Instances of expressions that have come from professional into more or less general, but not into good, use are the following: From the law, aforesaid or said (as "the said man "), on the docket, entail (in the sense of "bring "), "and now comes (at the beginning of a paragraph), I claim (in the sense of "maintain ") that; from the pulpit, on the anxious seat, phylactery, advent, hierarchy, neophyte; from medicine, affection (as "an affection of the liver "); from commerce, balance (as "the balance of the day was given to talk "), "in his line," A No. 1; from the Congressional dialect, to champion (“support") a measure, to antagonize, - two measures contending for precedence in the order of legislation are said to antagonize each other, a senator is said to antagonize ("oppose ") a bill or another senator; from mathematics, to differentiate (in the sense of "to make a difference between "); from a school in political economy, wage and wage-fund ("wages, wages-fund "), to appreciate and to depreciate (in the sense of "to rise," or "to fall, in value "); from the stock-market, to aggregate (in the sense of "to amount to," as "the sales aggregated1 fifty thousand shares"), to take stock in, above par; from mining, to pan out, hard pan, to get down to bed rock, to strike a bonanza or to strike oil (in the sense of “to succeed ”), these diggings ("this section ").

The following are instances of foreign expressions to which English equivalents are preferable: née ("Casaubon born Brooke "1 is preferable), on the tapis (carpet), coup de soleil (sunstroke), trottoir (sidewalk), motif (motive), morceau (piece), émeute (riot), fracas (brawl), abattoir (slaughter-house), feux d'artifice (fireworks), dépôt (station), gamin (street boy, street Arab), chevalier d'industrie (adventurer), bas bleu (blue-stocking), derailment (said of a train thrown off the track).3

Words in good use in the United States are to be preferred by an American to those not heard out of Great Britain: as coal to coals, pitcher to jug, honor to honour, railroad cars to carriages, horse railroad to tramway, trunks to boxes, wharves to wharfs. An Englishman, on the other hand, should, as matter of national use, refer the English to the American form.

Present use is determined neither by authors who wrote so long ago that their diction has become antiquated, nor by those whose national reputation is not 1 See also p. 60. 2 George Eliot: Middlemarch. 8 See, for other examples, p. 22.

firmly established. Not even the authority of Shakspere, of Milton, or of Johnson, though supported by the uniform practice of his contemporaries, justi- Present use. fies an expression that has been disused for

fifty years; nor does the adoption by many newspapers of a new word, or of an old word in a new sense, establish it in the language. In both cases, time is the court of last resort; and the decisions of this court are made known by recent writers of national reputation.

Its

The exact boundaries of present use cannot, however, be fixed with precision. Dr. Campbell, writing in the last century, held that no word boundaries. should be deemed in present use which was not to be found in works written since 1688, or which was found only in the works of living authors; but in these days of change, words come and go more rapidly. New things call for new names; and the new names, if generally accepted, will, in a few years, come with the new things into present use. The history of gas, steam, mining, of the railroad, of the telegraph, abounds in familiar instances. When, on the other hand, the study of mental and moral philosophy received, in the early part of the century, an impulse from Germany, words long disused were recalled to life.

“Reason and understanding, as words denominative of distinct faculties; the adjectives sensuous, transcendental, subjective and objective, supernatural, as an appellation of the spiritual, or that immaterial essence which is not subject to the law of cause and effect, and is thus distinguished from that which is natural, words revived, not invented, by the school of Coleridge."1

are all

Again words may be in present use in poetry which are obsolete, or almost obsolete, in prose.

1 Marsh: English Language, lect. viii.

Examples in point are: ere, anon, mount, vale, nigh, save (for except "), betwixt, hight, scarce and exceeding (for scarcely and "exceedingly "), erst, whilom, mine (as in "mine host "), ire, withal, hath, yclept, yore, quoth, kine, don, doff, nay and yea, whilst.

66

66

Byron can sing of "the Isles of Greece," but an historian would speak of "islands.” Tennyson can say rampire and shoon where prose would write "rampart " and "shoes," just as he can call the sky "the breezy blue."1

So, too, words are obsolete for one kind of prose, but not for another. An historical novel, for example, may indulge in expressions, now obsolete, that are characteristic of the time in which the scene is laid; but care should be taken not to make such expressions so numerous as to render the work unintelligible to ordinary readers. All that can be done is to suggest antiquity. In Thackeray's "Henry Esmond," for example, 'tis for it is (a peculiarity of "The Spectator," but rare in modern prose 1) goes far to take the reader back to Queen Anne's time.

In all cases, "the question is not, whether a diction is antiquated for current speech, but whether it is antiquated for that particular purpose for which it is employed. A diction that is antiquated for common speech and common prose, may very well not be antiquated for poetry or certain special kinds of prose. 'Peradventure there shall be ten found there,' is not antiquated for Biblical prose, though for conversation or for a newspaper it is antiquated. trumpet spake not to the arméd throng' is not antiquated for poetry, although we should not write in a letter,' he spake to me,' or say, 'the British soldier is arméd with the Enfield rifle.' "' 2

'The

These principles taken for granted, it follows that grammarians and lexicographers have no authority not derived from good use. Their business is to record in a

Analogy be

convenient form the decision of every case in which recent writers or speakers of national reputation are agreed; but they have no more tween law right to call in question such a decision than the compiler of a digest has to overrule a legislature or

a court.

and language.

When, however, usage is divided, when each of two forms of expression is almost equally supported by authority, there is room for argument, as there is when legal precedents conflict. In the latter case, the question is looked at in the light of the general principles of law; in the former case, the question may be looked at in the light of the general principles of language: in both cases, a critic's conclusion is an expression of personal opinion, not an authoritative decision. It binds nobody, and it is frequently overruled.

CHAPTER II.

RULES IN CASES OF DIVIDED USAGE.

IN the determination of cases of divided usage, the best practical guides are some, though not all, of the canons framed by Dr. Campbell, and adopted, sometimes without due credit, by writers on Rhetoric since his day.

Canon I1 When, of two words or phrases in equally good use, one is susceptible of two significations and the other is susceptible of but one signification, the latter-being the form of expression which is perspicuity. in every instance univocal-should be preferred. The effect of following this canon is to give each word one distinct meaning.

The canon of

By consequence or in consequence, in the sense of "consequently," is preferable to of consequence, since the latter also means "important;" admittance, as in "No admittance except on business," is preferable to admission, since the latter also means "confession " or "acknowledgment; "insurance to assurance policy, since " assurance " also means "" "confidence.' International Exhibition is preferable to International Exposition, since "exposition" has long been used in another meaning, as in "an exposition of doctrine; choir, "singers," and sat, past of "to sit," forms universally used in the United States, are preferable to quire 2 and sate,2 these having other well-established meanings. Afterwards, as an adverb, is preferable to after, since the latter is also used as a preposition. Aught, in the sense of "any thing," is preferable to ought, the latter being a tense of the verb to owe; but nought ("nothing") is preferable to naught, the latter being an old form of naughty. Draft, in the sense of an order for money, a "sketch" (as for a speech), or

1 This and the following canons are taken in substance from Dr. Campbell's Rhetoric.

2 Scott, Macaulay, George Eliot.