Speaks Latin, My Satin Doll
This post is about copywriting, honest. You just have to wade through some literature first…
Right now I’m reading Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens. Here’s an extract:
Although the best room of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was much too vast for comfort. Rich, rustling hangings, waving on the walls; and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty’s dress; the light of women’s eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness. It was no longer a home; children were never born and bred there; the fireside had become mercenary - a something to be bought and sold - a very courtesan: let who would die, or sit beside, or leave it, it was still the same - it missed nobody, cared for nobody, had equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn!
There are some interesting things to be learned from this passage. Yes, I know it’s a great demonstration of all the reasons Dickens never made it as a copywriter and had to become a novelist instead: overlong sentences, too many semicolons and all the rest. But there’s something else here - something valuable for anyone who wants to write copy.
Even if you don’t find the passage moving or affecting you can probably accept that it’s at least sincere. Dickens means what he is saying. He tells us, very effectively, the truth of what he’s seeing in his head.
He does it with the words he uses: vast, comfort, rustling, waving, far, youth, beauty, maiden, delight, gone, gladness, home. They’re simple and compelling. Most English words come from either Anglo-Saxon (’old’) English or from Latin, via Norman French. Most - though not all - of the words in that list are Anglo-Saxon. Speakers of English tend to trust Anglo-Saxon words more than they trust Latin words. Maybe they just seem more homely. For all his fancy sentence constructions, Dickens achieves simplicity - you’d be very hard pushed to find more than three or four words in that passage that could be replaced by shorter words with no loss of meaning.
Good writers of English know that if you want someone to really believe what you’re saying you should use good, simple words. Conversely, if you want to fudge, bamboozle and confuse you should use lots of long, complicated words, preferably from a Latin root. George Orwell gives some great examples of this in his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’. If you want to learn how to write well, start with Orwell. He writes the clearest, plainest English of any writer that’s ever lived.
If you want people to believe you - and buy what you’re trying to sell - be clear, be concrete, be straightforward. Tell the truth. And never use a long word when a short one will do.