THE
KING’S ENGLISH
BY
H. W. FOWLER & F. G. FOWLER
COMPILERS OF THE
CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH
No levell’d malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold.
_Timon of Athens_, I. i. 48.
SECOND EDITION
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD
1924
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
PREFACE
The compilers of this book would be wanting in courtesy if they
did not expressly say what might otherwise be safely left to the
reader’s discernment: the frequent appearance in it of any author’s or
newspaper’s name does not mean that that author or newspaper offends
more often than others against rules of grammar or style; it merely
shows that they have been among the necessarily limited number chosen
to collect instances from.
The plan of the book was dictated by the following considerations.
It is notorious that English writers seldom look into a grammar or
composition book; the reading of grammars is repellent because, being
bound to be exhaustive on a greater or less scale, they must give much
space to the obvious or the unnecessary; and composition books are
often useless because they enforce their warnings only by fabricated
blunders against which every tiro feels himself quite safe. The
principle adopted here has therefore been (1) to pass by all rules,
of whatever absolute importance, that are shown by observation to be
seldom or never broken; and (2) to illustrate by living examples, with
the name of a reputable authority attached to each, all blunders that
observation shows to be common. The reader, however, who is thus led to
suspect that the only method followed has been the rejection of method
will find, it is hoped, a practical security against inconvenience in
the very full Index.
Further, since the positive literary virtues are not to be taught by
brief quotation, nor otherwise attained than by improving the gifts
of nature with wide or careful reading, whereas something may really
be done for the negative virtues by mere exhibition of what should be
avoided, the examples collected have had to be examples of the bad
and not of the good. To this it must be added that a considerable
proportion of the newspaper extracts are, as is sometimes apparent,
not from the editorial, but from the correspondence columns; the names
attached are merely an assurance that the passages have actually
appeared in print, and not been now invented to point a moral.
The especial thanks of the compilers are offered to Dr. Bradley, joint
editor of the _Oxford English Dictionary_, who has been good enough
to inspect the proof sheets, and whose many valuable suggestions have
led to the removal of some too unqualified statements, some confused
exposition, and some positive mistakes. It is due to him, however,
to say that his warnings have now and then been disregarded, when it
seemed that brevity or some other advantage could be secured without
great risk of misunderstanding.
The _Oxford English Dictionary_ itself has been of much service. On all
questions of vocabulary, even if so slightly handled as in the first
chapter of this book, that great work is now indispensable.
H. W. F.
F. G. F.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In this edition new examples have been added or substituted here and
there.
CONTENTS
PART I
PAGE
CHAPTER I. VOCABULARY, pp. 1-59
General Principles 1-8
Familiar and far-fetched words 4
Concrete and abstract expression 5
Circumlocution 6
Short and long words 6
Saxon and Romance words 7
Requirements of different styles 7
Malaprops 8
Neologisms 18
Americanisms 23
Foreign words 26
Formation 37
Slang 47
_Individual_ 53
_Mutual_ 56
_Unique_ 58
_Aggravate_ 59
CHAPTER II. SYNTAX, pp. 60-170
Case 60
Number 65
Comparatives and superlatives 70
Relatives 75-107
Defining and non-defining relative clauses 75
_That_ and _who_ or _which_ 80
_And who_, _and which_ 85
Case of the relative 93
Miscellaneous uses of the relative 96
_It ... that_ 104
Participle and gerund 107
Participles 110
The gerund 116-133
Distinguishing the gerund 116
Omission of the gerund subject 125
Choice between gerund and infinitive 129
Shall and will 133-154
The pure system 134
The coloured-future system 136
The plain-future system 138
Second-person questions 139
Examples of principal sentences 141
Substantival clauses 143
Conditional clauses 149
Indefinite clauses 151
Examples of subordinate clauses 152
Perfect infinitive 154
Conditionals 156
_Doubt that_ 158
Prepositions 161
CHAPTER III. AIRS AND GRACES, pp. 171-218
Certain types of humor 171
Elegant variation 175
Inversion 180-193
Exclamatory 181
Balance 182
In syntactic clauses 187
Negative, and false-emphasis 190
Miscellaneous 191
Archaism 193-200
Occasional 193
Sustained 198
Metaphor 200
Repetition 209
Miscellaneous 213-218
Trite phrases 213
Irony 215
Superlatives without _the_ 216
Cheap originality 217
CHAPTER IV. PUNCTUATION, pp. 219-290
General difficulties 219
General principles 224
The spot plague 226
Over-stopping 231
Under-stopping 234
Grammar and punctuation 235-263
Substantival clauses 235
Subject, &c., and verb 239
Adjectival clauses 242
Adverbial clauses 244
Parenthesis 247
Misplaced commas 248
Enumeration 250
Comma between independent sentences 254
Semicolon with subordinate members 257
Exclamations and statements 258
Exclamations and questions 259
Internal question and exclamation marks 261
Unaccountable commas 262
The colon 263
Miscellaneous 264
Dashes 266-275
General abuse 266
Legitimate uses 267
Debatable questions 269
Common misuses 274
Hyphens 275
Quotation marks 280-290
Excessive use 280
Order with stops 282
Single and double 287
Misplaced 288
Half quotation 289
PART II. p. 291 to the end
EUPHONY, §§ 1-10
1. Jingles 291
2. Alliteration 292
3. Repeated prepositions 293
4. Sequence of relatives 293
5. Sequence of _that_, &c. 294
6. Metrical prose 295
7. Sentence accent 295
8. Causal _as_ clauses 298
9. Wens and hypertrophied members 300
10. Careless repetition 303
QUOTATION, &c., §§ 11-19
11. Common misquotations 305
12. Uncommon misquotations of well-known passages 305
13. Misquotation of less familiar passages 306
14. Misapplied and misunderstood quotations and phrases 306
15. Allusion 307
16. Incorrect allusion 308
17. Dovetailed and adapted quotations and phrases 308
18. Trite quotation 310
19. Latin abbreviations, &c. 311
GRAMMAR, §§ 20-37
20. Unequal yokefellows and defective double harness 311
21. Common parts 314
22. The wrong turning 316
23. Ellipse in subordinate clauses 317
24. Some illegitimate infinitives 317
25. Split infinitives 319
26. Compound passives 319
27. Confusion with negatives 321
28. Omission of _as_ 324
29. Other liberties taken with _as_ 324
30. Brachylogy 326
31. Between two stools 327
32. The impersonal _one_ 328
33. _Between ... or_ 328
34. _A_ placed between the adjective and its noun 329
35. _Do_ as substitute verb 330
36. Fresh starts 330
37. Vulgarisms and colloquialisms 331
MEANING, §§ 38-48
38. Tautology 331
39. Redundancies 332
40. _As to whether_ 333
41. Superfluous _but_ and _though_ 334
42. _If and when_ 334
43. Maltreated idioms 336
44. Truisms and contradictions in terms 339
45. Double emphasis 341
46. Split auxiliaries 342
47. Overloading 343
48. Demonstrative, noun, and participle or adjective 344
AMBIGUITY, §§ 49-52
49. False scent 345
50. Misplacement of words 346
51. Ambiguous position 347
52. Ambiguous enumeration 348
STYLE, § 53 to the end
53. Antics 348
54. Journalese 351
55. _Somewhat_, &c. 352
56. Clumsy patching 355
57. Omission of the conjunction _that_ 356
58. Meaningless _while_ 357
59. Commercialisms 358
60. Pet Phrases 359
61. _Also_ as conjunction; and _&c._ 359
CHAPTER I
VOCABULARY
GENERAL
Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he
allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct,
simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.
This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the
domain of vocabulary as follows:--
Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the short word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.[1]
These rules are given roughly in order of merit; the last is also
the least. It is true that it is often given alone, as a sort of
compendium of all the others. In some sense it is that: the writer
whose percentage of Saxon words is high will generally be found to
have fewer words that are out of the way, long, or abstract, and fewer
periphrases, than another; and conversely. But if, instead of his
Saxon percentage’s being the natural and undesigned consequence of
his brevity (and the rest), those other qualities have been attained
by his consciously restricting himself to Saxon, his pains will have
been worse than wasted; the taint of preciosity will be over all he
has written. Observing that _translate_ is derived from Latin, and
learning that the Elizabethans had another word for it, he will pull us
up by _englishing_ his quotations; he will puzzle the general reader
by introducing his book with a _foreword_. Such freaks should be left
to the Germans, who have by this time succeeded in expelling as aliens
a great many words that were good enough for Goethe. And they, indeed,
are very likely right, because their language is a thoroughbred one;
ours is not, and can now never be, anything but a hybrid; _foreword_
is (or may be) Saxon; we can find out in the dictionary whether it is
or not; but _preface_ is English, dictionary or no dictionary; and
we want to write English, not Saxon. Add to this that, even if the
Saxon criterion were a safe one, more knowledge than most of us have
is needed to apply it. Few who were not deep in philology would be
prepared to state that no word in the following list (extracted from
the preface to the _Oxford Dictionary_) is English:--_battle_, _beast_,
_beauty_, _beef_, _bill_, _blue_, _bonnet_, _border_, _boss_, _bound_,
_bowl_, _brace_, _brave_, _bribe_, _bruise_, _brush_, _butt_, _button_.
Dr. Murray observes that these ‘are now no less “native”, and no less
important constituents of our vocabulary, than the Teutonic words’.
There are, moreover, innumerable pairs of synonyms about which the
Saxon principle gives us no help. The first to hand are _ere_ and
_before_ (both Saxon), _save_ and _except_ (both Romance), _anent_ and
_about_ (both Saxon again). Here, if the ‘Saxon’ rule has nothing to
say, the ‘familiar’ rule leaves no doubt. The intelligent reader whom
our writer has to consider will possibly not know the linguistic facts;
indeed he more likely than not takes _save_ for a Saxon word. But he
does know the reflections that the words, if he happens to be reading
leisurely enough for reflection, excite in him. As he comes to _save_,
he wonders, Why not _except_? At sight of _ere_ he is irresistibly
reminded of that sad spectacle, a mechanic wearing his Sunday clothes
on a weekday. And _anent_, to continue the simile, is nothing less than
a masquerade costume. The _Oxford Dictionary_ says drily of the last
word: ‘Common in Scotch law phraseology, and affected by many English
writers’; it might have gone further, and said ‘“affected” in any
English writer’; such things are antiquarian rubbish, Wardour-Street
English. Why not (as our imagined intelligent reader asked)--why not
_before_, _except_, and _about_? Bread is the staff of life, and words
like these, which are common and are not vulgar, which are good enough
for the highest and not too good for the lowest, are the staple of
literature. The first thing a writer must learn is, that he is not to
reject them unless he can show good cause. _Before_ and _except_, it
must be clearly understood, have such a prescriptive right that to
use other words instead is not merely not to choose these, it is to
reject them. It may be done in poetry, and in the sort of prose that
is half poetry: to do it elsewhere is to insult _before_, to injure
_ere_ (which is a delicate flower that will lose its quality if much
handled), and to make one’s sentence both pretentious and frigid.
It is now perhaps clear that the Saxon oracle is not infallible; it
will sometimes be dumb, and sometimes lie. Nevertheless, it is not
without its uses as a test. The words to be chosen are those that
the probable reader is sure to understand without waste of time and
thought; a good proportion of them will in fact be Saxon, but mainly
because it happens that most abstract words--which are by our second
rule to be avoided--are Romance. The truth is that all five rules would
be often found to give the same answer about the same word or set of
words. Scores of illustrations might be produced; let one suffice: _In
the contemplated eventuality_ (a phrase no worse than what any one can
pick for himself out of his paper’s leading article for the day) is at
once the far-fetched, the abstract, the periphrastic, the long, and the
Romance, for _if so_. It does not very greatly matter by which of the
five roads the natural is reached instead of the monstrosity, so long
as it _is_ reached. The five are indicated because (1) they differ in
directness, and (2) in any given case only one of them may be possible.
We will now proceed to a few examples of how not to write, roughly
classified under the five headings, though, after what has been
said, it will cause no surprise that most of them might be placed
differently. Some sort of correction is suggested for each, but the
reader will indulgently remember that to correct a bad sentence
satisfactorily is not always possible; it should never have existed,
that is all that can be said. In particular, sentences overloaded
with abstract words are, in the nature of things, not curable simply
by substituting equivalent concrete words; there can be no such
equivalents; the structure has to be more or less changed.
1. =Prefer the familiar word= to the far-fetched.
The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously
because it _antagonized the unalterable supremacy of Colonial
nationalism_.--_Times._ (stood in the way of that national ambition
which must always be uppermost in the Colonial mind)
Buttercups made a sunlight of their own, and in the shelter of
scattered coppices the pale _wind-flowers_ still dreamed in
whiteness.--E. F. BENSON.
We all know what an _anemone_ is: whether we know what a _wind-flower_
is, unless we happen to be Greek scholars, is quite doubtful.
The state of Poland, and the excesses committed by mobilized troops,
have been of a far more serious nature than has been allowed to
_transpire_.--_Times._ (come out)
Reform converses with possibilities, _perchance_ with impossibilities;
but here is sacred fact.--EMERSON. (perhaps)
Tanners and users are strongly of opinion that there is no room
for further enhancement, but on that point there is always
room for doubt especially when the _export phase_ is taken into
consideration.--_Times._ (state of the export trade)
Witchcraft has been put a stop to by Act of Parliament; but the
mysterious relations which it _emblemed_ still continue.--CARLYLE.
(symbolized)
It will only have itself to thank if future disaster rewards its
_nescience_ of the conditions of successful warfare.--_Outlook._
(ignorance)
_Continual vigilance is imperative on the public_ to
ensure....--_Times._ (We must be ever on the watch)
These manoeuvres are by no means new, and _their recrudescence is
hardly calculated to influence the development of events_.--_Times._
(the present use of them is not likely to be effective)
‘I have no particular business at L----’, said he; ‘I was merely going
_thither_ to pass a day or two.’--BORROW. (there)
2. =Prefer the concrete word= (or rather expression) to the abstract.
It may be here remarked that abstract expression and the excessive
use of nouns are almost the same thing. The cure consists very much,
therefore, in the clearing away of noun rubbish.
_The general poverty of explanation as to the diction of particular
phrases seemed to point in the same direction._--_Cambridge University
Reporter._ (It was perhaps owing to this also that the diction of
particular phrases was often so badly explained)
_An elementary condition of a sound discussion is a frank recognition
of the gulf severing two sets of facts._--_Times._ (There can be no
sound discussion where the gulf severing two sets of facts is not
frankly recognized)
_The signs of the times point to the necessity of the modification of
the system of administration._--_Times._ (It is becoming clear that
the administrative system must be modified)
_No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the
statement that_ the work of government is becoming increasingly
difficult.--_Spectator._ (Every year shows again how true it is
that....)
The first private conference _relating to the question of
the convocation of representatives of the nation_ took place
yesterday.--_Times._ (on national representation)
_There seems to have been an absence of attempt at conciliation
between rival sects._--_Daily Telegraph._ (The sects seem never even
to have tried mutual conciliation)
Zeal, however, must not outrun discretion in changing abstract to
concrete. _Officer_ is concrete, and _office_ abstract; but we do
not _promote to officers_, as in the following quotation, but to
_offices_--or, with more exactness in this context, to _commissions_.
Over 1,150 cadets of the Military Colleges were _promoted to officers_
at the Palace of Tsarskoe Selo yesterday.--_Times._
3. =Prefer the single word= to the circumlocution. As the word _case_
seems to lend itself particularly to abuse, we start with more than one
specimen of it.
Inaccuracies were _in many cases_ due to cramped methods of
writing.--_Cambridge University Reporter._ (often)
The handwriting was on the whole good, with a few examples
of remarkably fine penmanship _in the case both of_ boys and
girls.--_Ibid._ (by both boys....)
Few candidates showed a thorough knowledge of the text of 1 Kings, and
_in many cases the answers_ lacked care.--_Ibid._ (many answers)
The matter will remain in abeyance until the Bishop has had time
to become more fully acquainted with the diocese, and to ascertain
which part of the city will be most desirable for _residential
purposes_.--_Times._ (his residence)
M. Witte is _taking active measures for the prompt preparation of
material for the study of the question of the execution of the
Imperial Ukase dealing with reforms_.--_Times._ (actively collecting
all information that may be needed before the Tsar’s reform Ukase can
be executed)
The Russian Government is at last face to face with the greatest
crisis of the war, _in the shape of the fact that_ the Siberian
railway is no longer capable....--_Spectator._ (for) or (:)
Mr. J---- O---- has _been made the recipient of_ a silver
medal.--_Guernsey Advertiser._ (received)
4. =Prefer the short word= to the long.
One of the most important reforms mentioned in the rescript _is the
unification of the organization of the judicial institutions and
the guarantee for all the tribunals of the independence necessary
for securing to all classes of the community equality before the
law_.--_Times._ (is that of the Courts, which need a uniform system,
and the independence without which it is impossible for all men to be
equal before the law)
I merely desired to point out _the principal reason which I believe
exists for the great exaggeration which is occasionally to be
observed in the estimate of the importance of the contradiction
between current Religion and current Science put forward by thinkers
of reputation_.--BALFOUR. (why, in my opinion, some well-known
thinkers make out the contradiction between current Religion and
current Science to be so much more important than it is)
Sir,--Will you permit me to _homologate_ all you say to-day regarding
that selfish minority of motorists who....--_Times._ (agree with)
On the Berlin Bourse to-day the prospect of a general strike was
cheerfully _envisaged_.--_Times._ (faced)
5. =Prefer the Saxon word= to the Romance.
_Despite the unfavourable climatic conditions._--_Guernsey
Advertiser._ (Bad as the weather has been)
* * * * *
By way of general rules for the choice of words, so much must suffice.
And these must be qualified by the remark that what is suitable for
one sort of composition may be unsuitable for another. The broadest
line of this kind is that between poetry and prose; but with that we
are not concerned, poetry being quite out of our subject. There are
other lines, however, between the scientific and the literary styles,
the dignified and the familiar. Our rendering of the passage quoted
from Mr. Balfour, for instance, may be considered to fall below the
dignity required of a philosophic essay. The same might, with less
reason, be said of our simplified newspaper extracts; a great journal
has a tone that must be kept up; if it had not been for that, we should
have dealt with them yet more drastically. But a more candid plea for
the journalist, and one not without weight, would be that he has not
time to reduce what he wishes to say into a simple and concrete form.
It is in fact as much easier for him to produce, as it is harder for
his reader to understand, the slipshod abstract stuff that he does
rest content with. But it may be suspected that he often thinks the
length of his words and his capacity for dealing in the abstract
to be signs of a superior mind. As long as that opinion prevails,
improvement is out of the question. But if it could once be established
that simplicity was the true ideal, many more writers would be found
capable of coming near it than ever make any effort that way now. The
fact remains, at any rate, that different kinds of composition require
different treatment; but any attempt to go into details on the question
would be too ambitious; the reader can only be warned that in this
fact may be found good reasons for sometimes disregarding any or all
of the preceding rules. Moreover, they must not be applied either so
unintelligently as to sacrifice any really important shade of meaning,
or so invariably as to leave an impression of monotonous and unrelieved
emphasis.
The rest of this chapter will be devoted to more special and definite
points--malaprops, neologisms, Americanisms, foreign words, bad
formations, slang, and some particular words.
MALAPROPS
Before classifying, we define a malaprop as a word used in the belief
that it has the meaning really belonging to another word that resembles
it in some particular.
1. =Words containing the same stem, but necessarily, or at least
indisputably, distinguished by termination or prefix.=
‘She writes _comprehensively_ enough when she writes to M. de
Bassompierre: he who runs may read.’ In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to
her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
applications for cash.--C. BRONTË.
The context proves that _comprehensibly_ is meant.
The working of the staff at the agent’s disposal was to a great extent
voluntary, and, therefore, required all the influence of _judicial_
management in order to avoid inevitable difficulties.--_Times._
(judicious)
A not uncommon blunder.
By all means let us have bright, hearty, and very _reverend_
services.--_Daily Telegraph._ (reverent)
Not uncommon.
He chuckled at his own _perspicuity_.--CORELLI.
If the writer had a little more _perspicuity_ he would have known that
the Church Congress would do nothing of the kind.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Perspicuity_ is clearness or transparency: insight is _perspicacity_.
_-uity_ of style, _-acity_ of mind. Very common.
Selected in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and
_trustfulness_.--DICKENS. (trustworthiness)
Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and
inscrutable; acute and _insensate_--withal perfectly decorous--what
more could be desired?--C. BRONTË.
Apparently for _insensible_ in the meaning _hardhearted_. Though modern
usage fluctuates, it seems to tend towards the meaning, _stupidly
unmoved by prudence or by facts_; at any rate _acute_ and _insensate_
are incompatible.
In the meantime the colossal advertisement in the German Press of
German aims, of German interests, and of German policy _incontinently_
proceeds.--_Times._
The idiomatic sense of _incontinently_ is _immediately_; it seems here
to be used for _continually_.
I was _awaiting_ with real curiosity to hear the way in which M.
Loubet would to-day acquit himself.--_Times._ (waiting)
_Awaiting_ is always transitive.
But they too will feel the pain just where you feel it now, and they
will _bethink_ themselves the only unhappy on the earth.--CROCKETT.
There is no sort of authority for _bethink_--like _think_--with object
and complement. _To bethink oneself_ is to remember, or to hit upon an
idea.
And Pizarro ... established the city of Arequipa, since _arisen_ to
such commercial celebrity.--PRESCOTT.
Arethusa arose; a difficulty arises; but to greatness we can only
rise--unless, indeed, we wake to find ourselves famous; then we do
arise to greatness.
2. =Words like the previous set, except that the differentiation may
possibly be disputed.=
The long drought left the torrent of which I am speaking, and such
others, in a state peculiarly favourable to _observance_ of their
least action on the mountains from which they descend.--RUSKIN.
(observation)
_Observance_ is obedience, compliance, &c. The _Oxford Dictionary_
recognizes _observance_ in the sense of watching, but gives no
authority for it later than 1732 except another passage from Ruskin;
the natural conclusion is that he accidentally failed to recognize a
valuable differentiation long arrived at.
It is physical science, and experience, that man ought to consult
in religion, morals, _legislature_, as well as in knowledge and the
arts.--MORLEY. (legislation)
_Legislature_ is the legislative body--in England, King, Lords, and
Commons. To call back the old confusion is an offence.
The apposite display of the diamonds usually stopped the tears that
began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a _complaisant_
state until....--DICKENS. (complacent)
Our Correspondent adds that he is fully persuaded that Rozhdestvensky
has nothing more to expect from the _complacency_ of the French
authorities.--_Times._ (complaisance)
_Complaisant_ is over polite, flattering, subservient, &c. _Complacent_
means contented, satisfied.
In the spring of that year the privilege was withdrawn from the four
associated booksellers, and the _continuance_ of the work strictly
prohibited.--MORLEY.
_Continuation_ is the noun of continue, go on with: _continuance_ of
continue, remain. With _continuance_ the meaning would be that the
already published volumes (of Diderot’s _Encyclopaedia_) were to be
destroyed; but the meaning intended is that the promised volumes were
not to be gone on with--which requires _continuation_. Again, the next
two extracts, from one page, show Mr. Morley wrongly substituting
_continuity_, which only means continuousness, for _continuance_.
Having arrived at a certain conclusion with regard to the
_continuance_ ... of Mr. Parnell’s leadership....--GLADSTONE.
The most cynical ... could not fall a prey to such a hallucination as
to suppose ... that either of these communities could tolerate ... so
impenitent an affront as the unruffled _continuity_ of the stained
leadership.--MORLEY.
The Rev. Dr. Usher said he believed the writer of the first letter to
be earnest in his inquiry, and agreed with him that the topic of it
was _transcendentally_ important.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Transcendently_ means in a superlative degree: _transcendentally_ is a
philosophic term for independently of experience, &c.
Until at last, gathered _altogether_ again, they find their way down
to the turf.--RUSKIN. (all together)
At such times ... Jimmie’s better angel was always in the
ascendency.--_Windsor Magazine._
Was in the _ascendant_: had an _ascendency_ over.
The inconsistency and _evasion_ of the attitude of the
Government.--_Spectator._
_Evasiveness_ the quality: _evasion_ a particular act.
The _requisition_ for a life of Christianity is ‘walk in
love’.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Requisite_ or _requirement_, the thing required: _requisition_, the
act of requiring it.
We will here merely chronicle the _procession_ of
events.--_Spectator._ (progress or succession)
I was able to watch the Emperor during all these interviews, and
noticed the forcible manner in which he spoke, especially to the
Sultan’s uncle, who came from Fez _especially_.--_Times._ (specially)
As it stands, it implies that he came chiefly from Fez, but from other
places in a minor degree; it is meant to imply that he came for this
particular interview, and had no other motive. The differentiation of
_spec-_ and _espec-_ is by no means complete yet, but some uses of each
are already ludicrous. Roughly, _spec-_ means particular as opposed to
general, _espec-_ particular as opposed to ordinary; but usage must be
closely watched.
That it occurs in _violence to_ police regulations is daily
apparent.--_Guernsey Advertiser._ (violation of)
In the field it aims at efforts of unexpected and extreme violence;
the _research_ of hostile masses, their defeat by overwhelming and
relentless assault, and their wholesale destruction by rigorous
pursuit.--_Times._ (discovery)
The object of research is laws, principles, facts, &c., not concrete
things or persons. Entomological research, for instance, does not look
for insects, but for facts about insects.
3. =Give-and-take forms=, in which there are two words, with different
constructions, that might properly be used, and one is given the
construction of the other.
A few companies, _comprised_ mainly _of_ militiamen.--_Times._
(composed of? comprising?)
The _Novoe Vremya_ thinks the Tsar’s words will undoubtedly _instil_
the Christians of Macedonia _with_ hope.--_Times._ (inspire them with
hope? instil hope into them?)
He appreciated the leisurely solidity, the leisurely beauty of the
place, so _innate with_ the genius of the Anglo-Saxon.--E. F. BENSON.
(genius innate in the place? the place instinct with genius?)
4. =Words having properly no connexion= with each other at all, but
confused owing to superficial resemblance.
Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, to read prayers at
the work-house, _euphuistically_ called the ‘College’.--ELIOT.
(euphemistically)
_Euphemism_ is slurring over badness by giving it a good name:
_euphuism_ is a literary style full of antithesis and simile. A pair
of extracts (_Friedrich_, vol. iv, pp. 5 and 36) will convince readers
that these words are dangerous:
Hence Bielfeld goes to Hanover, to grin-out _euphuisms_, and make
graceful court-bows to our sublime little Uncle there.--CARLYLE.
Readers may remember, George II has been at Hanover for some
weeks past; Bielfeld diligently grinning _euphemisms_ and courtly
graciosities to him.--CARLYLE.
Troops capable of _contesting_ successfully against the forces of
other nations.--_Times._
Though there is authority, chiefly old, for it, good general usage is
against _contest_ without an object--contest the victory, &c. And as
there is no possible advantage in writing it, with _contend_ ready to
hand, it is better avoided in the intransitive sense.
In the present _self-deprecatory_ mood in which the English people
find themselves.--_Spectator._ (self-depreciatory)
_Depreciate_, undervalue: _deprecate_, pray against. A bad but very
common blunder.
‘An irreparable colleague,’ Mr. Gladstone notes in his diary.--MORLEY.
(irreplaceable)
No dead colleague is reparable--though his loss may or may not be
so--this side the Day of Judgement.
Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith
than in having _resource_ to vice, in running after milkmaids, for
example.--BORROW. (recourse)
You may indeed have recourse to a resource, but not vice versa. You may
also resort to, which makes the confusion easier.
What she would say to him, how he would take it, even the vaguest
_predication_ of their discourse, was beyond him to guess.--E. F.
BENSON. (prediction)
_Predication_ has nothing to do with the future; it is a synonym, used
especially in logic, for _statement_. The mistake is generally whipped
out of schoolboys in connexion with _praedĩcere_ and _praedĭcare_.
5. =Words whose meaning is misapprehended without apparent cause.= The
hankering of ignorant writers after the unfamiliar or imposing leads
to much of this. We start with two uses of which correct and incorrect
examples are desirable: _provided_, where _if_ is required; and _to
eke out_ in wrong senses. _Provided_ adorns every other page of George
Borrow; we should have left it alone as an eccentricity of his, if we
had not lately found the wrong use more than once in _The Times_.
_Provided_ is a small district in the kingdom of _if_; it can never be
wrong to write _if_ instead of _provided_: to write _provided_ instead
of _if_ will generally be wrong, but now and then an improvement in
precision. So much is clear; to define the boundaries of the district
is another matter; we might be wiser merely to appeal to our readers
whether all the examples to be quoted, except one, are not wrong. But
that would be cowardly; we lay down, then, that (_a_) the clause must
be a stipulation, i. e., a demand yet to be fulfilled, (_b_) there must
be a stipulator, who (_c_) must desire, or at least insist upon, the
fulfilment of it.
Ganganelli would never have been poisoned _provided_ he had had
nephews about to take care of his life.--BORROW.
There is no stipulator or stipulation. Grammar would have allowed
Providence to say to him ‘You shall not be poisoned, provided you
surround yourself with nephews’.
The kicks and blows which my husband Launcelot was in the habit of
giving me every night, _provided_ I came home with less than five
shillings.--BORROW.
Launcelot, the stipulator, does not desire the fulfilment. If _kisses_
are substituted for _kicks and blows_, and _more_ for _less_, the
sentence will stand.
She and I agreed to stand by each other, and be true to old Church of
England, and to give our governors warning, _provided_ they tried to
make us renegades.--BORROW.
The stipulators, she and I, do not desire the fulfilment. _Not_ to
give warning, provided they did _not_ try, would be English. There is
similar confusion between the requirements of negative and positive in
the next:
A society has just been founded at Saratoff, the object being, as the
members declare in a manifesto to the Liberals, to use violent methods
and even bombs _provided_ the latter do so themselves.--_Times._
In these circumstances the chances are that the direction to proceed
to Vladivostok at all costs, _provided_ such instruction _were_ ever
given, may have been reconsidered.--_Times._ (if indeed ... was)
There is no stipulation; it is only a question of past fact.
What will the War Council at the capital decide _provided_ the war is
to continue?... The longer Linevitch can hold his position the better,
provided he does not risk a serious action.--_Times._ (if, or assuming
that)
There is no stipulation, stipulator, or desire--only a question of
future fact. The second _provided_ in this passage is quite correct.
The _Times_ writer--or the Russian War Council, his momentary
client--insists that Linevitch shall not run risks, and encourages him,
if that stipulation is fulfilled, to hold on.
To _eke out_ means to increase, supplement, or add to. It may be called
a synonym for any of these verbs; but it must be remembered that
no synonyms are ever precise equivalents. The peculiarity of _eke
out_ is that it implies difficulty; in technical language, agreeing
with _supplement_ in its denotation, it has the extra connotation of
difficulty. But it does not mean to make, nor to endure. From its
nature, it will very seldom be used (correctly), though it conceivably
might, without the source of the addition’s being specified. In the
first of the quotations, it is rightly used; in the second it is given
the wrong meaning of _make_, and in the last the equally wrong one of
_endure_.
A writer with a story to tell that is not very fresh usually _ekes_
it _out_ by referring as much as possible to surrounding objects.--H.
JAMES.
She had contrived, taking one year with another, to _eke out_ a
tolerably sufficient living since her husband’s demise.--DICKENS.
Yes, we do believe, or would the clergy _eke out_ an existence which
is not far removed from poverty?--_Daily Telegraph._
Next, some isolated illustrations of our present heading:
‘There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere, which I rather
wish than hope to see adopted in our own.’ It was with these words of
characteristic _irony_ that More closed the great work.--J. R. GREEN.
The word _irony_ is one of the worst abused in the language; but it was
surely never more gratuitously imported than in this passage. There
could be no more simple, direct, and literal expression of More’s
actual feeling than his words. Now any definition of irony--though
hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted--must
include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of
what is said are not the same. The only way to make out that we have
irony here is to suppose that More assumed that the vulgar would think
that he was speaking ironically, whereas he was really serious--a very
topsy-turvy explanation. _Satire_, however, with which _irony_ is often
confused, would have passed.
A literary tour de force, a _recrudescence_, two or three
generations later, of the very respectable William Lamb (afterwards
Lord Melbourne), his unhappy wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Lord
Byron.--_Times._ (reincarnation, avatar, resurrection?)
_Recrudescence_ is becoming quite a fashionable journalistic word.
It properly means the renewed inflammation of a wound, and so the
breaking out again of an epidemic, &c. It may reasonably be used
of revolutionary or silly opinions: to use it of persons or their
histories is absurd.
A colonel on the General Staff, while arguing for a continuation of
the struggle on _metaphysical_ grounds, admitted to me that even if
the Russians regained Manchuria they would never succeed in colonizing
it.... The _Bourse Gazette_ goes still further. It says that war for
any definite purpose ceased with the fall of Mukden, and that its
_continuation is apparent_ not from any military or naval actions, but
from the feeling of depression which is weighing upon all Russians and
the reports of the peace overtures.--_Times._
We can suggest no substitute for _metaphysical_. Though we have long
known _metaphysics_ for a blessed and mysterious word, this is our
first meeting with it in war or politics. The ‘apparent continuation’,
however, seems darkly to hint at the old question between phenomena and
real existence, so that perhaps we actually are in metaphysics all the
time.
In a word, M. Witte was always against all our aggressive measures
in the Far East.... M. Witte, who was always supported by Count
Lamsdorff, has no share in the responsibility of all that has
_transpired_.--_Times._ (happened)
As a synonym for _become known_,[2] _transpire_ is journalistic and
ugly, but may pass: as a synonym for _happen_, it is a bad blunder, but
not uncommon.
It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son would _demean_
himself by a marriage with an artist’s daughter.--THACKERAY.
The actors who raddle their faces and _demean_ themselves on the
stage.--STEVENSON. (lower, degrade)
To _demean_ oneself, with adverb of manner attached, is to behave in
that manner. The other use has probably arisen by a natural confusion
with the adjective _mean_; one suspects that it has crept into
literature by being used in intentional parody of vulgar speech, till
it was forgotten that it was parody. But perhaps when a word has been
given full citizen rights by Thackeray and Stevenson, it is too late to
expel it.
‘Oxoniensis’ approaches them with courage, his thoughts are expressed
in plain, unmistakable language, _howbeit_ with the touch of a master
hand.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Albeit_ means _though_: _howbeit_ always _nevertheless_, beginning not
a subordinate clause, but a principal sentence. A good example of the
danger attending ignorant archaism.
In a word, Count von Bülow, who took a very rosy view of the agreement
last year, now suddenly discovers that he was slighted, and is
indignant _in the paulo-post future tense_.--_Times._
This jest would be pedantic in any case, since no one but schoolmasters
and schoolboys knows what the paulo-post-future tense is. Being the one
represented in English by _I shall have been killed_, it has, further,
no application here; _paulo-ante-past tense_, if there were such a
thing, might have meant something. As it is, pedantry is combined with
inaccuracy.
6. =Words used in unaccustomed, though not impossible, senses or
applications.= This is due sometimes to that avoidance of the obvious
which spoils much modern writing, and sometimes to an ignorance of
English idiom excusable in a foreigner, but not in a native.
No one can imagine non-intervention carried through so desperate and
so _consequential_ a war as this.--GREENWOOD.
If _important_ or _fateful_ will not do, it is better to write _a war
so desperate and so pregnant with consequences_ than to abuse a word
whose idiomatic uses are particularly well marked. A consequential
person is one who likes to exhibit his consequence; a consequential
amendment is one that is a natural consequence or corollary of another.
Half of Mr. Roosevelt’s speech deals with this double need of justice
and strength, the other half being a _skilled_ application of
Washington’s maxims to present circumstances.--_Times._ (skilful)
Idiom confines _skilled_, except in poetry, almost entirely to the word
_labour_, and to craftsmen--a skilled mason, for instance.
It is to the Convention, therefore, that reference must be made for an
_intelligence_ of the principles on which the Egyptian Government has
acted during the present war.--_Times._ (understanding)
No one can say why _intelligence_ should never be followed by an
objective genitive, as grammarians call this; but nearly every one
knows, apart from the technical term, that it never is. Idiom is an
autocrat, with whom it is always well to keep on good terms.
Easier to reproduce, in its _concision_, is the description of the
day.--H. JAMES. (conciseness)
_Concision_ is a term in theology, to which it may well be left. In
criticism, though its use is increasing, it has still an exotic air.
7. =Simple love of the long word.=
The wide public importance of these proposals (customs regulations)
has now been conceived in no _desultory_ manner.--_Guernsey
Advertiser._
We have touched shortly upon some four dozen of what we call malaprops.
Now possible malaprops, in our extended sense, are to be reckoned not
by the dozen, but by the million. Moreover, out of our four dozen, not
more than some half a dozen are uses that it is worth any one’s while
to register individually in his mind for avoidance. The conclusion of
which is this: we have made no attempt at cataloguing the mistakes of
this sort that must not be committed; every one must construct his own
catalogue by care, observation, and the resolve to use no word whose
meaning he is not sure of--even though that resolve bring on him the
extreme humiliation of now and then opening the dictionary. Our aim has
been, not to make a list, but to inculcate a frame of mind.
NEOLOGISMS
Most people of literary taste will say on this point ‘It must needs be
that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh’.
They are Liberal-Conservatives, their liberalism being general and
theoretic, their conservatism particular and practical. And indeed, if
no new words were to appear, it would be a sign that the language was
moribund; but it is well that each new word that does appear should be
severely scrutinized.
The progress of arts and sciences gives occasion for the large majority
of new words; for a new thing we must have a new name; hence, for
instance, _motor_, _argon_, _appendicitis_. It is interesting to see
that the last word did not exist, or was at least too obscure to be
recorded, when the _Oxford Dictionary_ began to come out in 1888; we
cannot do without it now. Nor is there in the same volume any sign of
_argon_, which now has three pages of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_
to itself. The discoverers of it are to be thanked for having also
invented for it a name that is short, intelligible to those at least
who know Greek, free of barbarism, and above all pronounceable. As to
barbarism, it might indeed be desired that the man of science should
always call in the man of Greek composition as godfather to his gas or
his process; but it is a point of less importance. Every one has been
told at school how _telegram_ ought to be _telegrapheme_; but by this
time we have long ceased to mourn for the extra syllable, and begun
seriously to consider whether the further shortening into _wire_ has
not been resisted as long as honour demands.
Among other arts and sciences, that of lexicography happens to have
found convenient a neologism that may here be used to help in the
very slight classification required for the new words we are more
concerned with--that is, those whose object is literary or general,
and not scientific. A ‘nonce-word’ (and the use might be extended to
‘nonce-phrase’ and ‘nonce-sense’--the latter not necessarily, though it
may be sometimes, equivalent to nonsense) is one that is constructed
to serve a need of the moment. The writer is not seriously putting
forward his word as one that is for the future to have an independent
existence; he merely has a fancy to it for this once. The motive may be
laziness, avoidance of the obvious, love of precision, or desire for a
brevity or pregnancy that the language as at present constituted does
not seem to him to admit of. The first two are bad motives, the third
a good, and the last a mixed one. But in all cases it may be said that
a writer should not indulge in these unless he is quite sure he is a
good writer.
The couch-bunk under the window to conceal the _summerly
recliner_.--MEREDITH.
The adjective is a nonce-sense, _summerly_ elsewhere meaning ‘such as
one expects in summer’; the noun is a nonce-word.
In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel _regenesis_.--SPENCER.
Opposition on the part of the _loquently_ weaker of the
pair.--MEREDITH.
Picturesquities.--SLADEN.
The _verberant_ twang of a musical instrument.--MEREDITH.
A Russian army is a solid machine, as many _war-famous_ generals have
found to their cost.--_Times._
Such compounds are of course much used; but they are ugly when they are
otiose; it might be worth while to talk of a war-famous brewer, or of
a peace-famous general, just as we often have occasion to speak of a
carpet-knight, but of a carpet-broom only if it is necessary to guard
against mistake.
Russia’s disposition is aggressive.... Japan may conquer, but she will
not aggress.--_Times._
Though _aggress_ is in the dictionary, every one will feel that it is
rare enough to be practically a neologism, and here a nonce-word. The
mere fact that it has never been brought into common use, though so
obvious a form, is sufficient condemnation.
She did not answer at once, for, in her rather _super-sensitized_
mood, it seemed to her....--E. F. BENSON.
The word is, we imagine, a loan from photography. Expressions so
redolent of the laboratory are as well left alone unless the metaphor
they suggest is really valuable. Perhaps, if _rather_ and _super-_ were
cancelled against each other, _sensitive_ might suffice.
Notoriously and unctuously _rectitudinous_.--_Westminster Gazette._
Some readers will remember the origin of this in Cecil Rhodes’s famous
remark about the unctuous rectitude of British statesmen, and the
curious epidemic of words in _-ude_ that prevailed for some months in
the newspapers, especially the _Westminster Gazette_. _Correctitude_, a
needless variant for _correctness_, has not perished like the rest.
We only refer to it again because Mr. Balfour clearly thinks it
necessary to vindicate his claims to correctitude. This desire for
correctitude is amusingly illustrated in the _Outlook_ this week,
which....--_Westminster Gazette._
All these formations, whether happy or the reverse, may be assumed to
be conscious ones: the few that now follow--we shall call them new even
if they have a place in dictionaries, since they are certainly not
current--are possibly unconscious:
The minutes to dinner-time were numbered, and they _briskened_ their
steps back to the house.--E. F. BENSON. (quickened)
He was in some amazement at himself ... _remindful_ of the different
nature....--MEREDITH. (mindful)
_Remindful_ should surely mean ‘which reminds’, not ‘who remembers’.
Persistent _insuccess_, however, did not prevent a repetition of the
same question.--_Times._ (failure)
The best safeguard against any _deplacement_ of the centre of gravity
in the Dual Monarchy.--_Times._ (displacement)
Which would condemn the East to a long period of _unquiet_.--_Times._
(unrest)
Mere slips, very likely. If it is supposed that therefore they are not
worth notice, the answer is that they are indeed quite unimportant in
a writer who allows himself only one such slip in fifty or a hundred
pages; but one who is unfortunate enough to make a second before the
first has faded from the memory becomes at once a suspect. We are
uneasily on the watch for his next lapse, wonder whether he is a
foreigner or an Englishman not at home in the literary language, and
fall into that critical temper which is the last he would choose to be
read in.
The next two examples are quite distinct from these--words clearly
created, or exhumed, because the writer feels that his style requires
galvanizing into energy:
A man of a cold, _perseverant_ character.--CARLYLE.
Robbed of the just fruits of her victory by the arbitrary and
_forceful_ interference of outside Powers.--_Times._
All the specimens yet mentioned have been productions of individual
caprice: the writer for some reason or other took a liberty, or made a
mistake, with one expression; he might as well, or as ill, have done
it with another, enjoying his little effect, or taking his little nap,
at this moment or at that. But there are other neologisms of a very
different kind, which come into existence as the crystallization of a
political tendency or a movement in ideas. _Prime Minister_, _Cabinet_,
_His Majesty’s Opposition_, have been neologisms of this kind in their
day, all standing for particular developments of the party system,
and all of them, probably, in more or less general use before they
made their way into books. Such words in our day are _racial_, and
_intellectuals_. The former is an ugly word, the strangeness of which
is due to our instinctive feeling that the termination _-al_ has no
business at the end of a word that is not obviously Latin. Nevertheless
the new importance that has been attached for the last half century
to the idea of common descent as opposed to that of mere artificial
nationality has made _a_ word necessary. Racial is not _the_ word
that might have been ornamental as well as useful; but it is too well
established to be now uprooted. _Intellectuals_ is still apologized for
in 1905 by _The Spectator_ as ‘a convenient neologism’. It is already
familiar to all who give any time to observing continental politics,
though the Index to the _Encyclopaedia_ (1903) knows it not. A use has
not yet been found for the word in home politics, as far as we have
observed; but the fact that intellect in any country is recognized
as a definite political factor is noteworthy; and we should hail
_intellectuals_ as a good omen for the progress of the world.
These, and the scientific, are the sort of neologism that may fairly be
welcomed. But there is this distinction. With the strictly scientific
words, writers have not the power to decide whether they shall accept
them or not; they must be content to take submissively what the men of
science choose to give them, they being as much within their rights in
naming what they have discovered or invented as an explorer in naming
a new mountain, or an American founder a new city. _Minneapolis_,
_Pikeville_, and _Pennsylvania_, may have a barbaric sound, but there
they are; so _telegram_, or _aestho-physiology_. The proud father
of the latter (Herbert Spencer) confesses to having docked it of a
syllable; and similarly Mr. Lecky writes of ‘a eudaemometer measuring
with accuracy the degrees of happiness realized by men in different
ages’; consequently there will be some who will wish these long words
longer, though more who will wish them shorter; but grumble as we may,
the _patria potestas_ is indefeasible. On the other hand, with such
words as _racial_, _intellectuals_, it is open to any writer, if he
does not like the word that threatens to occupy an obviously vacant
place, to offer a substitute, or at least to avoid giving currency to
what he disapproves. It will be remembered that when it was proposed to
borrow from France what we now know as the closure, it seemed certain
for some time that with the thing we should borrow the name, _clôture_;
a press campaign resulted in _closure_, for which we may be thankful.
The same might have been done for, or rather against, _racial_, if only
some one had thought of it in time.
AMERICANISMS
Though we take these separately from foreign words, which will follow
next, the distinction is purely _pro forma_; Americanisms are foreign
words, and should be so treated. To say this is not to insult the
American language. If any one were asked to give an Americanism without
a moment’s delay, he would be more likely than not to mention _I
guess_. Inquiry into it would at once bear out the American contention
that what we are often rude enough to call their vulgarisms are in fact
good old English. _I gesse_ is a favourite expression of Chaucer’s,
and the sense he sometimes gives it is very finely distinguished from
the regular Yankee use. But though it is good old English, it is not
good new English. If we use the phrase--parenthetically, that is, like
Chaucer and the Yankees--, we have it not from Chaucer, but from the
Yankees, and with their, not his, exact shade of meaning. It must be
recognized that they and we, in parting some hundreds of years ago,
started on slightly divergent roads in language long before we did so
in politics. In the details of divergence, they have sometimes had
the better of us. _Fall_ is better on the merits than _autumn_, in
every way: it is short, Saxon (like the other three season names),
picturesque; it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to
the scholar only, like _autumn_; and we once had as good a right to it
as the Americans; but we have chosen to let the right lapse, and to use
the word now is no better than larceny.
The other side of this is that we are entitled to protest when any one
assumes that because a word of less desirable character is current
American, it is therefore to be current English. There are certain
American verbs that remind Englishmen of the barbaric taste illustrated
by such town names as Memphis and those mentioned in the last section.
A very firm stand ought to be made against _placate_, _transpire_[3],
and _antagonize_, all of which have English patrons.
There is a real danger of our literature’s being americanized, and that
not merely in details of vocabulary--which are all that we are here
directly concerned with--but in its general tone. Mr. Rudyard Kipling
is a very great writer, and a patriotic; his influence is probably the
strongest that there is at present in the land; but he and his school
are americanizing us. His style exhibits a sort of remorseless and
scientific efficiency in the choice of epithets and other words that
suggests the application of coloured photography to description; the
camera is superseding the human hand. We quote two sentences from the
first page of a story, and remark that in pre-Kipling days none of the
words we italicize would have been likely; now, they may be matched on
nearly every page of an ‘up-to-date’ novelist:
Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, _honey-coloured_[4]
rocks on the beach the green water was troubled with _shrimp-pink_
prisoners-of-war bathing.--KIPLING.
Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and
stern _waddled_ in from the deep sea.--KIPLING.
The words are, as we said, extremely efficient; but the impulse that
selects them is in harmony with American, not with English, methods,
and we hope it may be developed in America rather than here. We cannot
go more fully into the point in a digression like this. But though
we have digressed, it has not been quite without purpose: any one
who agrees with us in this will see in it an additional reason for
jealously excluding American words and phrases. The English and the
American language and literature are both good things; but they are
better apart than mixed.
Fix up (organize), back of (behind), anyway (at any rate), standpoint
(point of view), back-number (antiquated), right along (continuously),
some (to some extent), just (quite, or very--‘just lovely’), may be
added as typical Americanisms of a different kind from either _fall_
or _antagonize_; but it is not worth while to make a large collection;
every one knows an Americanism, at present, when he sees it; how long
that will be true is a more anxious question.
And, _back of_ all that, a circumstance which gave great force to all
that either has ever said, the rank and file, the great mass of the
people on either side, were determined....--CHOATE.
Hand-power, _back-number_, flint-and-steel reaping machines.--KIPLING.
Some of them have in secret approximated their _standpoint_ to that
laid down by Count Tisza in his programme speech.--_Times._
We close the section by putting _placate_ and _antagonize_ in the
pillory. It may be remarked that the latter fits in well enough with
Emerson’s curious bizarre style. Another use of _just_ is pilloried
also, because it is now in full possession of our advertisement
columns, and may be expected to insinuate itself into the inside sheets
before long[5].
When once _placated_ the Senators will be reluctant to deprive honest
creditors of their rights.--_Spectator._
It is true the subject is American politics; but even so, we should
have liked to see this stranger received ceremoniously as well as
politely, that is, with quotation marks; the italics are ours only.
The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously
because it _antagonized_ the unalterable supremacy of Colonial
nationalism.--_Times._
If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and _antagonizes_
Fate.--EMERSON.
Have you ever thought _just how much_ it would mean to the home
if....--_Advertisements passim._
FOREIGN WORDS
The usual protest must be made, to be treated no doubt with the usual
disregard. The difficulty is that some French, Latin, and other words
are now also English, though the fiction that they are not is still
kept up by italics and (with French words) conscientious efforts
at pronunciation. Such are _tête-à-tête_, _ennui_, _status quo_,
_raison d’être_, _eirenicon_, _négligé_, and perhaps hundreds more.
The novice who is told to avoid foreign words, and then observes that
these English words are used freely, takes the rule for a counsel of
perfection--not accepted by good writers, and certainly not to be
accepted by him, who is sometimes hard put to it for the ornament that
he feels his matter deserves. Even with the best will in the world,
he finds that there are many words of which he cannot say whether
they are yet English or not, as _gaucherie_, _bêtise_, _camaraderie_,
_soupçon_, so that there is no drawing the line. He can only be told
that all words not English in appearance are in English writing ugly
and not pretty, and that they are justified only (1) if they afford
much the shortest or clearest, if not the only way to the meaning (this
is usually true of the words we have called really English), or (2) if
they have some special appropriateness of association or allusion in
the sentence they stand in. This will be illustrated by some of the
diplomatic words given below, and by the quotation containing the word
_chasseur_.
Some little assistance may, however, be given on details.
1. To say _distrait_ instead of _absent_ or _absent-minded_, _bien
entendu_ for _of course_, _sans_ for _without_ (it is, like _I guess_,
good old English but not good English), _quand même_ for _anyhow_,
_penchant_ for _liking_ or _fancy_, _rédaction_ for _editing_ or
_edition_, _coûte que coûte_ for _at all costs_, _Schadenfreude_ for
_malicious pleasure_, _œuvre_ for _work_, _alma mater_ (except with
strong extenuating circumstances) for _University_--is pretension and
nothing else. The substitutes we have offered are not insisted upon;
they may be wrong, or not the best; but English can be found for all
these. Moreover, what was said of special association or allusion may
apply; to call a luncheon _déjeuner_, however, as in the appended
extract, because it is to be eaten by Frenchmen, is hardly covered by
this, though it is a praise-worthy attempt at what the critics call
giving an atmosphere.
It was resolved that on the occasion of the visit of the French Fleet
in August the Corporation should offer the officers an appropriate
reception and invite them to a _déjeuner_ at the Guildhall.--_Times._
But speaking broadly, what a writer effects by using these ornaments is
to make us imagine him telling us he is a wise fellow and one that hath
everything handsome about him, including a gentlemanly acquaintance
with the French language. Some illustrations follow:
Motorists lose more than they know by _bêtises_ of this kind.--_Times._
His determination to conduct them to a successful issue _coûte que
coûte_ might result in complications.--_Times._
The gloom which the Russian troubles have caused at Belgrade has
to some extent been lightened by a certain _Schadenfreude_ over
the difficulties with which the Hungarian crisis threatens the
neighbouring Monarchy.--_Times._
A recent reperusal ... left the impression which is so often produced
by the exhibition in bulk of the _œuvre_ of a deceased Royal
Academician--it has emphasized Schiller’s deficiencies without laying
equal emphasis on his merits.--_Times._
The following are instances of less familiar French or Latin words used
wantonly:
So, one would have thought, the fever of New York was abated
here, even as the smoke of the city was but a gray _tache_ on the
horizon.--E. F. BENSON.
Either we know that _tache_ means stain, or we do not. If we do, we
cannot admire our novelist’s superior learning: if we do not, we
must be doubtful whether we grasp the whole of his possibly valuable
meaning. His calculation is perhaps that we shall know it, and shall
feel complimented by his just confidence in us.
When the normal convention governing the relations between victors and
vanquished is duly re-established, it will be time to chronicle the
conjectures relating to peace in some other part of a journal than
that devoted to _faits divers_.--_Times._
It is true _The Times_ does not condescend to an Odds-and-Ends,
or a Miscellaneous column; but many other English newspapers do,
under various titles; and the _Times_ writer might have thrown the
handkerchief to one of them.
But times have changed, and this procedure enters into the category
of _vieille escrime_ when not employed by a master hand and made to
correspond superficially with facts.--_Times._
In relation to military organization we are still in the flourishing
region of the _vieilles perruques_.--_Times._
The users of these two varieties, who, to judge from the title at the
head of their articles, are one and the same person must have something
newer than _vieux jeu_. Just as that has begun to be intelligible to
the rest of us, it becomes itself _vieux jeu_ to them. It is like
the man of highest fashion changing his hat-brim because the man of
middling fashion has found the pattern of it.
The familiar gentleman burglar, who, having played wolf to his fellows
_qua_ financier, journalist, and barrister, undertakes to raise
burglary from being a trade at least to the lupine level of those
professions.--_Times._
It is quite needless, and hardly correct, to use _qua_ instead of _as_
except where a sharp distinction is being made between two coexistent
functions or points of view, as in the next quotation. Uganda needs
quite different treatment if it is regarded as a country from what it
needs as a campaigning ground:
For this point must be borne constantly in mind--the money spent to
date was spent with a view only to strategy. The real development of
the country _qua_ country must begin to-day.--_Times._
The reader would not care to have my impressions thereanent; and,
indeed, it would not be worth while to record them, as they were the
impressions of an _ignorance crasse_.--C. BRONTË.
The writer who allows Charlotte Brontë’s extraordinarily convincing
power of presentment to tempt him into imitating her many literary
peccadilloes will reap disaster. _Thereanent_ is as annoying as
_ignorance crasse_.
It was he who by doctoring the Ems dispatch in 1870 converted a
_chamade_ into a _fanfaronnade_ and thus rendered the Franco-German
war inevitable.--_Times._
We can all make a shrewd guess at the meaning of _fanfaronnade_: how
many average readers have the remotest idea of what a _chamade_[6] is?
and is the function of newspapers to force upon us against our will the
buying of French dictionaries?
2. Among the diplomatic words, _entente_ may pass as suggesting
something a little more definite and official than _good
understanding_; _démenti_ because, though it denotes the same as
_denial_ or _contradiction_, it connotes that no more credence need
be given to it than is usually given to the ‘honest men sent to lie
abroad for the good of their country’; as for _ballon d’essai_, we see
no advantage in it over _kite_, and _flying a kite_, which are good
English; it is, however, owing to foreign correspondents’ perverted
tastes, already more familiar. The words italicized in the following
quotations are still more questionable:
The two Special Correspondents in Berlin of the leading morning
newspapers, the _Matin_ and the _Écho de Paris_, report a marked
_détente_ in the situation.--_Times._
_Entente_ is comprehensible to every one; but with _détente_ many of us
are in the humiliating position of not knowing whether to be glad or
sorry.
All the great newspapers have insisted upon the inopportuneness of the
_démarche_ of William II.--_Times._ (proceeding)
The _entourage_ and counsellors of the Sultan continue to remain
sceptical.--_Times._
Mere laziness, even if the word means anything different from
_counsellors_; but the writer has at least given us an indication that
it is only verbiage, by revealing his style in _continue to remain_.
In diplomatic circles the whole affair is looked upon as an _acte de
malveillance_ towards the Anglo-French _entente_.--_Times._