William Mathews

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.—Pope.

If a gentleman be to study any language, it ought to be that of his own country.—Locke.

Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as well as in politics.—W. D. Whitney.

People who write essays to prove that though a word in fact means one thing, it ought to mean another, or that though all well educated Englishmen do conspire to use this expression, they ought to use that, are simply bores.—Edinburgh Review.

One of the most gratifying signs of the times is the deep interest which both our scholars and our people are beginning to manifest in the study of our noble English tongue. Perhaps nothing has contributed more to awaken a public interest in this matter, and to call attention to some of the commonest improprieties of speech, than the publication of “The Queen’s English” and “The Dean’s English,” and the various criticisms which have been provoked in England and in the United States by the Moon-Alford controversy. Hundreds of persons who before felt a profound indifference to this subject, have had occasion to thank the Dean for awakening their curiosity in regard to it; and hundreds more who otherwise would never have read his dogmatic small-talk, or Mr. Moon’s trenchant dissection of it, have suddenly found themselves, in consequence of the newspaper criticisms of the two books, keenly interested in questions of grammar, and now, with their appetites whetted, will continue the study of their own language, till they have mastered its difficulties, and familiarized themselves with all its idioms and idiotisms. Of such discussions we can hardly have too many, and just now they are imperiously needed to check the deluge of barbarisms, solecisms, and improprieties, with which our language is threatened. Not only does political freedom make every man in America an inventor, alike of labor-saving machines and of labor-saving words, but the mixture of nationalities is constantly coining and exchanging new forms of speech, of which our busy Bartletts, in their lists of Americanisms, find it impossible to keep account.

It is not merely our spoken language that is disfigured by these blemishes; but our written language,—the prose of the leading English authors,—exhibits more slovenliness and looseness of diction than is found in any other literature. That this is due in part to the very character of the language itself, there can be no doubt. Its simplicity of structure and its copiousness both tend to prevent its being used with accuracy and care; and it is so hospitable to alien words that it needs more powerful securities against revolution than other languages of less heterogeneous composition. But the chief cause must be found in the character of the English-speaking race. There is in our very blood a certain lawlessness, which makes us intolerant of syntactical rules, and restive under pedagogical restraints. “Our sturdy English ancestors,” says Blackstone, “held it beneath the condition of a freeman to appear, or to do any other act, at the precise time appointed.” The same proud, independent spirit which made the Saxons of old rebel against the servitude of punctuality, prompts their descendants to spurn the yoke of grammar and purism. In America this scorn of obedience, whether to political authority or philological, is fostered and intensified by the very genius of our institutions. We seem to doubt whether we are entirely free, unless we apply the Declaration of Independence to our language, and carry the Monroe doctrine even into our grammar.

The degree to which this lawlessness has been carried will be seen more strikingly if we compare our English literature with the literature of France. It has been justly said that the language of that country is a science in itself, and the labor bestowed on the acquisition of it has the effect of vividly impressing on the mind both the faults and the beauties of every writer’s style. Method and perspicuity are its very essence; and there is hardly a writer of note who does not attend to these requisites with scrupulous care. Let a French writer of distinction violate any cardinal rule of grammar, and he is pounced upon instantly by the critics, and laughed at from Calais to Marseilles. When Boileau, who is a marvel of verbal and grammatical correctness, made a slip in the first line of his Ninth Satire,

“C’est À vous, mon Esprit, À qui je veux parler,”

the grammatical sensibility of the French ear was shocked to a degree that we, who tolerate the grossest solecisms, find it hard to estimate. For two centuries the blunder has been quoted by every writer on grammar, and impressed on the memory of every schoolboy. Indeed, such is the national fastidiousness on this subject, that it has been doubted whether a single line in Boileau has been so often quoted for its beauty, as this unfortunate one for its lack of grammar. When did an English or an American writer thus offend the critical ears of his countrymen, even though he were an Alison, sinning against Lindley Murray on every page?

We are no friends to hypercriticism, or to that finical niceness which cares more for the body than for the soul of language, more for the outward expression than for the thought which it incarnates. Too much rigor is as unendurable as laxity. It is, no doubt, possible to be so over-nice in the use of words and the construction of sentences as to sap the vitality of our speech. We may so refine our expression, by continual straining in our critical sieves, as to impair both the strength and the flexibility of our noble English tongue. There are some verbal critics, who, apparently go so far as to hold that every word must have an invariable meaning, and that all relations of thoughts must be indicated by absolute and invariable formulas, thus reducing verbal expression to the rigid inflexibility of a mathematical equation. If we understand Mr. Moon’s censures of Murray and Alford, some of them are based on the assumption that an ellipsis is rarely, if ever, permissible in English speech. We have no sympathy with such extremists, nor with the verbal purists who challenge all words and phrases that cannot be found in the “wells of English undefiled,” that have been open for more than a hundred years. We must take the good with the bad in the incessant changes and masquerades of language. “The severe judgment of the scholar may condemn as verbiage that undergrowth of words which threatens to choke up and impoverish the great roots that have occupied the soil from the earliest times; he may apprehend wreck and disaster to the fixedness of language when he sees words loosened from their etymons, and left to drift upon the ocean at the mercy of wind and tide; and he is justified in every seasonable and reasonable attempt he makes to reconcile current and established significations with the sanction of authority.” But it must not be forgotten that language is a living, organic thing, and by the very law of its life must always be in a fluctuating state. To petrify it into immutable forms, to preserve it as one preserves fruits and flowers in spirits of wine and herbariums, is as hopeless as it would be undesirable, if we would have it a medium for the ever-changing thoughts of man.

Language is a growing thing, as truly as a tree; and as a tree, while it casts off some leaves, will continually put forth others, so a language will be perpetually growing and expanding with the discoveries of science, the extension of commerce, and the progress of thought. Such events as the growth of the Roman Empire, the introduction of Christianity, the rise of the scholastic and of the mystic theology in the middle ages, the irruption of the northern barbarians into Italy, the establishment, of the Papacy, the introduction of the feudal system, the Crusades, the Reformation, the French Revolution, the American Civil War, give birth to new ideas, which clamor for new words to express them. Every age thus enriches language with new accessions of beauty and strength. Not only are new words coined, but old ones continually take on new senses; and it is only in the transition period, before they have established themselves in the general favor of good speakers and writers, that purity of style requires them to be shunned. Those who are so ignorant of the laws of language as to resist its expansion,—who declare that it has attained at any time the limit of its development, and seek by philological bulls to check its growth,—will find that, like a vigorous forest tree, it will defy any shackles that men may bind about it; that it will reck as little of their decrees as did the advancing ocean of those of Canute. The critics who make such attempts do not see that the immobility of language would be the immobility of history. They forget that many of the purest words in our language were at one time startling novelties, and that even the dainty terms in which they challenge each new-comer, though now naturalized, had once to fight their way inch by inch. Shakespeare ridicules “element”; Fulke, in the seventeenth century, objects to such ink-horn terms as “rational,” “scandal,” “homicide,” “ponderous,” and “prodigious”; Dryden censures “embarrass,” “grimace,” “repartee,” “foible,” “tour,” and “rally”; Swift denounces “hoax” as low and vulgar; Pope condemns “witless,” “welkin,” and “dulcet”; and Franklin, who could draw from the clouds the electric fluid which now carries language with the speed of lightning from land to land, vainly struggled against the introduction of the words “to advocate” and “to notice.” In the “New World of Words,” by Edward Phillips, published in 1678, there is a long list of words which he declared should be either used warily or rejected as barbarous. Among these words are the following, which are all in good use to-day: autograph, aurist, bibliograph, circumstantiate, evangelize, ferocious, holograph, inimical, misanthropist, misogynist, and syllogize.

The word “Fatherland” seems so natural that we are apt to regard it as an old word; yet the elder Disraeli claims the honor of having introduced it. Macaulay tells us that the word “gutted,” which was doubtless objected to as vulgar, was first used on the night in which James II fled from London: “The king’s printing-house ... was, to use a coarse metaphor, which then, for the first time, came into fashion, completely gutted.” How much circumlocution is saved by the word “antecedents” (formerly a grammatical term only), in its new sense, denoting a man’s past history; with reference to which Punch says it would be more satisfactory to know something of a suspected man’s relatives than of his antecedents! What a happy, ingenious use of an old word is that of “telescope” to describe a railway accident, when the force of a collision causes the cars to run or fit into each other, like the shortening slides of a telescope! The term is so picturesque and so convenient in avoiding a periphrasis, that it cannot fail to be stamped with the seal of good usage. How admirably was a real void in the vocabulary filled by the word “squatter,” when it was first coined! The man who first uttered it gave vivid expression to an idea which had existed vaguely in the brains of thousands; and it was hardly spoken before it was on every tongue. Coleridge observes truly that any new word expressing a fact or relationship, not expressed by any other word in the language, is a new organ of thought; and how true is this of the terms “solidarity” (as in the phrase “solidarity of the peoples”), and “international,” both of which express novel and characteristic conceptions of our own century. The latter word is a coinage of Jeremy Bentham, to whom we are also indebted for “codify,” “maximise,” and “minimise.” The little word “its” had to force its way into the language, against the opposition of “correct” speakers and writers, on the ground of its apparent analogy with the other English possessives.

Dr. Johnson objected to the word “dun” in Lady Macbeth’s famous soliloquy, declaring that the “efficacy of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet now seldom heard but in the stable:—”

“Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell.”

It was a notion of the great critic and lexicographer, with which his mind was long haunted, that the language should be refined and fixed so as finally to exclude all rustic and vulgar elements from the authorized vocabulary of the lettered and polite. Dryden had hinted at the establishment of an academy for this purpose, and Swift thought the Government “should devise some means for ascertaining and fixing the language forever,” after the necessary alterations should be made in it.

If it were possible to exclude needed new words from a language, the French Academy would have succeeded in its attempts to do so, consisting as it did of the chief scholars of France. Not content with crushing political liberty, Richelieu sought to become autocrat of the French language. No word was to be uttered anywhere in the realm until he had countersigned it. But in spite of all the efforts of his Academy to exercise a despotic authority over the French tongue, new words have continually forced their way in, and so they will continue to do while the French nation maintains its vitality, in spite of the protests of all the purists and academicians in France. “They that will fight custom with grammar,” says Montaigne, “are fools”; and, with the limitations to be hereafter stated, the remark is just, and still more true of those who triumphantly appeal against custom to the dictionary, which is not merely a home for living words, but a cemetery for the dead.

Even slang words, after long knocking, will often gain admission into a language, like pardoned outlaws received into the body of respectable citizens. We need not add to these, words coined in his lofty moods by the poet, who is a maker by the very right of his name. That creative energy which distinguishes him,—“the high-flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet,”—will, of course, display itself here, and the all-fusing imagination will at once, as Trench has remarked, suggest and justify audacities in speech which would not be tolerated from creeping prose-writers. Great liberties may be allowed, too, within certain bounds, to the idiosyncrasies of all great writers. We love the rugged, gnarled oak, with the grotesque contortions of its branches, better than the smoothly clipped uniformity of the Dutch yew tree. Carlyleisms may therefore be tolerated from the master, though not from the umbrÆ that spaniel him at the heels, and feebly echo his singularities and oddities. A style that has no smack or flavor of the man that uses it is a tasteless style. But there is a limit even to the liberty of great thinkers in coining words. It must not degenerate into license. Coleridge was a skilful mint-master of words, yet not all his genius can reconcile us to such expressions as the following, in a letter to Sir Humphrey Davy: “I was a well meaning sutor who had ultra-crepidated with more zeal than wisdom.”

No one would hesitate to place Isaac Barrow among the greatest masters of the English tongue; yet the weighty thoughts which his words represented did not prevent many of the trial-pieces which he coined in his verbal mint from being returned on his hands. Who knows the meaning of such words as “avoce,” “acquist,” “extund”? Sir Thomas Browne abounds in such hyperlatinistic expressions as “bivious,” “quodlibetically,” “cunctation,” to which even his gorgeous rhetoric does not reconcile the reader. Charles Lamb has “agnise” and “bourgeon.” Coleridge invents “extroitive,” “retroitive,” “influencive”; Bentley, “commentitious,” “negoce,” “exscribe.” Sydney Smith was continually coining words, some of them compounds from the homely Saxon idiom, others big-wig classical epithets, devised with scholar-like precision, and exceedingly ludicrous in their effect. Thus he speaks of “frugiverous” children, of “mastigophorous” schoolmasters, of “fugacious” or “plumigerous” captains; of “lachrymal and suspirious” clergymen; of people who are “simious,” and people who are “anserous”; he enriches the language with the expressive hybrid, “Foolometer”; and he characterizes the September sins of the English by the awful name of “perdricide.” In the early ages of our literature, when the language was less fixed, and there were few recognized standards of expression, writers coined words without license, supplying the place of correct terms, when they did not occur to their minds, by analogy and invention. But a bill must not only be drawn by the word-maker; it must also be accepted. The Emperor Tiberius was very properly told that he might give citizenship to men, but not to words. All innovations in speech, every new term introduced, should harmonize with the general principles of the language. No new phrase should be admitted which is not consonant with its peculiar genius, or which does violence to its fundamental integrity. Nor should any form of expression be tolerated that violates the universal laws of language. As Henry lingers has well said, a philosophical mind will consider that, whatever deflection may have taken place in the original principles of a language, whatever modification of form it may have undergone, it is, at each period of its history, the product of a slow accumulation and countless multitude of associations, which can neither be hastily formed nor hastily dismissed; that these associations extend even to the modes of spelling and pronouncing, of inflecting and combining words; and that anything which does violence to such associations impairs, for the time, at least, the power of the language.

Even good usage itself is but a proximate and strongly presumptive test of purity. Custom is not an absolute despotism, though it approaches very nearly to that character. Its decisions are generally authoritative; but, as there are extreme measures which even oriental despots cannot put into execution without endangering the safety of their possessions, so there are things which custom cannot do without endangering the fixity and purity of language. If grammatical monstrosities exist in a language, a correct taste will shun them, as it does physical deformities in the arts of design. Dean Alford defends some of his own indefensible expressions by citing the authority of the Scripture; but authority for the most vicious forms of speech can be found in all our writers, not excepting King James’s translators,—as Mr. Harrison has shown by hundreds of examples in his work on “The English Language.” Take, for example, the following sentence, or part of a sentence, from so great a writer as Dean Swift: “Breaking a constitution by the very same errors, that so many have been broke before.” Here, in a sentence of only fifteen words, we have three grammatical errors, glaring, and, in such a writer, unpardonable. We smile at the rustic ignorance which has engraved on a Hampshire tombstone such lines as

“Him shall never come again to we;

But us shall one day surely go to he;”

but is this couplet a whit more ungrammatical than Scott’s “I know not whom else are expected,” in “the Pirate”; or Southey’s sentence in “the Doctor,” “Gentle reader, let you and I, in like manner, endeavor to improve the enclosure of the Carr;” or Professor Aytoun’s

“But it were vain for you and I

In single fight our strength to try.”

A writer in “Blackwood” affirms that, “with the exception of Wordsworth, there is not one celebrated author of this day who has written two pages consecutively without some flagrant impropriety in the grammar;” and the statement, we believe, is undercharged. The usage, therefore, of a good writer is only prima facie evidence of the correctness of a disputed word or phrase; for he may have used the word carelessly or inadvertently, and it is altogether probable that, were his attention called to it, he would be prompt to admit his error. It has been remarked that “nowadays” and “had have” meet all the conditions of good usage, being reputable, national, and present; but one is a solecism, the other a barbarism. Again, if the writer is an old writer, like Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, or Addison, his authority must always be received with caution, and with increasing caution as we recede from the age in which he flourished. The great changes which our language has undergone within even a hundred years, show that the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are unsafe guides for the nineteenth, unless they are corroborated by contemporary usage. Let the English language he enriched in the spirit, and according to the principles of which we have spoken, and it will be, not a tank, but a living stream, casting out everything effete and impure, refreshed by new sources of inspiration and wealth, keeping pace with the stately march of the ages, and still retaining much of its original sweetness, expression and force.

It is our intention in this chapter, not to notice all the improprieties of speech that merit censure,—to do which would require volumes,—but to criticise some of those which most frequently offend the ear of the scholar in this country. The term impropriety we shall use, not merely in the strictly rhetorical sense of the word, but in the popular meaning, to include in it all inaccuracies of speech, whether offences against etymology, lexicography, or syntax. To pillory such offences, to point out the damage which they inflict upon our language, and to expose the moral obliquity which often lurks beneath them, is, we believe, the duty of every scholar who knows how closely purity of speech, like personal cleanliness, is allied to purity of thought and rectitude of action. To say that every person who aspires to be esteemed a gentleman should carefully shun all barbarisms, solecisms, and other faults in his speech, is to utter the merest truism. The man who habitually deviates from the custom of his country in expressing his thoughts, is hardly less ridiculous than one who walks the streets in a Spanish cloak or a Roman toga. An accurate knowledge and a correct and felicitous use of words are, of themselves, almost sure proofs of good breeding. No doubt it marks a weak mind to care more for the casket than for the jewel it contains,—to prefer elegantly turned sentences to sound sense; but sound sense always acquires additional value when expressed in pure English. Moreover, he who carefully studies accuracy of expression, the proper choice and arrangement of words in any language, will be also advancing toward accuracy of thought, as well as toward propriety and energy of speech; “for divers philosophers hold,” says Shakespeare, “that the lip is parcel of the mind.” Few things are more ludicrous than the blunders by which even persons moving in refined society often betray the grossest ignorance of very common words. A story is told in England of an over-classical Member of Parliament, who, not knowing or forgetting that “omnibus” is the plural of the Latin “omnis,” and means “for all,”—that is, a vehicle in which people of all ranks may sit together,—spoke of “two omnibi.” There are hundreds of educated persons who speak of the “banister” of a staircase, when they mean “balustrade,” or “baluster”; there is no such word as “banister.” There are hundreds of others who never eat anything, not even an apple, but always partake, even though they consume all the food before them; and even the London “Times,” in one of its issues, spoke of a jury “immersing” a defendant in damages. We once knew an old lady in a New England village, quite aristocratic in her feelings and habits, who complained to her physician that “her blood seemed to have all stackpoled;” and we have heard of another descendant of Mrs. Malaprop, who, in answer to the question whether she would be sure to keep an appointment, replied, “I will come,—alluding it does not rain.”

Goldsmith is one of the most charming writers in our language; yet in his “History of England,” the following statement occurs in a chapter on the reign of Elizabeth. Speaking of a communication to Mary, Queen of Scots, he says: “This they effected by conveying their letters to her by means of a brewer, that supplied the family with ale through a chink in the wall of her apartment.” A queer brewer that, to supply his ale through a chink in the wall! Again, we read in Goldsmith’s “History of Greece”: “He wrote to that distinguished philosopher in terms polite and flattering, begging of him to come and undertake his education, and bestow on him those useful lessons of magnanimity and virtue which every great man ought to possess, and which his numerous avocations rendered impossible for him.” In this sentence the pronoun he is employed six times, under different forms; and as, in each case, it may refer to either of two antecedents, the meaning, but for our knowledge of the facts, would be involved in hopeless confusion. First, the pronoun stands for Philip, then for Aristotle, then for Alexander, again for Alexander, and then twice for Philip. A still greater offender against clearness in the use of pronouns is Lord Clarendon; e.g., “On which, with the king’s and queen’s so ample promises to him (the Treasurer) so few hours before, conferring the place upon another, and the Duke of York’s manner of receiving him (the Treasurer), after he (the Chancellor) had been shut up with him (the Duke), as he (the Treasurer) was informed might very well excuse him (the Treasurer) from thinking he (the Chancellor) had some share in the effront he (the Treasurer) had undergone.” It would be hard to match this passage even in the writings of the humblest penny-a-liner; it is “confusion, worse confounded.”

Solecisms so glaring as these may not often disfigure men’s writing or speech; and some of the faults we shall notice may seem so petty and microscopic that the reader may deem us “word-catchers that live on syllables.” But it is the little foxes that spoil the grapes, in the familiar speech of the people as well as in Solomon’s vineyards; and, as a garment may be honey-combed by moths, so the fine texture of a language may be gradually destroyed, and its strength impaired, by numerous and apparently insignificant solecisms and inaccuracies. Nicety in the use of particles is one of the most decisive marks of skill and scholarship in a writer; and the accuracy, beauty, and force of many a fine passage in English literature depend largely on the use of the pronouns, prepositions, and articles. How emphatic and touching does the following enumeration become through the repetition of one petty word! “By thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy cross and passion; by thy precious death and burial; by thy glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.” How much pathos is added to the prayer of the publican by the proper translation of the Greek article,—“God be merciful to me the sinner!”

De Quincey strikingly observes: “People that have practised composition as much, and with as vigilant an eye as myself, know also, by thousands of cases, how infinite is the disturbance caused in the logic of a thought by the mere position of a word as despicable as the word even. A mote that is in itself invisible, shall darken the august faculty of sight in a human eye,—the heavens shall be hid by a wretched atom that dares not show itself,—and the station of a syllable shall cloud the judgment of a council. Nay, even an ambiguous emphasis falling to the right-hand word, or the left-hand word, shall confound a system.” It is a fact well known to lawyers, that, the omission or misplacement of a monosyllable in a legal document has rendered many a man bankrupt. Fifteen years ago an expensive lawsuit arose in England, on the meaning of two phrases in the will of a deceased nobleman. In the one he gives his property “to my brother and to his children in succession”; in the other, “to my brother and his children in succession.” This diversity gives rise to quite different interpretations. In another case, by omitting the letter s in a legal document, an English attorney is said to have inflicted on a client a loss of £30,000.

In language, as in the fine arts, there is but one way to attain to excellence, and that is by study of the most faultless models. As the air and manner of a gentleman can be acquired only by living constantly in good society, so grace and purity of expression must be attained by a familiar acquaintance with the standard authors. It is astonishing how rapidly we may by this practice enrich our vocabularies, and how speedily we imitate and unconsciously reproduce in our language the niceties and delicacies of expression which have charmed us in a favorite author. Like the sheriff whom Rufus Choate satirized for having “overworked the participle,” most persons make one word act two, ten or a dozen parts; yet there is hardly any man who may not, by moderate painstaking, learn to express himself in terms as precise, if not as vivid, as those of Pitt, whom Fox so praised for his accuracy.[46] The account which Lord Chesterfield gives of the method by which he became one of the most elegant and polished talkers and orators of Europe, strikingly shows what miracles may be achieved by care and practice. Early in life he determined not to speak one word in conversation which was not the fittest he could recall; and he charged his son never to deliver the commonest order to a servant, but in the best language he could find, and with the best utterance. For years Chesterfield wrote down every brilliant passage he met with in his reading, and translated it into French, or, if it was in a foreign language, into English. By this practice a certain elegance became habitual to him, and it would have given him more trouble, he says, to express himself inelegantly than he had ever taken to avoid the defect. Lord Bolingbroke, who had an imperial dominion over all the resources of expression, and could talk all day just as perfectly as he wrote, told Chesterfield that he owed the power to the same cause,—an early and habitual attention to his style. When Boswell expressed to Johnson his surprise at the constant force and propriety of the Doctor’s words, the latter replied that he had long been accustomed to clothe his thoughts in the fittest words he could command, and thus a vivid and exact phraseology had become habitual.

It has been affirmed by a high authority that a knowledge of English grammar is rather a matter of convenience as a nomenclature,—a medium of thought and discussion about the language,—than a guide to the actual use of it; and that it is as impossible to acquire the complete command of our own tongue by the study of grammatical precept, as to learn to walk or swim by attending a course of lectures on anatomy. “Undoubtedly I have found,” says Sir Philip Sydney, “in divers smal learned courtiers a more sound stile than in some possessors of learning; of which I can ghesse no other cause, but that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein (though he know it not) doth according to art, though not by art; where the other, using art to shew art, and not to hide art (as in these cases he should doe), flieth from nature, and indeed abuseth art.”

Let it not be inferred, however, from all this that grammatical knowledge is unnecessary. A man of refined taste may detect many errors by the ear; but there are other errors, equally gross, that have not a harsh sound, and consequently cannot be detected without a knowledge of the rules that are violated. Besides, it often happens, as we have already seen, that even the purest writers inadvertently allow some inaccuracies to creep into their productions. The works of Addison, Swift, Bentley, Pope, Young, Blair, Hume, Gibbon, and even Johnson, that leviathan of literature, are disfigured by numberless instances of slovenliness of style. Cobbett, in his “Grammar of the English Language,” says that he noted down about two hundred improprieties of language in Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” alone; and he points out as many more, at least, in the “Rambler,” which the author says he revised and corrected with extraordinary care. Sydney Smith, one of the finest stylists of this century, has not a few flagrant solecisms; and, strange to say, some of them occur in a passage in which he is trying to show that the English language “may be learned, practically and unerringly,” without a knowledge of grammatical rules. “When,” he asks, “do we ever find a well educated Englishman or Frenchman embarrassed by an ignorance of the grammar of their respective languages? They first learn it practically and unerringly; and then, if they chose (choose?) to look back and smile at the idea of having proceeded by a number of rules, without knowing one of them by heart, or being conscious that they had any rule at all, this is a philosophical amusement; but who ever thinks of learning the grammar of their own tongue, before they are very good grammarians!” The best refutation of the reasoning in this passage is found in the bad grammar of the passage itself.

Even the literary detectives, who spend their time in hunting down and showing up the mistakes of others, enjoy no immunity from error. Harrison, in his excellent work on “The English Language,” written expressly to point out some of the most prevalent solecisms in its literature, has such solecisms as the following: “The authority of Addison, in matters of grammar; of Bentley, who never made the English grammar his study; of Bolingbroke, Pope, and others, are as nothing.” Breen, who in his “Modern English Literature: its Blemishes and Defects,” has shown uncommon critical acumen, writes thus: “There is no writer so addicted to this blunder as Isaac D’Israeli.” Again, in criticising a faulty expression of Alison, he sins almost as grievously himself by saying: “It would have been correct to say: ‘Suchet’s administration was incomparably less oppressive than that of any of the French generals in the Peninsula.’” This reminds one of the statement that “Noah and his family outlived all who lived before the flood,”—that is, they outlived themselves. Latham, in his profound treatise on “The English Language,” has such sentences as this: “The logical and historical analysis of a language generally in some degree coincides.” Here the syntax is correct; but the sense is sacrificed, since a coincidence implies at least two things. In the London “Saturday Review,” which “is nothing if not critical,” we find such a cacophonous sentence as the following: “In personal relations Mr. Bright is probably generally kindly.” Blair’s “Rhetoric” has been used as a text-book for half a century; yet it swarms with errors of grammar and rhetoric, against almost every law of which he has sinned. Moon, in his review of Alford, has pointed out hundreds of faults in “The Dean’s English,” as censurable as any which he has censured; and newspaper critics, at home and abroad, have pointed out scores of obscurations, as well as of glaring faults, in Moon.

It has been well observed by Professor Marsh that most men would be unable to produce a good caricature of their own individual speech, and that the shibboleth of our personal dialect is unknown to ourselves, however ready we may be to remark the characteristic phraseology of others. “It is a mark of weakness, of poverty of speech, or, at least, of bad taste, to continue the use of pet words, or other peculiarities of language, after we have once become conscious of them as such.” There are certain stock phrases, also, which, though not objectionable in themselves, have been so worn to shreds by continual repetition in speech and in the press, that a man of taste will shun using them as instinctively as he shuns a solecism. A few examples are the following: “History repeats itself,” “The irony of fate,” “That goes without saying,” “Ample scope and verge enough,” “We are free to confess,” “Conspicuous by its absence,” “The courage of his convictions.”

We proceed to notice some of the common improprieties of speech. Many of them are of recent origin, others are old offenders that have been tried and condemned at the bar of criticism again and again:—

But, for that, or if. Example: “I have no doubt but he will come to-night.” “I should not wonder but that was the case.”

Agriculturalist, for agriculturist, is an impropriety of the grossest sort. Nine-tenths of our writers on agriculture use the former expression. They might as well say geologicalist, instead of geologist, or chemicalist, instead of chemist.

Deduction, for induction. Induction is the mental process by which we ascend to the discovery of general truths; deduction is the process by which the law governing particulars is derived from a knowledge of the law governing the class to which particulars belong.

Illy is a gross barbarism, quite common in these days, especially with newly fledged poets. There is no such word as illy in the language. The noun, adjective, and adverb, are ill.

Plenty, for plentiful. Stump politicians tell us that the adoption of a certain measure “will make money plenty in every man’s pocket.”

I have got, for I have. Hardly any other word in the language is so abused as the word get. A man says, “I have got a cold”; he means simply, “I have a cold.” Another says that a certain lady “has got a fine head of hair,” which may be true if the hair is false, but it is probably intended as a compliment. A third says: “I have got to leave the city for New York this evening,” meaning only that he has to leave the city, etc. Nine out of ten ladies who enter a dry-goods store, ask, “Have you got” such or such an article? If such a phrase as “I have possess” were used, all noses would turn up together; but “I have got,” when used to signify “I have,” is equally a departure from propriety. A man may say, “I have got more than my neighbor has, because I have been more industrious”; but he cannot with propriety say, “I have got a long nose,” however long his nose may be, unless it be an artificial one. Even so able a writer as Prof. Whitney expresses himself thus: “Who ever yet got through learning his mother tongue, and could say, ‘The work is done’?”

Recommend. This word is used in a strange sense by many persons. Political conventions often pass resolutions beginning thus: “Resolved, that the Republicans (or Democrats) of this county be recommended to meet,” etc.

Differ with is often used, in public debate, instead of differ from. Example: “I differ with the learned gentleman, entirely,”—which is intended to mean, that the speaker holds views different from those of the gentleman; not that he agrees with the gentleman in differing from the views of a third person. Different to is often spoken and written in England, and occasionally in this country, instead of different from. An example of this occurs in Queen Victoria’s book, edited by Mr. Helps.

Corporeal, for corporal, is a gross vulgarism, the use of which at this day should almost subject an educated man to the kind of punishment which the latter adjective designates. Corporeal means, having a body corporal, or belonging to a body.

Wearies, for is wearied. Example: “The reader soon wearies of such stuff.”

Any how is an exceedingly vulgar phrase, though used even by so elegant a writer as Blair. Example: “If the damage can be any how repaired,” etc. The use of this expression, in any manner, by one who professes to write and speak the English tongue with purity, is unpardonable.

It were, for it is. Example: “It were a consummation devoutly to be wished for.” Dr. Chalmers says: “It were an intolerable spectacle, even to the inmates of a felon’s cell, did they behold one of their fellows in the agonies of death.” For were put would be, and for did put should.

Doubt is a word much abused by a class of would-be laconic speakers, who affect an Abernethy-like brevity of language. “I doubt such is the true meaning of the Constitution,” say our “great expounders,” looking wondrous wise. They mean, “I doubt whether,” etc.

Lie, lay. Gross blunders are committed in the use of these words; e.g., “He laid down on the grass,” instead of “he laid himself down,” or, “he lay down.” The verb to lie (to be in a horizontal position) is lay in the preterite. The book does not lay on the table; it lies there. Some years ago an old lady consulted an eccentric Boston physician, and, in describing her disease, said: “The trouble, Doctor, is that I can neither lay nor set.” “Then, Madam,” was the reply, “I would respectfully suggest the propriety of roosting.”

“Like I did,” is a gross western and southern vulgarism for “as I did.” “You will feel like lightning ought to strike you,” said a learned Doctor of Divinity at a meeting in the East. Even so well informed a writer as R. W. Dale, D.D., says: “A man’s style, if it is a good one, fits his thought like a good coat fits his figure.” Like is a preposition, and should not be used as a conjunction.

Less, for fewer. “Not less than fifty persons.” Less relates to quantity; fewer, to number.

Balance, for remainder. “I’ll take the balance of the goods.”

Revolt, for are revolting to. “Such doctrines revolt us.”

Alone, for only. Quackenboss, in his “Course of Composition and Rhetoric,” says, in violation of one of his own rules: “This means of communication, as well as that which follows, is employed by man alone.” Only is often misplaced in a sentence. Miss Braddon says, in the prospectus of “Belgravia,” her English magazine, that “it will be written in good English. In its pages papers of sterling merit will only appear.” A poor beginning this! She means that “only papers of sterling merit will appear.” Bolingbroke says: “Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order in the world, that, of all that belongs to us, the least valuable parts can alone fall under the will of others.” The last clause should be, “only the least valuable parts can fall under the will of others.” The word merely is misplaced in the following sentence from a collegiate address on eloquence: “It is true of men as of God, that words merely meet no response,—only such as are loaded with thought.”

Likewise, for also. Also classes together things or qualities, whilst likewise couples actions or states of being. “He did it likewise,” means he did it in like manner. An English Quaker was once asked by a lawyer whether he could tell the difference between also and likewise. “O, yes,” was the reply, “Erskine is a great lawyer; his talents are universally admired. You are a lawyer also, but not like-wise.”

Avocation, for vocation, or calling. A man’s avocations are those pursuits or amusements which engage his attention when he is “called away from” his regular business or profession,—as music, fishing, boating.

Crushed out, for crushed. “The rebellion has been crushed out.” Why out, rather than in? If you tread on a worm, you simply crush him,—that is all. It ought to satisfy the most vengeful foe of “the rebels” that they have been crushed, without adding the needless cruelty of crushing them out, which is to be as vindictive as Alexander, of whom Dryden tells us that

“Thrice he routed all his foes,

And thrice he slew the slain.”

Of, for from. Example: “Received of John Smith fifty dollars.” Usage, perhaps, sanctions this.

At all is a needless expletive, which is employed by many writers of what may be called the forcible-feeble school. For example: “The coach was upset, but, strange to say, not a passenger received the slightest injury at all.” “It is not at all strange.”

But that, for that. This error is quite common among those who think themselves above learning anything more from the dictionary and grammar. Trench says: “He never doubts but that he knows their intention.” A worse error is but what, as in the reply of Mr. Jobling, of “Bleak House”: “Thank you, Guppy, I don’t know but what I will take a marrow pudding.” “He would not believe but what I was joking.”

Convene is used by many persons in a strange sense. “This road will convene the public.”

Evidence is a word much abused by learned judges and attorneys,—being continually used for testimony. Evidence relates to the convictive view of any one’s mind; testimony, to the knowledge of another concerning some fact. The evidence in a case is often the reverse of the testimony.

Had have. E.g. The London “Times” says “Sir Wilfred Lawson had better have kept to his original proposal.” This is a very low vulgarism, notwithstanding it has the authority of Addison. It is quite common to say “Had I have seen him,” “Had you have known it,” etc. We can say, “I have been,” “I had been,” but what sort of a tense is had have been?

Had ought, had better, had rather. All these expressions are absurdities, no less gross than hisn, tother, baint, theirn. No doubt there is plenty of good authority for had better and had rather; but how can future action be expressed by a verb that signifies past and completed possession?

At, for by. E.g., “Sales at auction.” The word auction signifies a manner of sale; and this signification seems to require the preposition by.

The above, as an adjective. “The above extract is sufficient to verify my assertion.” “I fully concur in the above statement” (the statement above, or the foregoing statement). Charles Lamb speaks of “the above boys and the below boys.”

Then, as an adjective. “The then King of Holland.” This error, to which even educated men are addicted, springs from a desire of brevity; but verbal economy is not commendable when it violates the plainest rules of language.

Final completion. As every completion is final, the adjective is superfluous. A similar objection applies to first beginning. Similar to these superabundant forms of expression is another, in which universal and all are brought into the same construction. A man is said to be “universally esteemed by all who know him.” If all esteem him, he is, of course, universally esteemed; and the converse is equally true.

Party, for man or woman. This error, so common in England, is becoming more and more prevalent here. An English witness once testified that he saw “a short party” (meaning person) “go over the bridge.” Another Englishman, who had looked at a portrait of St. Paul in a gallery at Florence, being asked his opinion of the picture, said that he thought “the party was very well executed.” It is hardly necessary to say that it takes several persons to make a party.

Celebrity is sometimes applied to celebrated persons, instead of being used abstractly; e.g., “Several celebrities are at the Palmer House.”

Equanimity of mind. As equanimity (Æquus animus) means evenness of mind, why should “of mind” be repeated? “Anxiety of mind” is less objectionable, but the first word is sufficient.

Don’t for doesn’t, or does not. Even so scholarly a divine as the Rev. Dr. Bellows, of New York, employs this vulgarism four times in an article in the “Independent.” “A man,” he says, “who knows only his family and neighbors, don’t know them; a man who only knows the present don’t know that.... Many a man, with a talent for making money, don’t know whether he is rich or poor, because he don’t understand bookkeeping,” etc.

Predicate, for found. E.g., “His argument was predicated on the assumption,” etc.

Try, for make. E.g., “Try the experiment.”

Superior, for able, virtuous, etc. E.g., “He is a superior man.” Not less vulgar is the expression, “an inferior man,” for a man of small abilities.

Deceiving, for trying to deceive. E.g., a person says to another, “You are deceiving me,” when he means exactly the opposite, namely, “You are trying to deceive me, but you cannot succeed, for your trickery is transparent.”

The masses, for the people generally. “The masses must be educated.” The masses of what?

In our midst. This vulgarism is continually heard in prayer-meetings, and from the lips of Doctors of Divinity, though its incorrectness has been exposed again and again. The second chapter in Prof. Schele De Vere’s excellent “Studies in English” begins thus: “When a man rises to eminence in our midst,” etc.,—which is doubtless one of the few errors in his book quas incuria fudit. The possessive pronoun can properly be used only to indicate possession or appurtenance. “The midst” of a company or society is not a thing belonging or appurtenant to the company, or to the individuals composing it. It is a mere term of relation of an adverbial, not of a substantive character, and is an intensified form of expression for among. Would any one say, “In our middle”?

Excessively, for exceedingly. Ladies often complain that the weather is “excessively hot,” thereby implying that they do not object to the heat, but only to the excess of heat. They mean simply that the weather is very hot.

Either is applicable only to two objects; and the same remark is true of neither and both. “Either of the three” is wrong; so is this,—“Ten burglars broke into the house, but neither of them could be recognized.” Say, “none of them,” or “not one of them could be recognized.” Either is sometimes improperly used for each; e.g., “On either side of the river was the tree of life,”—Rev. xxi, 2. Here it is not meant that if you do not find that the tree of life was on this side, it was on that; but that the tree of life was on each side,—on this side, and on that. The proper use of either was vindicated some years ago in England, by the Court of Chancery. A certain testator left property, the disposition of which was affected by “the death of either” of two persons. One learned counsel contended that the word “either” meant both; in support of this view he quoted Richardson, Webster, Chaucer, Dryden, Southey, the history of the crucifixion, and a passage from the Revelation. The learned judge suggested that there was an old song in the “Beggar’s Opera,” known to all, which took the opposite view:

In pronouncing judgment, the judge dissented entirely from the argument of the learned counsel. “Either,” he said, “means one of two, and does not mean both.” Though occasionally, by poets and some other writers, the word was employed to signify both, it did not in the case before the court.

Whether is a contraction of which of either, and therefore cannot be correctly applied to more than two objects.

Never, for ever. E.g., “Charm he never so wisely”; “Let the offence be of never so high a nature.” Many grammarians approve of this use of never; but its correctness, to say the least, is doubtful. In such sentences as these, “He was deaf to the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely,” “Were it ever so fine a day, I would not go out,” the word ever is an adverb of degree, and has nothing to do with time. “If I take ever so little of this drug, it will kill me,” is equivalent to “however little,” or “how little soever I take of this drug, it will kill me.” Harrison well says on this point: “Let any one translate one of these phrases into another language, and he will find that ‘ever’ presents itself as a term expressive of degree, and not of time at all. ‘Charm he ever so wisely’: Quamvis incantandi sit peritus aut peritissimus.”

Seldom, or never is a common vulgarism. Say “seldom, if ever.”

Sit, sat, are much abused words. It is said that the brilliant Irish lawyer, Curran, once carelessly observed in court, “an action lays,” and the judge corrected him by remarking: “Lies, Mr. Curran,—hens lay;” but when afterward the judge ordered a counsellor to “set down,” Curran retaliated, “Sit down, your honor,—hens set.” The retort was characterized by more wit than truth. Hens do not set; they sit. It is not unusual to hear persons say, “The coat sets well”; “The wind sets fair.” Sits is the proper word. The preterite of sit is often incorrectly used for that of set; e.g., “He sat off for Boston.”

From thence, from whence. As the adverbs thence and whence literally supply the place of a noun and preposition, there is a solecism in employing a preposition in conjunction with them.

Conduct. In conversation, this verb is frequently used without the personal pronoun; as, “he conducts well,” for “he conducts himself well.”

Least, for less. “Of two evils, choose the least.”

A confirmed invalid. Can weakness be strong? If not, how can a man be a confirmed, or strengthened, invalid?

Proposition, for proposal. This is not a solecism, but, as a univocal word is preferable to one that is equivocal, proposal, for a thing offered or proposed, is better than proposition. Strictly, a proposal is something offered to be done; a proposition is something submitted to one’s consideration. E.g., “He rejected the proposal of his friend;” “he demonstrated the fifth proposition in Euclid.”

Previous, for previously. “Previous to my leaving America.”

Appreciates, for rises in value. “Gold appreciated yesterday.” Even the critical London AthenÆum is guilty of this solecism. It says: “A book containing personal reminiscences of one of our great schools appeals to a public limited, no doubt, but certain, and sure to appreciate.”

Proven for proved, and plead for pleaded, are clearly vulgarisms.

Bound, for ready or determined. “I am bound to do it.” We may say properly that a ship is “bound to Liverpool”; but in that case we do not employ, as many suppose, the past participle of the verb to bind, but the old northern participial adjective, buinn, from the verb, at bua, signifying “to make ready, or prepare.” The term is strictly a nautical one, and to employ it in a sense that unites the significations both of buinn and the English participle bound from bind, is a plain abuse of language.

No, for not. E.g., “Whether I am there or no.” Cowper writes:

By supplying the ellipsis, we shall see that not is here the proper word. “Whether birds confabulate, or do not confabulate,” “whether I am there, or not there.” No never properly qualifies a verb.

Such for so. E.g., “I never saw such a high spire.” This means, “I never saw a high spire of such a form,” or “of such architecture” whereas the speaker, in all probability, means only that he never saw so high a spire. Such denotes quality; so, degree.

Incorrect orthography. Orthography means “correct writing, or spelling.” “Incorrect orthography” is, therefore, equivalent to “incorrect correct writing.”

How for that. “I have heard how some critics have been pacified with claret and a supper.”

Directly, for as soon as. “Directly he came, I went away with him.”

Equally as well, for equally well. E.g., “It will do equally as well.”

Supplement, used as a verb. There is considerable authority for this use of the word; but it is a case where usage is clearly opposed to the very principles of the language.

Greet and greeting are often improperly used. A greeting is a salutation; to say, therefore, as newspaper reporters often do, that a speaker in the Legislature, or on the platform, was “greeted with hisses,” or “with groans,” is a decided “malapropism.”

To a degree is a phrase often used by English writers and speakers. E.g., “Mr. Gladstone is sensitive to a degree.” To what degree?

Farther for further. “Farther” is the comparative of far, and should be used in speaking of bodies relatively at rest; as, “Jupiter is farther from the earth than Mars.” “Further” is the comparative of “forth,” and should be used when motion is expressed; as “He ran further than you.”

Quite for very. E.g., In Mrs. Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands,” we read: “The speeches were quite interesting”; “we had quite a sociable time up in the gallery”; and we are told that at Mrs. Cropper’s, “in the evening, quite a circle came in,” etc., etc. The true meaning of “quite” is completely, entirely.

Effluvium. The plural of this word is often used as if it meant bad odors; whereas an “effluvium” may be a stream either of pure air or of foul air,—of pure water or of impure, etc.

None is a contraction of no one, and therefore to say “none are,” or “none were,” is just as improper as to say “no one are,” or “no one were.”

I watched him do it. This is an impropriety of speech rarely heard in this country, but often in England.

Looks beautifully. In spite of the frequency with which this impropriety has been censured, one hears it almost daily from the lips of educated men and women. The error arises from confounding look in the sense of to direct the eye, and look in the sense of to seem, to appear. In English, many verbs take an adjective with them to form the predicate, where in other languages an adverb would be used; e.g., “he fell ill”; “he feels cold”; “her smiles amid the blushes lovelier show.” No cultivated person would say, “she is beautifully,” or “she seems beautifully,” yet these phrases are no more improper than “she looks beautifully.” We qualify what a person does by an adverb; what a person is, or seems to be, by an adjective; e.g., “she looks coldly on him”; “she looks cold.”

Leave, as an intransitive verb. E.g., “He left yesterday.” Many persons who use this phrase are misled by what they deem the analogous expression, to write, to read. These verbs express an occupation, as truly as to run, to walk, to stand. In answer to the question, “What is A. B. doing?” it is sufficient to say, “He is reading.” Here a complete idea is conveyed, which is not true of the phrase, “He left yesterday.”

Myself, for I. E.g., “Mrs. Jones and myself will be happy to dine with you”; “Prof. S. and myself have examined the work.” The proper use of myself is either as a reflective pronoun, or for the sake of distinction and emphasis; as when Juliet cries, “Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself”; or, in Milton’s paradisiacal hymn: “These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good, Almighty! Thine this universal frame thus wondrous fair! Thyself how wondrous then!”

Restive. This word, which means inclined to rest, obstinate, unwilling to go, is employed, almost constantly, in a sense directly the reverse of this; that is, for restless.

Quantity, for number. E.g., “A quantity of books”; “a quantity of postage stamps.” In speaking of a collection, or mass, it is proper to use quantity; but in speaking of individual objects, however many, we must use the word number. “A quantity of meat,” or “a quantity of iron” is good English, but not “a quantity of bank-notes.” We may say “a quantity of wood,” but we should say a “number of sticks.”

Carnival. This word literally means “Farewell to meat,” or, as some etymologists think, “Flesh, be strong!” In Catholic countries it signifies a festival celebrated with merriment and revelry during the week before Lent. In this country, especially in newspaper use, it is employed in the sense of fun, frolic, spree, festival; and that so generally as almost to have banished some of these words from the language. If many persons are skating, that is a carnival; so, if they take a sleigh-ride, or if there is a rush to Long Branch in the summer. As we have a plenty of legitimate words to describe these festivities, the use of this outlandish term has not a shadow of justification.

All of them. As of here means out of, corresponding with the Latin preposition e, or ex, it cannot be correct to say all of them. We may say, “take one of them” or “take two of them,” or “take them all”; but the phrase we are criticising is wholly unjustifiable.

To allude. Among the improprieties of speech which even those sharp-eyed literary detectives, Alford, Moon, and Gould have failed to pounce upon and pillory, are the misuses of the word that heads this paragraph. Once the verb had a distinct, well defined meaning, but it is now rapidly losing its true signification. To allude to a thing,—what is it? Is it not to speak of it darkly,—to hint at it playfully (from ludo, ludere,—to play), without any direct mention? Yet the word is used in a sense directly opposite to this. Suppose you lose in the street some package, and advertise its loss in the newspapers. The person who finds the package is sure to reply to your advertisement by speaking of “the package you alluded to in your advertisement,” though you have alluded to nothing, but have told your story in the most distinct and straightforward manner possible, without an approximation to a hint or innuendo. Newspaper reporters, by their abuse of this unhappy word, will transform a bold and daring speech in Congress, in which a senator has taken some bull by the horns,—in other words, dealt openly and manfully with the subject discussed,—into a heap of dark and mysterious innuendoes. The honorable gentleman alluded to the currency—to the war—to Andrew Johnson—to the New Orleans massacre; he alluded to the sympathizers with the South, though he denounced them in the most caustic terms; he alluded to the tax-bill, and he alluded to fifty other things, about every one of which he spoke out his mind in emphatic and unequivocal terms. An English journal tells a ludicrous story of an M.P. who, his health having been drunk by name, rose on his legs, and spoke of “the flattering way in which he had been alluded to.” Another public speaker spoke of a book which had been alluded to by name. But the climax of absurdity in the use of this word was attained by an Irish M.P., who wrote a life of an Italian poet. Quoting Byron’s lines about “the fatal gift of beauty,” he then goes on to talk about “the fatal gift which has been already alluded to!”

Either alternative. E.g., “You may take either alternative.” “Two alternatives were presented to me.” Alternative evidently means a choice,—one choice,—between two things. If there be only one offered, we say there is no alternative. Two alternatives is, therefore, a palpable contradiction in terms; yet some speakers talk of “several alternatives” having been presented to them.

Whole, for all. The “Spectator” says: “The Red-Cross Knight runs through the whole steps of the Christian life.” Alison, who is one of the loosest writers in our literature, declares, in his “History of the French Revolution,” that “the whole Russians are inspired with the belief that their mission is to conquer the world.” This can only mean that those Russians who are entire,—who have not lost a leg, an arm, or some other part of the body,—are inspired with the belief of which he speaks. Whole refers to the component parts of a single body, and is therefore singular in meaning.

Jeopardize. There is considerable authority for this word, which is beginning to supplant the good old English word jeopard. But why is it more needed than perilize, hazardize?

Preventative, for preventive; conversationalist, for converser; underhanded, for underhand; casuality, for casualty; speciality, for specialty; leniency, for lenity; firstly, for first; are all base coinages, barbarisms which should be excommunicated by “bell, book, and candle.”

Dangerous, for in danger. A leading Boston paper says of a deceased minister: “His illness was only of a week’s duration, and was pleurisy and rheumatism. He was not supposed to be dangerous.”

Nice. One of the most offensive barbarisms now prevalent is the use of this as a pet word to express almost every kind of approbation, and almost every quality. Strictly, nice can be used only in a subjective, not in an objective, sense; though both of our leading lexicographers approve of such expressions as “a nice bit of cheese.” Of the vulgarity of such expressions as “a nice man” (meaning a good or pleasing man), “a nice day,” “a nice party,” etc., there cannot be a shadow of doubt. “A nice man” means a fastidious man; a “nice letter” is a letter very delicate in its language. Some persons are more nice than wise. Archdeacon Hare complains that “this characterless domino,” as he stigmatizes the word nice, is continually used by his countrymen, and that “a universal deluge of niaserie (for the word was originally niais) threatens to whelm the whole island.” The Latin word elegans seems to have had a similar history; being derived from elego, and meaning primarily nice or choice, and subsequently elegant.

Mutual, for common, or reciprocal. Dean Alford justly protests against the stereotyped vulgarism, “a mutual friend.” Mutual is applicable to sentiments and acts, but not to persons. Two friends may have a mutual love, but for either to speak of a third person as being “their mutual friend,” is sheer nonsense. Yet Dickens entitled one of his novels, “Our Mutual Friend.”

Stopping, for staying. “The Hon. John Jones is stopping at the Sherman House.” In reading such a statement as this, we are tempted to ask, When will Mr. Jones stop stopping? A man may stop a dozen times at a place, or on a journey, but he cannot continue stopping. One may stop at a hotel without becoming a guest. The true meaning of the word stop was well understood by the man who did not invite his professed friend to visit him: “If you come, at any time, within ten miles of my house, just stop.”

Trifling minutiÆ. Archbishop Whately, in his “Rhetoric,” speaks of “trifling minutiÆ of style.” In like manner, Henry Kirke White speaks of his poems as being “the juvenile efforts of a youth,” and Disraeli, the author of “The Curiosities of Literature,” speaks of “the battles of logomachy,” and of “the mysteries of the arcana of alchemy.” The first of these phrases may be less palpably tautological than the other three; yet as minutiÆ means nearly the same things as trifles, a careful writer would be as adverse to using such an expression as Whately’s, as he would be to talking, like Sir Archibald Alison, of representative institutions as having been reËstablished in our time “by the influence of English Anglomania.”

Indices, for indexes. “We have examined our indices,” etc., say the Chicago abstract-makers. Indices are algebraic signs; tables of contents are indexes.

Rendition, for rendering. E.g., “Mr. Booth’s rendition of Hamlet was admirable.” Rendition means surrender, giving up, relinquishing to another; as when we speak of the rendition of a beleaguered town to the besieger, or of a pledge upon the satisfaction of a debt.

Extend, for give. Lecture committees, instead of simply inviting a public speaker, or giving him an invitation, almost universally extend an invitation; perhaps, because he is generally at a considerable distance. Richard Grant White says pertinently; “As extend (from ex and tendo) means merely to stretch forth, it is much better to say that a man put out, offered, or stretched forth his hand than that he extended it. Shakespeare makes the pompous, pragmatical Malvolio say: ‘I extend my hand to him thus’; but ‘Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself.’ This, however, is a question of taste, not of correctness.”

Except, for unless. E.g., “No one, except he has served an apprenticeship, need apply.” The former word is a preposition, and must be followed by a noun or pronoun, and not by a proposition.

Couple, for a pair or brace. When two persons or things are joined or linked together, they form a couple. The number of things that can be coupled is comparatively small, yet the expression is in constant use; as “a couple of books,” “a couple of partridges,” “a couple of weeks,” etc. One might as well speak of “a pair of dollars.”

Every. E.g., “I have every confidence in him”; “they rendered me every assistance.” Every denotes all the individuals of a number greater than two, separately considered. Derived from the Anglo-Saxon, oefer, ever, oelc, each, it means each of all, not all in mass. By “every confidence” is meant simply perfect confidence; by “every assistance,” all possible assistance.

Almost, as an adjective. Prof. Whitney, in his able work on “Language, and the Study of Language,” speaks of “the almost universality of instruction among us.”

Condign. E.g., “He does not deserve the condign punishment he has received.” As the meaning of condign is that which is deserved, we have here a contradiction in terms, the statement being equivalent to this: “he does not deserve the deserved punishment he has received.”

Paraphernalia. This is a big, sounding word from the Greek, which some newspaper writers are constantly misusing. It is strictly a law-term, and means whatever the wife brings with her at marriage in addition to her dower. Her dress and her ornaments are paraphernalia. To apply the term to an Irishman’s sash on St. Patrick’s day, or to a Freemason’s hieroglyphic apron, it has been justly said, is not only an abuse of language, but a clear invasion of woman’s rights.

Setting-room, for sitting-room, is a gross vulgarism, which is quite common, even with those who deem themselves nice people. “I saw your children in the setting-room, as I went past,” said a well-dressed woman in our hearing, in a horse-car. How could she go past? It is not difficult to go by any object; but to go past is a contradiction in terms.

An innumerable number is an absurd expression, which is used by some persons,—not, it is to be hoped, “an innumerable number” of times.

Seraphim, for seraph; the plural for the singular. Even Addison says: “The zeal of the seraphim breaks forth,” etc. This is as ludicrous as the language of the Indiana justice, who spoke of “the first claw of the statute,” or the answer of the man who, when asked whether he had no politics, replied, “Not a single politic.”

People, for persons, “Many people think so.” Better, persons; people means a body of persons regarded collectively, a nation.

Off of, for off. “Cut a yard off of the cloth.”

More perfect, most perfect. What shall be said of these and similar forms of expression? Doubtless they should be discouraged, though used by Shakespeare and Milton. It may be argued in their favor, that, though not logically correct, yet they are rhetorically so. It is true that, as “twenty lions cannot be more twenty than twenty flies,” so nothing can be more perfect than perfection. But we do not object to say that one man is braver than another, or wiser, though, if we had an absolute standard of bravery or wisdom,—that is, a clear idea of them,—we should pronounce either of the two persons to be simply brave or not brave, wise or not wise. We say that Smith is a better man than Jones, though no one is absolutely good but God. These forms are used because language is inadequate to express the intensity of the thought,—as in Milton’s “most wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,” or the lines,

Milton abounds in these illogical expressions, as do the best Greek poets; and one of the happiest verses in the poems of W. W. Story is a similar intentional contradiction, as

Ugly, for ill-tempered. A leading New York divine is reported as saying of an ill-tempered child, that “he wants all he sees, and screams if he does not get it; ugly as he can be, no matter who is disturbed by it.”

Is, for are. One of the most frequent blemishes in English prose is the indiscriminate use of singulars and plurals. E.g., Junius writes: “Both minister and magistrate is compelled to choose between his duty and his reputation.” Even Lindley Murray writes: “Their general scope and tendency is not remembered at all”; and Milton sings:

Some grammarians defend these forms of expression on the ground that when two or more nouns singular represent a single idea, the verb to which they are the nominative may be put in the singular. The answer to this is, that if the nouns express the same idea, one of them is superfluous; if different ideas, then they form a plural, and the verb should be plural also. Another quibble employed to justify such expressions, is that the verb, which is expressed after the last noun, is considered as understood after the first. But we are not told how this process of subaudition can go on in the mind of the reader, before he knows what the verb is to be; and while ellipsis not only is in many cases permissible, but gives conciseness and energy to style, yet there is a limit beyond which it cannot be pushed without leading to literary anarchy.

Caption, for heading. E.g., “The caption of this newspaper article.” Caption means that part of a legal instrument which shows where, when, and by what authority it was taken, found, or executed.

To extremely maltreat. This phrase from Trench is an example of a very common solecism. To, the sign of the infinitive, should never be separated from the verb. Say “to maltreat extremely,” or “extremely to maltreat.”

Accord, for grant. “He accorded them (or to them) all they asked for.” To accord with means properly to agree or to suit; as, “He accorded with my views.”

Enthuse, a word used by some clergymen, is not to be found either in Worcester’s Dictionary or in Webster’s “Unabridged.”

Personalty. This word is supposed by some persons to mean articles worn on one’s person. Some years ago, a lady, in England, who had made this mistake, and who wished to leave to her servant her clothing, jewels, etc., described them as her personalty, and unwittingly included in her bequest ten thousand pounds.

Do. This verb is often used incorrectly as a substitute for other verbs; as, “I did not say, as some have done.” We may properly say, “I did not say, as some do” (say), for here the ellipsis of the preceding verb may be supplied.

On to, for on, or upon. “He got on to an omnibus;” “He jumped on to a chair.” The preposition to is superfluous. Say, “He got upon an omnibus,” etc. Some persons speak of “continuing on,” which is as objectionable as “He went to Boston for to see the city.”

Older, for elder. Older is properly applied to objects, animate and inanimate; elder, to rational beings.

Overflown, for overflowed. “The river has overflown.” Flowed is the participle of “to flow”; flown, of “to fly.”

Spoonsful, for spoonfuls, and effluvia for effluvium, are very common errors. “A disagreeable effluvia” is as gross a mistake as “an inexplicable phenomena.”

Scarcely, for hardly. Scarcely pertains to quantity; hardly, to degree; as, “There is scarcely a bushel”; “I shall hardly finish my job by night-fall.”

Fare thee well, which has Byron’s authority, is plainly wrong.

Community, for the community; as “Community will not submit to such outrages.” Prof. Marsh has justly censured this vulgarism. Who would think of saying, “Public is interested in this question”? When we personify common nouns used definitely in the singular number, we may omit the article, as when we speak of the doings of Parliament, or of Holy Church. “During the Revolution,” says Professor M., “while the federal government was a body of doubtful authority and permanence, ... the phrase used was always ‘the Congress,’ and such is the form of expression in the Constitution itself. But when the Government became consolidated, and Congress was recognized as the paramount legislative power of the Union, ... it was personified, and the article dropped, and, in like manner, the word Government is often used in the same way.”

Folks for folk. As folk implies plurality, the s is needless.

Mussulmen. Mussulman is not a compound of man, and, therefore, like German, it forms its plural by adding s.

Drive, for ride. A lady says that “she is going to drive in the park,” when she intends that her servant shall drive (not her, but) the horses.

Try and, for try to. E.g., “Try and do it.”

Whole, entire, complete, and total, are words which are used almost indiscriminately by many persons. That is whole, from which nothing has been taken; that is entire, which has not been divided; that is complete, which has all its parts. Total refers to the aggregate of the parts. Thus we say, a whole loaf of bread; an entire set of spoons; a complete harness; the total cost or expense.

Succeed, for give success to, or cause to succeed. E.g., “If Providence succeed us in this work.” Both Webster and Worcester justify this use of succeed as a transitive verb; but if not now grammatically objectionable, as formerly, it is still to be avoided on the ground of ambiguity. In the phrase quoted, succeed may mean either cause to succeed, or follow.

Tartar should be, strictly, Tatar. When the Tatar hordes, in the thirteenth century, burst forth from the Asiatic steppes, this fearful invasion was thought to be a fulfilment of the prediction of the opening of the bottomless pit, as portrayed in the ninth chapter of Revelations. To bring the name into relation with Tartarus, Tatar was written, as it still continues to be written, Tartar.

The following is an example of a very common error in the arrangement of words:

Though such is not the writer’s intention, he really speaks of Jesus as being “dead in sins and in transgressions”; for the syntax of the verse admits of no other meaning.

Numerous, for many. To speak of “our numerous friends” is to say that each friend is numerous.

That of; as, “He chose for a profession that of the law.” This is equivalent to saying: He chose for a profession the profession of law; or, he chose a profession for a profession. Why not say, “He chose law for a profession”?

Fellow countrymen. What is the difference between “countrymen” and “fellow countrymen?”

Distinguish, for discriminate. To distinguish is to mark broad and plain differences; to discriminate is to notice minute and subtle shades of difference.

Transpire, for to happen. “Transpire” meant originally to emit insensible vapor through the pores of the skin. Afterward it was used metaphorically in the sense of to become known, to pass from secrecy into publicity. But to say that a certain event “transpired yesterday,” meaning that it occurred then, is a gross vulgarism.

Ventilate, for discuss.

Hung, for hanged. “Hang,” when it means to take away life by public execution, is a regular verb.

Bid, for bade. E.g., The London “Times” says: “He called his servants, and bid them procure fire-arms.”

Dare, for durst. “Neither her maidens nor the priest dare speak to her for half an hour,” says the Rev. Charles Kingsley, in one of his novels.

In, for within. E.g., “Is Mr. Smith in?”

Notwithstanding, for although. E.g., “Notwithstanding they fought bravely, they were defeated.” “Notwithstanding” is a preposition, and cannot be correctly used as a conjunction.

Two good ones. “Among all the apples there were but two good ones.” Two ones?

Raising the rent, for increasing the rent. A landlord notified his tenant that he should raise his rent. “Thank you,” was the reply; “I find it very hard to raise it myself.”

Was, for is. “Two young men,” says Swift, “have made a discovery, that there was a God.” That there was a God? When? This year, or last year, or ages ago? All general truths should be expressed by the use of verbs in the present tense.

Shall and will. There are, perhaps, no two words in the language which are more frequently confounded or used inaccurately, than shall and will. Certain it is, that of all the rocks on which foreigners split in the use of the Queen’s English, there is none which so puzzles and perplexes them as the distinction between these little words. Originally both words were employed for the same purpose in other languages of the same stock with ours; but their use has been worked out by the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, until it has attained a degree of nicety remarkable in itself, and by no means easy of acquisition even by the subjects of Victoria or by Americans. Every one has heard of the Dutchman who, on falling into a river, cried out, “I will drown, and nobody shall help me.” The Irish are perpetually using shall for will, while the Scotch use of will for shall is equally inveterate and universal. Dr. Chalmers says: “I am not able to devote as much time and attention to other subjects as I will be under the necessity of doing next winter.” The use of shall for will, in the following passage, has led some critics strongly to suspect that the author of the anonymous work, “Vestiges of Creation,” is a Scotchman: “I do not expect that any word of praise which this work may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that any word of censure shall ever be parried or deprecated.” This awkward use of shall, we have seen, is not a Scotticism; yet it is curious to see how a writer who pertinaciously shrouds himself in mystery, may be detected by the blundering use of a monosyllable. So the use of the possessive neuter pronoun its in the poems which Chatterton wrote and palmed off as the productions of one Rowlie, a monk in the fifteenth century, betrayed the forgery,—inasmuch as that little monosyllable, its, now so common and convenient, did not find its way into the language till about the time of Shakespeare. Milton never once uses it, nor, except as a misprint, is it to be found anywhere in the Bible.

Gilfillan, a Scotch writer, thus uses will for shall: “If we look within the rough and awkward outside, we will be richly rewarded by its perusal.” So Alison, the historian: “We know to what causes our past reverses have been owing, and we will have ourselves to blame if they are again incurred.” Macaulay observes that “not one Londoner in a thousand ever misplaces his will and shall. Doctor Robinson could, undoubtedly, have written a luminous dissertation on the use of those words. Yet, even in his latest work, he sometimes misplaced them ludicrously.” But Doctor Johnson was a Londoner, and he did not always use his shalls and wills correctly, as will be seen by the following extract from a letter to Boswell in 1774: “You must make haste and gather me all you can, and do it quickly, or I will and shall do without it.” In this anti-climax Johnson meant to emphasize the latter of the auxiliaries. But shall (Saxon, sceal = necesse est) in the first person, simply foretells; as, “I shall go to New York to-morrow.” On the other hand, will, in the first person, not only foretells, but promises, or declares the resolution to do a thing; as, “I will pay you what I owe you.” The Doctor should have said: “I shall and will do without it.” putting the strongest term last. The confusion of the two words is steadily increasing in this country. Formerly the only Americans who confounded them were Southerners; now, the misuse of the word is stealing through the North. E.g., “I will go to town to-morrow, and shall take an early opportunity of calling on your friend there.” “We will never look on his like again.” A writer in a New York paper says: “None of our coal mines are deep, but the time is coming when we will have to dig deeper in search of both coal and metallic ores.” Again, we hear persons speak thus: “Let us keep a sharp lookout, and we will avoid all danger.”

Shakespeare rarely confounded the two words; for example, in “Coriolanus”:

“Cor. Shall remain!

Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you

His absolute shall?”

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

Wordsworth, too, who is one of the most accurate writers in our literature, nicely discriminates in his use of shall and will:

In the last passage determination is expressed, and therefore shall is properly used.

When the Bible was translated, the language was in a state of transition; hence we read in Kings ii: “Ahab shall slay me,” for will. In Genesis xliii, 3-5, the two words are nicely discriminated. The distinction between them, strange to say, is entirely ignored in the Revised Version; as e.g., Peter is told, “Thou shalt deny me thrice”; and we read: “One of you shall betray me,” where futurity only is expressed in the Greek.

According to Grimm, “shall” is derived from skalan, the Scandinavian word for the pain of death, which is also the source of our word “kill.” The predominant idea in “shall” is that of doom. When choosing a term to express the inevitable future, the founders of our language chose a term the most expressive possible of a fatal, inevitable future. As “shall” contains the idea of doom, “will” conveys the idea of choice. The general rule to be followed in the use of the two words is, that when the simple idea of future occurrence is to be expressed, unconnected with the speaker’s resolve, we must use shall in the first person, and will in the second and third; as, “I shall die, you will die, he will die”; but when the idea of compulsion or necessity is to be conveyed,—a futurity connected with the will of the speaker,—will must be employed in the first person, and shall in the second and third; as, “I will go, you shall go, he shall go.” “I shall attain to thirty at my next birthday” merely foretells the age to which the speaker will have reached at his next birthday; “I will attain to thirty at my next birthday” would imply a determination to be so old at the time mentioned. “You shall have some money to-morrow” would imply a promise to pay it; “you will have some money to-morrow” would only imply an expectation that the person addressed would receive some money.

Similar to the misuse of shall and will, is that of would for should; as, “You promised that it would be done;” “But for reinforcements we would have been beaten.” Mr. Brace, in his work on Hungary, makes the people of that country say of Kossuth: “He ought to have known that we would be ruined,”—which can only mean “we wished to be ruined.”

The importance of attending to the distinction of shall and will, and to the nice distinctions of words generally, is strikingly illustrated by an incident in Massachusetts. In 1844, Abner Rogers was tried in that state for the murder of the warden of the penitentiary. The man who had been sent to search the prisoner, said in evidence: “He (Rogers) said, ‘I have fixed the warden, and I’ll have a rope round my neck.’ On the strength of what he said, I took his suspenders from him.” Being cross-examined, the witness said his words were: “I will have a rope,” not “I shall have a rope.” The counsel against the prisoner argued that he declared an intention of suicide, to escape from the penalty of the law, which he knew he had incurred. On the other hand, shall would, no doubt, have been regarded as a betrayal of his consciousness of having incurred a felon’s doom. The prisoner was acquitted on the ground of insanity. Strange that the fate of an alleged murderer should turn upon the question which he used of two little words that are so frequently confounded, and employed one for the other! It would be difficult to conceive of a more pregnant comment on the importance of using words with discrimination and accuracy.

It would be impossible, in the limits to which we are restricted, to give all the nice distinctions to be observed in the use of shall and will. For a full explanation of the subject we must refer the unlearned reader to the various English grammars, and such works as Sir E. W. Head’s treatise on the two words, and the works on Synonyms by Graham, Crabb, and Whately. Prof. Schele DeVere, in his late “Studies in Language,” expresses the opinion that this double future is a great beauty of the English language, but that it is impossible to give any rule for its use, which will cover all cases, and that the only sure guide is “that instinct which is given to all who learn a language with their mother’s milk, or who acquire it so successfully as to master its spirit as well as its form.” His use of will for shall, in this very work, verifies the latter part of this statement, and shows that a foreigner may have a profound knowledge of the genius and constitution of a language, and yet be sorely puzzled by its niceties and subtleties. “If we go back,” he says, “for the purpose of thus tracing the history of nouns to the oldest forms of English, we will there find the method of forming them from the first and simplest elements” (page 140). The “Edinburgh Review” denounces the distinction of shall and will, by their neglect of which the Scotch are so often bewrayed, as one of the most capricious and inconsistent of all imaginable irregularities, and as at variance not less with original etymology than with former usage. Prof. Marsh regards it as a verbal quibble, which will soon disappear from our language. It is a quibble just as any distinction is a quibble to persons who are too dull, too lazy, or too careless to apprehend it. With as much propriety might the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive forms of the verb, or the distinction between farther and further, strong and robust, empty and vacant, be pronounced a verbal quibble. Sir Edmund W. Head has shown that the difference is not one which has an existence only in the pedagogue’s brain, but that it is as real and legitimate as that between be and am, and dates back as far as Wicliffe and Chaucer, while it has also the authority of Shakespeare.

We conclude this chapter with the following lines by an English poet: