newspaper composition—the art of writing in simple yet entertaining fashion

the young man just starting in journalism is asked to write in the simplest words and the shortest sentences at his command. he is told that the reader wants facts rather than elegances of expression and that the plainest language is the best newspaper style.

by plain language is not meant the language of the child’s primer, but rather the use of good saxon concrete nouns and active verbs in sentences not embellished with verbose phrases. nevertheless, when editors tell the young reporter to use the plainest language they mean usually that they will be satisfied with it in his routine reporting. but they encourage the study of “how to produce rich effects by the use of familiar words,” how to write not only with steadiness and strength, but also with those little embellishments of incidental word and phrase that lift the work above the commonplace. and they unceasingly urge the necessity of good writing—for not anywhere is good writing appreciated more than in a newspaper office.

to write the simple language requires much study52 and practice—more, indeed, than to write the other kind. it is natural for people, children especially, to use simple words, but the schools and colleges have taught, until within a few years, the writing of rather high-sounding prose. textbooks have reflected dr. johnson’s ornate paragraphs, macaulay’s massive profundities, washington irving’s beautifully rounded florid sentences, and sir walter scott’s superlatives. for years and years they were commended to students of literature for imitation. the effect of this teaching remains. we find it difficult to write in the same simplicity with which we talk. it does not come natural to us. the editor gave fine advice to the cartoonist from whom he wanted an article. said the cartoonist: “he just offered me one suggestion—inasmuch as i was not a regular writer—that i refrain from trying to write and simply tell in my own words as though i were telling it to my wife.” that’s it: refrain from trying to write if you wish to write in simple language and simple style.

it is well enough to write as you talk if you are a good talker. hundreds of articles of advice in the last fifty years have urged young men to write as they talk. but almost all talk is without study, is commonplace, is not the expression of consecutive thought, is disjointed construction. it is recognized that dictated articles have less finish than those penned. nevertheless, the direct way, the simplest way is undoubtedly the best way of writing. emerson says: “the speech of the street is incomparably more forceful than the53 speech of the academy.” lafcadio hearn says of kipling: “no one has managed to produce great effects with so few words.”

but why speak of it as “newspaper style,” when there isn’t any such thing? almost every kind of writing is used by newspapers. all kinds of literature are printed in them—the scholarly essay, the article of argument, the expository editorial paragraph, the story of fiction, the language of verse, the consideration of art, music, the play, all sorts of description of all kinds of happenings in every part of our old earth—and all are written without uniformity of diction or construction. there is no style that the newspaper rejects. the experienced editor seeks diversity of writing and of topic in every column. he studies to that end.

some style of writing is so plain that you do not notice it. it is like the well dressed man whose clothing is so simple and appropriate that it is not attracting attention wherever he goes. merimee said of stendhal that he despised mere style and insisted that a writer had attained perfection when we remember his ideas without recalling his phrases. of george saintsbury, the english critic, it was said: “he always thought it of more importance to utter the thought than to care about the form of utterance.... if he had given more attention to style we should have been deprived of some of the benefits of his knowledge.”

indeed, some great newspaper narratives are of such absorbing interest in themselves—great disasters like54 the sinking of the lusitania or the titanic—that the reader’s attention is entirely concentrated on the facts and he does not notice the diction or the construction. no matter how disjointed or horribly written the narrative may be he finishes it with the impression that he has read a great article. nevertheless, every article is the better for good telling. and probably no greater newspaper accomplishment exists than the ability to write well. it is of increasing value as the young man goes on to higher grade work.

sir arthur quiller-couch in a lecture to the cambridge students urges them to study writing and to practice writing, to write and rewrite with intent to gain facility in diction and in the fashioning of sentences, and especially to seek to make their prose “accurate, perspicuous, persuasive, and appropriate.” he would insure greater accuracy by the study and practice of the use of words. thought and speech being inseparable, it follows that we cannot use the humblest processes of thought—cannot resolve to take our bath hot or cold, or decide what to order for breakfast—without forecasting it in some form of words. words, in fine, he urges, are the only currency in which we can exchange thought even with ourselves. does it not follow, then, that the more accurately we use words the closer definition we shall give to our thoughts? “and by drilling ourselves to write perspicuously we train our minds to clarify our thought, since language is the expression of thought. the first aim of speech is to be understood and the more clearly we write the more55 easily and surely we will be understood. not to be understood is to be a sloven in speech.”

lafcadio hearn urged the students of the university of tokyo to study the construction of sentences—to write them over and over again until they were nearly perfect, saying:

a thing once written is not literature.... no man can produce real literature at one writing.... to produce even a single sentence of good literature requires that the text be written at least three times.... for literature more than for any other art the all-necessary thing is patience.

he advised the students to write a practice piece and put it away for a week. then to revise it and put it away again, and to continue the process of revision until they could improve it no more.

tolstoy rewrote his important work three or four times. rossetti revised “the blessed damosel” in many editions until the last was quite unlike the first. tennyson changed his productions over and again. gray was fourteen years in perfecting the “elegy.” it is notorious that sir walter scott’s later novels, written at great speed, are much inferior to his earlier more leisurely work. samuel butler’s masterpiece “the way of all flesh” was under construction for twelve years.

all literary history furnishes examples of great authors who toiled long over their manuscripts. macaulay devoted more time to revising his essays than to writing them. their superiority over his history, as literary products, is revealed by study of them. the history56 was written more hurriedly. the essays are the product of nearly one hundred years ago, but they serve to illustrate the possibilities of our language and the beauties of thoughtful writing and intense thinking. we look elsewhere in vain for such adroit phrasing and such thunder-claps of climax. study them, young man!

some present-day writers criticize macaulay for his long-drawn sentences, his reiteration and his wanderings from the narrative into a confusion of details. yet macaulay was imitated by essayists for fifty years. his style was the vogue. and macaulay in turn had both praised and criticized in no feeble fashion his great predecessor, dr. samuel johnson, who had been the vogue for nearly a hundred years.

the men of greatest reputation as critics, sainte-beuve, edmund gosse, macaulay, saintsbury and others, put intensive study into what they wrote. if they were to review a book they made a study of the subject of the book and of the life and mentality of the author: and sometimes their production was of more use to the world than the book itself. their works are not so much read in this money-making age, but they are among the great contributions to thoughtful literature and the student of journalism will read them with great profit to himself. for your own work is to be thoughtful work—work intended to persuade and influence readers to your own way of thinking.

writing for newspapers differs from other literary work in this: the newspaper writer has little opportunity for revision. almost all articles for daily sheets57 are written at a single sitting. the writers of editorial articles have several hours in which to compose and usually they get a proof sheet for revision. the writers of short news articles may read and correct their manuscript. but in the big offices as soon as the reporter who is writing an article of any considerable length has finished two or three pages they are grabbed by an office boy, hurried to a copy reader who revises them as best he may and rushes them to the composing room to be typed. the writer does not see his pages again, does not read them over, even, after writing them. all big reports—stories of great disasters, of football matches, of public meetings or demonstrations are prepared with this haste.

the play house and opera critics compose under these same trying conditions with no opportunity for leisurely thought or revision. it is difficult, indeed, to write of a great performance in a whirlwind of hurry, with less than two hours for deliberate and consecutive thought. the french critic’s way of presenting a news paragraph in the edition following the performance and reserving a carefully prepared review for a later-date publication commends itself; but the american newspapers continue to print exhaustive comments on first-night performances two or three hours after the fall of the curtain. the opera critic has the advantage of attending rehearsals of new operas and he may prepare parts of his article in advance, but rehearsals are spiritless, for performers have not the inspiration and response of the audience.

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intensity of thought and concentration must engross the newspaper writer. he must prepare himself by study and practice to throw every atom of his mental vitality into the work, to write immediately and without expectation of revision exactly what should appear in the newspaper. mind discipline is a powerful factor. the man must school himself to work under conditions of mental anguish, physical distress, heart sorrow or unhappiness of any sort. he cannot surrender to moods, whims, or to physical sensations. he must continue hour after hour, day after day, with the same hurry-up speed. as in crowded broadway, if you cannot keep up with the procession you must be trodden on or take to a side street, so must the active newspaper man everlastingly keep going. it is largely a matter of mind discipline, of study and of practice, of intense mental concentration and of swiftness of thought.

please do not undervalue the priceless benefits of practice—of practice that will give skill in saying exactly what you want to say the first time you say it. in leisurely writing you may rewrite and change and make perfect, but in newspaper writing you have one dash only at it without much opportunity for change or revision. your reputation as a newspaper writer hangs on that one attempt. you can cultivate the gift of ready speech in writing just as many a finished orator has cultivated it in speaking.

it is said of president woodrow wilson that early in his youth he appreciated the advantages of ready speech and set about to improve himself in its use. he59 practiced speaking long and constantly. in the seclusion of his room he conducted imaginary debates, talking to himself on first one side and then the other of some public question. on his walks, while a student, he addressed the crags and peaks, the winding rivers, the peaceful meadows—all for practice in the quick use of language, the shading of sentences and the putting of emphasis on climaxes of thought and conclusion. and he became one of the most interesting and convincing and scholarly public speakers this country, or any other country for that matter, has ever known.

the young writer should seek to rise above the commonplace. it was said of machiavelli that “having adopted some of the maxims then generally received he arranged them more luminously and expressed them more forcibly than any other writer.” the young writer should cultivate the art of making his words and sentences exude the very spirit of the occasion—the art of describing joyous events with joyous words and of shadowing melancholy happenings in the language of gloom. he should seek the faculty of “making obscure truth pleasing, of making repulsive truth attractive.” let him follow the counsel of a distinguished critic who says:

choose concrete nouns rather than vague, abstract woolly ones.

use straightforward speech rather than circumlocution.

remember that the first virtue, the touchstone of masculine style is the use of the active verb and concrete noun. when you write in the active voice, “they gave him a silver60 teapot” you write as a man. when you write, “he was made the recipient of a silver teapot” you write jargon.

avoid overworked words is common advice to young journalists. an article in the writer has much to say of ways by which the constant use of the word “said” may be prevented. “said” sometimes becomes monotonous, especially in the dialogue of fiction; but almost always another verb may be found to express the author’s meaning. the writer printed a list of three hundred and eighty-two verbs, found in about fifty magazine stories, which had been used instead of “said.” frequently the use of a verb helps to make more concise as well as to avoid the word “said.” “‘it hurts,’ said john, in a complaining tone,” is not so good as “‘it hurts,’ john complained.” again, “‘please help me,’ said the beggar in pitiful beseeching appeal,” is better expressed by “‘please help me,’ the beggar pleaded.” the language is rich in verbs.

another greatly overworked word, and a slow word as well, is the word “show.” it does seem as though the average newspaper writer cannot think of any other word when he writes that “this action”—or “this event”—or “this conclusion”—or “this computation shows that”—etc., when he might say, attests, evinces, betokens, bespeaks, implies, indicates, proves—or any other suitable verb of the twenty-five or more he may find in a thesaurus.

constant looseness of speech is found in the use of explanatory phrases that might be expressed by a61 single verb. the verb is the heart of language life, the soul of expression. why, for instance, do we write, “he reflected on the situation” when “he cogitated” would express all?

let us illustrate a bit more:

he spoke reprovingly to the boy. he chided the boy.

he spoke in a mocking, deriding manner. he jeered.

his breath came convulsively and brokenly. he gasped.

they exchanged idle words and gossip. they babbled.

he gave utterance again to the thought. he echoed the thought.

he was filled with wonder. he marveled.

he busied himself with the affairs of his neighbors. he meddled.

he thought over the situation. he meditated.

he uttered a suppressed groan. he moaned.

she spoke in low indistinct words. she mumbled.

his was an exhibition of empty talk. he palavered.

i am aware that these things are elementary—exceedingly elementary, but they are of utmost import to young newspaper writers. slovenly, disjointed, confused diction must retard your progress.

it was constant study that made dana and greeley the great journalists that they were. neither of them wasted a minute. if at the close of the day’s work dana’s final proof sheet was promised to him in seven minutes he withdrew from the little revolving book-rack on his desk a copy of the greek testament and utilized62 the seven minutes by reading it. never was a question of fact raised but he joined in the search for the truth of it in the most enthusiastic manner. his zeal and his interest were a source of inspiration to the staff. with him study was the key to every problem.

when in 1880 he asked me to be the managing editor of the sun, the answer was:

“mr. dana, i do not know enough to be your managing editor.”

“what do you mean by that?” was his question.

“i mean that the managing editor of your newspaper should have wide, extensive, general information. i know very little about politics, or finance, or art, for instance. a managing editor should have expert knowledge of them.”

“what is the objection to your devoting a little time each day to the study of these things in which you feel yourself deficient,” was mr. dana’s calm reply. “i did not know so much about them myself, when i first came to the city as i do to-day.”

i now appreciate that whatever progress i afterward made in the business came largely from this suggestion; and i feel like passing it along to the young man who aspires to newspaper honors. how true it is that to achieve you must study to the limit of your resources; you must think to the limit of your intelligence; you must strive to the limit of your endurance—then you have done your best and that marks the measure of your success.

study—persistent, laborious, intelligent study—is the key to success in writing. occasionally a genius63 startles the public with a spontaneous facility for the use of words and sentences, but the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine of us newspaper plodders must achieve our purposes by the hardest kind of hard work. we must study the derivation of words, the varied uses of words. and if we are to keep up with these snappy times we must hunt for strong masculine nouns, and rapid-fire verbs, and staccato adjectives, and sudden adverbs. almost always we can find a better word than the one that first suggests itself, if we hunt for it. almost always we may shorten and simplify a sentence if we study it.

the word spoken may be forgotten. the word written stands for all time. the orator may move his hearers by eloquence, by gesture, by facial expression, by the tricks of public speaking, even though his actual words be feeble or not well chosen, or his conclusions be not convincing. his words may be forgotten—certainly will not be remembered unless preserved—but they have been reinforced by his arts of eloquence, maybe by his audacity of speech, by his personality, and the net result is favorable. the orator’s bluff may at times serve him well, but the words of the writer must stand on their own merit for all time. type inspires little emotion. there are few typographical tricks that cause heart-flutter or mental spasm. just plain words alone—words, words, words, nearly every one of which is already familiar to the reader, must make the writer’s success or failure. how important that every word be studied.

the young journalist cannot be urged too strongly64 to study the use of words. every word in the language has its correct use; a vast number are used incorrectly. you will find it a most interesting study. if you doubt its interest, be so good as to open your dictionary to any haphazard page and read intently for fifteen minutes. you will find words the existence of which you had not known, the meanings of which you had not understood. observe the derivation and the primary meaning of the word and you cannot miss the proper use. you cannot put time to better purpose, if you seek for excellence in english composition, than by studying the english dictionary a few minutes every day.

when a writer is sure of his information, is sincere in his attitude, and is eager and enthusiastic for its presentation, the words and the sentences usually come to him with ease. it is when he is shaky over his facts, or insincere, or dishonest, that his words become feeble, and lack convincing quality, do not ring true. it is curious how often dishonest journalism convicts itself through timidity of diction.

the english language is reaching afar. those there are who predict that eventually it will be spoken everywhere. already it is the language of more than two hundred million persons. it will carry the tourist all over the globe by the established routes of travel,—through the streets of japan, and the bazars of india, and the south sea islands of the pacific. tennyson said to sir edwin arnold: “it is bad for us that english will always be a spoken speech, since that means65 that it will always be changing and so the time will come when you and i will be as hard to read as chaucer is to-day.”

indeed, the english language is changing constantly. we are eliding letters, lopping off terminations, cutting out phrases and abolishing circumlocution. it is not so old a language as a score of others and every opportunity for improvement exists. it is, indeed, “an improvable language.”

compare, if you please, any modern narrative with the beginning of chaucer’s “the tale of melibeus”:

a young man called melibeus, mighty and riche, begat upon his wif, that called was prudens, a doughter which that called was sophie. upon a day byfel, that for his disport he is went into the fields him to play. his wif and his doughter eek hath he laft in-with his hous, of which the dores were fast shut. thre of his olde foos have it espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the wyndowes be entred, and beetyn his wyf, and woundid his doughter with fyve mortal woundes in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in her feet, in her hondes, in her eeres, in her nose, and in her mouth; and lafte her for deed, and went away.

or imagine if you can to what small space a modern newspaper copy reader would reduce the following bit of washington irving prose that was printed in school readers sixty years ago as an example of graceful writing and felicity of expression:

in one of those somber and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together and throw a gloom over66 the decline of the year i passed several hours rambling around westminster abbey. there was something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile; and, as i passed its threshhold, it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of former ages.

usage is amplifying the service of many words whose primary meaning is obvious from their latin derivation. dexter is the latin word meaning the right hand, and strictly speaking “dextrous movements” should mean right hand movements. but usage has brought dexterity to mean readiness, skill, adroitness, aptitude, both physical or mental. macaulay uses it constantly in all of these meanings. “manufacture” is easily traced to the latin origin manus, the hand, and facio, to make—to make by hand. but we have come to use “manufacture” for the making of anything, by machinery, or chemical processes, or in any way other than with the hand. and who shall say that these usages, these enlargements of the meaning of dexterity and manufacture, have not improved the english language?

more than ever before is there present-day need for the use of plain, understandable english. we live in a money-making age—an age of industrial development, in which machines are doing the work that brains used to do, in which vocational and technical education are demanded of our schools and colleges, and in which the cry for technical literature is insistent. experts only understand the technical words and the language of their specialty, hence the cry for writers who can translate67 technical language into plain english that any reader may understand. dean west, of princeton, has deplored the inability of many professors to teach orally or in writing in any other language than the dialect of their specialties. lacking in literary training they are unable clearly to say what they think.

some one asked william t. stead, the english journalist, whether he would have an astronomer or a newspaper writer prepare an article on sun spots, and stead’s instant reply was that the astronomer would write it for astronomers in language that no one else would understand, but the reporter would tap the brain of the specialist and so serve out his knowledge that the ordinary reader would understand.

all the tendency of present-day writing is to translate technical language, scientific terms, professional formula, and medical terms into plain common sense english. let the good work go on!

and let not the young man contemplating a journalistic career be persuaded that newspaper english is not good english. the men who wrote for the newspapers of the spanish-american war, of the great political movements of europe of later years, of our great industrial developments, and of the world war in particular, are the very men who have rewritten these things into history for magazines and for book publishers. when they wrote this information for the newspapers, distinguished college professors and learned critics called it “journalese”; when it appears in the reviews and in books they speak of it as “literature.”

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in praise of newspaper writing as good training for writers, anatole france has this to say:

it is an inveterate prejudice to believe that one spoils his pen in writing for the newspapers. on the contrary one gains in that way suppleness as also ease and that readiness without which the phrase does not move gracefully and never smiles. it is a good school say what one will.

some of the modern english seems very practical and easy to understand. the use of the words “scrapped” and “junked” as verbs seems to have been put permanently into the language by the washington disarmament conference. a well known journal says, “the newspapers were kidding him,” and very likely we will have to accept “kid” as a verb. the entire navy now says of a man who goes from one place to another that he “shoves off.” it is proper to say of a dissatisfied man that he is “peeved,” according to the dictionaries, but its use is new. food is now known as “eats” and the pleasures of the pipe or cigar are called “smokes.” a recent head-line said, “flivvers furnish booze to soldiers.” another newspaper transforms “hokus” into a verb: “complained that she hokused him,” while the scholarly new republic says of some occupation of youngsters that “it gives them no time to go on the loose.”

a new invention brings out a new crop of words. we have “automobile,” “garage,” “speedometer,” “limousine,” “taxi,” “taximeter,” “motorboat,” “motorcycle,” “chauffeur,” all useful and necessary additions69 to our elastic language. the airplane has brought as many more. our slang goes on apace.

make your sheet easy to read, as well as easy to understand. the other day a morning paper in a london cable said, “wheat sold at 60 shillings a quarter in the corn market to-day.” that sentence gave the mind of the reader a jolt and a pause, in the attempt to translate shillings and quarters into cents and bushels. few american readers are familiar with foreign languages, hence all words, as well as quotations, in the french, german, or other tongues, should be made into english. pounds, marks, and francs should be computed into dollars and cents, kilometers into miles. and who knows where in new york state the thirty-fifth congress district is? why not call it the syracuse district? or who can tell where in new york city the sixteenth precinct police station may be? why not identify it as the mercer street station?

on the first sunday of president wilson’s stay in paris he went to church and the associated press report said the clergyman preached from isaiah ix. 9. naturally the words of the text were not transmitted at full cable rates; and naturally, too, a certain curiosity was felt as to what they were. yet of six new york daily newspapers examined, one only had taken the pains to dig out the text and print it. that sheet certainly served its readers better than did the others.

a little discreet exuberance of expression may be tolerated in newspaper writing. sensational newspapers do no harm as long as they stick to the truth.70 you may print your editions in red ink, with job type, with headlines a foot high if you like, without other offenses than to exaggerate the importance of your announcement. typographical eccentricity merely attracts attention. it serves the same purpose as does the orator’s violent gesture or the messenger’s breathless announcement. it excites curiosity, arouses interest.

now, there is such a thing as harmless exaggeration. it enters largely into our private life. our dreams of wealth, of success, of happiness are usually far beyond the fulfillment. we exaggerate our prospects, ambitions and promises to ourselves. but this form of exaggeration is most beneficial for it is a spur to ambition and a prod to effort.

the editor is tempted to exaggeration because a little exaggeration makes it a little more interesting. he sees that the exaggerated novel sells while the novel true to life is unnoticed; that the actor who gesticulates and shouts has the loudest applause; that the painter who outdoes nature outsells the artist who is true to fact. indeed, some philosopher has said that an easy road to success lies through exaggeration. the man who exaggerates his own importance attracts more attention than the modest man. the merchant who exaggerates his wares sells more than the man who does not. sensational clergymen fill churches while prosy ones preach to empty benches. it was sidney smith who remarked: “it is not the first man who says a thing who deserves credit for it, but he who says it so71 long and so loud that at last he persuades the world that it is true.” macaulay remarked: “the best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature, and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of exaggeration, of fictitious narrative, is judiciously employed.”

but the editor must use exaggeration with great discretion, must not pervert the truth. gross exaggeration becomes downright lying.

man’s language cunningly adapts itself to man’s thoughts. sixty years ago writers were under the influence of what may be described as a literary age—that so-called golden age of the intellect that marked the early years of victoria’s reign. it was a period of intellectual uplift. people were thinking of literature and talking of literature. men hurried through their suppers to read to the family circle the stories of dickens and hawthorne and walter scott. the literary lecture was popular and people went to church for the literary pleasure the sermon afforded. the newspaper editors were writing literature and were urging their staffs to renewed literary effort. the magazines were conspicuous for literary excellence. the theaters were instructive. the writers of poetry and prose sought a nicety of literary expression, a daintiness of diction, a legato of language. courses of study favored instruction in literature and literary topics, in language and history, in science and philosophy.

and now, if you please, mark the contrast. we are living in a business age. war has blunted our sensibilities,72 has made us callous, has coarsened civilization. we care little for so-called polite literature. we want the rugged kind. the family circle does not meet for literary exercises. we are thinking of commercialism, of money making, of gigantic locomotives, of immense bridges and tunnels, of aqueducts a hundred and thirty miles long, of skyscraping buildings, flying machines, telephones, typewriting machines, typesetting machines, electric devices. we are thinking of them until we are thinking of little else.

it is the age of the machine. mechanical processes are doing the work that formerly demanded mental skill. the village blacksmith no longer commands admiration by his picturesque and intelligent forging of the nail and shoe—he buys them ready made by machinery. the learned shoemaker no longer artfully fashions my lady’s dainty slipper—the shoe machine punches it out. we bawl letters and dinner invitations through that mechanical device, the telephone, instead of writing them in the old fashioned courtly way. time was when men put brains into what they did with their hands; but to-day, machines rather than brains are doing the work of the world.

our language and our literature cannot escape the influence. instead of the sweetly gliding words and sentences of the men who translated the bible, the deliberation of thackeray, the ornate embellishments of washington irving—instead of the soft speaking poetry of 1850 and the flossy velvet prose of 1860 our present-day writers are using whirlwind sentences and73 words in staccato that bite and scratch and explode. we are changing our diction from the niceties of literary expression to a blunter and a coarser form of expression.

there can be no harm in it, however. the net result is to improve the language. it is taking on the additional strength and agility and brevity that come of our industrial activity. the very magnitude of our undertakings, the very dimensions of our ambitions inspire to greatness of thought and forcefulness of speech. the red blood of war is nourishing the vitals of our language.