Frontiering and elements of style

It is not a bad idea, whenever a person encounters annoying language, to look in Strunk and White’s timeless writer’s booklet, “The Elements of Style,” for clues why the annoyance occurred. It becomes a very good idea when the annoying language threatens to become official and influence thought without challenge.

That prospect of thought without challenge is what bothers me so about “Abilene Frontiering,” the words proposed to become a commercial “brand” to advertise my hometown.

No way to know how “Elements of Style” co-author E.B. White, the famed 20th-century essayist and author of “Charlotte’s Web,” might react to the word “frontiering.” That opportunity is lost, but in matters of words not to use, White has been helpful to me before. So again I go to “Elements.”

White begins the book’s Chapter Five, “An Approach to Style,” with a shot directly to the heart of the matter.

“Up to this point,” he begins, “the book has been concerned with what is correct, or acceptable, in the use of English. In this final chapter, we approach style in its broader meaning: style in the sense of what is distinguished and distinguishing. Here we leave solid ground. Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind?”

Such style, White says, is “an increment in writing. When we speak of Fitzgerald’s style, we don’t mean his command of the relative pronoun, we mean the sound his words make on paper.”

Since high school, I have taken the sound that words make on paper to be the goal of selecting the right words to say what I mean. Sound implies effect, some action that relates the word to what is actually happening on the ground. White states it this way: “Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable.” The beginner seeking style, White says, “should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style – all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.”

I stand the style of “frontiering” against this counsel, and it fails the test. It fails by itself, as a word untouched by style, which is simply annoying. Annoyance turns to alarm when officials propose to use such a word to influence thought about Abilene. The city may lack the style of Paris or Rome, or even San Antonio, but “frontiering” insults the considerable style that Abilene does have. What would be the words that make the right sound on paper for Abilene? Look for a combination that explodes in the mind, or at least ignites, and spreads across the face in a smile, or a glow of pride, Abilene, Texas style.