write half-a-dozen sentences without employing at least half that number of foreign words. His heroes are always marked by an air distingué; his vile men are sure to be blasés; his lady friends never merely dance or dress well, they dance or dress à merveille; and he himself when lolling on the sofa under the spirit of laziness does not simply enjoy his rest, he luxuriates in the dolce far niente, and wonders when he will manage to begin his magnum opus. And so he carries us through his story, running off into hackneyed French, Italian, or Latin expressions whenever he has any thing to say which he thinks should be graphically or emphatically said. It really seems as if he thought the English language too meagre, or too commonplace a dress, in which to clothe his thoughts. The tongue which gave a noble utterance to the thoughts of Shakspere and Milton is altogether insufficient to express the more cosmopolitan ideas of Smith, or Tomkins, or Jenkins! "We have before us an article from the pen of a very clever writer; and, as it appears in a magazine which specially professes to represent the best society,' it may be taken as a good specimen of the style. It describes a dancing party, and we discover for the first time how much learning is necessary to describe a 'hop' properly. The reader is informed that all the people at the dance belong to the beau monde, as may be seen at a coup d'œil; the demimonde is scrupulously excluded, and in fact every thing about it bespeaks the haut ton of the whole affair. A lady who has been happy in her hair-dresser is said to be coiffée à ravir. Then there is the bold man to describe. Having acquired the savoir faire, he is never afraid of making a faux pas, but no matter what kind of conversation is started plunges at once in medias res. Following him is the fair débutante, who is already on the look-out for un bon parti, but whose nez retroussé is a decided obstacle to her success. She is of course accompanied by mamma en grande toilette, who, entre nous, looks rather ridée even in the gaslight. Then, lest the writer should seem frivolous, he suddenly abandons the description of the dances, vis-à-vis and dos-à-dos, to tell us that Homer becomes tiresome when he sings of Βοώπις πότνια "Ηρη twice in a page. The supper calls forth a corresponding amount of learning, and the writer concludes his article after having aired his Greek, his Latin, his French, and, in a subordinate way, his English.” 1 1 The Leeds Mercury; quoted by Dean Alford: The Queen's English. SECTION III. NEW FORMATIONS. Greater latitude is allowed in the formation of new words from words in present use, since it is by such changes that a language grows. Whatever the objections to the noun mob, so long as the question was an open one, they had, after the noun was established, little force against its derivatives. If the noun was useful, so were to mob, mobbish, mob-law. So, too, after gas came into general use, the word with the thing, it was necessary as well as natural to form derivatives like gaseous and gasometer. Other instances are: to coal, to sail, to steam, to experience, to progress, to supplement, gifted, talented. Of these the last five met, if indeed they do not still meet, great opposition. 6 "One verb, that has come to us within the last four years from the American mint, is to interview.' Nothing can better express the spirit of our age, ever craving to hear something new. The verb calls up before us a queer pair: on the one side stands the great man, not at all sorry at the bottom of his heart that the rest of mankind are to learn what a fine fellow he is; on the other side fussily hovers the pressman, a Boswell who sticks at nothing in the way of questioning, but who outdoes his Scotch model in being wholly unshackled by any weak feeling of veneration." 1 Whatever the need of to interview, there is nothing to be said in favor of many vulgar substitutes for expressions in good use. Vulgarisms. As: "He availed of," instead of "availed himself of" an opportunity; "how does he like?" for "like it?" "how do you like?" for "like them?" a steal for "a theft;" "Lord Salisbury's wander through Europe;"2 "the case was refereed;"3"he deeded me the land; "the skatorial phenomenon; 3 66 Speaker Randall's "3" clothes laundered at short notice;" walkist, agriretiracy; culturalist, educationalist,3 speculatist, and the like; "B 3 1 Oliphant: Standard English, p. 332. 2 The [London] Spectator. 3 3 American newspapers. sui cided yesterday;" "the house was burglarized;" 1 "since the issuance (for "issue") of the President's order;"1 "the conferment of a degree; "1 "his letter of declinature;"1 cablegram;1 reportorial;1 managerial;1 confliction 2 (for "conflict"); in course (for “of course"); tasty (for "tasteful "); "he was fatigued by the difficult was extradited." climb; 992 L66 Firstly,3 illy,1 are used for first, ill, in apparent ignorance of the fact that, being adverbs already, they do not require the adverbial termination in ly. "On yesterday,' "4"come around" (for " come round," in the sense of "revive" or "recover,"), are similar errors. Not only should the need for a new form be evident, but it should be supplied in a manner conformable to the genius of the language, and with special reference to the principles of analogy and of euphony. . Foreign It may be doubted whether these conditions are fulfilled by the humor of spelling and pronouncing proper names of foreign extraction in accordance with what is, or is believed to be, the foreign fashions in fashion. The new form is not needed, since the old one is familiar; it pleases ears accustomed to other than English words; and it suits the analogy, not of English, but of some other language. spelling. "I have changed Dr. Hawtrey's 'Kastor,' 'Lakedaimon,' back to the familiar Castor,' 'Lacedaemon,' in obedience to my own rule that every thing odd is to be avoided in rendering Homer, the most natural and least odd of poets. I see Mr. Newman's critic in the National Review' urges our generation to bear with the unnatural effect of these rewritten Greek names, in the hope that by this means the effect of them may have to the next generation become natural. For my part, I feel no disposition to pass all my own life in the wilderness of pedantry, in order that a posterity which I shall never see may one day enter an orthographical Canaan. And, after all, the real question is this: whether our living apprehension 1 American newspapers. 2 College students. 3 Prof. W. S. Jevons, in The Fortnightly Review. of the Greek world is more checked by meeting, in an English book about the Greeks, names not spelt letter for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting names which make us rub our eyes and call out, How exceedingly odd!'"'1 There might be less objection to a change in the direction proposed, if it were rigidly carried out with all proper names of foreign origin, if it were founded upon any intelligible principle, or if the practice of its advocates were uniform. 8 One of these would-be reformers, for example, writes Thucydidês,2 Miltiades, Herodotos, in one book; Thucydides, Miltiades, Herodotus, in another book. We find also Mykênê, Arkadia, Korkyra, Sophokles, Xerxês, Pyrrhos, Nizza, Marseille, Elsass, in the same book with Thebes, Corinth, Cyprus, Eschylus, Alexander, Cræsus, Venice, Lyons, Lorraine. In one of two histories published under his name in the same year, Mr. E. A. Freeman writes of King Ælfred; in the other, of King Alfred. The same author writes Buonaparte; but, like Macaulay, he calls the French Louis Lewis, and, like Irving, writes Mahomet and Mahommetan, not Mohammed and Mohammedan. Yet the Arabic prophet's name still is, as it has been for centuries, a favorite battle-ground for Christians. "Every man who has travelled in the East brings home a new name for the prophet, and trims his turban to his own taste.” 8 The latest style of turban appears in the title of a book published in England in 1876, "A Digest of Moohummudan Law.” The weight of argument, as well as that of usage, is, however, in favor of calling the Greek deities by Greek 1 Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, p. 346. 2 Query as to the propriety of indicating 7 and w by a circumflex accent, an accent used, whether in English or in Greek, for an entirely different purpose. 3 E. A. Freeman: General Sketch of History (edition of 1876); History of Europe (Primer), same year. 4 Freeman: General Sketch of History. 5 History of The Norman Conquest. History of Europe (Primer). 7 Campbell: Rhetoric, book ii. chap. iii. sect. i. Failure, however, attended the attempt, in Dr. Campbell's time, to substitute Confutcee for "Confucius," and Zerdusht for "Zoroaster." 8 Landor: Works, vol. iv. p. 244. names; but occasionally a powerful voice is heard on the other side of the question. "The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most cases the idea of quite distinct personages from the personages whose idea is raised by the Greek names. Hera and Juno are actually, to every scholar's imagination, two different people. So in all these cases the Latin names must, at any inconvenience, be abandoned when we are dealing with the Greek world. But I think it can be in the sensitive imagination of Mr. Grote only, that Thucydides' raises the idea of a different man from Θουκυδίδης.” 1 "I make no apology for employing in my version the names Jupiter, Juno, Venus, and others of Latin origin, for Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and other Greek names of the deities of whom Homer speaks. The names which I have adopted have been naturalized in our language for centuries, and some of them—as Mercury, Vulcan, and Dian-have even been provided with English terminations. I was translating from Greek into English, and I therefore translated the names of the gods, as well as the other parts of the poem."2 Good use adopts some abbreviated forms, but brands. as barbarisms many others. viations. Some of those condemned by "The Spectator" at the beginning of the last century are current still; as, - phiz for Bad abbre"physiognomy," incog for "incognito," poz for “ positive," hyp for "hypochondria." Others, rep for "reputation," plenipo for "plenipotentiary," - have disappeared; but their places have been filled by hum for "humbug," exam for "examination,“ cit for citizen," spec for "speculation," compo for "composition," confub for "confabulation," cute for "acute," gent for "gentleman," pants for "pantaloons" ("trousers" is far preferable), 66 1 Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, p. 347. 3 Eastlake: Hints on Household Taste. 4 "The curt form of gent, as a less ceremonious substitute for the full expression of 'gentleman,' had once made considerable way, but its career was blighted in a court of justice. It is about twenty years ago that two young men, being brought before a London magistrate, described themselves as 'gents.' The magistrate said that he considered that a designation little better than blackguard. The abbreviated form has never been able to recover that shock."The Philology of the English Tongue, by John Earle, p. 341. |