Ward Farnsworth
Law professor, former dean of the University of Texas School of Law, and author of books on rhetoric and style
Where to hear and read about Ward Farnsworth1 episode or test
Ward Farnsworth is a law professor, former dean of the University of Texas School of Law, and author of books on rhetoric and style, including Classical English Style. The one thing most worth learning from him is to choose each word on purpose, set fancier words against short plain ones, and finish on the plain word.
I try to separate imitation from influence.
14 Ways to Improve Your English Writing Skills (Ward Farnsworth Interview)
Ward Farnsworth: the story and the lessons
1Why Ward Farnsworth studies sentences that have lasted
Farnsworth treats old famous lines as winners of a long tournament. Out of billions of utterances, a few from Lincoln, Churchill and the King James Bible are still quoted centuries later. He calls this an "internet of time", a filter that existed long before the web.
His project is to ask how those winners did it and borrow the tools. Getting noticed now is hard because a million people try at once.
He says every sentence hides a word choice, and you should notice it. Writers pick words constantly, mostly without thinking: make or create, permit or let, illumination or light, final or last.
English mixes the Germanic of early invaders with the French that came about 500 years later, so most ideas have a plain Saxon word and a fancier Latinate one. The Latinate word is the polite one, so it suits a polite tone.
His one master rule is to have a good reason for each choice. Farnsworth rejects blanket advice to avoid the passive voice. Churchill's passive in "so much owed by so many to so few" puts "so many" and "so few" side by side.
The active version, have so many owed so much to so few, worsens the rhythm. His point: "There's no rule except make sure you've got a good reason for what you're doing."
2Farnsworth on plain words and fancy words
Farnsworth says if you keep one rule, prefer the plain word. Saxon words are short and hard, like get and kill. Latinate words grow endings like -tion, so acquisition works and "gettion" does not.
"Let there be light" is eleven Saxon words, and Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" passage runs thirty-two Saxon words in a row.
Plain words wrapped around a huge idea give it force. Genesis is all one-syllable words that have been in English a very long time. Two verses earlier the same translators wrote God created the heaven and the earth, so "made" was a choice they declined.
Farnsworth adds that if you can explain something in Saxon words, you probably understand it well. Fancy words often sound impressive but can sound pompous.
He tells writers to end sentences and paragraphs on plain, hard words. The end of a sentence rings longest in the ear, so he suggests working backwards from it. Holmes ends a dense sentence with "freedom for the thought that we hate".
Readers will not notice the move, they will just feel it was well said. Hate is known in the gut, while enmity takes a moment.
He shows Churchill opening in fancy words so plain ones land harder. "Never in the field of human conflict" is Latinate, and everything after, "was so much owed by so many to so few", is Saxon. The sentence comes from the Battle of Britain, and the few are the pilots fighting off German raiders.
Farnsworth compares it to a chord change in music: the interest is in the change, not the chord. A line in the same register throughout doesn't stand out.
Lincoln said each idea twice, once for the mind and once for the gut. After winning the Republican Senate nomination in Illinois, Lincoln said: "I do not expect the union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall." Union and dissolved are Latinate, house and fall are Saxon.
A modern editor would cut one of the two. Farnsworth says you may have to say it in more than one language to get through. Holmes does the same with "principle of free thought" and "freedom for the thought that we hate".
3Farnsworth's guide to repetition and reversal
Farnsworth explains why repeating opening words makes a line ring. Repeating the start of clauses is anaphora: Churchill's "We shall fight" and King's "I have a dream". Sentence beginnings and endings ring longest in the ear, so readers recall "we shall fight" more than the beaches or the hills.
David Perell compares it to a sports announcer getting louder near the goal. A whole speech like that would lose the effect.
He shows Lincoln using end repetition at Gettysburg. Repeating the closing words is epistrophe: "what we say here... what they did here", then "of the people, by the people, for the people". The address came in 1863, a few months after the battle where about 7,000 died.
Lincoln probably reworked an earlier Daniel Webster line and added the close "shall not perish from the earth", likely lifted from the book of Job. Farnsworth also notes the irony that the world long remembered Lincoln's words and perhaps less well what the soldiers did.
Bentsen's 1988 put-down works because it switches patterns. Replying to Dan Quayle's comparison with Kennedy, Lloyd Bentsen said: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." The pattern runs end, end, beginning, end, so the ear gets used to one pattern, gets relief, then gets it back.
Farnsworth says it is the one thing most people remember from a vice presidential debate. Churchill's 1940 call to arms also switches from end repetition to start repetition.
He says a chiasmus fits only certain thoughts, so learn the occasions. A chiasmus is an ABBA reversal, as in Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you": country, you, you, country. It suits "you have it backwards", give and take, "and vice versa", and mismatches like Mark Twain's capacity without the chance, then the chance without the capacity.
Farnsworth says you cannot force one onto any sentence, and speaking in chiasmus for five minutes fails. Learning which thoughts suit which pattern lets you smell the chance.
Farnsworth counts reversals of ideas as chiasmus too. English grammar blocks perfect versions, since you can't put I in both places. Lincoln's "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me" runs I, events, events, me.
He reads the Lord's Prayer line "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" the same way: simple words outside, the fancier temptation and deliver in the middle.
4How Ward Farnsworth teaches people to write
Farnsworth teaches clear and concise first, then memorable. He compares efficiency to learning to draw before you try to paint. Many writers are clear and concise, and most of them aren't Lincoln.
He says most writing books stop at lesson one. His own books are built around what Lincoln knew beyond clarity.
He tells writers to x-ray memorable lines instead of just admiring them. Slow down and ask which words are plain, which are fancy, what repeats and what reverses. The best lines usually follow more than one pattern at once.
Farnsworth says the way to find such patterns is to "slow down long enough to really take them apart or x-ray them".
His students rewrite modern court opinions as Holmes would have written them. In his rhetoric classes, students imitate Oliver Wendell Holmes to learn the signatures of a style. The imitations improve, then you throw them away and keep what you learned.
Holmes was the son of a famous 19th-century literary figure and the best writer American law has had. Farnsworth says: "If you want to imitate somebody's writing, you've really got to understand it."
Farnsworth separates influence from imitation and points to Lincoln. Lincoln learned from the King James Bible and Shakespeare, yet never sounds like either. His house-divided lines echo Matthew, and "shall not perish from the earth" echoes Job.
Farnsworth says writing sounds best when you speak the words onto the page, and that over time you write and speak what you read. He calls social media a campus where rhetoric is taught by bad example.
He warns that these tools should be used sparingly. Rhetorical patterns work like exclamation points and pull attention to the prose. Relentless repetition is a mark of bad political speeches.
His test: if readers notice the technique, it is bad technique.
He says beautifully phrased claims sound truer than they may be. A tidy, closed-loop sentence seems to admit no objection. Studying rhetoric helps you spot it in others and avoid being persuaded by form alone.
In his words: "things that are beautifully said sound more true. No reason to believe they are." The same tools can serve bad causes as well as good ones.
14 Ways to Improve Your English Writing Skills (Ward Farnsworth Interview)
Ward Farnsworth shows what makes famous lines from Lincoln, Churchill and the King James Bible last: plain words, deliberate contrast, and a few Greek rhetorical patterns such as repetition and reversal. The technique worth taking away is to choose each word on purpose, set fancier words against short plain ones, and finish on the plain word.
Farnsworth treats old famous lines as winners of a long tournament. Out of billions of utterances, a few from Lincoln, Churchill and the King James Bible are still quoted centuries later. He calls this an "internet of time", a filter that existed long before the web.
His project is to ask how those winners did it and borrow the tools. Getting noticed now is hard because a million people try at once.
He says every sentence hides a word choice, and you should notice it. Writers pick words constantly, mostly without thinking: make or create, permit or let, illumination or light, final or last.
English mixes the Germanic of early invaders with the French that came about 500 years later, so most ideas have a plain Saxon word and a fancier Latinate one. The Latinate word is the polite one, so it suits a polite tone.
His one master rule is to have a good reason for each choice. Farnsworth rejects blanket advice to avoid the passive voice. Churchill's passive in "so much owed by so many to so few" puts "so many" and "so few" side by side.
The active version, have so many owed so much to so few, worsens the rhythm. His point: "There's no rule except make sure you've got a good reason for what you're doing."
Farnsworth says if you keep one rule, prefer the plain word. Saxon words are short and hard, like get and kill. Latinate words grow endings like -tion, so acquisition works and "gettion" does not.
"Let there be light" is eleven Saxon words, and Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" passage runs thirty-two Saxon words in a row.
Plain words wrapped around a huge idea give it force. Genesis is all one-syllable words that have been in English a very long time. Two verses earlier the same translators wrote God created the heaven and the earth, so "made" was a choice they declined.
Farnsworth adds that if you can explain something in Saxon words, you probably understand it well. Fancy words often sound impressive but can sound pompous.
He tells writers to end sentences and paragraphs on plain, hard words. The end of a sentence rings longest in the ear, so he suggests working backwards from it. Holmes ends a dense sentence with "freedom for the thought that we hate".
Readers will not notice the move, they will just feel it was well said. Hate is known in the gut, while enmity takes a moment.
He shows Churchill opening in fancy words so plain ones land harder. "Never in the field of human conflict" is Latinate, and everything after, "was so much owed by so many to so few", is Saxon. The sentence comes from the Battle of Britain, and the few are the pilots fighting off German raiders.
Farnsworth compares it to a chord change in music: the interest is in the change, not the chord. A line in the same register throughout doesn't stand out.
Lincoln said each idea twice, once for the mind and once for the gut. After winning the Republican Senate nomination in Illinois, Lincoln said: "I do not expect the union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall." Union and dissolved are Latinate, house and fall are Saxon.
A modern editor would cut one of the two. Farnsworth says you may have to say it in more than one language to get through. Holmes does the same with "principle of free thought" and "freedom for the thought that we hate".
Farnsworth explains why repeating opening words makes a line ring. Repeating the start of clauses is anaphora: Churchill's "We shall fight" and King's "I have a dream". Sentence beginnings and endings ring longest in the ear, so readers recall "we shall fight" more than the beaches or the hills.
David Perell compares it to a sports announcer getting louder near the goal. A whole speech like that would lose the effect.
He shows Lincoln using end repetition at Gettysburg. Repeating the closing words is epistrophe: "what we say here... what they did here", then "of the people, by the people, for the people". The address came in 1863, a few months after the battle where about 7,000 died.
Lincoln probably reworked an earlier Daniel Webster line and added the close "shall not perish from the earth", likely lifted from the book of Job. Farnsworth also notes the irony that the world long remembered Lincoln's words and perhaps less well what the soldiers did.
Bentsen's 1988 put-down works because it switches patterns. Replying to Dan Quayle's comparison with Kennedy, Lloyd Bentsen said: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." The pattern runs end, end, beginning, end, so the ear gets used to one pattern, gets relief, then gets it back.
Farnsworth says it is the one thing most people remember from a vice presidential debate. Churchill's 1940 call to arms also switches from end repetition to start repetition.
He says a chiasmus fits only certain thoughts, so learn the occasions. A chiasmus is an ABBA reversal, as in Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you": country, you, you, country. It suits "you have it backwards", give and take, "and vice versa", and mismatches like Mark Twain's capacity without the chance, then the chance without the capacity.
Farnsworth says you cannot force one onto any sentence, and speaking in chiasmus for five minutes fails. Learning which thoughts suit which pattern lets you smell the chance.
Farnsworth counts reversals of ideas as chiasmus too. English grammar blocks perfect versions, since you can't put I in both places. Lincoln's "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me" runs I, events, events, me.
He reads the Lord's Prayer line "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" the same way: simple words outside, the fancier temptation and deliver in the middle.
Farnsworth teaches clear and concise first, then memorable. He compares efficiency to learning to draw before you try to paint. Many writers are clear and concise, and most of them aren't Lincoln.
He says most writing books stop at lesson one. His own books are built around what Lincoln knew beyond clarity.
He tells writers to x-ray memorable lines instead of just admiring them. Slow down and ask which words are plain, which are fancy, what repeats and what reverses. The best lines usually follow more than one pattern at once.
Farnsworth says the way to find such patterns is to "slow down long enough to really take them apart or x-ray them".
His students rewrite modern court opinions as Holmes would have written them. In his rhetoric classes, students imitate Oliver Wendell Holmes to learn the signatures of a style. The imitations improve, then you throw them away and keep what you learned.
Holmes was the son of a famous 19th-century literary figure and the best writer American law has had. Farnsworth says: "If you want to imitate somebody's writing, you've really got to understand it."
Farnsworth separates influence from imitation and points to Lincoln. Lincoln learned from the King James Bible and Shakespeare, yet never sounds like either. His house-divided lines echo Matthew, and "shall not perish from the earth" echoes Job.
Farnsworth says writing sounds best when you speak the words onto the page, and that over time you write and speak what you read. He calls social media a campus where rhetoric is taught by bad example.
He warns that these tools should be used sparingly. Rhetorical patterns work like exclamation points and pull attention to the prose. Relentless repetition is a mark of bad political speeches.
His test: if readers notice the technique, it is bad technique.
He says beautifully phrased claims sound truer than they may be. A tidy, closed-loop sentence seems to admit no objection. Studying rhetoric helps you spot it in others and avoid being persuaded by form alone.
In his words: "things that are beautifully said sound more true. No reason to believe they are." The same tools can serve bad causes as well as good ones.