THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120042
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 72 lines
LAST WEEK, while the media piranhas fed ravenously on the carcass of the O.J. Simpson case, a minor skirmish between two prominent columnists went largely unnoticed.
The issue was whether big hook- or small hook-words were best at catching readers and reeling them toward your point of view.
James J. Kilpatrick said in his column that the friendly skirmish with William F. Buckley Jr. had been going on and off for 30 years. Buckley uses big hook words, and Kilpatrick uses a smaller hook but undoubtedly catches more fish.
Here's part of Kilpatrick's column:
``A common language implies a common vocabulary. It is at this point that my brother and I part company. My hope is that 90 percent of my readers will understand 90 percent of the unfamiliar words I throw at them. Bill is not much concerned with the 90 percent.
``When he precisely employs an unfamiliar word, he fairly cackles. He gets the same sense of gratification, as H.L. Mencken remarked, that a hen gets in laying an egg. Ten readers will embrace the word with happy comprehension. What of the other 90? He turns regally to Marie Antoinette: Let 'em look it up.''
Kilpatrick noted that in Buckley's new book, ``The Right Word,'' the author staunchly defends his elitist position. Buckley holds the view that a newspaper that devotes five pages to sports can spare one column for first-rate writing - writing that accepts no substitute for the discriminating word.
A novelist and conservative talk-show host, Buckley is undeniably brilliant, speaks three languages fluently and can - when the mood strikes - speak clear, simple English. Yet, he turns up his nose at Rule 14 (Avoid Fancy Words) in ``The Elements of Style'':
``Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.''
Buckley mocks the rule. He will walk around the block or across the New York Public Library's reference section to find a long and pretentious word - a grammatical Godzilla - when a shorter, simpler word will do. If time permitted, he would take the Concorde to Europe to find it.
He has an excessive fondness for words such as ``cacoethes'' and ``ontological'' and ``catechetical.'' Buckley would argue that he writes for a powerful audience - the cognoscente (roughly, the informed), and the rest of us will either look up the word or remain ignorant.
He is - despite the well-deserved praise heaped upon him by Kilpatrick for his wisdom and discernment - a show-off and snob.
Buckley drops big words upon his audience in the manner of a teen-ager on a bus who drops his trou and moons pedestrians. He would argue, of course, that he refuses to participate in the dumbing down of the English language, that he catches bigger, if fewer, fish with his big hook words. But he's really being snobby.
Here's a passage from his autobiographical adventure book ``Atlantic High'':
``Except for one scene at the restaurant, the meal was splendid. The rather self-important young owner served us an excellent red wine which, however, was too-damned warm, and I told him so.''
Self-important owner?
It is not a stretch to suggest that writing a column is akin to inviting the reader into your living room. As a host you should try to make the reader as comfortable as possible. In Buckley's living room you will stumble here and there over big words he has tossed in your way. He doesn't care. In other living rooms, men and women of larger caliber (and vocabularies) would make a point of easing our way - explaining ideas to us in familiar words.
But not Buckley. As a person of great accomplishment and high position he feels no necessity to make us comfortable.
He is - although Kilpatrick is too gentlemanly to say it - a columnist rich in vocabulary and poor in manners.