Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Remarks on English Usage

Some Questions of Pronunciation and Usage [2]

Your “through whom” in place of my “wherethrough” is an improvement, but it is difficult to reject that word as a legal archaism inadmissible in good poetry. Your remark about “whereas” in my essay seemed to me just in pointing out the obscurity of connection it introduced between the two parts of my sentence, but the term itself has no stigma on it of obsolescence as does for instance “whenas”: in poetry it would be rather prosaic, while “wherethrough” is a special poetic usage as any big dictionary will tell us, and in certain contexts it would be preferable to “through which”, just as “whereon”, “wherein”, and “whereby” would sometimes be better than their ordinary equivalents. I wonder why you have become so ultra-modern: I remember you jibe also at “from out” a phrase which has not fallen into desuetude yet, and can be used occasionally even in a common context: e.g. “from out the bed”.

I don’t suggest that “whereas” was obsolete. It is a perfectly good word in its place, e.g. He pretended the place was empty, whereas in reality it was crowded, packed, overflowing; but its use as a loose conjunctive turn which can be conveniently shoved into any hole to keep two sentences together is altogether reprehensible. None of these words is obsolete, but “wherethrough” is rhetorically pedantic, just as “whereabout” or “wherewithal” would be. It is no use throwing the dictionary at my head — the dictionary admits many words which poetry refuses to admit. Of course you can drag any word in the D. into poetry if you like — e.g.:

My spirit parenthetically wise

Gave me its obiter dictum; à propos

I looked within with weird and brilliant eyes

And found in the pit of my stomach — the juste mot.

But all that is possible is not commendable. So if you seek a pretext wherethrough to bring in these heavy visitors, I shall buck and seek a means whereby to eject them.

2 October 1934