Have borrowed a copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy (thank you). I've been meaning to read it for some time. I started it on the Tube.
Chesterton is one of those who exhibit the particular virtues of English prose, that is, of the English language well used.
Not the best example in the book, but take this:
"Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims that are not true."
What struck me about this was the placing of the word "even" – "even the world". Some might think the world was everything, but this modest modifier makes all the difference. And then, just where you would expect to find the word "even" in contemporary prose, it's absent. Someone writing the same thoughts today, out of sheer verbal habit, would probably express it as, "that are not even true". This would be done in the name of emphasis, but the emphasis being habitual, it is actually redundant. Read the sentence again and you'll find it is, indeed, better without that second "even" before "true". The emphasis is stronger for the words here being plainer.
When I say English prose in this case, I mean English language and also the prose that is culturally British. I'm hard pressed to name the virtues alluded to, but I know them when I see them. I suppose I would say, clarity and economy of expression. I think it was T.S. Eliot who described Larkin's poetry as "homely and elegant" but I may be misremembering. In any case, the description also applies to Chesterton's writing. Put another way, I would say that the prose tends to aphorism – that it is quotable.
Here are some more examples that struck me:
"Materialists and madmen never have doubts."
On the philosophy of material determinism:
"For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will."
And how about this sort of thing:
"The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say 'if you please' to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness."
it’s not so much knowing the rules as it is an uncanny knack for searching quickly in the mind for a clean way to express something. and i think it has a lot to do with osmosis.
I’ve been thinking recently about the way journalists are using the word “cynical”. I read yesterday that the Norwegian gunman had “cynically” planted a bomb to distract the authorities. It seems to have become an umbrella term for anything vaguely negative.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:it’s not so much knowing the rules as it is an uncanny knack for searching quickly in the mind for a clean way to express somethingYes, I think that’s true. If you know what you want to say, it makes it easier to eliminate what you don’t want to say, with the result that what’s left tends to look pleasingly lean and often quite original.Originally posted by lesoldatperdu:I’ve been thinking recently about the way journalists are using the word “cynical”. I read yesterday that the Norwegian gunman had “cynically” planted a bomb to distract the authorities. It seems to have become an umbrella term for anything vaguely negative.Yes, I suppose the line of evolution comes from the misanthropic aspect of original cynicism. As I understand it, cynicism was originally, not so much a system, but an attitude of honesty, asceticism and sceptical individualism, a disregarding of social convention, also. I suppose planting a bomb could be seen as disregarding social convention, but I don’t think that’s the sense in which it is meant here.I think that social convention is associated with sincerity in that it allows people to present an attitude that is publicly pleasing, which is not altogether and always a bad thing (manners, it seems to me, are part of this, and, in my opinion, are good). The original cynics were actually in some sense what Momus would call ‘rockists’, preoccupied with authenticity, but because that aunthenticity was misanthropic (Diogenes searching the marketplace in daylight with a lamp, trying to ‘find an honest man’) it came to be seen as insincere, from which the more recent meaning of ‘cynical’ seems to derive – as in “a cynical advertising executive” who has no faith in human nature, but is merely manipulating in a way that is not socially sincere. But the usage you cite is certainly a bit of a stretch. ‘Calculatingly’, I suppose they meant.
It seems that in many cases they’re conflating “cynical” and “venal”.Ah, I think I know the word that “cynical” has come to replace — dishonourable! Yes, it seems that the concept of honour is now so archaic that we can hardly identify it.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Norwegian gunman had “cynically” planted a bomb to distract the authorities. he planted the bomb with heinous cunning… would have made more sense.