SOUND AS AN ELEMENT OF WRITING STYLE

Aiming for euphony in our English prose
By Jose A.Carillo

My first impulse was to approach euphony from a purely grammatical and structural sense, but I soon discovered that I was dealing with an entirely different species of expression altogether. Explaining euphony is like putting a strange quicksilver animal inside a ribbed cage, the better to observe its physique, behaviors, and eccentricities; as soon as the creature gets settled in the cage, however, it collapses itself into viscous globules, leaches through the cage floor, and eludes further scrutiny.

No wonder then that even the venerable H.W. Fowler, in his 1908 language classic The King’s English, dealt with euphony not so much with a general definition as with copious particulars. He focused on the ten most common devices English writers use to achieve euphony, then gave scores of examples of where they succeeded or failed in the effort.

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(For those who wish to pursue Fowler further, here are the ten euphony devices he dwelt on with his trademark wit: jingles, alliteration, repeated prepositions, sequence of relatives, sequence of “that” and other constructions, metrical prose, sentence accent, causal “as” clauses, wens and hypertrophied members, and careless repetition.)

We can’t be as expansive on euphony here as Fowler, so we will begin more modestly with a formal definition. “Euphony” comes from the Greek euphonia,” for “sweet-voiced, musical.” It is the acoustic pleasure from the sound of words and their combinations, apart from what their surface meanings give us. But measuring euphony is highly subjective; indeed, it’s no surprise that of the elements of style, euphony is the hardest to teach and to learn. Also, euphony is intimately language-based, so we will only know if prose is euphonic if we (1) have a keen ear for words, and (2) have more than just an adequate understanding of the language.

Euphony obviously begins with the right choice of words. The choices need not be fastidious if we are simply doing news reportage or objective treatises; it would, in fact, render our piece suspect to begin with something as lilting as My Fair Lady’s lyrics, “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.”

In persuasive writing, however, we must choose words not only for their surface meanings but also for their acoustic and emotional power. Some words just happen to be euphonic, or look, feel, and sound good, like “dawn,” “luminous,” “melody,” and “lullaby”; but others are naturally cacophonic, or assault the ears and grate on the nerves, such as “belch,” “screech,” “treachery” and “phlegmatic.” 

It’s no accident that many English words with unpleasant meanings are cacophonic; they are sounds of disgust people don’t want to dwell on or can only stand to hear on a fleeting basis.Good-sounding words, in contrast, often find themselves enshrined in aphorisms, mottoes, psalms, songs, poetry, and prose literature. As the American poet and philosopher George Santayana said:

“The stuff of language is words, and the sensuous material of words is sound; if language therefore is to be made perfect, its materials must be made beautiful by being themselves subjected to a measure, and endowed with a form... The tongue will choose those forms of utterance which have a natural grace as mere sound and sensation; the memory will retain these catches, and they will pass and repass through the mind until they become types of instinctive speech and standards of pleasing expression.”

To succeed in writing and speech, then, requires a conscious exercise of euphony or wordplay—the skillful layering of words for both their denotations and connotations, the gentle coaxing of language to yield unstated (or subconscious) yet persuasive meanings through such devices as tone, mood, rhythm, even sound for sound’s sake. A master of this word-layering technique was, of course, Shakespeare, who still speaks cogently to us today through the wit and wordplay of his Elizabethan stage creations. Shakespeare, observes contemporary American writer Christopher Meeks, “was able, through language both simple and complex, to play not only to the groundlings—the poor people standing in the front—but also to the educated royalty in the boxes, and to future generations.”

How do we achieve euphony in own prose? It would take a lot of practice, but we can begin now by thinking not only in terms of ideas but also in terms of sound. We have to work with words not only to create meaning but also to create sounds that evoke feeling. The most memorable prose from Ecclesiastes down to Shakespeare and on to E.L. Doctorow in our own time were constructed not only for their message but for their tonalities, artfully using such acoustic devices as alliteration, consonance, onomatopeia, rhyme, and rhythm. Their thoughts live on as much for the cogency of their ideas as for the great communicative power that euphony brought to their words. From them we have much to learn to make our own words sing and set minds on fire when the occasion calls for it.

This essay first appeared in my “English Plain and Simple” column in The Manila Times and subsequently became Chapter 122 of my book  Give Your English the Winning Edge, ©2009 and published by the Manila Times Publishing Corp.

THE GRAMMAR OF MANNERS

 “Mind” is a very tricky, very often misused English verb
By Jose A. Carillo

“Mind” is a very tricky English word, probably as deceptive as the statistical practice of equating popularity with fitness for a country's presidency. My dictionary defines “mind” in so many ways. As a noun it is “the seat of awareness, thought, and feeling”; “the intellect”; “memory and remembrance”; “one’s opinion”; and “the focus of one’s thoughts and desires.” As an intransitive verb, it means “to object to”, “to remember,” “to take care of,” “to take charge temporarily,” “to apply or concern oneself with something,” “to be obedient to,” and “to take heed or notice.” With such a profusion of meanings, it is no wonder that “mind” is among the most misused of English words.

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The most embarrassing misuse of “mind,” I think, happens in the grammar of manners. I remember long, long ago my abysmal ignorance about this when I attended a party in Manila for the very first time, one hosted by an English professor. I was the last to enter her living room among a batch of adolescent guests, and as I did so she called out with quintessential sophistication: “Mr. Carillo, do you mind closing the door? The wind and flies outside are so bothersome.” The remark was so incomprehensible to me that I could only stare at her for several pulse-pounding seconds. Finally I stammered: “Yes, of course, Mrs. Reyes!” And with that I gingerly closed the door.

Then, as I walked towards her to pay my courtesies, I noticed her staring at me as if she had seen a ghost. But she regained her composure quickly and became her professorial self. “Mr. Carillo,” she began gently, “You didn’t answer me right. You should have replied, ‘No, Ms. Reyes, not at all!’ That’s the polite and cultured way of saying that you didn’t object to my request for you to close the door. You see, the verb ‘mind’ in ‘Do you mind closing the door?’ doesn’t mean ‘please.’ It means ‘object,’ as in ‘Do you object to the idea of closing the door?’ It’s not the same as “Could you, please?’, which you can politely answer with a ‘Yes.’ Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mrs. Reyes, I understand,” I said, and made a motion to leave.

“Don’t you go yet, Mr. Carillo,” she said, gently taking hold of my wrist, “I’d like to give you a few more lessons in the grammar of manners. The food can wait. When I said that ‘No, not at all’ is the polite reply to ‘Do you mind?’, it doesn’t mean you don’t have the option to say ‘Yes.’ For instance, if I asked, ‘Do you mind not staring at me?’, you actually have the option of saying ‘Yes, I do mind, because I just love staring at you,’ but of course that would be impolite—not the answer, but the act of staring at me. If I asked, ‘Do you mind if I light my cigar?’, you can politely tell me, ‘Yes, Mrs. Reyes, I mind very much—I am terribly allergic to cigar smoke, and I don’t like women who smoke cigars.’ Of course, if the idea of cigar smoke or women doesn’t bother you, you can readily tell me, ‘No, not at all’ or ‘Go right ahead.’ Do you get the drift?”

“Yes, Miss Reyes, I do.”  

“Great, Mr. Carillo! That means we’re off to a good start. You may go now and join the guests for dinner.”  

That terribly humiliating lesson in the grammar of manners sent me on a weeklong search for the other meanings of the treacherous word. In fact, I was to discover so many other slippery idioms using “mind” and set out to internalize all of them: (1) “We’re of the same mind” means we share the same feeling or opinion; (2) “They can’t fool around with me if I just put my mind to it” means they can’t do any hanky-panky if I firmly don’t allow them; (3) “We’re not in our right minds if we elect overtly deceptive people” means we are crazy to do that; (4) “Mind to think out clearly who to trust” means we should remember not to trust the untrustworthy; (5) “Mind to figure out why these politicians are suddenly all over media endorsing commercial products” means we should find out what they really are up to; and finally, (6) “Mind what our conscience tells us” means to obey what we know to be true, ethical, and just.

Now that we have looked closely at the various meanings of “mind,” I’ll ask this question: Do we mind that some pollsters are foisting on us the deceptive art of equating popularity with fitness for the highest post in the gift of the nation? I pray that the answer is “Yes, we do mind and we’ll tell them to go practice their modern witchcraft elsewhere!” I do hope this is our answer, or else God help us all! (July 3, 2003)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, July 3, 2003 issue © 2003 by Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

WATCHING OUT AGAINST GLITTERING OR GLOWING GENERALITIES

When Faulty Logic Overrides
Good Grammar and Semantics
By Jose A. Carillo  

Some seemingly matter-of-fact and grammatically airtight statements often get accepted in everyday discourse despite their faulty logic. Known as glittering or glowing generalities, they strongly appeal to our emotions because of their close association with such highly valued concepts and beliefs as the primacy of family, home and country, the sanctity of religious dogma, and the nobility of teaching as a profession. As such, we take them to be true at face value without examining the rationality of their premises.

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A statement like “Being a teacher, she likes children” is a glittering generality

that’s not necessarily true.

These thoughts came rushing to mind when I was asked this innocuous grammar question sometime ago by Forum member Baklis: “Sir, I just want to know the difference between ‘being’ and ‘having been’ in these two sentences: ‘Being a teacher, she likes children.’ ‘Having been a teacher, she likes children.’”

Momentarily stumped by the perfect grammar and semantics yet disarmingly deceptive logic of both sentences, I got back my bearings and came up with this reply to Baklis: 

The difference between the sentences “Being a teacher, she likes children” and “Having been a teacher, she likes children” is clear-cut, but the sense of both has a logical peculiarity that defies a simple, straightforward explanation.

In the sentence “Being a teacher, she likes children,” the use of the present tense “being” in the participial modifying phrase “being a teacher” indicates that the subject “she” is at present a teacher. However, the main clause “she likes children” makes the implication—but it’s not a certainty—that teachers typically like children, and that the teacher in this particular instance is such a teacher who likes children. This implication, of course, makes the logic of the statement debatable even if its grammar is airtight.

On the other hand, the use of the perfect gerund “having been” in the sentence “Having been a teacher, she likes children” indicates that the subject “she” used to be teacher but ceased to be a teacher sometime in the indefinite past. Like the first sentence, however, the main clause of this second sentence makes the implication—and it’s likewise not a certainty—that teachers typically like children, and that the teacher in this particular instance liked children when she was still teaching and that she still likes children even now.

That second sentence has the further implication that the experience of being a teacher or of having been a teacher imbues a liking for children, but the logical justification for that second implication is not made clear. Thus, even if the grammar and semantics of the second sentence are airtight like those of the first sentence, those two unsupported implications make the logic of the second statement even more debatable than that of the first.

Indeed, I told Baklis, those two simple sentences that he presented are semantic conundrums, or statements that raise a question or problem that only has a conjectural answer. Within such statements lurks a fallacy or illogical conclusion so grammatically flawless and beguilingly attractive that the mind encounters great difficulty rejecting it.

Two days later, Baklis came back to me with this more down-to-earth grammar question about those two problematic sentences: “Sir, if we consider only the two participial phrases in those sentences, what would be their use or implication?”

In that case, I told Baklis, here’s what each of those two phrases will denote:

1. “Being a teacher,” a present progressive participial phrase, would mean the current continuing state of teacherhood, meaning that one is a teacher by profession and is practicing it at present; and

2. “Having been a teacher,” a past-perfect progressive participial phrase, would mean that one used to be teacher but ceased to be a teacher sometime in the indefinite past, and has not been a teacher again up to the moment of speaking.

This essay first appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the May 15, 2015 issue of The Manila Times, ©2015 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.