not to write in those terms to such, because it shows a kind of
ostentation, and a triumph over the ignorance of the person they are
written to, unless at the very same time you add an explanation of the
terms, so as to make them assuredly intelligible at the place, and to
the person to whom they are sent.

A tradesman, in such cases, like a parson, should suit his language to
his auditory; and it would be as ridiculous for a tradesman to write a
letter filled with the peculiarities of this or that particular trade,
which trade he knows the person he writes to is ignorant of, and the
terms whereof he is unacquainted with, as it would be for a minister to
quote the Chrysostome and St Austin, and repeat at large all their
sayings in the Greek and the Latin, in a country church, among a parcel
of ploughmen and farmers. Thus a sailor, writing a letter to a surgeon,
told him he had a swelling on the north-east side of his face--that his
windward leg being hurt by a bruise, it so put him out of trim, that he
always heeled to starboard when he made fresh way, and so run to
leeward, till he was often forced aground; then he desired him to give
him some directions how to put himself into a sailing posture again. Of
all which the surgeon understood little more than that he had a swelling
on his face, and a bruise in his leg.

It would be a very happy thing, if tradesmen had all their _lexicon
technicum_ at their fingers' ends; I mean (for pray, remember, that I
observe my own rule, not to use a hard word without explaining it), that
every tradesman would study so the terms of art of other trades, that he
might be able to speak to every manufacturer or artist in his own
language, and understand them when they talked one to another: this
would make trade be a kind of universal language, and the particular
marks they are obliged to, would be like the notes of music, an
universal character, in which all the tradesmen in England might write
to one another in the language and characters of their several trades,
and be as intelligible to one another as the minister is to his people,
and perhaps much more.

I therefore recommend it to every young tradesman to take all occasions
to converse with mechanics of every kind, and to learn the particular
language of their business; not the names of their tools only, and the
way of working with their instruments as well as hands, but the very
cant of their trade, for every trade has its _nostru