p. 204 | Hints to Writers

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 11, 1872

Hints to Writers.

THERE is one grand means of education within the reach of all, whether they have access to the text books of the schools, or the instructions of the living teacher, or not; and that is observation. It is presumed that every one has the privilege, to a greater or less extent, of listening to those who speak the English language correctly, and of reading books and papers of some sort, in which it is correctly written.

By observing carefully how the best of these speakers and writers use language, what terms they employ, how they pronounce them, how they construct and arrange their sentences, and when reading the printed page, noticing how they use capital letters, punctuate their sentences, and spell their words, a person may acquire the habit of himself speaking and writing the English language with a tolerable degree of accuracy, though his interviews with the written grammar, the spelling book or the dictionary, may have been few and far between.

But this power of observation seems to be employed by very many in the least possible degree. For instance, no one ever saw in any piece of print that could lay claim to any degree of respectability, the word Christ, referring to the Saviour, printed with a small c (christ), or the word God, referring to the Creator, with a small g (god), or the personal pronoun I with a small i; yet many persons, when they come to put these words into manuscript, will write them without a capital letter. Why do they do this? They have never seen them so written or printed in any ordinary composition. It is simply because they have not used their powers of observation sufficiently to know that these words never appear without the initial capital, and hence that there must be a rule for it, whether they know the rule or not, and that to be correct they also must so write them. So of other words which are invariably capitalized.

Again writers frequently misspell some of the most common words, because they do not notice with sufficient care how they always appear in standard print. Thus, no one ever saw truth spelled with the letter i in it, yet we have known some to write it, truith; no one ever saw the word been printed bin, though this correctly represents its pronunciation; but we have known it to be frequently so written. One would suppose that the very looks of the word in this form would suggest to the writer that something was wrong about it; and that a person could hardly pass over it without thinking, “That looks odd; I do not remember that I have ever seen it so written; perhaps it is wrong.” And then, if he had no other means of information to satisfy his doubt, he could scarcely take up a paper that did not contain the word in almost every paragraph; and so he could easily set himself right in the matter.

Western people have frequent occasion to use the word prairie; for it enters into the names of very many of their towns, as, Dell Prairie, Little Prairie, Grand Prairie, Prairie Du Chien, Prairie Grove, &c. We presume no one of them ever saw the word, in any good print, spelled, Pararia; yet it sometimes comes to this Office so written. Now it is to be presumed that any one living on or near a prairie, meets with this word sufficiently often to enable him with a slight amount of observation, to forever fix in his mind the correct method of spelling it.

We bring up these instances to illustrate the point before us: that many persons live along in the daily commission of errors in writing and speaking, which a little observation, no more, it would seem, than every one ought to exercise, would effectually correct.

It will pay to be to a little mental effort in this matter. When you hear or read, do both with attention. Let nothing slip by without being carefully observed. Keep the avenues of the eyes and ears wide open, and they will be the channels of a constant stream of information to the mind. We purpose to speak of other points hereafter.