MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
AMBIGUOUS
In reporting the Board of Education the Alta says sometimes, "The petition was received and referred with power." That is too vague. Why don't you state how much power? Why can't you cipher it down a little closer? Couldn't you say the petition was referred with one-horse power, or four-horse power, or forty-horse power, or somehow that way, so that one could form a kind of definite idea of the degree of force employed in referring the petition! Now don't you go on keeping people in suspense in this sort of way. You are big enough to know what you are talking about, but you don't half the time.
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865,
University of California Press, 1981, p. 498.]
