Such inversion of adjectives is tiresome to the reader and 
 detracts from the force of the statement. 
 
 Place subordinate words in less emphatic positions, leaving 
 the important words where they are clear and disentangled 
 from other words that clog them. Avoid emphasis on words 
 that do not "deserve distinction." Monosyllables usually 
 make a feeble ending for a sentence. Lord Shaftesbury, in 
 his 'Advice to an Author', says: ''If, whilst they [writers] 
 profess only to please, they secretly advise, and give in- 
 struction, they may now, perhaps, as well as formerly, be 
 esteemed, with justice, the best and most honorable among 
 authors." 
 
 That is a complex sentence so well arranged as to be per- 
 fectly clear. 
 
 Adverbs are commonly misplaced. Put the modifying 
 word as near as possible to the word that it modifies. "The 
 ore should properly be dried" does not mean that "the ore 
 should be dried properly". The first refers to the need of a 
 particular operation, the other to the need of conducting the 
 operation in a particular way. "The words and groups of 
 words that are near to one another in thought should be near 
 in expression, and those that are separate in thought should be 
 separate in expression." * 
 
 (40) "Such errors are frequent in the writings even of good 
 authors." 
 
 The "even" should follow "frequent". 
 'Only' and 'always' are commonly misplaced. 
 
 (41) "His exordium would have been admiriable if he 
 only had spoken; but Mr. Asquith's significant reference 
 to future relations aroused speculation instead of stilling it." 
 'New Republic'. 
 
 ' Only ' should precede ' he ' ; the writer means that it would 
 have been better for the purpose if Mr. Lloyd George had 
 * A. S. Hill. 
 
158 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 been the only speaker. As it is, the sentence expresses the wish 
 that he had spoken. 
 
 (42) ''The internal-combustion engine has been intro- 
 duced on a large scale in refrigerating plants only in the last 
 three years." This is correct, but it would be clearer if the 
 'only' came after 'years'; the statement might be taken to 
 mean "in refrigerating plants only". 
 
 (43) "It is necessary to always roast the ore before chlorin- 
 ation" and "It is necessary to roast the ore always before 
 chlorination " are both objectionable. In the first, 'always' 
 splits the infinitive; in the second, it qualifies the wrong word. 
 The sentence should read: 
 
 "Before chlorination, it is necessary always to roast the 
 ore." This introduces 'chlorination' ahead of 'roasting' and 
 is preferable to "It is necessary always to roast the ore before 
 chlorination," because the necessity for roasting arises from the 
 use of chlorination; therefore the ideas should be expressed 
 in that order. As a grammarian would say, "Before chlorina- 
 tion" is the antecedent clause, and "it is necessary, etc." is 
 the consequent clause. 
 
 Do not bring two verbs, belonging to different sentences, 
 into close contact, as in the following quotation from the 
 'New RepubHc': 
 
 (44) "What the more serious evils of that policy are was 
 revealed by the election." 
 
 It were better to have written: 
 
 "The more serious evils of that policy were revealed by the 
 election." 
 
 I shall not castigate the split infinitive; the use or non- 
 use of it is a matter of taste. You should try not only to 
 avoid splitting the infinitive but to keep your verbs intact. 
 Thus do not say "The ore has never been so cheaply milled" 
 but "The ore never has been milled so cheaply." In the first 
 the verb "has been milled" is dismembered into three parts by 
 the intrusion of the adverbs. 
 
 The split infinitive, however, is more than a breach of 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 159 
 
 good taste, despite the sanction of usage as cited by an eminent 
 critic* It suspends the sense. A similar error is that of 
 interpolating words between the definite article and the noun, 
 as in ''the already deep shaft has been sunk another hundred 
 feet." Those who write thus are also Hkely to say: 
 
 (45) ''We today find nothing peculiar in this." 
 
 The emphasis is on 'today', which therefore should come 
 first, instead of separating 'we' from 'find'. It is curious 
 that such splittings, of the infinitive and of other verb phrases, 
 are usually em^ployed for emphasis, which can be obtained much 
 better by other locutions. Such suspensions are "ugly in form 
 as they are awkward in sense." f 
 
 Here is one from the ' New Republic ' : 
 
 (46) "Our men of wealth have accepted profits and income 
 taxation with a better grace than those of any European nation, 
 with the exception of England." 
 
 The reader wonders why it is necessary to say that rich 
 men have accepted "profits and income", and is jarred by the 
 statement, before he reached the word 'taxation'. The quo- 
 tation is an example of sloppy writing. 'Rich men' is better 
 than "men of wealth"; 'except' is better than "with the ex- 
 ception of". The writer wallows in indirect reporter-like 
 phraseology. He might have written: 
 
 "Our rich men have accepted the taxation of their profits 
 and incomes with better grace than those in Europe, except 
 the English." 
 
 Similar suspensions are common in technical writing. 
 
 (47) "As between fine and coarse ore crushing, he recom- 
 mended the Gilpin county type of deep-mortar long-drop 
 stamps." 
 
 Here the interposition of "fine and coarse ore" suspends 
 the sense until "crushing" is reached; similarly a long adjec- 
 tival phrase intervenes between "recommended" and "stamps". 
 
 "As between crushing fine or coarse, he recommended 
 
 * Lounsbury. 
 
 t Allbutt. Op. cit. Page 82. 
 
160 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 stamps of the Gilpin county type, that is, a deep mortar and 
 a long drop." 
 
 (48) ''In the hard ground at Miami it is advisable to use 
 a wide shrinkage slope and pillar system." 
 
 Here the five words preceding ''system" are used as an 
 adjective, suspending the sense too long. It would be better 
 to write "system of wide shrinkage-stopes and pillars". 
 
 (49) "In sending in orders it was very necessary to give 
 full shipping and lyiarking directions." 
 
 'In' and 'very' are redundant. The four words preceding 
 'directions' are an adjectival jumble. He might have written: 
 
 "In sending an order it was necessary to give full direc- 
 tions for shipping and marking." 
 
 Directness of statement is an aid to clearness. As Horn 
 Tooke said: " The first aim of language is to communicate 
 our thoughts; the second, to do so with dispatch." 
 
 (50) "So the new order strikes at the root of much of 
 the difficulty that has disturbed the industrial world since 
 the War began by applying only to the unskilled. ^^ 
 
 The clause italicized should come after 'order', which 
 it explains. 
 
 (51) "It might have been appropriate to have developed 
 [provided that] these particular resources of manganese and 
 platinum, so forcibly cited as an argument for shoving the 
 Bill through the Senate, [should be developed] under the direct 
 control and management of a Government bureau for the 
 pecuniary benefit of the actual owners in law and equity." 
 
 Here the principal word ' developed ' has been misplaced, so 
 as to mar the directness of statement. 
 
 (52) "What is regarded as a significant fact is that as yeX, 
 the President has not yet oflticially announced the re-establish- 
 ment of the present price as effective from June 1 to August 15, 
 although the War Industries Board has so recommended." 
 
 It was the disregarding of the recommendation by the 
 Board that was the significant fact, therefore the statement 
 should be re-arranged thus: 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 161 
 
 "It is significant that the President, notwithstanding the 
 recommendation of the War Industries Board, has not yet 
 announced the official re-estabHshment of the present price 
 effective from June 1 to August 15." 
 
 (53) ''An appHcant had to file a copy of these regulations, 
 to show that they had been compUed with." 
 
 He means: 'Ho show that he had complied with them." 
 
 (54) "Before a hole drilled in the manner described is 
 blasted, the hole is sprung by exploding in the bottom of the 
 hole several charges of dynamite." 
 
 The clause "drilled in the manner described" is inter- 
 jected awkwardly; it is superfluous. The statement can then 
 be corrected thus: 
 
 "Before the hole is blasted, it is 'sprung' by exploding 
 several charges of dynamite in the bottom." 
 
 'Sprung' is treated as an unfamiliar term and is explained 
 by the last clause; therefore the single quotation-marks are 
 desirable. 
 
 (55) "After a hole has been chambered sufficiently, the 
 amount of which depends on the depth of the hole, the hard- 
 ness and the tenacity and the volume of the rock to be broken, 
 the hole is loaded for the final blast." 
 
 This statement contains several unnecessary inversions. 
 The comma after the second ' hole ' is not followed by a second 
 comma after 'hardness', so that the continuity of the state- 
 ment is broken. He might have written : 
 
 "The hole is loaded for the blast after it has been chambered 
 sufficiently, this depending upon the depth of the hole, as well 
 as upon the hardness, tenacity, and volume of the rock to be 
 broken." 
 
 You will find it advantageous to place sundry adverbs, 
 especially those of time or place, either at the end or at the 
 beginning of a clause, gaining emphasis thereby. Thus: 
 
 (56) "Lately the ore has been crushed to 100-mesh" or 
 "The ore has been crushed to 100-mesh lately." 
 
 The first is preferable; either is better than 
 
162 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 ''The ore has lately been crushed to 100-mesh." 
 (57) "The vein is frequently faulted along the upper level." 
 Here the idea to be expressed is the repetition of faulting 
 particularly on the upper level, therefore re-arrange thus: 
 "Along the upper level, the vein is faulted frequently." 
 So the most significant words are placed in the most promi- 
 nent positions, at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. 
 'Along the upper level' and 'frequently' are emphasized. But 
 'frequently' carries the idea of time; substitute 'at many 
 places'. 
 
 Aim at correct emphasis, but do not carry the effort to 
 the extent of cultivating a mannerism. My purpose, in 
 analyzing the foregoing examples, is to suggest the undesir- 
 ability of separating the parts of a verb by an adverb or an 
 adverbial clause. It has become common to say: 
 "It certainly is" 
 "It sure did" 
 and it is just such vulgarisms that mislead the student into 
 illiteracies from which he finds it difficult to escape. 
 
 The habitual use of slang, including a decorative kind 
 of profanity, is detrimental to the acquirement of skill in the 
 correct expression of ideas. Slang beggars the vocabulary; 
 profanity ignores it. The word 'damned' has to stand for a 
 host of adjectives and things 'go to hell' in a thousand ways. 
 
XIII. COMPOSITION. 
 
 Do not write until you have something to say. Think 
 first; then write. In order to be understood, you must know 
 what you wish to say. Clear writing is the consequence of clear 
 thinking. Therefore consider your subject well before you 
 begin to write; ruminate on it; marshal the salient facts in 
 your mind ; saturate yourself with the ideas you wish to express 
 and with cognate ideas; then express yourself deliberately. 
 If you are bubbhng over with your subject the words will 
 come, but you might as well expect to sail without a breeze 
 as hope to give life to words without the living thought. 
 
 Endeavor to visualize the things to be described; consider 
 their relations to one another; let your mind dwell upon the 
 particular phase of their relationship that is to be the subject 
 of your writing. Then prepare an outline of the argument 
 or of the successive stages of the description. Begin the writing 
 with a general statement of the subject to be discussed. Try 
 to strike a clear note; do your tuning where it will not annoy 
 the reader. After making the general statement, proceed to 
 details. Make them vivid; keep them distinct. Then draw 
 your inferences and play upon them until they lead naturally 
 to a definite conclusion, which should embody the purpose and 
 purport of what you have written. 
 
 Before beginning to put your ideas in writing, charge your 
 memory with the words, technical terms, and phrases that will 
 furnish the means for effective expression. To acquire an 
 adequate vocabulary, read what others, preferably good 
 authors, have written on the subject or on a kindred subject. 
 An artist is not expected to utter the message in his soul until 
 he has mastered the technique of his instrument, neither can 
 a writer be expected to express thought fluently and pleas- 
 antly without acquiring the technique of language. 
 
 1()3 
 
164 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 Let Macaulay be your model. Professor Hill says of him: 
 ''What he saw at all he saw distinctly; what he believed he 
 believed with his whole strength; he wrote on subjects with 
 which he had long been familiar; and he made lucidity his 
 primary object in composition. For him, in short, there was 
 no difficulty in securing clearness except that which is inherent 
 in the nature of language. This difficulty he overcame with 
 unusual success, as all his critics admit, and one of the severest 
 of them, John Morley, says that he 'never wrote an obscure 
 sentence in his life'." 
 
 Sentences are said to be of two kinds, the periodic and the 
 loose; but this dictum serves only to illustrate the fallacy of 
 dichotomous division, even though it have the authority of 
 all the rhetorics to back it. The foregoing statement was 
 constructed as an example of the so-called 'loose' composition, 
 because the sense is not sustained unbroken to the end; it 
 could have ended at an earlier pause. A periodic sentence is a 
 product of the art of neatly packing the items that it is to carry 
 in such a way as to leave no loose ends. The foregoing sen- 
 tence is 'periodic' — that is, it ends wdth the completion of its 
 period. However, the terms ' periodic ' and ' loose ' are generally 
 applied to longer and more complex sentences. All good sen- 
 tences should show a careful ordering of their parts with a view 
 to effective expression. To follow persistently one form of 
 construction savors of affectation. Both forms have their charm 
 when used by a master ; both are used variously by every 
 author. Model your style on Macaulay rather than on Mere- 
 dith, on Emerson rather than on Henry James. 
 
 Short sentences are easier to write and easier to under- 
 stand than long ones. " The longer the sentence the more ardu- 
 ous its architecture."* The long sentence is difficult to manage, 
 but it enables the writer to assemble a group of related ideas 
 into a coherent whole and to make a complete unbroken im- 
 pression. Variation in the length of sentences is essential to 
 an agreeable style. Avoid an excess of short asthmatic sen- 
 
 * Allbutt. 
 
COMPOSITION 165 
 
 tences; avoid also long sentences that are packed with a mass 
 of unsorted and unrelated ideas. 
 
 A paragraph should be devoted to one main idea, and it 
 should either begin by introducing the idea that it is intended to 
 develop or its beginning should suggest the direction in which 
 the thought is to move. Here again Macaulay is a good ex- 
 emplar; so is Ruskin. The end of the paragraph, or the last 
 sentence, should complete the preceding thought and bring it 
 to a definite conclusion. The thoughts expressed in the in- 
 termediate sentences, not too insistently, linked by well- 
 chosen connectives, should pass by easy transition through 
 successive steps in the climax to the conclusion. ''In Shake- 
 speare one sentence begets the next naturally; the meaning is 
 all inwoven. He goes on kindling like a meteor through the 
 dark atmosphere." * 
 
 Technical writing is devoted largely to description and 
 exposition. " Good arrangement is at least one-half exposition. 
 Order is often equivalent to explanation." In describing a 
 machine it is advisable to consider the parts in logical order, 
 that is, in the order in which they are set in motion. In 
 describing a mill the description should follow the flow-sheet. 
 In explaining the origin of an ore deposit the physical processes 
 and geologic movements supposed to have been at work in 
 the making of it should be discussed in the sequence of their 
 natural operation. 
 
 Comparison is indispensable in technical description. 
 By references to similar things the reader is helped to under- 
 stand the thing described. An ore deposit is elucidated by 
 mentioning its points of similarity and dissimilarity as com- 
 pared with other deposits likely to be known to the reader. 
 Machines and processes are made inteUigible by comparing 
 them with those with which the reader and the writer are 
 both familiar. Facts by themselves have little meaning; it 
 is in their relation to other facts that we find their true sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 ♦Coleridge. 'Table Talk'. 
 
166 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 The poor quality of much of the technical writing of today 
 is due, I believe, to the intervention of the stenographer. 
 Dictation tends to develop diffuseness and repetition. Many 
 find it easier to use the mouth in talking than the hand in 
 writing. That is why the average dictated letter, unless it 
 be edited and re-written, is verbose. An author who uses pen 
 or pencil can see what has gone before and can compose with a 
 consecutiveness that is conspicuously absent in a dictated 
 composition. Technical men accustomed to dictating their 
 correspondence find it difficult to write an article in long- 
 hand; so they dictate the article also; and the consequence 
 is that the article resembles the dictated letter in failing to be 
 closely knit, clear, or logical. Henry James is said to have 
 dictated his later writings, and this may account in part for 
 their involved style. My own practice is to write with a 
 soft pencil on paper that is not too smooth. The dipping of a 
 pen into the ink introduces an artificial interruption — annoying 
 if it comes in the middle of a sentence. Besides, the point of 
 the pen being hard, the fingers soon tire. The penciled manu- 
 script is given to a typist, and the clean typewritten copy is 
 then revised carefully before it goes to the composing-room. 
 The first draft, the typewritten copy, the printer's proof, each, 
 in turn, represents a stage of increasing dignity in the develop- 
 ment of an article. The earlier a correction is made the better. 
 In former days many of the minor corrections, of speUing and 
 punctuation, even of grammar, were made in the composing- 
 room or the printing-office. The real editors were the type- 
 setters or the proof-readers. But that practice is becoming 
 obsolete. 
 
 Some writers find it convenient to jot down notes on sepa- 
 rate cards or small sheets of paper and then arrange them in 
 orderly sequence. I advise you to try this method. Others, 
 especially the more practised writers, dispense with such 
 aids. As a rule, the beginner will be wise if he prepares an 
 outline of what he intends to write, so as to give sequence and 
 proportion to his treatment of the subject. 
 
COMPOSITION 167 
 
 Clever men think more rapidly than they can write; stupid 
 men write more rapidly than they can think; a good writer will 
 form the habit of regulating the speed of his thinking so that it 
 keeps step with the order of his writing. The abihty to syn- 
 chronize the movements of the brain and of the hand is acquired 
 by experience, which, in time, creates a habit. As Ben Jonson 
 said: "The best writers in their beginnings imposed upon 
 themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly; they 
 obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and 
 a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to 
 them more plentifully; their words answered, their composi- 
 tion followed; and all, in a well-ordered family, presented itself 
 in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes 
 not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing." 
 
XIV. STYLE. 
 
 Technology has no recognized rank in what is called 
 polite literature; the subject-matter of engineering is not 
 supposed to lend itself to artistic treatment : we are the hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water to the high-priests of learning 
 who live on the cold summit above our humbler dwellings. 
 Therefore the hierophants smile at the notion of 'style' — 
 ''that curiously personal thing" — in technical writing. The 
 ''great art" of Pater, the "inevitable phrase" of Raleigh, the 
 "note of distinction" that Arnold demanded, are said to be 
 beyond the scope, as they are supposed to be beside the need, 
 of a writer on geology or engineering. This is a narrow view. 
 Science, no less than belles lettres, calls for the highest flight of 
 the human intelligence; the art of writing should be employed 
 as skilfully and as thoroughly in a description of the structure 
 of the Sierra Nevada, or of the construction of a tunnel through 
 the range, as in a rhapsody welcoming the rosy fingers of the 
 dawn. 
 
 The idea still lingers that fine writing does not befit tech- 
 nology, even though the masters of the Victorian period — 
 Huxley, Tyndall, Ruskin — proved that science is worthy to be 
 arrayed in the best robes that the looms of thought can weave. 
 At the beginning of these lectures I quoted Barrie's remark 
 touching the inability of the scientific man to express himself. 
 That imputation has been passed to the technologist, whose util- 
 itarian pursuits are supposed to make him too clumsy for the 
 refinements of human speech. We may not have acquired the 
 self-consciousness of those writers on Art whose "power of 
 expression is so cultivated that their sensual caterwauhng may 
 be almost mistaken for the music of the spheres"; nor can we 
 imitate the politicians, who have the abihty to speak far beyond 
 anything that they may have to say; but we too have a litera- 
 ture; a literature that is a gold mine of human experience, 
 
 168 
 
STYLE 169 
 
 and we have a conscious aim to use our great inheritance, the 
 English language, in furthering our purpose. Therefore, I 
 submit, we are justified in discussing a matter even so recondite 
 as 'style'.* 
 
 The engineer joins the essayist, the historian, and the poet 
 in bowing to the greatest of all definitions of style: Buffon's 
 " Le style est Vhomme meme " — style is the man himself. Good 
 writing is natural; great writing is sincere. Artificial rules 
 can no more furnish style than a man ''by taking thought 
 can add one cubit unto his stature." Not long ago I had the 
 pleasure of editing an article on the discovery of cyanidation 
 contributed by one of the originators of that process. The 
 article was written without affectation, with a directness and a 
 charm characteristic of the author of it. A correspondent in 
 AustraUa wrote saying: "The charm of which you speak is 
 characteristic of all good writing, whether on familiar or 
 professional subjects. One might also conclude that such 
 qualities of sincerity and kindliness alone can account for liter- 
 ary excellence." The persons concerned in this story are not 
 famous — it was not Tyrrell talking to Carlyle about Swift, for 
 example — but the episode serves to explain Buffon's saying 
 "Style is the man himself." Buffon also said: "Ideas alone 
 are the foundation of style", and Stevenson left a saying that 
 is worth many rules: "If a man can group his ideas, he is 
 a good writer." Without the ideas to bind his assorted facts, 
 the writer fares no better than the Israelites in Egypt when they 
 were expected to make bricks without straw. Given the 
 ideas, the next step is to group them so as to achieve that 
 "perfect lucidity" which Carlyle imputed to Swift. Then 
 comes the search for the fitting word — "^e mot propre " of Flau- 
 
 * "The word 'style' is derived from the instruroent (stilus) of metal, 
 wood, or ivory, by means of which, in classic times, letters and words were 
 imprinted on waxen tablets. By the transition of thought known as 
 metonymy the word has been transferred from the object which makes 
 the impression to the sentences which are impressed by it, and a mechani- 
 cal observation has become an intellectual conception." Gosse. 'Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica'. 
 
170 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 bert — the word that belongs to the thing described, the precise 
 epithet. This was one of Shakespeare's great gifts. So, 
 working backward, we have the proper word, the word in its 
 right place, the idea that gives life to a sequence of words, and, 
 behind all, the soul of a man. 
 
 You may have heard of the author that was obsessed by 
 an unattainable ideal of style. James Huneker tells us that he 
 dreamed of '4ong sweeping phrases, drumming with melody, 
 cadences like the humming of slow uplifting walls of water 
 tumbling on sullen strands". Do not permit yourself to enter- 
 tain such an idea; it is not within the province of the technical 
 writer, and will lead only to insincerity. Sincerity is the key- 
 note to good writing. Those ''lines of chiseled beauty" will 
 come if you attend to the fundamentals and abstain 
 from rhapsody. Anything like a personal or distinctive style 
 cannot be acquired until you have trained yourself to control 
 the gift of expression. 
 
 This advice on 'style' may seem premature; it may be hke 
 some other "road-maps to Parnassus that are useful only 
 after you have got half-way up"; but I repeat: be natural; 
 be yourself; shun artifice; avoid affectation; say frankly what 
 you know or what you have observed; use only words the 
 meaning of which you know ; avoid purple patches and rhetori- 
 cal confectionery. Group the composition about the central 
 idea. Be satisfied with short sentences until you have gained 
 the experience that enables you to swing the longer ones dex- 
 terously. As you gain experience, vary the length of your 
 sentences; the crisp sentence is a relief; the long and resonant 
 period is delightful. Make the thought consecutive and place 
 the sentences in such order that the succession of ideas leads 
 naturally to a definite conclusion. 
 
 Not all engineers are graduates of a university, and many 
 of those who have been so fortunate as to receive a liberal 
 education are not well trained in the use of their own language; 
 they have not had such a training as is founded upon a 
 knowledge of the languages of antiquity, supplemented by care- 
 
STYLE 171 
 
 fill reading of the English classics. To appreciate good writing 
 keenly is a stimulus to developing one's own style. Such 
 preparation is valuable, but it is not essential to the ordinary 
 technical writer, provided he makes the most of his schooling 
 and tries sincerely to avail himself of the means of expression 
 at his command. University education rarely succeeds in pro- 
 ducing men that write succinctly; intelligence and care — 
 which is the supreme mark of intelligence — can accomplish 
 great things. 
 
 Two examples will illustrate my argument. Several years 
 ago I had to edit a long and detailed description of a metal- 
 lurgical device and the operation of it. The article was emi- 
 nently practical and businessUke. The subject did not permit 
 any literary pose, yet the article evidently was the work of a 
 capable craftsman. I found that it needed scarcely any 
 editing, and when it was published I referred gratefully to 
 the excellence of the writing. Happening to discuss the 
 incident with a friend, I was asked by him to guess for what 
 occupation the writer had been trained, and I said: ''The 
 ministry." This guess happened to be right, for the writer had 
 been to Oxford and was intended for the Church before he 
 wandered into a cyanide mill. The article bore the marks of 
 the writer's training; a quiet command of English and a 
 masterful use of it, making a difficult bit of technical exposition 
 as clear and interesting as the subject permitted; and since ''the 
 home of lost causes " is not my alma mater, I may be permitted 
 to acknowledge the value of Oxonian English in the literature 
 of science. 
 
 My other example differs less than may appear at first 
 sight. I have in mind an article describing mining conditions 
 in a Central American republic. Such descriptions are usually 
 made as verbally florid as the vegetation of the tropics and 
 as involved as the jungle itself; at best, it is customary to 
 bespatter them with unnecessary Spanish words and to deal 
 in gorgeous generalities befitting the unlimited mineral resources 
 of an inaccessible region. From these common faults this 
 
172 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 article was free. The sentences were short and to the point. 
 The statements conveyed information without exaggeration. 
 ThiB writer kept what he knew at first hand separate from 
 what he had merely been told; he gave just the information for 
 which the average intelligent reader would ask, and a touch 
 of humor was not lacking in his references to the queer things 
 that happen on a Central American frontier. It was like the 
 sensible talk of an intelligent traveler who has kept his eyes 
 open and his notebook handy. The writer had not received 
 a special training in the language of his own country nor in that 
 of another; as a graduate from a technical college in Michigan 
 he had acquired rather more of contempt than of love for the 
 use of proper words in proper places, and yet, by dint of native 
 intelligence and the desire to do his task well — the true pro- 
 fessional spirit — he had succeeded in preparing an article that 
 in its way was as good as that of the Oxford man. Both men 
 were unaffected, both kept in mind the purpose of their writing, 
 and both knew what they w^ere talking about. The moral is 
 that bad writing is due to insincerity, carelessness, or ignorance. 
 In the matter of the relative pronouns, as in that of prepo- 
 sition-verbs and hyphens — indeed, in almost everything con- 
 cerning which I have endeavored to instruct you — you will 
 find example — even authority — to the contrary. Writing is a 
 flexible instrument of expression, and the same thing can be 
 said in many ways. The great art is to write the thing in the 
 way that makes it most easily understood by the reader — 
 the particular reader or the class of readers for whom it is 
 intended. In order to learn, we must, of course, look backward 
 for precedents and for critical judgments, but we should also 
 occasionally turn and look forward, and in that forward look- 
 ing we should keep our eyes on the purpose of our work. 
 Whether one great writer fail to distinguish between the 
 relative pronouns or another use preposition-verbs like a Ger- 
 man, does not matter greatly unless it hinder us in writing 
 clearly on technical subjects. Amid the distortions of English 
 and the uncertainties of rhetorical doctrine we shall not cry 
 
STYLE 173 
 
 despairingly "Whither are we drifting?" Rather let us ask 
 hopefully "Whither shall we steer?" The answer is prompt: 
 "Out of the fog, into the sunshine of clear plain English." 
 
 Technical writing rarely conforms to the higher requirements 
 of literature, largely because it is difficult to persuade techni- 
 cians to conform to the lower requirements of plain scientific 
 statement. George M. Wood, the editor of the U. S. Geological 
 Survey's publications, confesses that "the purist or stylist 
 would not be satisfied with the work done. The split infinitive 
 may remain, unless it is very awkwardly split ; the doubtful sin- 
 gular or plural may go unchallenged — whether three feet of 
 sandstone are seen or is seen makes no difference to the editor 
 so long as the verb is everywhere seen in the same number in 
 the same paper; the restrictive 'which' that might be 'that' 
 may go to print unless it conveys or suggests a wrong idea; 
 'whose' may be used for either persons or things without 
 editorial protest, if not with commendation. Whether some- 
 thing 'had better' or 'would better' be done; whether work 
 was 'commenced' or 'begun'; whether the indicative should 
 be used where a writer of the old school would prefer the sub- 
 junctive are questions that consume none of the time of the 
 editors. Great latitude of expression and of style must be 
 allowed, and the individuahty of the author must be preserved — 
 unless his individuality should consist principally in the repeti- 
 tion of faults of the kinds here described." 
 
 In the course of these lectures, I have quoted many examples 
 of bad writing. You will have noticed that most of the faults 
 criticised are due to carelessness rather than ignorance. 
 Thoughtlessness is fatal in matters that demand thought. 
 Slovenly writing is the result of slovenly thinking, for " slovenly 
 habits of expression corrode the very substance of thought." * 
 It behooves us to remember that language in relation to ideas 
 is a solvent, the purity and clearness of which affect the matter 
 in solution. Whewell, in the 'Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences', has expressed this view with noble eloquence. 
 
 * Allbutt. 
 
174 TECHNICAL WRITING 
 
 ''Language", he said, ''is often called an instrument of thought, 
 but it is also the nutriment of thought; or rather it is the 
 atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium essential to the 
 activity of our speculative powers, although invisible and im- 
 perceptible in its operation, and an element modifying, by its 
 qualities and changes, the growth and complexion of the 
 faculties which it feeds." 
 
 In considering this phase of the subject there comes to 
 mind a suggestion that takes us far beyond the confines of the 
 matter under discussion. Man's power of speech appears to 
 divide him from all other living things; at the same time the 
 imperfection of it weighs him down continually with the sense 
 of an essential frailty. To be able to express oneself perfectly 
 v^ould be divine; to be unable to make oneself completely 
 understood is human. In 'Man's Place in Nature' Huxle}^ 
 points out that the endowment of intelligible speech separates 
 man from the brutes most nearly resembling him, the anthropoid 
 apes, to whom he is otherwise akin in substance and in struc- 
 ture. This endowment of speech and the art of recording him- 
 self in writing enable man to transmit the experience that in 
 other animals is lost with the individual life; they have enabled 
 him to organize his knowledge and to hand it down to his de- 
 scendants, first by word of mouth and then by written words. 
 If the experience thus recorded w^ere properly used, man's 
 advancement in knowledge and in conduct would allow him to 
 emphasize, much more than at present, his superiority over the 
 dumb animals. Considered thus, language is a factor in the 
 evolution of the race and an instrument that works for ethical 
 progress — it is a gift to be cherished as the ladder by which man 
 has climbed from his bestial origin and by which he may 
 ascend to a loftier destiny, in which, ceasing to stammer in 
 accents that are but the halting expression of swift thought, 
 he shall unfold his mind in the fullness of speech, and, neither 
 withholding what he wants to say nor saying what he wants to 
 withhold, shall be Unked to his fellows by a perfect communion 
 of ideas. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Edwin A., 71 
 Abbreviations, 52 
 Abridgements, 118, 119 
 Abstracts v. concrete, 31, 33, 35, 
 
 128, 140, 144, 152 
 Adjectival clause, 116 
 Adjectives 
 
 compounded, 112 
 
 inversion of, 157 
 'Advent', 14, 127 
 Adverbs, 161 
 Affectation, 11 
 Allbutt, Sir Clifford, 8, 10, 33, 
 
 129, 159 
 'Alongside ',93 
 Americanisms, 129 
 
 And', 154 
 
 Anglo-Saxon words, 7 
 Aristotle, 13 
 Arrangement, 165 
 Article, indefinite, 86 
 
 Barrie, Sir James, 1, 168 
 Britishisms, 63, 129 
 
 Carelessness, 128 
 'Case', 144 
 'Certain', 49 
 'Certainly', 49 
 Christy, S. B., 2 
 'Chute', 132 
 
 55. 
 
 Clause 
 
 adjectival, 116 
 
 antecedent, 76 
 37, j definitive, 67, 70, 84 
 
 non-defining, 70 
 
 relative, 70 
 
 restrictive, 69, 73, 75, 81 
 
 subordinate, 68 
 
 superfluous, 142, 161 
 Clearness, 19, 46, 57, 79, 97, 109, 111, 
 
 127, 160 
 Commas, 70, 72, 161 
 Composition, 12, 163, 170 
 Compound words, 109, 114 
 'Concentrates', 38 
 Concord, 44 
 Condensation, 114 
 Confusion of thought, 23 
 Connection, logical, 156 
 Connectives, 85 
 'Considerable', 50 
 'Contemplate', 14, 148 
 
 'Data', 5 
 Definitions, 28 
 * Differentiate,' 128 
 Difficulty of writing, 5 
 Directness of statement, 160 
 'Discount', 128 
 Double negative, 24 
 Doubtful meaning, 77 
 175 
 
176 
 
 INDEX 
 
 'Doubtless', 48 
 'Due', 121 
 
 Economy of effort, 10 
 
 Elaboration, 17 
 
 Elegance, 63 
 
 'Eliminate', 148 
 
 Emphasis, 48, 105, 124, 157, 162 
 
 'Encounter', 141 
 
 Euphony, 80 
 
 Exactness, 36 
 
 Expression, 168 
 
 precise, 9 
 Extravagance, 141 
 
 Figures of speech, 138 
 Fine writing, 14, 168 
 Fluency, 19 
 Foote, Arthur DeW., 2 
 
 Gayley, Charles M., 76 
 Good style, 29 
 Good writing, 20 
 'Great', 48 
 
 Hill, A. S., 2, 67, 78, 97, 157, 164 
 
 Hodgson, 71 
 
 Huxley, Thomas H., 8, 17, 83, 105, 
 
 174 
 Hyphens, 107, 113, 136 
 
 Idioms, 44, 48, 94, 99, 104, 105 
 Incoherence, 150 
 Infinitive, 88, 118 
 
 split, 158 
 'Inside', 93 
 
 Introductory phrases, 123, 124 
 Inversions, 161 
 'It', 56 
 
 James, Henry, 4, 53, 166 
 Jargon, 59, 134, 148 
 Johnson, Samuel, 16, 28 
 Jonson, Ben, 13, 167 
 
 Kelley, James P., 79, 90, 151, 153 
 
 'Late', 24 
 
 Latin inflections, 149 
 Latin words, 6, 82, 95 
 'Latter', 55 
 'Locate', 131 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas B., 21, 55, 164 
 Meredith, George, 16 
 'Met with', 104 
 Meticulous precision, 30 
 'Muck', 136 
 
 Natural writing, 12, 13 
 Naturalness, 11 
 'Nature', 144 
 Newspapers, usage of, 123 
 Nicety of phrasing, 3 
 Notes, use of, 166 
 Nouns 
 
 adjectival, 118 
 
 collective, 45 
 
 Obscurity, 127 
 'Occur', 123 
 'One', 61, 63 
 'Only', 23 
 'Outside', 93 
 
 Paragraph, 165 
 
 'Partial', 24 
 
 Participial phrases, 120 
 
 Participles, 119 
 
 Pencil, use of, 166 
 
 'Percentage', 31 
 
 'Phenomenon', 21 
 
 Plural, unnecessary, 26, 38, 40, 42, 89 
 
 Precise expression, 9 
 
 Precision, 29, 63, 75, 79, 86 
 
 Preposition- verbs, 94 
 
 Prepositions, 94 
 
 function of, 92 
 
 misplaced, 104 
 
INDEX 
 
 177 
 
 'Probably', 51 
 'Problem', 147 
 Pronouns 
 
 indefinite, 60 
 
 relative, 64, 71, 78, 86, 172 
 
 relative, omission of, 89 
 
 relative, substitute for, 86, 88 
 'Prosecute', 16, 139 
 Provincialism, 128, 129 
 Punctuation, 65, 70, 72, 161 
 Purpose of writing, 4 
 
 Qualifying phrases, 51, 53 
 Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, 7, 37, 134, 
 
 141 
 Quotations, use of, 11 
 
 'Rather', 47, 51 
 Raymond, R. W., 12 
 Redundancy, 27, 125, 143 
 Relative 
 
 clause, 70 
 
 pronouns, 64, 71, 78, 86, 172 
 
 pronouns, omission of, 39 
 
 pronouns, substitute for, 86, 88 
 Repetition of word, 57 
 Revision, 12 
 
 Re-writing, 77, 78, 88, 90 
 Rules, 113 
 
 Rules for writing, 76, 90 
 Ruskin, John, 15, 21, 30, 80 
 
 'Section', 132 
 Self-restraint, 130 
 Sentences, 164 
 
 arrangement of, 88 
 
 beginning of, 122 
 
 construction of, 149 
 
 co-ordinate, 71 
 
 doubtful, 76 
 Sincerity, 30 
 'Situation', 146 
 Slang, 162 
 'Slimes', 38 
 
 Slovenliness, 35, 118, 139 
 'Some', 50 
 'Sometimes', 26 
 'Somewhat', 47 
 Specific phrase, 50 
 Spencer, Herbert, 9, 10, 36 
 Split infinitive, 158 
 Stevenson, R. L., 7 
 Style, 8, 29, 31, 39 
 
 good, 68 
 
 natural, 11, 12 
 Superlatives, 46 
 Suspensions, 159 
 Synonyms, 131 
 
 'Tank', 130, 131 
 
 Taste in writing, 126 
 
 'Tend', 121 
 
 Terms, definition of, 28 
 
 Terseness, 3 
 
 'That', 69, 73, 77 
 
 'That' and 'which', 64, 80, 83, 155 
 
 'They', 62 
 
 Transposition, 102 
 
 'Tunnel', 133 
 
 Uncouthness, 14 
 Unemphatic words, 121 
 'Unique', 47 
 Usage, 
 
 homely, 106 
 
 of newspapers, 128 
 
 Vagueness, 41, 49 
 'Value', 31, 33 
 Vsrbosity, 20 
 Verbs, 158 
 
 after plural, 44 
 'Very', 26, 46, 48 
 Vocabulary, 20, 163 
 Vulgarisms, 42, 130 
 
 Wells, H. G., 20 
 'Which', 67 
 'While', 60, 122 
 
178 
 
 INDEX 
 
 'Who', 75 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 12 
 
 'With', 58, 60 
 
 Wood, George M., 27, 120, 144, 173 
 
 Woolley, E. C, 106 
 
 Words, 
 
 compound, 109, 114 
 
 foreign, 60 
 
 of similar sound, 22 
 
 repetition of, 57 
 
 significant, 123, 127 
 
 superfluous, 143 
 
 unfamiliar, 17 
 
 'Write-ups', 137 
 Writing 
 
 bad, 137, 173 
 
 diflSculty of, 5 
 
 ease of, 79 
 
 fine, 14, 168 
 
 first principle of, 10 
 
 good, 20 
 
 keynote of, 11 
 
 natural, 12, 13 
 
 persuasive, 13 
 
 purpose of, 4 
 
 taste in, 126 
 
W^iley Special Subject Catalogues 
 
 For convenience a list of the Wiley Special Subject 
 Catalogues, envelope size, has been printed. These 
 are arranged in groups — each catalogue having a key 
 symbol. (See special Subject List Below). To 
 obtain any of these catalogues, send a postal using 
 the key symbols of the Catalogues desired. 
 
 1 — ^Agriculture. Animal Husbandry. Dairying. Industrial 
 Canning and Preserving. 
 
 2 — Architecture. Building. Masonry. 
 
 3 — Business Administration and Management. Law. 
 
 Industrial Processes: Canning and Preserving; Oil and Gas 
 Production; Paint; Printing; Sugar Manufacture; Textile. 
 
 CHEMISTRY 
 4a General; Analytical, Qualitative and Quantitative; Inorganic; 
 
 Organic. 
 4b Electro- and Physical; Food and Water; Industrial; Medical 
 
 and Pharmaceutical; Sugar. 
 
 CIVIL ENGINEERING 
 
 5a Unclassified and Structural Engineering. 
 
 5b Materials and Mechanics of Construction, including; Cement 
 and Concrete; Excavation and Earthwork; Foundations; 
 Masonry. 
 
 5c Railroads; Surveying. 
 
 5d Dams; Hydraulic Engineering; Pumping and Hydraulics; Irri- 
 gation Engineering; River and Harbor Engineering; Water 
 
 Supply. 
 
 (Over) 
 
CIVIL BNGINKKRING— Continued 
 5e Highways; Municipal Engineering; Sanitary Engineering; 
 Water Supply. Forestry. Horticulture, Botany and 
 Landscape Gardening. 
 
 6 — Design. Decoration. Drawing: General; Descriptive 
 Geometry; Kinematics; Mechanical. 
 
 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING— PHYSICS 
 
 7 — General and Unclassified; Batteries; Central Station Practice; 
 Distribution and Transmission; Dynamo-Electro Machinery; 
 Electro-Chemistry and Metallurgy; Measuring Instruments 
 and Miscellaneous Apparatus. 
 
 8 — Astronomy. Meteorology. Explosives. Marine and 
 Naval Engineering. Military. Miscellaneous Books. 
 
 MATHEMATICS 
 9 — General; Algebra; Analytic and Plane Geometry; Calculus; 
 Trigonometry; Vector Analysis. 
 
 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 
 10a General and Unclassified; Foundry Practice; Shop Practice. 
 10b Gas Power and Internal Combustion Engines; Heating and 
 
 Ventilation; Refrigeration. 
 10c Machine Design and Mechanism; Power Transmission; Steam 
 
 Power and Power Plants; Thermodynamics and Heat Power. 
 11 — Mechanics. 
 
 12 — Medicine. Pharmacy. Medical and Pharmaceutical Chem- 
 istry. Sanitary Science and Engineering. Bacteriology and 
 Biology. 
 
 MINING ENGINEERING 
 
 13 — General; Assaying; Excavation, Earthwork, Tunneling, Etc.; 
 Explosives; Geology; Metallurgy; Mineralogy; Prospecting; 
 Ventilation. 
 

 
 
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