Some Words About a Conrad Cartoon

As a practitioner cognizant of sesquipedalianism logomachy, I harbor a personal idiosyncratic affinity for scriveners who indulge their own polysyllabic propensities, ineluctably constrained to do so in expounding recondite abstractions in the diurnal gazettes.

But communicating with readers is another thing. Plain English is a must. I don’t mean Grant should write down to them, but he is hurting his cause if he cloaks his thoughts in strange garments.

That second paragraph is mostly everyday Anglo-Saxon words. You can tell what I mean easier than you could in the first paragraph. Readers can only be baffled or estranged by fancy words.

It is hard to tell from Grant’s letter whether he approved or disapproved of Conrad’s cartoon, whether he was invoking the memory of F.D.R. or defaming it.

Grant would do better to stop reading the dictionary in search of ponderously ornamental opacity.

LYLE L. ERB

San Diego