There are five excellences of speech—pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction.
By good Greek is meant language faultless in point of grammar and free from careless vulgarity.
Lucidity is a style which presents the thought in a way easily understood; conciseness a style that employs no more words than are necessary for setting forth the subject in hand; appropriateness lies in a style akin to the subject; distinction in the avoidance of colloquialism.
Among vices of style barbarism is violation of the usage of Greeks of good standing; while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruous construction.
—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.59
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