DANGERS TO ENGLISH
Sta,—Twinges of journalistic conscience may well have been caused by e sternness of Mr. Alan Phillips in his article, " In Defence of English." Notts to cast away all poor props of platitudes would be rewarded by n invigorating effect on the author and reader alike. Some American magazines employ sub-editors whose only duty is to cut out stale words accepted manuscript and put in fresh and virile ones ; hence, partly, e strength of so much American popular writing.
But Mr. Phillips seeks to prove too much when he accuses headline nglish of failing to hit the point because it aims at easy manipulation f hack words. As a former sub-editor, I can assure him that the tmost pains are taken to tell the story in the headlines, and I marvel
at the point-hitting ingenuity used in this kind of shorthand English. Terseness, even when almost everything in the paper is pared down to the quick, has not spoilt the quality of our wartime Press. What we editors suffer from is that we are continually driven to discuss in a couple of hundred words what needs an old-fashioned column for adequate exposition. It is a misfortune of the paper shortage that we have so often to cast away persuasive stages in our analysis of issues and offer what "'becomes little more than assertion. Guidance of the public is excessively difficult under these conditions.—Yours faithfully,
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