Henry Watson Fowler Quotes

“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying ... : Have you got that? If so, I'll go to the next point.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“Quotation ... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“Anyone who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“The obvious is better than obvious avoidance of it.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

After all, it is an ancient and valuable right of the English people to turn their nouns into verbs when they are so minded.

— Henry Watson Fowler

“Those who are addicted to the phrase "to use a vulgarism" expect to achieve the feat of being at once vulgar and superior to vulgarity.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen on his desk with the legend "We are not amused" hanging from it.”

— Henry Watson Fowler

“It need hardly be said that shortness is a merit in words.”

— Henry Watson Fowler