greater force. One qualification,
however, must not be overlooked. A word which in itself embodies the
most important part of the idea to be conveyed, especially when that
idea is an emotional one, may often with advantage be a polysyllabic
word. Thus it seems more forcible to say, "It is _magnificent,_"
than "It is _grand._" The word _vast_ is not so powerful a one as
_stupendous._ Calling a thing _nasty_ is not so effective as calling it
_disgusting._

Sec. 7. There seem to be several causes for this exceptional superiority
of certain long words. We may ascribe it partly to the fact that a
voluminous, mouth-filling epithet is, by its very size, suggestive of
largeness or strength; witness the immense pomposity of sesquipedalian
verbiage: and when great power or intensity has to be suggested, this
association of ideas aids the effect. A further cause may be that a
word of several syllables admits of more emphatic articulation; and as
emphatic articulation is a sign of emotion, the unusual impressiveness
of the thing named is implied by it. Yet another cause is that a long
word (of which the latter syllables are generally inferred as soon as
the first are spoken) allows the hearer's consciousness a longer time to
dwell upon the quality predicated; and where, as in the above cases, it
is to this predicated quality that the entire attention is called, an
advantage results from keeping it before the mind for an appreciable
time. The reasons which we have given for preferring short words
evidently do not hold here. So that to make our generalization quite
correct we must say, that while in certain sentences expressing strong
feeling, the word which more especially implies that feeling may often
with advantage be a many-syllabled or Latin one; in the immense majority
of cases, each word serving but as a step to the idea embodied by the
whole sentence, should, if possible, be a one-syllabled or Saxon one.

Sec. 8. Once more, that frequent cause of strength in Saxon and other
primitive words-their imitative character may be similarly resolved into
the more general cause. Both those directly imitative, as _splash, bang,
whiz, roar,_ &c., and those analogically imitative, as _rough, smooth,
keen, blunt, thin, hard, crag,_ &c., have a greater or less likeness to
the things symbolized; and by making on the senses impressions allied to
the ideas to be called up, they save part of the effort needed to call
up such ideas, and leave