There are two words, now indefensively in vogue, on which
I hereby declare war, in one case war to the knife. That is " over- all," with or without a hyphen in the middle, in the sense of " complete " or " comprehensive," or more often with no sense at all. Mr. Strachey talks in the House of Commons of " an over-all agreement." Why not " a comprehensive agreement," or just " agreement "? Someone in a Sunday paper writes about " the over-all strength " of a United Nations police force, meaning, I suppose, just " the strength." You might as well talk of a man's over-all height, indicating, no doubt, his height without his head. The other word which I take leave to denounce is " short-fall," of wheat or maize or coal or anything else. The use of this, instead of the plain " shortage " comes, I fancy, of a sort of subconscious feeling that recourse to technicalities creates the impression of omniscience. It may, but the feeling is usually illusory. The impression is quite otherwise.
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