Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/216

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THE QUESTION OF CLEARNESS

bral paraplegia, both indicating a paraplegia of intracranial origin, involving the cerebral motor-tracts.A peripheral paraplegia may be produced by a multiple neuritis involving the peripheral nerves of both lower extremities in such a symmetrical manner as closely to resemble spinal-cord lesions.

I am quite prepared to believe that there is nothing intricate in the thought that lies concealed behind this barrier of technical vocabulary; I simply realise that I am not one of the readers for whom it was intended. But for me it might just as well be the "washing list in Babylonian cuneiform" of which we are told by Gilbert and Sullivan's Modern Major General.

If you are writing upon a technical subject for a special public, you must use a special vocabulary. If you are the sporting editor on a daily paper, you must write of football in football jargon; but on the other hand, if you are discussing the edu-

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