how that the ordinary adult in the United States--that is,
the great American public--has either no high school education or less
than a year of it. You can assume in writing to a man whom you do not
know and about whom you have no information that he has only a grammar
school education and that in using other than commonplace words you run
a double danger--first, that he will not know what you are talking about
or will misinterpret it; and second, that he will think you are trying
to be highfalutin and will resent your possibly quite innocent parade of
language.

In a few very effective sales letters the writers have taken exactly the
opposite tack. They have slung language in the fashion of a circus
publicity agent, and by their verbal gymnastics have attracted
attention. This sort of thing may do very well in some kinds of circular
letters, but it is quite out of place in the common run of business
correspondence, and a comparison of the sales letters of many companies
with their day-to-day correspondence shows clearly the need for more
attention to the day-to-day letter. A sales letter may be bought. A
number of very competent men make a business of writing letters for
special purposes. But a higher tone in general correspondence cannot be
bought and paid for. It has to be developed. A good letter writer will
neither insult the intelligence of his correspondent by making the
letter too childish, nor will he make the mistake of going over his
head. He will visualize who is going to receive his letter and use the
kind of language that seems best to fit both the subject matter and the
reader, and he will give the fitting of the words to the reader the
first choice.

There is something of a feeling that letters should be elegant--that if
one merely expresses oneself simply and clearly, it is because of some
lack of erudition, and that true erudition breaks out in great, sonorous
words and involved constructions. There could be no greater mistake. The
man who really knows the language will write simply. The man who does
not know the language and is affecting something which he thinks is
culture has what might be called a sense of linguistic insecurity, which
is akin to the sense of social insecurity. Now and again one meets a
person who is dreadfully afraid of making a social error. He is afraid
of getting hold of the wrong fork or of doing something else that is not
done. Such people labor along frightfully. They have