If devils are said to lurk in details, then we’re right to expect some subtle troublemaking when we begin to look closely into vocabulary. I was reading a writer online not long ago who was recommending an important but now somewhat forgotten literary critic whose writing, he said, “was notable for its clarity and perspicacity.” That’s a very nice phrase, clarity and perspicacity, because it delicately discriminates between two distinct but ideally inseparable qualities: lucidity and discernment. But no sooner do we appreciate that finesse than those devils start howling their doubts: but didn’t he mean perspicuity?

The nouns perspicacity and perspicuity are often confused. They are two fine (though a bit pricey) words, and understanding the difference between them can make us more critical readers. The conceptual root of each is the same, the Latin verb specere, meaning to see; to that stem, the prefix per, meaning through or thoroughly (those two words are related as well), has then been added. The former noun, however, has apparently derived from the related Latin noun perspicax, meaning sharp-sighted; the latter from the participle of the related verb, perspicuus, which accounts for the differentiating vowel u in the second term.

All that basic linguistic information is readily at hand for any of us to find by consulting a good dictionary. What’s more important for us as readers and writers, though, is to understand the semantic difference between these two closely connected words. Both have to do with seeing clearly, but one points to an inner mental clarity and the other to its outer expression. The noun perspicacity and its adjective perspicacious have to do with acute discernment, keen judgment, insight. Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms says that those terms originally referred to physical eyesight, but are “now applied chiefly to mental sight, or insight, and suggest unusual power to see through and to understand that which is dark, hidden, mysterious”; it then gives as examples a perspicacious reader or perspicacious critic.

The noun perspicuity and its adjective perspicuous, on the other hand, refer to the quality of lucidity which may inhere in language, thought, or style and which is evident, even self-evident, to a reader or listener. Crabb’s English Synonymes, a long-respected (and imposing) work of close scholarship first published in the early nineteenth century (note the older spelling of synonymes), differentiates perspicuity from the more general term clearness by saying that “clearness of intellect is a natural gift; perspicuity is an acquired art; although intimately connected with each other, yet it is possible to have clearness without perspicuity, and perspicuity without clearness.” Crabb goes on to say that some may be clear in ideas but poor in their expression, or able to mellifluently express themselves but yet be unacquainted with the details of their topic. He then concludes his comparative discussion of the terms with this magisterial summation:

The study of the classics and mathematics is most fitted for the improvement of clearness; the study of grammar, and the observance of good models, will serve most effectually for the acquirement of perspicuity.

Indeed. But in the end, how are we to answer those doubtful devils? Did the writer mean perspicuity when he composed the phrase clarity and perspicacity? I think not, because perspicuity, or lucidity of expression, would have been then redundant of clarity, Crabb’s fine distinctions notwithstanding. The writer meant that here was an author both clear in expression and acute in discernment—an achievement which might just be able to harrow the hells of sophistry and deception.

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When we say that a style or perspective is classical, what we mean properly is that there is a center around which thoughts, ideas, or figures revolve. The study of logic, or critical thinking, will talk about a universe of discourse, meaning the subject under discussion and the one idea in relation to which all other ideas must turn. In the study of grammar, the central point of such mental gravity is also commonly called a subject, but very often what we are taught to identify as the subject of a clause is really a subject phrase—not one word but many. Every subject phrase, however, will have one word which is logically naming the substance, or sheer idea, onto which other ideas are frequently compounded. This substance and its verb comprise the skeleton of a clause.

A simple sentence will illustrate this: Athens was famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning. If we remember that the first technical step in analyzing a clause is to see where to place a vertical bar separating subject from predicate (that section where the verb resides), then identifying the subject of this particular clause is an easy matter: Athens | was. These two words constitute the skeleton of this sentence. Because the subject, Athens, comprises only one word, understanding what the sentence is about is an uncomplicated affair. But what happens if I compose the sentence differently: The city of Athens was famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning. Now the subject of the clause has become a subject phrase, the city of Athens, and the critical question arises whether I am talking about a city or about Athens.

Although notionally, of course, I mean Athens, the noun city is in fact the logical substance, or basic entity, about which I am making an assertion. Perhaps I chose in this revision to write the subject phrase the city of Athens instead of the single noun Athens for rhetorical or stylistic or even rhythmical reasons, but our surgically logical minds will have none of that indirection: given the way you composed your sentence, logic will advise, you are ultimately predicating the idea of being famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning of a city, and only then do you further define that city as Athens. Our thinking mind always wants to identify the substance of an assertion, so that it can remain aware of any rhetorical implications which may fuel our emotions prematurely and perhaps unconsciously.

To our everyday practical mind, all that will appear to be making fine distinctions without any real difference, and in a sentence as simple as that example, logical surgery might not have been necessary in the first place. But what about a sentence like this: Menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties called for decisive action to redress their grievances. The division of subject from predicate here lies between parties and called for, which means the subject phrase comprises the nine words menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties. So what exactly is this sentence about? Or to ask the same question differently, who is doing what?

With a sentence of this conceptual complexity, logical surgery might now very well help us keep ourselves focused on the bare assertion, the skeleton—that factions called for something. From that axis we can then observe and give ourselves an interval to question the accuracy of the additions which radiate from it: that these factions are said to be menacing (are they? how?); that they arise from the extremes (extreme in what way? views? number?); and that they are limited to the two major (both) parties (are there no other parties to consider?). Even in the predicate, this kind of surgical analysis will help us see more clearly what was called for (decisive action) and the purpose of that demand (to redress their grievances).

To return to the subject, though, there is an important logical difference to be seen between a subject phrase and the substance of that subject phrase. Any grammarian will agree that the subject of that sentence can be said to be menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties, but a grammatical analysis is not a logical analysis. And just because these two disciplines do not conflict with, but complement, each other, we will be the better prepared to sail stormy conceptual seas, where grammar and logic churn against emotions, if we have some command over the practical techniques of both the intellectual procedures.

The French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul published an important and influential work in the 1960s entitled Propaganda, and he makes there this chilling observation:

Remember that propaganda seeks to induce action, adherence, and participation—with as little thought as possible. According to propaganda, it is useless, even harmful for man to think; thinking prevents him from acting with the required righteousness and simplicity. Action must come directly from the depths of the unconscious; it must release tension, become a reflex.

The answer to mindlessness is a critical mind, and developing that unique human instrument is the very work and purpose of the study of language, both its art of grammar and its art of logic. The possibility that we may reflexively give ourselves over unthinkingly to rhetorical effusions declared in an uproar of emotion should give us pause, and incite us to dedicate ourselves again to the hard work of understanding.

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Let’s look at one sentence, take stock of the way it presents its ideas, and then change its structure to see how a different arrangement makes quite a different impression. In the middle of the last century, the publishing firm Barnes and Noble produced a series of what they called Everyday Handbooks, solid titles which introduced an array of subjects, from philosophy to chess, to the general reading public. One of them was French for Beginners, and the author, Charles Duff, describes his work in the introduction as “a comprehensive ‘all-purpose course’ in French.” He then has this redoubtably constructed sentence which should alert all readers to the strenuousness they can likely expect in his lessons:

It has been prepared on modern principles, evolved from long experience, and so arranged that it can be used by various categories of adult learners; and it can be used in more ways than one.

That is an exact sentence, and exacting. It requires us to stand mentally up straight and be ready to catch a number of thoughts thrown to us in one volley—and then, after that semicolon, grab one more after we thought we had snagged them all. Every clause, each the joining of a subject with a predicate, logically represents one assertion (an assertion derives exactly from a Latin verb meaning to join). Duff’s sentence comprises five such joinings, five clauses, and two of them, the second and third, even omit some essential words, which means we have to decide quickly as we’re reading whether they are thoughts to be thought about at all.

The technique in analyzing a clause is to place a vertical bar between the subject and predicate. The heart of a predicate is its finite verb, and so the bar will separate these elements into their logical isolates. The core of rational statement is to say something (the predicate) about something (the subject); the joining of those two elements is just what a thought is, and rational discourse is no more (and no less) than the weaving of such assertions into clauses and then sentences and then paragraphs. If we, then, analyze Duff’s sentence, we can see more clearly the five assertions it is carrying in one sentence: it | has been prepared on modern principles; [it | has] evolved from long experience; [it | is] so arranged; it | can be used by various categories of adult learners; and it | can be used in more ways than one.

The hard brackets in the second and third clauses mark and supply the words which have been omitted. The original elision is a rhetorical figure called ellipsis, and it is used when a writer wishes to conform the diction, or level of formality, to a more casual register. On the one hand ellipsis makes a statement more approachable; on the other, it requires a closer attention on the reader’s part to supply the elements missing from the rational statement. Because nature, including natural rational thought, abhors a vacuum, ellipsis depends on the reader’s logical need to supply what’s missing. And, indeed, it’s not too difficult to realize that the subject of the first clause, it, referring to the course in learning French which the reader is about to embark upon, will serve as the subject for the second and third clauses as well. That same subject then appears overtly again in the fourth and final clauses.

Still, that is a lot of information to enunciate within the reach of one sentence, and by the time we reach the semicolon after the noun learners, we let down our guard a bit because that mark of punctuation tells us that we have reached some sum of some sort. But since a semicolon cannot total a sentence, it will always represent a subtotal, not a grand total. Which means (to change the metaphor) that the writer has given himself a chance to throw a last pitch unexpectedly, right when our attention may have slackened. The effect of that rhetorical imbalance is to isolate and thereby emphasize the fact that the student reader will be able to use the book in any number of ways—which, of course, has the potential to make it suddenly more valuable than other competing books.

How else could that sentence be written? One way would be to split it up into three sentences, one compound, one complex, and one simple:

It has been prepared on modern principles and it has evolved from long experience. It has been so arranged that it can be used by various categories of adult learners. And it can be used in more ways than one.

In this version, the ellipses have been restored, and the effect has been to reduce the complexity, making the passage more prosaic and expected. One could also combine both versions and isolate the final clause with a dash:

It has been prepared on modern principles and it has evolved from long experience. It has been so arranged that it can be used by various categories of adult learners—and it can be used in more ways than one.

The lesson, then, is that compositional structure inevitably determines the way a writer balances out a set of ideas and the way a reader assimilates them. Every sentence and every passage is a complex of forces—grammatical, logical, and rhetorical—and adjusting each is the very work of revising. Allow every idea to arise in a first draft, but demand that every thought justify itself in a revision. Creation, then criticism. But we must have both.

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A purist is someone who, particularly in matters of language and art, insists on the rules, pressing that they be always observed and always obeyed, even at the expense of being pedantic. The purist and the pedant and the perfectionist forget, however, that our human experience, what we are and what we contrive, is all a combination of permanency and change. Rules keep things what they are for a time, and wisdom tells us how far in a given situation we may tend away from them. The two partner with each other, for rules alone are sterile and wisdom alone cannot be wise.

Purism and pedantry can wreak havoc in language study. I recently came across, for example, an explanation like this in a widely used guidebook for high school students preparing for college entrance exams:

Use a semicolon to join independent clauses when one of the clauses has punctuation of its own and is introduced by a coordinating conjunction: I ordered a new coat online last week; but it was delivered to an address in Tampa, Florida.

A purist is, by definition, purely correct, and we cannot say that there is anything technically incorrect about this explanation. The rule is certainly right, but the example illustrates how one can be overly correct, and that runs the risk of misguiding students who may not yet realize that grammar is to work in complement with both logic and rhetoric to replicate the unimaginably complex reality we call our being alive. Being overly correct puts too much weight on the logical, probably out of an abundance of caution not to step outside the grammatically legal lines. What lies beyond those lines, however, is where life sports, and knowing how to join in requires not positivistic law, but a more subtle discernment of the nuances amidst all the dash and circumstance.

The question at issue in this example involves what is called internal punctuation. The illustrative sentence given is compound, with two independent clauses. These are laminated with the coordinating conjunction but, and the second one includes a comma to separate a city and state. Now this particular use of a comma is strictly formal; it represents a formatting instruction given by most manuals of style simply to separate isolated data and make the reading easier. It has a logical, almost mechanical function, not a rhetorical one, and so while technically correct, the sentence could also be acceptably punctuated with only a comma separating the two independent clauses: I ordered a new coat online last week, but it was delivered to an address in Tampa, Florida.

Why? Because to maintain that internal punctuation always necessitates a semicolon between independent clauses, if taken absolutely as this illustration implies, can dull our perception in reading weightier sentences where such a rule is really in order. Here, for example, is a grammatically complex and analytically difficult sentence by the writer Josef Pieper, from his Belief and Faith, discussing the difference between believing something and believing someone:

A judge listening to the interrogation of members of a gang charged with some crime may very well be convinced that certain items in their statements are true; but the reason he thinks them true is not that he trusts the witnesses, that he assents to the witnesses as persons.

In this sentence, the comma in the second clause does not merely separate pieces of data, but it introduces an entire clause meant to advance the assertion of the previous clause: the subject, the judge, has come to a conclusion not because he trusts the witnesses and not because he assents to what they say as persons. The sentence does not give any reason why the judge did come to the conclusion he did, because that is irrelevant to the point Pieper is making: truth is truth, no matter who is saying it. That is subtle, and Pieper no doubt felt it necessary to reinforce the idea (a rhetorical choice) with two clauses. This results in a hefty verbal structure for the reader to comprehend, and that is exactly when and why a semicolon is necessary, as the rule says, before an independent clause with internal punctuation of its own. Here, a comma instead of a semicolon would only have added to the difficulty in sorting out the writer’s massy assertion. Such weightiness, with an internal comma separating an appositive clause, is a far cry from a comma separating the name of city from its state.

The letter of the law, legal or grammatical, is never enough. The classical world understood that the making of art should follow life’s lead, meaning not necessarily the social conventions of any particular society, but life in the way we can see it acting naturally in the most general of ways: there is permanency and change, definition and actuality. How to wend our way through those clashing rocks is the conscientious work of any artist, and in the practical decisions of composing and punctuating sentences, that means comprehending the reasons behind the rules, and realizing when such reasons are existent and when they are not. In the end, this keenness makes for wisdom, the knowing of just what to do just when.

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The term classical is difficult to define. We think of it often in contrast to romantic, but that too is hard to make clear. The best explanation I have found to understand the two words is by the American literary critic Irving Babbitt in his Rousseau and Romanticism: “A thing is romantic when it is strange, unexpected, intense, superlative, extreme, unique…. A thing is classical, on the other hand, when it is not unique, but representative of a class.” By class he means not a social group (although, as Babbitt says, that’s been a confusion), but a category or kind or ideal, exactly what Plato was referring to with his notion of ideas.

To this definition of the classical we may add an observation by the American scholar Robert Cushman which appears in his rigorously intelligent and beautifully written treatment of Plato entitled Therapeia: “The Ideas stand for an antecedently real Ideal Structure with which, as a condition of knowledge, the human mind is essentially akin and must become explicitly conformed.” Reading the word “conformed” could likely put us off a bit, because we will hear its secondary meaning of “being obedient or compliant.” Cushman’s point, however, is the same as Babbitt’s, and it refers to the primary definition of “conformed”: “to bring into harmony or accord.”

Now what do these observations have to do with language? They explain the principle underlying the requirement that we be precise in the way we use words. The Ideal Structure which Cushman refers to means that from the classical perspective, there is a way the world is put together and a way that it isn’t; that what is true is what accords with a primary reality, and what is false deviates from that. The one is cognitively harmonious, the other dissonant; the one cares for truth, the other, confusion. And since language is an artful system by which we represent ideas, we either advance the truth or hinder it as we are careful or careless with our words.

The title of Cushman’s work, Therapeia, means watchful care in Greek, and we are correct to see our word therapy as cognate to that Greek. Cushman’s concern was to understand what Plato meant by such watchful care of one’s soul, which Plato believed was the most important preoccupation a person could have. And because language is an extension of the soul, to care about linguistic structure—its elements and the degree to which they precisely point to meaning—is also to care about the truth. That, at least, is the classical position. Soul and word, psyche and logos: all are bound together and inextricable. All this on the assumption, of course, that we want the truth.

This is why, too, so much emphasis is put in traditional language study on the definitions and etymology of words and their synonyms. If I say, for example, that someone is diligent in her work, does that means the same as saying she is industrious? The dictionary will explain that diligent derives from a Latin verb meaning to love or respect; industrious, again from the Latin, means actively skillful. One can be both loving and skillful, of course, but one can also be diligently unskillful or indiligently skillful. The skillful physician, for example, who lacks diligence may also lack the profound insight necessary for a patient’s best care.

Likewise, if I describe someone as proud, do I mean the same as vain? If an outcome is inevitable, is it necessarily ineluctable as well? Is a pattern the same as a design? The answers to these questions are not difficult to find, but we are motivated to worry over them when we realize that the effort to learn and make and maintain the proper distinctions between things preserves and promotes the truth. Precise definition stabilizes meaning by establishing a center around which change can take its measure. Change is not the problem; unrestrained change, from which riotous confusion may ensue, is.

We are not, therefore, compelled to choose between the classic or romantic, but only to find the right balance of stability, or oneness, and change. Babbitt also makes this essential observation: “Life does not give here an element of oneness and there an element of change. It gives a oneness that is always changing. The oneness and the change are inseparable.” Indeed, and if we can remember that, we give ourselves a chance, both as persons and as a community, to avoid confusion and build for peace, because what we then write and speak will conform to—be in accord with—a center which is stable and permanent and true.

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