More About Writing

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 125, 14 November 1941, Page 5

More About Writing

A: A boy should be taught to write in such a way that whatever he takes up in life he will be able to express himself clearly. Very few young people comparatively will want to write for publication, but everybody has to write reports or letters or something.

B: That’s just it. Everybody has to, and there would be a great saving of time and trouble-to say nothing of added pleasure-if people could write clearly and briefly. It comes into every calling, and into everybody’s life. You’re an engineer or an architect and you've got to write a memorandum. You're a secretary and you've got to write a circular. You can do these things well or badly, and if you do them badly you may cause trouble. There’s one calling that is in everybody’s mind to-day-soldiering. Now isn’t it most important that a soldier who has to draft recommendations and orders should be able to write clearly and to the point? A: I should say it was vital. An obscure order might lose a battle, and a lost battle might mean a lost war. B: Exactly. Here is an interesting fact. In the London Book of English Prose, a modern collection, there is a section devoted to naval and military orders. You will find there the operation orders written by Wellington for one of his battles in the Penin‘sular war. It is put there as a model of clarity and directness. But you will also find there the operation orders for Allenby’s great break through to Palestine in 1918, and these orders are signed by-who do you think? An officer named Wavell. A: What, our General Wavell of to-day? B: Yes, the same Wavell. You know, I suppose, that he is a writer of distinction. I should»say he is all the better soldier because he can write well. A: And probably he’s all the better writer for being a soldier. If I had my way nobody would be given a degree of any kind-science or arts-who couldn’t write his own language decently. — (" Can People Be Taught to Write?" Professor Gordon, Victoria University College, 2Y A, November 3.)