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Samuel Johnson knew a thing or two about language and style. For more than three years the British author almost single-handedly wrote and edited a biweekly journal, The Rambler. After completing his master work, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), he returned to journalism by contributing essays and reviews to the Literary Magazine and The Idler, where the following essay appeared in issue number 36, dated December 23, 1758.
In his Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (1969), Richard Lanham reintroduced the Greek word skotison (literally, "darken") to describe writing that is deliberately obscure--writing in which, as Johnson observed, "the most familiar propositions [are] so disguised that they cannot be known." Johnson's own name for this "terrific" and "repulsive" kind of prose is the bugbear style.
The Bugbear Styleby Samuel Johnson
The great differences that disturb the peace of mankind are not about ends, but means. We have all the same general desires, but how those desires shall be accomplished, will for ever be disputed. The ultimate purpose of government is temporal, and that of religion is eternal happiness. Hitherto we agree; but here we must part, to try, according to the endless varieties of passion and understanding combined with one another, every possible form of government, and every imaginable tenet of religion.
We are told by Cumberland that rectitude, applied to action or contemplation, is merely metaphorical; and that as a right line describes the shortest passage from point to point, so a rightaction effects a good design by the fewest means; and so likewise a right opinion is that which connects distant truths by the shortest train of intermediate propositions.
To find the nearest way from truth to truth, or from purpose to effect, not to use more instruments where fewer will be sufficient; not to move by wheels and levers what will give way to the naked hand, is the great proof of a healthful and vigorous mind, neither feeble with helpless ignorance, nor overburdened with unwieldy knowledge.
But there are men who seem to think nothing so much the characteristic of a genius, as to do common things in an uncommon manner; like Hudibras, to tell the clock by algebra; or like the lady in Dr. Young's satires, to drink tea by stratagem; to quit the beaten track only because it is known, and take a new path, however crooked or rough, because the strait was found out before.
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and as he grows more elegant becomes less intelligible.
It is difficult to enumerate every species of authors whose labours counteract themselves; the man of exuberance and copiousness, who diffuses every thought through so many diversities of expression, that it is lost like water in a mist; the ponderous dictator of sentences, whose notions are delivered in the lump, and are, like uncoined bullion, of more weight than use; the liberal illustrator, who shews by examples and comparisons what was clearly seen when it was first proposed; and the stately son of demonstration, who proves with mathematical formality what no man has yet pretended to doubt.
There is a mode of style for which I know not that the masters of oratory have yet found a name; a style by which the most evident truths are so obscured, that they can no longer be perceived, and the most familiar propositions so disguised that they cannot be known. Every other kind of eloquence is the dress of sense; but this is the mask by which a true master of his art will so effectually conceal it, that a man will as easily mistake his own positions, if he meets them thus transformed, as he may pass in a masquerade his nearest acquaintance.
This style may be called the terrifick, for its chief intention is, to terrify and amaze; it may be termed the repulsive, for its natural effect is to drive away the reader; or it may be distinguished, in plain English, by the denomination of the bugbear style, for it has more terror than danger, and will appear less formidable as it is more nearly approached.
Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/essaysonstyle/a/sjohnsonstyle.htm
The Bugbear Styleby Samuel Johnson
The great differences that disturb the peace of mankind are not about ends, but means. We have all the same general desires, but how those desires shall be accomplished, will for ever be disputed. The ultimate purpose of government is temporal, and that of religion is eternal happiness. Hitherto we agree; but here we must part, to try, according to the endless varieties of passion and understanding combined with one another, every possible form of government, and every imaginable tenet of religion.
We are told by Cumberland that rectitude, applied to action or contemplation, is merely metaphorical; and that as a right line describes the shortest passage from point to point, so a rightaction effects a good design by the fewest means; and so likewise a right opinion is that which connects distant truths by the shortest train of intermediate propositions.
To find the nearest way from truth to truth, or from purpose to effect, not to use more instruments where fewer will be sufficient; not to move by wheels and levers what will give way to the naked hand, is the great proof of a healthful and vigorous mind, neither feeble with helpless ignorance, nor overburdened with unwieldy knowledge.
But there are men who seem to think nothing so much the characteristic of a genius, as to do common things in an uncommon manner; like Hudibras, to tell the clock by algebra; or like the lady in Dr. Young's satires, to drink tea by stratagem; to quit the beaten track only because it is known, and take a new path, however crooked or rough, because the strait was found out before.
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and as he grows more elegant becomes less intelligible.
It is difficult to enumerate every species of authors whose labours counteract themselves; the man of exuberance and copiousness, who diffuses every thought through so many diversities of expression, that it is lost like water in a mist; the ponderous dictator of sentences, whose notions are delivered in the lump, and are, like uncoined bullion, of more weight than use; the liberal illustrator, who shews by examples and comparisons what was clearly seen when it was first proposed; and the stately son of demonstration, who proves with mathematical formality what no man has yet pretended to doubt.
There is a mode of style for which I know not that the masters of oratory have yet found a name; a style by which the most evident truths are so obscured, that they can no longer be perceived, and the most familiar propositions so disguised that they cannot be known. Every other kind of eloquence is the dress of sense; but this is the mask by which a true master of his art will so effectually conceal it, that a man will as easily mistake his own positions, if he meets them thus transformed, as he may pass in a masquerade his nearest acquaintance.
This style may be called the terrifick, for its chief intention is, to terrify and amaze; it may be termed the repulsive, for its natural effect is to drive away the reader; or it may be distinguished, in plain English, by the denomination of the bugbear style, for it has more terror than danger, and will appear less formidable as it is more nearly approached.
Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/essaysonstyle/a/sjohnsonstyle.htm