Correctness, this term indicates one of the aspects of literary style. Correctness consists in the scrupulous respect for the rules of grammar. A highly correct writer is almost always necessarily cold; at least it seems to me that there are many occasions when passions can only be expressed at the expense of some minor point of syntax. But such grammatical rules should not be dismissed out of hand for all that, since they are generally based on a very fine and solid dialectic. For each passage that would be spoiled by their strict observation, and where a writer with good taste is well aware that they should be neglected, there are a thousand others where observing them will make the difference between someone who knows how to write and think, and someone who only thinks he knows. In short, a writer should be forgiven for sinning against grammatical correctness only when there is more to be gained than lost. Precision pertains to facts and things; grammatical correctness to words. Whatever is written precisely in a language, when faithfully rendered, will be precise in all languages. The same is not true for grammatical correctness ; an author who has written the most correctly might well be incorrectly translated word for word from his language into another. Precision is born from truth, which is one and absolute; grammatical correctness , from the rules of convention, which is therefore variable.