[53]
We must also avoid
macrology, that is, the employment of more words
than are necessary, as, for instance, in the sentence
of Livy, “The ambassadors, having failed to obtain
peace, went back home, whence they had come.”1
On the other hand, periphrasis, which is akin to this
blemish, is regarded as a virtue. Another fault is
pleonasm, when we overload our style with a superfluity of words, as in the phrase, “I saw it with
my eyes,” where “I saw it” would have been
sufficient.
1 Fr. 62, Hertz.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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