We approach our readers or hearers on the sensory or emotional
side of their natures. Our phraseology is therefore normally concrete.
You should be able to express yourself according to either method. You
should be able to choose the words best suited to make people understand;
also to choose the words best suited to make people realize vividly and
feel. Now to some extent you will adopt the right method by intuition. But
if you do not reinforce your intuition with a careful study of words, you
will vacillate from one method to the other and strike crude discords of
phrasing. Of course if you switch methods intelligently and of purpose,
that is quite another matter. An abstract discussion may be enlivened by a
concrete illustration. A concrete narrative or portrayal may be given
weight and rationalized by generalization. Moreover many things lie on the
borderland between the two domains and may properly be attached to either.
Thus the abstraction is legitimate when you say or write: "A man wishes to
acquire the comforts and luxuries, as well as the necessaries, of life."
The concreteness is likewise legitimate when you say or write: "John Smith
wishes to earn cake as well as bread and butter.
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