It is rather a serious matter that our public companies, and especially
our railway companies, are doing their best to degrade our language. I
am not going to be squeamish and object strongly to the use of the word
_Metropolitan_, though I think it indefensible. Still, it is too bad of
them to persist in using the word _bye-laws_ for _by-laws_—so
establishing solidly a shocking error. The word _bye_ has no existence
in England except as short for _be with you_, in the phrase _Good-bye_.
The so called by-laws are simple laws by the other laws, and have nothing
to do with any form of salutation. In a bill of the Great Western
Railway I find the announcement that tickets obtained in London on any
day from December 20th to 24th will be available for use on _either_ of
those days—this _either_ meaning the five days from the 20th December to
the 24th inclusive. Either of five! After this I am not surprised that,
in a contribution of my own to a daily paper, the editor gravely altered
the phrase _the last-named_, applied to one of three people, to _latter_.
In a railway advertisement I read a day or two ago, “From whence.” Now,
what is the good of such fine words as _whence_ and _thence_ if they are
thus to be ill-used? Surely the railway companies might have some one
capable of seeing that their grammar has some pretence to correctness.
—_Gentleman’s Magazine_.