The King’s English and the Tyranny of Taste

A reminder from a century ago

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The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533 (public domain - Wikipedia)

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”
— David McCullough, 2002

This weekend, as millions take to the streets in the “No Kings” protests — a nationwide movement rejecting the idea of unchecked power, the spectacle of coronation, and authoritarian ascendancy — we are reminded of the power of language. The protest slogan itself, “No Kings,” is raw, direct, unadorned: a refusal of royal trappings and a claim for democracy.

When H. W. Fowler and his brother F. G. Fowler published The King’s English in 1906, they offered more than grammar lessons. They issued a manifesto for honesty in prose: a rebellion against pomposity, pretension, and the “weasel words” that drained speech of its moral vigor.

Their creed was simple: to write clearly is to think honestly. They believed that style revealed the soul; that sloppy language betrayed sloppy thought.

More than a hundred years later, their admonitions read like dispatches to our own digital age — an era as noisy, narcissistic, and imprecise as the one they scolded.

Here are a few enduring highlights from The King’s English — lessons for those who still believe words matter.

1. Plain Words: The Republic of the Short and Simple

The Fowlers loathed verbal bloat. They ridiculed the bureaucrat who wrote,

“The state of Poland … has been of a far more serious nature than has been allowed to transpire.”

Their fix:

“More serious than has been admitted.”

Shorter. Sharper. Clearer.

“Every unnecessary syllable clouds the thought.”

The plain word, they said, is not vulgar — it’s democratic. The English language, like any healthy republic, works best when its servants speak plainly.

2. Mixed Meanings and Malaprops: The Comedy of Error

Every age has its verbal pratfalls. The Fowlers collected them like butterflies:

• Perspicuity (clearness) for perspicacity (insight).

• Complaisant (obliging) for complacent (self-satisfied).

• Demean oneself confused with demean (to degrade).

“Precision is not pedantry, but the lifeblood of meaning.”

Each slip is a small act of unintended poetry — and a reminder that accuracy is the highest form of courtesy.