A GRAND EDITOR TO THE NATION.
WE have long had in our minds a plan for the better editing of official forms, publications, and proclamations. The present time, when the country is deluged with official announce- ments, many of which do not literally mean what they are intended to mean, and nearly all of which are expressed in language that does little credit to the common tongue of us all, seems to be a favourable opportunity for asking consideration for our scheme. The Government, working through a multitude of official Depart- ments, are the trustees and interpreters of the national dignity. The dignity of the nation is served and upheld by numerous outward and visibl3 signs of a proud and prosperous life. It is the business of Government officials, either about the Court or in the Depart- ments, to see that public ceremonies are of a worthy character, that public buildings do not disfigure the greatest capital in the world, that our museums are filled with the choicest specimens, and that our picture galleries represent the schools of painting to which they profess to do honour. All this is recognized ; but are the Government really consulting the national dignity, and are they—to state the case in a still more practical form—behaving in a businesslike manner, if they allow forms, regulations, announce- ments, proclamations, and thousands of other publications to go forth in which there are ambiguities and tautologies, and such vulgar abuses of the English tongue as readers are warned against in every text-book on the elements of literary construction ?
We propose, then, that an Editor to the Nation should be ap- pointed, whose task would be to see that ambiguities and mistakes in construction or grammar were removed from as many Government announcements as possible. The proposal may be recommended for three reasons : (I) The Government, as the trustees of the national dignity, ought to be as much concerned in preserving the purity of the noble tongue we have all inherited as in cultivating the dignity of outward life, in insisting on archi- tectural propriety, and so on. (2) Much time and vexation would be saved if public announcements, and forms to be filled up, were perfectly clear in meaning. (3) It is absurd for the Government to order that the people shall be compulsorily educated if they themselves set an example of slovenly and vague expression. By this means they permanently sanction and associate themselves with misuses of the English language which presumably they pay teachers of English to eradicate.
The Editor would be in practice a proof-reader. With a very
small staff—even, we are tempted to say, if he worked alone— he could read through and correct a large part of such official announcements as normally bewilder the public, and are an offence to those who happen to take a pride in the language in which such announcements profess to be written. The Editor would see a proof of whatever was to be issued and make his suggestions while there was still time to send corrections to the printer. A skilled proof-reader can read carefully thousands of words in a day. At this rate, it is not an exaggeration to say, a large part of the field of official publications could be covered by a very small staff. Although we have used the word " proof-reader " to describe the Editor we are imagining, it should be said that the Editor would have to be a kind of super-proof-reader. He would require a wide knowledge of affairs, and he would have to be a well-read and cultivated man with good judgment and good sense. He would indeed exercise a much bolder method than the ordinary proof. reader, for he would not confine himself to suggestions of more verbal alterations, but would make larger proposals for the recast- ing of whole clauses or sentences whereby the sense might be made clear. Being a sensible man, he would not of course strain at gnats. Ho must not be a pedant and he must not be what is called a " stylist." He must aim at appropriateness. He must be a master of plain and workmanlike English ; ho must not be fanciful or capricious, or have a liking for misplaced rhetoric, or grandiosity, or verbal wit. In fine, he must be a master of style in the excellent sense defined by Hazlitt when he said that good writing consists in conveying "the extreme characteristic imi-ress'on of the thing written about." The Editor of our vision would be young enough to have enthusiasm for his art and to work rapidly, but old enough to be ruled by sobriety.
No one who has studied official papers—who has tried with the best will in the world to master the meaning of some Income Tax form, or some Regulations as to prohibited exports or imports— will stand in need of many examples of the kind of thing we wish to have remedied. it may be objected that the Editor could not be expert in enough subjects to act as a general supervisor. But it is precisely expert knowledge that is not required. The Editor would represent the sum of the intelligence of ordinary men, and if a form or announcement were not clear to him it could safely be regarded as unfit to be issued without emendation. Every writer—and this may be true in a particular degree of the experts who draft forms—has a blind eye for his own work. What he has written seems clear to him because he reads it over in the context of his own knowledge, but it may leave a less well-informed reader gasping with bewilderment. It is no insult to the most capable head of a Department to say that his writings would be the better for being read by other eyes. The Editor to the Nation would act as a " foolometer." If the meaning of some publication were not immediately clear to him, he would suggest that it should be recast. For if it were not plain to a man of his accomplishments, what chance would there be of its being understood by simpler men? We ourselves have found that recent Regulations issued
by the military authorities about the Volunteers have not shown so nice a discrimination in the use of words as we could have wished.
There should be absolute precision ; words should always bear the same meaning in the same context. A particular announcement (not a military Regulation this time) in connexion with the Volunteers occurs to us. Mr. Neville Chamberlain in the papers of last Satur- day laid down the conditions under which military Volunteers would come into his scheme of National Service. He said :—
" Those in Volunteer Corps who undertake specified service, as detailed below, are not expected to enrol under the National Service scheme, viz. :—(a) Any member of a Volunteer Corps who can produce a certificate showing that ho belongs to Section A of the Volunteer Force; (6) any member of a Volunteer Corps who agrees to undertake temporary service when called upon for a certain number of hours or days per week."
What does the last sentence mean ? Is the " temporary service " to be rendered to the Volunteer Corps or to Mr. Neville Chamberlain ? An Editor who had been shown the announcement would have seen in a second that its meaning was not clear. The apparent contra- dictions in " forms to be filled up " are too familiar, and also too complicated, to be set forth here in detail. Bad English appears indeed in every kind of official publication. We will take one example out of several from the manual of Infantry Training, because it is an instance of incorrect English where accuracy is of the very essence of the subject. Suppose that a company is in column or close oolumn and the order is given to "line outwards" with so many platoons to the right.. The movement requires the leading platoon to stand fast while the specified number of platoons form on its right and the rest on its left. The officer says, for instance: "Two platoons to the right. Remainder, form fours, outwards. Quick march." Will it be believed by any one who has not been drilled that the word " remainder " includes the two platoons which have to form on the right ? If it were not so, the movement could not be executed. But according to all recognized laws of the English language, this is not the literal meaning of the command. Literally the word " remainder "
excludes the two platoons which have been ordered to go to the right. The recruit of course very soon learns what the command
means—possibly it was never more confusing to him than any other command which is verbally accurate—but the fact remains that when he has mastered the military sense ho has been officially fortified in a misuse of his native tongue. Our Editor would make the command verbally accurate. " All but one platoon, form fours," &c., would be accurate. Even an abbreviated form, " All but one, form fours," would be accurate. But " remainder " is wrong.
When we come to Acts of Parliament we reach a great difficulty. Parliament, having built up an Act in many weary days in Com- mittee, would not accept the emendations of an Editor even to save hopeless ambiguities. No Government, having steered a Bill safely through the shoals of Parliamentary treatment, would deliver it back into the hands of the tormentors. If the Committee stage has endowed the Bill with ambiguities or contradictions, we fear they must remain. We write off Acts of Parliament as beyond hope. The Editor must give way to the lawyers and the Judges. But in official announcements which are not Acts of Parliament legal phraseology might certainly be brought to the " fool- ometer'a" testa. Wherever public announcements or regulations are the work of several brains, there is a danger that clearness may be sacrificed. The composite production is the resultant of con- flicting forces, and no one person holds himself responsible for accuracy of expression, as he would if he were solely responsible. In newspapera one often reads a letter from a number of signatories not one of whom probably would have cared to use the English language in the way agreed upon if he had written of his own accord. The signature of a renowned man of letters may appear at the end of a turgid and bungled argument ; he has sunk his sense of literary propriety for the sake of co-operating with others. That is the counterpart of what occurs daily and hourly in Govern- ment work. The situation could be saved by the Editor to the Nation. He would not be a dictator with power to create new meanings. He would simply step in to secure that the meaning intended should be clear. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he could do this very quickly and smoothly in consultation with the authors of the document.
After the war we are going to be, for better or worse, a more highly organized nation. Instructions and regulations of all kinds will pour forth from Government offices. We are quite serious in proposing that they should be edited for the sake of clearness, for the sake of public dignity, for the sake of the English language. The Editor to the Nation would be worth a high salary, and lie would earn it, in the results of effective administration, many timed over. Ho would be a craftsman in naturalness, appropriateness, and conciseness. South, in one of his sermens, has laid down for all time the essential fineness of language suited to its ends. Mottoes from that sermon might be hung all over the office of the Grand Editor to the Nation. " There is a certain majesty in plainness." " The proclamation of a prince never frisks it in tropes or fine conceits, in numerous and well-turned periods, but commands in sober natural expressions." " In a word, the apostles' preaching was therefore mighty and successful because plaia, natural, and familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their hearers."
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