Flee—Fly

These verbs, though near of kin, are not interchangeable. For example, we can not say, "He flew the city," "He flew from his enemies," "He flew at the approach of danger," flew being the imperfect tense of to fly , which is properly used to expre the action of birds on the wing, of kites, arrows, etc. The imperfect tense of to flee is fled ; hence, "He fled the city," etc. Forcible-feeble. This is a "novicy" kind of diction in which the would-be forcible writer defeats his object by the overuse of expletives. Examples: "And yet the great centralization of wealth is one of the [great] evils of the day. All that Mr. —— utters [says] upon this point is forcible and just. This centralization is due to the enormous reproductive power of capital, to the immense advantage that costly and complicated machinery gives to great [large] establishments, and to the marked difference of personal force among men." The first great is misplaced; the word utters is misused; the second great is ill-chosen. The other words in italics only enfeeble the sentence. Again: "In countries where immense [large] estates exist, a breaking up of these vast demesnes into many minor freeholds would no doubt be a [of] very great advantage." Substitute large for immense , and take out vast , many , and very , and the language becomes much more forcible. Again: "The very first effect of the —— taxation plan would be destructive to the interests of this great multitude [cla ]; it would impoverish our innumerable farmers, it would confiscate the earnings of [our] industrious tradesmen and artisans, it would [and] paralyze the hopes of struggling millions." What a waste of portly expletives is here! With them the sentence is high-flown and weak; take them out, and introduce the words inclosed in brackets, and it becomes simple and forcible. Friend—Acquaintance. Some philosopher has said that he who has half a dozen friends in the course of his life may esteem himself fortunate; and yet, to judge from many people's talk, one would suppose they had friends by the score. No man knows whether he has any friends or not until he has "their adoption tried"; hence, he who is desirous to call things by their right names will, as a rule, use the word acquaintance instead of friend . "Your friend" is a favorite and very objectionable way many people, especially young people, have of writing themselves at the bottom of their letters. In this way the obscure stripling protests himself the friend of the first man in the land, and that, too, when he is, perhaps, a comparative stranger and asking a favor.