When considered with respect
to words and phrases, it requires these three qualities, _purity_,
_propriety,_ and _precision._
_Purity_ of language consists in the use of such words and such
constructions as belong to the language which we speak, in opposition to
words and phrases belonging to other languages, or which are obsolete or
new-coined, or employed without proper authority.
_Propriety_ is the choice of those words which the best usage has
appropriated to the ideas which we intend to express by them. It implies
their correct and judicious application, in opposition to low
expressions, and to words and phrases which would be less significant of
the ideas which we wish to convey. It is the union of purity and
propriety, which renders style graceful and perspicuous.
_Precision_, from _praecidere_, to cut off, signifies retrenching all
superfluities, and pruning the expression in such a manner as to exhibit
neither more nor less than an exact copy of the ideas intended to be
conveyed.
STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES.
A proper construction of sentences is of so great importance in every
species of composition, that we cannot be too strict or minute in our
attention to it.
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