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photo for "photograph," postal for "postal card" (the English term, post-card, is better).

Good ones.

On the other hand, ran from "avant," penult from "penultimate syllable," extra, originally an abbreviation of "extraordinary," but now meaning “additional,” as in "extra work for extra pay " and "a charge for extras," consols from "consolidated annuities," wraps from "wrappings," chum from "comrade," cab from "cabriolet," hack from "hackneycoach," proxy, proctor, from " "procuracy," procurator," have established themselves.

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Some abbreviations that are frequent in verse are not allowable in prose; as,

E'er, ne'er, o'er, tho', thro', 'mid, 'neath, oft, natheless, 'gan, 'twixt, e'en, i', o'.

Words of

Barbarisms which come under the general head of slang or cant—the spawn of a political conlow origin. test, for example usually die a natural death; as,

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Up Salt River, Loco-foco, Copperhead, Barn-burner, Hunker, Softshell, Hard-shell, Adullamite, bulldoze, contraband (as a noun).

If, however, a word supplies a permanent need in the language, it may, whatever its origin, come into good

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Fig (as in "a fig for you"), hoax, banter, flimsy, bombast, bigot, caucus, gerrymander, cabal, Whig, Tory, Methodist, Radical, clever, fun, snob, humbug, buncombe, slang, cant, blue-stocking, toʻshunt, tramp (as a noun).

It may be said, and said with truth, that the rules thus far suggested, however firmly founded in reason, are least useful where there is room for doubt whether an old word has become obsolete, or whether a new word has established itself, the very cases in which guidance is most needed. In such cases prudence—at least for writers who have yet their spurs

Summary.

1 Herbert Spencer.

to win is the better part of valor. Such writers can follow no better counsels than those given by Ben Jonson and by Pope:

"Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present and newness of the past language is the best. For what was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the ancient custom? Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than life, if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar: but that I call custom of speech, which is the consent of the learned, as custom of life, which is the consent of the good." 1

"In words as fashions the same rule will hold,

Alike fantastic if too new or old;

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” 2

Even writers of established reputation who unite tact and discretion with genius, act in the spirit of these precepts. Cicero was wont to introduce an unusual expression with "so to speak;" Macaulay's new words

1 Ben Jonson: Works, vol. ix. p. 220. Borrowed from Quintilian: Inst. Orator. i. vi. i., xxxix-xlv.

2 Pope: Essay on Criticism, part ii.

can be counted on the fingers; Matthew Arnold apologizes for writing Renascence for "Renaissance." "I have ventured," he says," to give to the foreign word Renaissance-destined to become of more common use amongst us, as the movement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to interest us-an English form."2 "I trade," says Dryden,3 "both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language. We have enough in England to supply our necessity; but, if we will have things of magnificence and splendor, we must get them by commerce. Poetry requires ornament; and that is not to be had from our old Teuton monosyllables: therefore, if I find any elegant word in a classic author, I propose it to be naturalized, by using it myself; and, if the public approves of it, the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish between pedantry and poetry: every man, therefore, is not fit to innovate."

How, then, is a language to grow? How is literature to avail itself of the new words it needs for complete expression? The answer suggests itself. In the art of writing, as in every other art, it is the masters, and they only, who give the law and determine the practice. The poets, the great prose writers, may be safely left to determine what words are needed by the language.

1 Culture and Anarchy, p. 143.

2 Query as to the position of "an English form." See p. 135.

3 Dedication of The Eneis.

CHAPTER. IV.

SOLECISMS.1

As compared with highly inflected languages, English undergoes few grammatical changes of form. Its syntax is easily mastered, and for that very reason too often neglected. Expressions like the following are heard, some of them from ignorant persons, but some from persons who ought to know and who often do know, if they stop to think, that they are talking ungrammatically : "You ""there's the boys; was; "" who did you see?" "I aint going; " "I haint got it; " "I've gone and done it ; 29 66 who done it?" "between you and 1; "you hadn't ought to do it; "the little Lord Silverbridge as [for that] was to be; "walk like [for as] I do; "I am very pleased; "" directly [for as soon as] I get there; "I have no doubt but what he will come; Mr. A. jumped on to the train;" "how [for what] did you say?" "be I disagreeable? "don't tell on me;' is he to home;" "it isn't so, I don't think;' try and [for to] think; "those kind; "it is me; 774 66 it is her; "I have went; say?" "I don't remember of having heard it;""people talk that times are hard."

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Vulgarisms.

12

"whatever did you

In conversation, indeed, slight inaccuracies may be pardoned for the sake of colloquial ease, and in oratory, fire tells for more than correctness; but a writer is presumed to have whatever time he needs to make his

1 For definition, see p. 19.

2 Anthony Trollope: Phineas Finn, vol. ii. chap. Ix.

3 In England there is some good authority for this expression; but in the United States there is none.

4 Some English grammarians (Dr. Latham and Dean Alford, for example) defend this form; but the weight of good usage is decidedly against it.

sentences grammatical, and his readers have a stronger disposition, as well as greater opportunities, to notice his errors, than a listener has to notice those of a speaker. Hence, the grosser faults of common speech are avoided in print; but even good authors fall into offences against grammar, a fact which constitutes a special reason why such offences should be pointed out.

I. Some nouns, especially those of foreign origin, are Errors in the used in the plural instead of the singular, or in the singular instead of the plural.

use of singular and plural.

Thus, one newspaper speaks of "an enfeebled stamina ; " another says, "the vertebra was dislocated;" another, "there is an addenda; "1 another, "this was a remarkable phenomena;" another, "the tableaux was beautiful." We read of "a strata," "a termini," " "a memoranda." The elder Disraeli says, in one place, "The Roman Saturnalia were;" in another, "Such was the Roman Saturnalia." 2 "The minutias" and "the minutia " (as a plural), on the other hand, are sometimes seen.

Cherub may form its plural either after the Hebrew, as cherubim, or according to the English idiom, as cherubs; but it is equally incorrect to speak of a cherubim,3 and of “two little cherubims.” 4 A similar fault is committed by Addison: "The zeal of the seraphim [Abdiel] breaks forth in a becoming warmth of sentiments and expressions, as the character which is given us of him denotes that generous scorn and intrepidity which attend heroic virtue.” 5

II. A common error is in the use of a pronoun that differs in number from its antecedent.

"She studied his countenance like an inscription, and deciphered each rapt expression that crossed it, and stored them in her memory.'

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1 The Pall Mall Gazette. A speaker in the House of Representatives, 1877, said that "The Electoral Commission had made the two Houses of Congress a mere addenda to a conspiracy."

2 Quoted in Modern English Literature: Its Blemishes and Defects; by Henry H. Breen.

8 The Tempest, act i. scene ii.

4 George Eliot: Amos Barton, chap. i.

6 Charles Reade: Very Hard Cash, chap. iii.

5 The Spectator, No. 327.

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