for the moment’s sake, but looking before and after (as you cannot
help looking in the theatre) you have been disconcerted and
_dérouté_.--_Times._
In spite, however, of this denial and of other official _démentis_,
the Italian Press still seems dissatisfied.--_Times._
In this there is clearly not the distinction that we suggested between
_denial_ and _démenti_--the only thing that could excuse the latter.
We have here merely one of those elegant variations treated of in the
chapter ‘Airs and Graces’.
3. It sometimes occurs to a writer that he would like to avail himself
of a foreign word or phrase, whether to make a genuine point or to
show that he has the gift of tongues, and yet not keep his less
favoured readers in the dark; he accordingly uses a literal translation
instead of the actual words. It may fairly be doubted whether this is
ever worth while; but there is all the difference in the world, as we
shall presently exemplify in a pair of contrasted quotations, between
the genuine and the ostentatious use. The most familiar phrase thus
treated is _cela va sans dire_; we have of our own _I need hardly
say_, _needless to remark_, and many other varieties; and the French
phrase has no wit or point in it to make it worth aping; we might
just as well say, in similar German or French English (whichever of
the two languages we had it from), _that understands itself_; each of
them has to us the quaintness of being non-idiomatic, and no other
merit whatever. A single word that we have taken in the same way is
more defensible, because it did, when first introduced here, possess
a definite meaning that no existing English word had: _epochmaking_
is a literal translation, or transliteration almost, from German. We
may regret that we took it, now; for it will always have an alien look
about it; and, recent in English as it is, it has already lost its
meaning; it belongs, in fact, to one of those word-series of which
each member gets successively worn out. _Epochmaking_ is now no more
than _remarkable_, as witness this extract from a speech by the Lord
Chancellor:
The banquet to M. Berryer and the banquet to Mr. Benjamin, both of
them very important, and to my mind _epochmaking_ occasions.--LORD
HALSBURY.
The verb _to orient_ is a Gallicism of much the same sort, and _the
half-world_ is perhaps worse:
In his quality of eligible bachelor he had no objections at any time
to conversing with a goodlooking girl. Only he wished very much that
he could _orient_ this particular one.--CROCKETT.
High society is represented by ... Lady Beauminster, the half-world
by Mrs. Montrose, loveliness and luckless innocence by her daughter
Helen.--_Times._
The next extract is perhaps from the pen of a French-speaker trying
to write English: but it is not worse than what the English writer who
comes below him does deliberately:
Our enveloping movement, which has been proceeding _since several
days_.--_Times._
Making every allowance for special circumstances, the manner in which
these amateur soldiers of seven weeks’ service acquitted themselves
compels one ‘furiously to think’.--_Westminster Gazette._
A warning may be given that it is dangerous to translate if you do not
know for certain what the original means. To ask what the devil some
one was doing in that _gallery_ is tempting, and fatal.
Appended are the passages illustrating the two different motives for
translation:
If we could take this assurance at its face value and _to the foot of
the letter_, we should have to conclude....--_Times._
It will be observed (_a_) that _literally_ gives the meaning perfectly;
(_b_) that _to the foot of the letter_ is absolutely unintelligible to
any one not previously acquainted with _au pied de la lettre_; (_c_)
that there is no wit or other admirable quality in the French itself.
The writer is meanly admiring mean things; nothing could possibly be
more fatuous than such half-hearted gallicizing.
I thought afterwards, but it was _the spirit of the staircase_, what a
pity it was that I did not stand at the door with a hat, saying, ‘Give
an obol to Belisarius’.--MORLEY.
The French have had the wit to pack into the words _esprit d’escalier_
the common experience that one’s happiest retorts occur to one only
when the chance of uttering them is gone, the door is closed, and one’s
feet are on the staircase. That is well worth introducing to an English
audience; the only question is whether it is of any use to translate it
without explanation. No one will know what _spirit of the staircase_ is
who is not already familiar with _esprit d’escalier_; and even he who
is may not recognize it in disguise, seeing that _esprit_ does not mean
spirit (which suggests a goblin lurking in the hall clock), but wit.
We cannot refrain from adding a variation that deprives _au pied de la
lettre_ even of its quaintness:
The tone of Russian official statements on the subject is not
encouraging, but then, perhaps, they ought not to be taken at the
letter.--_Times._
4. Closely connected with this mistake of translating is the other
of taking liberties with foreign phrases in their original form,
dovetailing them into the construction of an English sentence when they
do not lend themselves to it. In Latin words and phrases, other cases
should always be changed to the nominative, whatever the government in
the English sentence, unless the Latin word that accounted for the case
is included in the quotation. It will be admitted that all the four
passages below are ugly:
The whole party were engaged _ohne Rast_ with a prodigious quantity of
_Hast_ in a continuous social effort.--E. F. BENSON.
German, in which so few Englishmen are at their ease, is the last among
the half-dozen best-known languages to play these tricks with. The
facetiousness here is indescribably heavy.
The clergy in rochet, alb, and other best _pontificalibus_.--CARLYLE.
The intention is again facetious; but the incongruity between a Latin
inflected ablative and English uninflected objectives is a kind of
piping to which no man can dance; that the English _in_ and the Latin
_in_ happen to be spelt alike is no defence; it is clear that _in_
is here English, not Latin; either _in pontificalibus_, or _in other
pontificalia_.
The feeling that one is an _antecedentem scelestum_ after whom a sure,
though lame, Nemesis is hobbling....--TROLLOPE.
_Antecedens scelestus_ is necessary.
..., which were so evident in the days of the early Church, are now
_non est_.--_Daily Telegraph._
All things considered, I wonder they were not _non est_ long
ago.--_Times._
Such maltreatment of _non est inventus_, which seems to have amused
some past generations, is surely now as stale and unprofitable as
_individual_ itself.
5. A special caution may be given about some words and phrases that
either are shams, or are used in wrong senses. Of the first kind are
_nom de plume_, _morale_. The French for the name that an author
chooses to write under is _nom de guerre_. We, in the pride of our
knowledge that _guerre_ means war, have forgotten that there is such a
thing as metaphor, assumed that another phrase is required for literary
campaigning, thereupon ascertained the French for pen, and so evolved
_nom de plume_. It is unfortunate; for we now have to choose between a
blunder and a pedantry; but writers who know the facts are beginning to
reconcile themselves to seeming pedantic for a time, and reviving _nom
de guerre_.
The French for what we call _morale_, writing it in italics under the
impression that it is French, is actually _moral_. The other is so
familiar, however, that it is doubtful whether it would not be better
to drop the italics, keep the _-e_, and tell the French that they can
spell their word as they please, and we shall do the like with ours. So
Mr. Kipling:
The Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale
[_sic_], at the present day, of the British sailorman.--KIPLING.
In the second class, of phrases whose meaning is mistaken, we choose
_scandalum magnatum_, _arrière-pensée_, _phantasmagoria_, and _cui
bono?_
_Scandalum magnatum_ is a favourite with the lower-class novelist who
takes _magnatum_ for a participle meaning _magnified_, and finds the
combination less homely than _a shocking affair_. It is a genitive
plural noun, and the amplified translation of the two words, which we
borrow from the _Encyclopaedia_, runs: ‘Slander of great men, such as
peers, judges, or great officers of state, whereby discord may arise
within the realm’.
_Arrière-pensée_ we have seen used, with comic intent but sad effect,
for a bustle or dress-improver; and, with sad intent but comic effect,
for an afterthought; it is better confined to its real meaning of an
ulterior object, if indeed we cannot be content with our own language
and use those words instead.
_Phantasmagoria_ is a singular noun; at least the corresponding
French monstrosity, _fantasmagorie_, is unmistakably singular; and,
if used at all in English, it should be so with us too. But the final
_-a_ irresistibly suggests a plural to the valorous writers who are
impressed without being terrified by the unknown; so:
Not that such _phantasmagoria are_ to be compared for a moment with
such desirable things as fashion, fine clothes....--BORROW.
_Cui bono?_ is a notorious trap for journalists. It is naturally
surprising to any one who has not pushed his classics far to be told
that the literal translation of it is not ‘To what good (end)?’ that is
‘What is the good of it?’ but ‘Who benefited?’. The former rendering is
not an absolutely impossible one on the principles of Latin grammar,
which adds to the confusion. But if that were its real meaning it would
be indeed astonishing that it should have become a famous phrase;
the use of it instead of ‘What is the good?’ would be as silly and
gratuitous as our above-mentioned _to the foot of the letter_. Every
scholar knows, however, that _cui bono?_ does deserve to be used, in
its true sense. It is a shrewd and pregnant phrase like _cherchez la
femme_ or _esprit d’escalier_. _Cherchez la femme_ wraps up in itself a
perhaps incorrect but still interesting theory of life--that whenever
anything goes wrong there is a woman at the bottom of it; find her, and
all will be explained. _Cui bono?_ means, as we said, ‘Who benefited?’.
It is a Roman lawyer’s maxim, who held that when you were at a loss to
tell where the responsibility for a crime lay, your best chance was to
inquire who had reaped the benefit of it. It has been worth while to
devote a few lines to this phrase, because nothing could better show at
once what is worth transplanting into English, and what dangers await
any one who uses Latin or French merely because he has a taste for
ornament. In the following quotation the meaning, though most obscurely
expressed, is probably correct; and _cui bono?_ stands for: ‘Where can
the story have come from? why, who will profit by a misunderstanding
between Italy and France? Germany, of course; so doubtless Germany
invented the story’. _Cui bono?_ is quite capable of implying all that;
but a merciful writer will give his readers a little more help:
(Berlin) The news which awakens the most hopeful interest is the
story of a concession to a Franco-Belgian syndicate in the harbour
of Tripoli. There is a manifest desire that the statement should be
confirmed and that it should have the effect of exciting the Italian
people and alienating them from France. _Cui bono?_--_Times._
6. It now only remains to add that there are French words good in
some contexts, and not in others. _Régime_ is good in the combination
_ancien régime_, because that is the briefest way of alluding to the
state of things in France before the Revolution. Further, its use in
the first of the appended passages is appropriate enough, because there
is an undoubted parallel between Russia now and France then. But in the
second, _administration_ ought to be the word:
Throwing a flood of light upon the proceedings of the existing
_régime_ in Russia.--_Times._
He said that the goodwill and friendship of the Milner _régime_ had
resulted in the effective co-operation of the two countries.--_Times._
The word _employé_ is often a long, ugly, and unnatural substitute for
_men_, _workmen_, or _hands_, one of which should have been used in the
first two of the passages below. But it has a value where clerks or
higher degrees are to be included, as in the third passage. It should
be used as seldom as possible, that is all:
The warehouses of the Russian Steamship Company here have been set on
fire by some dismissed _employés_.--_Times._
The _employés_ of the Trans-Caucasian line to-day struck
work.--_Times._
The new project, Article 17, ordains that all _employés_ of the
railways, whatever their rank or the nature of their employment, are
to be considered as public officials.--_Times._
Finally, even words that have not begun to be naturalized may be used
exceptionally when a real point can be gained by it. To say _chasseur_
instead of _sportsman_, _gun_, or other English word, is generally
ridiculous. But our English notion of the French sportsman (right or
wrong) is that he sports not because he likes sport, but because he
likes the picturesque costumes it gives an excuse for. Consequently the
word is quite appropriate in the following:
But the costume of the _chasseurs_--green velvet, very
Robin-Hoody--had been most tasteful.--E. F. BENSON.
FALSE, UGLY, OR NEEDLESS FORMATIONS
1. As a natural link between this section and the last, the practice
of taking French words and spelling them as English may stand first.
With French words that fill a definite blank in English, the time
comes when that should be done if it can. With some words it cannot;
no one has yet seen his way to giving _ennui_ an English look. With
_dishabille_, on the other hand, which appears in the dictionary with
spellings to suit all tastes[7], many attempts have been made. This
word, however, well illustrates the importance of one principle that
should be observed in borrowing from French. Unless the need is a very
crying one, no word should be taken that offers serious difficulties
of pronunciation. In _déshabillé_ are at least two problems (_h_, and
_ll_) of which an Englishman fights shy. The consequence is that,
though its English history dates back some centuries, it is very seldom
heard in conversation; no word not used in conversation becomes a
true native; and _dishabille_ is therefore being gradually ousted by
_négligé_, which can be pronounced without fear. As _dishabille_ is
really quite cut off from _déshabillé_, it is a pity it was not further
deprived of its final _-e_; that would have encouraged us to call it
_dish-abil_, and it might have made good its footing.
_Naïveté_ is another word for which there is a clear use; and though
the Englishman can pronounce it without difficulty if he chooses,
he generally does prefer doing without it altogether to attempting a
precision that strikes him as either undignified or pretentious. It is
therefore to be wished that it might be disencumbered of its diaeresis,
its accent, and its italics. It is true that the first sight of naivety
is an unpleasant shock; but we ought to be glad that the thing has
begun to be done, and in speaking sacrifice our pride of knowledge and
call it _naivety_.
The case of _banality_ is very different. In one sense it has a
stronger claim than _naivety_, its adjective _banal_ being much older
in English than _naïve_; but the old use of _banal_ is as a legal term
connected with feudalism. That use is dead, and its second life is an
independent one; it is now a mere borrowing from French. Whether we
are to accept it or not should be decided by whether we want it; and
with _common_, _commonplace_, _trite_, _trivial_, _mean_, _vulgar_,
all provided with nouns, which again can be eked out with _truism_
and _platitude_, a shift can surely be made without it. It is one of
those foreign feathers, like _intimism_, _intimity_, _femininity_,
_distinction_ and _distinguished_ (the last pair now banalities if
anything was ever banal; so do extremes meet), in which writers of
literary criticism love to parade, and which ordinary persons should do
their best to pluck from them, protesting when there is a chance, and
at all times refusing the compliment of imitation. But perhaps the word
that the critics would most of all delight their readers by forgetting
is _meticulous_.
Before adding an example or two, we draw attention to the danger of
accidentally assimilating a good English word to a French one. _Amende_
is good French; _amends_ is good English; but _amend_ (noun) is neither:
Triviality and over-childishness and naivety.--H. SWEET.
Agrippa himself was primarily a paradox-monger. Many of his successors
were in dead earnest, and their repetition of his ingenuities becomes
_banal_ in the extreme. Bercher himself can by no means be acquitted
of this charge of _banality_.--_Times._
It is significant that the only authorities for _banality_ in the
_Oxford Dictionary_ are Sala, Saintsbury, Dowden, and Browning; but
the volume is dated 1888; and though the word is still used in the
same overpowering proportion by literary critics as opposed to other
writers, its total use has multiplied a hundredfold since then. Our
hope is that the critics may before long feel that it is as banal to
talk about banality as it is now felt by most wellbred people to be
vulgar to talk about vulgarity.
His style, which is pleasant and diffuse without being
_distinguished_, is more suited to the farm and the simple country
life than to the complexities of the human character.--_Times._
His character and that of his wife are sketched with a certain
_distinction_.--_Times._
And yet to look back over the whole is to feel that in one case only
has she really achieved that perfection of _intimism_ which is her
proper goal.--_Times._
The reference to the English nonconformists was a graceful _amend_ to
them for being so passionate an Oxonian and churchman.--MORLEY.
And in her presentation of the mode of life of the respectable middle
classes, the most _meticulous_ critic will not easily catch her
tripping.--_Times._
2. =Formations involving grammatical blunders.= Of these the
possibilities are of course infinite; we must assume that our readers
know the ordinary rules of grammar, and merely, not to pass over the
point altogether, give one or two typical and not too trite instances:
My landlady entered bearing what she called ‘her best lamp’
_alit_.--CORELLI.
This seems to be formed as a past participle from _to alight_, in the
sense of to kindle. It will surprise most people to learn that there
is, or was, such a verb; not only was there, but the form that should
have been used in our sentence, _alight_, is probably by origin the
participle of it. The _Oxford Dictionary_, however, after saying this,
observes that it has now been assimilated to words like _afire_, formed
from the preposition _a-_ and a noun. Whether those two facts are true
of not, it is quite certain that there is no such word as _alit_ in
the sense of lighted or lit, and that the use of it in our days is a
grammatical blunder.[8]
But every year pleaded _stronger_ and _stronger_ for the Earl’s
conception.--J. R. GREEN.
Comparative adverbs of this type must be formed only from those
positive adverbs, which do not use _-ly_, as _hard_, _fast_. We talk
of _going strong_, and we may therefore talk of _going stronger_;
but outside slang we have to choose between _stronglier_--poetical,
exalted, or affected--and _more strongly_.
The silence that _underlaid_ the even voice of the breakers along the
sea front.--KIPLING.
_Lie_ and _lay_ have cost us all some perplexity in childhood. The
distinction is more difficult in the compounds with _over_ and _under_,
because in them _-lie_ is transitive as well as _-lay_, but in a
different sense. Any one who is not sure that he is sound on the point
by instinct must take the trouble to resolve them into _lie over_ or
_lay over_, &c., which at once clears up the doubt. A mistake with the
simple verb is surprising when made, as in the following, by a writer
on grammar:
I met a lad who took a paper from a package that he carried and thrust
it into my unwilling hand. I suspected him of having _laid_ in wait
for the purpose.--R. G. WHITE.
A confusion, perhaps, between _lay wait_ and _lie in wait_.
I am not sure that _yours_ and my efforts would suffice separately;
but yours and mine together cannot possibly fail.
The first _yours_ is quite wrong; it should be _your_. This mistake is
common. The absolute possessives, _ours_ and _yours_, _hers_, _mine_
and _thine_, (with which the poetic or euphonic use of the last two
before vowels has nothing to do) are to be used only as pronouns or
as predicative adjectives, not as attributes to an expressed and
following noun. That they were used by old writers as in our example
is irrelevant. The correct modern usage has now established itself.
We add three sentences from Burke. The relation between _no_ and
_none_ is the same as that between _your_ and _yours_. In the first
sentence, modern usage would write (as the correct _no or but a few_
is uncomfortable) either _few or no_, or _few if any_, or _no rays or
but a few_. For the second we might possibly tolerate _to their as well
as to your own_; or we might write _to their crown as well as to your
own_. The third is quite tolerable as it is; but any one who does not
like the sound can write _and their ancestors and ours_. It must always
be remembered in this as in other constructions, that the choice is
not between a well-sounding blunder and an ill-sounding correctness,
but between an ill and a well sounding correctness. The blunder should
be ruled out, and if the first form of the correct construction that
presents itself does not sound well, another way of putting it must be
looked for; patience will always find it. The flexibility gained by
habitual selection of this kind, which a little cultivation will make
easy and instinctive, is one of the most essential elements in a good
style. For a more important illustration of the same principle, the
remarks on the gerund in the Syntax chapter (p. 120) may be referred to.
Black bodies, reflecting _none_ or but a few rays.--BURKE.
You altered the succession to _theirs_, as well as to your own
crown.--BURKE.
They and we, and _their_ and our ancestors, have been happy under that
system.--BURKE.
3. =Formations violating analogy.=
And then it is its panache, its careless _a-moral_ Renaissance
romance.--_Times._
But she is perfectly natural, and while perfectly _amoral_, no more
immoral than a bird or a kitten.--_Times._
_A-_ (not) is Greek; _moral_ is Latin. It is at least desirable that in
making new words the two languages should not be mixed. The intricate
needs of science may perhaps be allowed to override a literary
principle of this sort; and accordingly the _Oxford Dictionary_
recognizes that _a-_ is compounded with Latin words in scientific and
technical terms, as _a-sexual_; but purely literary workers may be
expected to abstain. The obvious excuse for this formation is that the
Latin negative prefix is already taken up in _immoral_, which means
contrary to morality, while a word is wanted to mean unconcerned with
morality. But with _non_ freely prefixed to adjectives in English
(though not in Latin), there can be no objection to _non-moral_. The
second of our instances is a few weeks later than the first, and the
hyphen has disappeared; so quickly has _The Times_ convinced itself
that _amoral_ is a regular English word.
There was no social or economic jealousy between them, no _racial_
aversion.--_Times._
Concessions which, besides damaging Hungary by raising _racial_ and
_language_ questions of all kinds, would....--_Times._
The action of foreign countries as to their _coastal_ trade.--_Times._
Her riverine trade.--_Westminster Gazette._
It has been already stated that _-al_ is mainly confined to
unmistakable Latin stems. There is _whimsical_; and there may be others
that break the rule, though the _Oxford Dictionary_ (_-al suffix_,
_-ical suffix_, _-ial suffix_) gives no exceptions. The ugly words
_racial_ and _coastal_ themselves might well be avoided except in the
rare cases where _race_ and _coast_ used adjectivally will not do
the work (they would in the present instances); and they should not
be made precedents for new formations. If _language_ is better than
_linguistic_, much more _race_ than _racial_; similarly, _river_ than
_riverine_.
What she was pleased to term their superior intelligence, and more
_real_ and _reliable_ probity.--C. BRONTË (_Villette_, 1853).
It is absurd at this time of day to make a fuss about the word. It
is with us and will remain with us, whatever pedants and purists may
say. In such cases _obsta principiis_ is the only hope; _reliable_
might once have been suppressed, perhaps; it cannot now. But it is
so fought over, even to-day, that a short discussion of it may be
looked for. The objection to it is obvious: you do not rely a thing;
therefore the thing cannot be reliable; it should be rely-on-able (like
_come-at-able_). Some of the analogies pleaded for it are perhaps
irrelevant--as _laughable_, _available_. For these _may_ be formed
from the nouns _laugh_, _avail_, since _-able_ is not only gerundival
(capable of being laughed at), but also adjectival (connected with a
laugh); this has certainly happened with _seasonable_; but that will
not help _reliable_, which by analogy should be _relianceable_. It is
more to the point to remark that with _reliable_ must go _dispensable_
(with _indispensable_) and _dependable_, both quite old words, and
_disposable_ (in its commoner sense); no one, as far as we know,
objects to these and others like them; _reliable_ is made into a
scapegoat. The word itself, moreover, besides its wide popularity, is
now of respectable antiquity, dating at least from Coleridge. It may
be added that it is probably to the campaign against it that we owe
such passive monstrosities as ‘ready to be availed of’ for _available_,
which is, as we said, possibly not open to the same objection as
_reliable_.
I have heretofore designated the misuse of certain words as
_Briticisms_.--R. G. WHITE.
Britannic, Britannicism; British, Britishism. Britic?
4. =Needless, though correct formations.=
The _sordor_ and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up.--EMERSON.
As _candeo candor_, _ardeo ardor_, so--we are to understand--_sordeo
sordor_. The Romans, however, never felt that they needed the word; and
it is a roundabout method first to present them with a new word and
then to borrow it from them; for it will be observed that we have no
living suffix _-or_ in English, nor, if we had, anything nearer than
_sordid_ to attach it to. Perhaps Emerson thought _sordor_ was a Latin
word.
Merely nodding his head as an _enjoinder_ to be careful.--DICKENS.
As _rejoin rejoinder_, so _enjoin enjoinder_. The word is not given
in the _Oxford Dictionary_, from which it seems likely that Dickens
invented it, consciously or unconsciously. The only objection to
such a word is that its having had to wait so long, in spite of its
obviousness, before being made is a strong argument against the
necessity of it. We may regret that _injunction_ holds the field,
having a much less English appearance; but it does; and in language the
old-established that can still do the work is not to be turned out for
the new-fangled that might do it a shade better, but must first get
itself known and accepted.
_Oppositely_, the badness of a walk that is shuffling, and an
utterance that is indistinct is alleged.--SPENCER.
This, on the other hand, is an archaism, now obsolete. Why it should
not have lived is a mystery; but it has not; and to write it is to give
one’s sentence the air of an old curiosity shop.
Again, as if to _intensate_ the influences that are not of race, what
we think of when we talk of English traits really narrows itself to a
small district.--EMERSON.
A favourite with those allied experimenters in words, Emerson and
Carlyle. A word meaning _to make intense_ is necessary; and there
are plenty of parallels for this particular form. But Coleridge had
already made _intensify_, introducing it with an elaborate apology in
which he confessed that it sounded uncouth. It is uncouth no longer;
if it had never existed, perhaps _intensate_ would now have been so no
longer, uncouthness being, both etymologically and otherwise, a matter
of strangeness as against familiarity. It is better to form words only
where there is a clear demand for them.
5. =Long and short rivals.= The following examples illustrate a foolish
tendency. From the adjective _perfect_ we form the verb _to perfect_,
and from that again the noun _perfection_; to take a further step
forward to a verb _to perfection_ instead of returning to the verb
_to perfect_ is a superfluity of naughtiness. From the noun _sense_
we make the adjective _sensible_; it is generally quite needless to
go forward to _sensibleness_ instead of back to our original noun
_sense_. To _quieten_ is often used by hasty writers who have not
time to remember that _quiet_ is a verb. With _ex tempore_ ready to
serve either as adverb or as adjective, why make _extemporaneous_
or _extemporaneously_? As to _contumacity_, the writer was probably
unaware that _contumacy_ existed. _Contumacity_ might be formed from
_contumax_, like _audacity_ from _audax_. The Romans had only the short
forms _audacia_, _contumacia_, which should have given us _audacy_ as
well as _contumacy_; but because our ancestors burdened themselves with
an extra syllable in one we need not therefore do so in the other.
The inner, religiously moral _perfectioning_ of individuals.--_Times._
She liked the quality of mind which may be broadly called
_sensibleness_.--_Times._
Broadly, or lengthily?
M. Delcassé, speaking _extemporaneously_ but with notes,
said....--_Times._
And now, Mdlle St. Pierre’s affected interference provoked
_contumacity_.--C. BRONTË.
It is often a very easy thing to act _prudentially_, but alas! too
often only after we have toiled to our prudence through a forest of
delusions.--DE QUINCEY.
_Prudent_ gives _prudence_, and _prudence_ _prudential_; the latter
has its use: prudential considerations are those in which prudence is
allowed to outweigh other motives; they may be prudent without being
prudential, and vice versa. But before using _prudentially_ we should
be quite sure that we mean something different from _prudently_. So
again _partially_, which should be reserved as far as possible for the
meaning _with partiality_, is now commonly used for _partly_:[9]
The series of administrative reforms planned by the Convention had
been _partially_ carried into effect before the meeting of Parliament
in 1654; but the work was pushed on.--J. R. GREEN.
That the gravity of the situation is _partially_ appreciated by the
bureaucracy may be inferred from....--_Times._
_Excepting_, instead of _except_, is to be condemned when there is
no need for it. We say _not excepting_, or _not even excepting_, or
_without excepting_; but where the exception is allowed, not rejected,
the short form is the right one, as a comparison of the following
examples will show:
Of all societies ... _not even excepting_ the Roman Republic, England
has been the most emphatically ... political.--MORLEY.
The Minister was obliged to present the Budget before May each year,
_excepting_ in the event of the Cortes having been dissolved.--_Times._
The sojourn of belligerent ships in French waters has never been
limited _excepting_ by certain clearly defined rules.--_Times._
_Excepting_ the English, French, and Austrian journalists present, no
one had been admitted.--_Times._
Innumerable other needless lengthenings might be produced, from
which we choose only _preventative_ for _preventive_, and _to
experimentalize_ for _to experiment_.
On the other hand, when usage has differentiated a long and a short
form either of which might originally have served, the distinction must
be kept. _Immovable_ and _irremovable_ judges are different things; the
shorter word has been wrongly chosen in:
By suspending conscription and restoring the _immovability_ of the
Judges.--_Times._
6. =Merely ugly formations.=
_Bureaucracy._
The termination _-cracy_ is now so freely applied that it is too late
to complain of this except on the ground of ugliness. It may be pointed
out, however, that the very special ugliness of _bureaucracy_ is due
to the way its mongrel origin is flaunted in our faces by the telltale
syllable _-eau-_; it is to be hoped that formations similar in this
respect may be avoided.
An ordinary reader, if asked what was the main impression given by the
_Short History of the English People_, would answer that it was the
impression of picturesqueness and _vividity_.--BRYCE.
In sound, there can be no question between _vividity_ with its
fourfold repetition of the same vowel sound, its two dentals to add
to the ugliness of its two _v_’s, and the comparatively inoffensive
_vividness_.
We conclude with deprecating the addition of _-ly_ to participles in
_-ed_. Some people are so alive to the evil sound of it that they
write _determinately_ for _determinedly_; that will not do either,
because _determinate_ does not mean _determined_ in the required
sense. A periphrasis, or an adjective or Latin participle with _-ly_,
as _resolutely_, should be used. _Implied_ is as good a word as
_implicit_, but _impliedly_ is by no means so good as _implicitly_.
Several instances are given, for cumulative effect. Miss Corelli makes
a mannerism of this.
Dr. John and his mother were in their finest mood, contending
_animatedly_ with each other the whole way.--C. BRONTË.
Where the gate opens, or the gateless path turns aside
_trustedly_.--RUSKIN.
‘That’s not a very kind speech,’ I said somewhat _vexedly_.--CORELLI.
However, I _determinedly_ smothered all premonitions.--CORELLI.
I saw one or two passers-by looking at me so _surprisedly_ that I came
to the conclusion....--_Corelli._
I stared _bewilderedly_ up at the stars.--_Corelli._
It should be added that to really established adverbs of this form, as
_advisedly_, _assuredly_, _hurriedly_, there is no objection whatever;
but new ones are ugly.
SLANG
The place of slang is in real life. There, an occasional indulgence
in it is an almost necessary concession to our gregarious humanity;
he who declines altogether to let his speech be influenced by his
neighbours’ tricks, and takes counsel only of pure reason, is setting
up for more than man. _Awfully nice_ is an expression than which few
could be sillier; but to have succeeded in going through life without
saying it a certain number of times is as bad as to have no redeeming
vice. Further, the writer who deals in conversation may sometimes find
it necessary, by way of characterizing his speakers, to put slang in
their mouths; if he is wise he will make the least possible use of this
resource; and to interlard the non-conversational parts of a book or
article with slang, quotation marks or no quotation marks, is as bad
as interlarding with French. Foreign words and slang are, as spurious
ornaments, on the same level. The italics, but not the quotation marks,
in these examples are ours:
When the madness motif was being treated on the stage, Shakespeare (as
was the custom of his theatre) treated it ‘_for all it was worth_’,
careless of the boundaries between feigning and reality.--_Times._
But even this situation ‘_peters out_’, the wife being sent
away with her fate undecided, and the husband, represented as a
‘forcible-feeble’ person by the dramatist and as a feeble person, tout
court, by the actor....--_Times._
M. Baron the younger is amusing as the ‘_bounder_’ Olivier.--_Times._
Asking ourselves this question about Mr. Thurston’s play, we find
that it has given us a ha’porth of pleasure to an intolerable deal of
boredom. With its primary postulate, ‘_steep_’ as it is, we will not
quarrel.--_Times._
They will find no subtlety in it, no literary art, no profundity of
feeling; but they will assuredly find breadth, colour, and strength.
It is a play that hits you, as the children say, ‘_bang in the
eye_’.--_Times._
They derive no advantage from schemes of land settlement from which
the man who has broken the land in _gets ‘the boot’_, the voter gets
the land, the Government gets the vote, and the London labour market
gets the risk.--_Times._
The effect of using quotation marks with slang is merely to convert a
mental into a moral weakness. When they are not used, we may mercifully
assume that the writer does not know the difference between slang and
good English, and sins in ignorance: when they are, he is telling us,
I know it is naughty, but then it is nice. Most of us would rather be
taken for knaves than for fools; and so the quotation marks are usually
there.
With this advice--never to use slang except in dialogue, and there
as little as may be--we might leave the subject, except that the
suggestion we have made about the unconscious use of slang seems to
require justifying. To justify it, we must attempt some analysis,
however slight, of different sorts of slang.
To the ordinary man, of average intelligence and middle-class position,
slang comes from every direction, from above, from below, and from all
sides, as well as from the centre. What comes from some directions
he will know for slang, what comes from others he may not. He may be
expected to recognize words from below. Some of these are shortenings,
by the lower classes, of words whose full form conveys no clear
meaning, and is therefore useless, to them. An antiquated example
is _mob_, for _mobile vulgus_. That was once slang, and is now good
English. A modern one is _bike_, which will very likely be good English
also in time. But though its brevity is a strong recommendation, and
its uncouthness probably no more than subjective and transitory, it is
as yet slang. Such words should not be used in print till they have
become so familiar that there is not the slightest temptation to dress
them up in quotation marks. Though they are the most easily detected,
they are also the best slang; when the time comes, they take their
place in the language as words that will last, and not, like many of
the more highly descended words, die away uselessly after a brief
popularity.
Another set of words that may be said to come from below, since it
owes its existence to the vast number of people who are incapable of
appreciating fine shades of meaning, is exemplified by _nice_, _awful_,
_blooming_. Words of this class fortunately never make their way, in
their slang senses, into literature (except, of course, dialogue). The
abuse of _nice_ has gone on at any rate for over a century; the curious
reader may find an interesting page upon it in the fourteenth chapter
of _Northanger Abbey_ (1803). But even now we do not talk in books of
_a nice day_, only of _a nice distinction_. On the other hand, the
slang use makes us shy in different degrees of writing the words in
their legitimate sense: _a nice distinction_ we write almost without
qualms; _an awful storm_ we think twice about; and as to _a blooming
girl_, we hardly venture it nowadays. The most recent sufferer of this
sort is perhaps _chronic_. It has been adopted by the masses, as far
apart at least as in Yorkshire and in London, for a mere intensive, in
the sense of _remarkable_. The next step is for it to be taken up in
parody by people who know better; after which it may be expected to
succeed _awful_.
So much for the slang from below; the ordinary man can detect it. He
is not so infallible about what comes to him from above. We are by no
means sure that we shall be correct in our particular attribution of
the half-dozen words now to be mentioned; but it is safe to say that
they are all at present enjoying some vogue as slang, and that they
all come from regions that to most of us are overhead. _Phenomenal_,
soon, we hope, to perish unregretted, is (at least indirectly, through
the abuse of _phenomenon_) from Metaphysics; _immanence_, a word often
met in singular company, from Comparative Theology; _epochmaking_
perhaps from the Philosophic Historian; _true inwardness_ from Literary
Criticism; _cad_ (which is, it appears, Etonian for _cadet_) from the
Upper Classes; _psychological moment_ from Science; _thrasonical_
and _cryptic_ from Academic Circles; _philistine_ from the region of
culture. Among these the one that will be most generally allowed to
be slang--_cad_--is in fact the least so; it has by this time, like
_mob_, passed its probation and taken its place as an orthodox word,
so that all who do not find adequate expression for their feelings in
the orthodox have turned away to _bounder_ and other forms that still
admit the emphasis of quotation marks. As for the rest of them, they
are being subjected to that use, at once over-frequent and inaccurate,
which produces one kind of slang. But the average man, seeing from what
exalted quarters they come, is dazzled into admiration and hardly knows
them for what they are.
By the slang that comes from different sides or from the centre
we mean especially the many words taken originally from particular
professions, pursuits, or games, but extended beyond them. Among these
a man is naturally less critical of what comes from his own daily
concerns, that is, in his view, from the centre. _Frontispiece_, for
face, perhaps originated in the desire of prize-ring reporters to vary
the words in their descriptive flights. _Negotiate_ (a difficulty, &c.)
possibly comes from the hunting-field; people whose conversation runs
much upon a limited subject feel the need of new phrases for the too
familiar things. And both these words, as well as _individual_, which
must be treated more at length in the next section, are illustrations
of a tendency that we have called polysyllabic humour and discussed
in the Chapter _Airs and Graces_. We now add a short list of slang
phrases or words that can most of them be referred with more or less
of certainty to particular occupations. Whether they are recognized
as slang will certainly depend in part on whether the occupation is
familiar, though sometimes the familiarity will disguise, and sometimes
it will bring out, the slanginess.
_To hedge_, _the double event_ (turf); _frontal attack_ (war);
_play the game_, _stumped_ (cricket); _to run_--the show,
&c.--(engine-driving); _knock out_, _take it lying down_ (prize-ring);
_log-rolling_, _slating_, _birrelling_ (literature); _to tackle_--a
problem, &c.--(football); _to take a back seat_ (coaching?); _bedrock_,
_to exploit_, _how it pans out_ (mining); _whole-hogging_, _world
policy_ (politics); _floored_ (1. prize ring; 2. school); _the under
dog_ (dog-fighting); _up to date_ (advertising); _record_--time,
&c.--(athletics); _euchred_, _going one better_, _going Nap._ (cards);
_to corner_--a thing--(commerce)--a person--(ratting); _chic_ (society
journalism); _on your own_, _of sorts_, _climb down_, _globetrotter_,
_to laze_ (perhaps not assignable).
Good and sufficient occasions will arise--rarely--for using most
of these phrases and the rest of the slang vocabulary. To those,
however, who desire that what they write may endure it is suggested
that, as style is the great antiseptic, so slang is the great
corrupting matter; it is perishable itself, and infects what is round
it--the catchwords that delight one generation stink in the nostrils
of the next; _individual_, which almost made the fortune of many a
Victorian humorist, is one of the modern editor’s shibboleths for
detecting the unfit. And even those who regard only the present will
do well to remember that in literature as elsewhere there are as many
conservatives as progressives, as many who expect their writers to
say things a little better than they could do themselves as who are
flattered by the proof that one man is no better than another.
‘Skepsey did come back to London with rather a damaged
_frontispiece_’, Victor said.--MEREDITH.
Henson, however, once _negotiated_ a sprint down his wing, and put in
a fine dropping shot to Aubert, who saved.--_Guernsey Evening Press._
Passengers, the guild add, usually arrive at the last moment before
sailing, when the master must concentrate his mind upon _negotiating_
a safe passage.--_Times._
To deal with these extensive and purely local breeding grounds in the
manner suggested by Major Ross would be a very _tall order_.--_Times._
In about twenty minutes he returned, accompanied by a highly
intelligent-looking _individual_, dressed in blue and black, with
a particularly white cravat, and without a hat on his head; this
_individual_, whom I should have mistaken for a gentleman but for the
intelligence depicted in his face, he introduced to me as the master
of the inn.--BORROW.
A Sèvres vase sold yesterday at Christie’s _realized_ what is believed
to be the _record_ price of 4,000 guineas.--_Times._
You could not, if you had tried, have made so perfect a place for two
girls to lounge in, to _laze_ in, to read silly novels in, or to go to
sleep in on drowsy afternoons.--CROCKETT.
Mr. Balfour’s somewhat _thrasonical_ eulogies.--_Spectator._
A quarrelsome, somewhat _thrasonical_ fighting man.--_Spectator._
The _true inwardness_ of this statement is....--_Times._
We do not know what _inwardness_ there may be in the order of his
discourses, though each of them has some articulate link with that
which precedes.--_Times._
Such a departure from etiquette at the _psychological moment_ shows
tact and discretion.--_Times._
He asserts that about four years ago there was quite an Argentine
_boom_ in New Zealand.--_Times._
No treatment of slang, however short, should omit the reminder that
slang and idiom are hard to distinguish, and yet, in literature,
slang is bad, and idiom good. We said that slang was perishable; the
fact is that most of it perishes; but some survives and is given the
idiomatic franchise; ‘when it doth prosper, none dare call it’ slang.
The idiomatic writer differs chiefly from the slangy in using what was
slang and is now idiom; of what is still slang he chooses only that
part which his insight assures him has the sort of merit that will
preserve it. In a small part of their vocabulary the idiomatic and the
slangy will coincide, and be therefore confused by the undiscerning.
The only advice that can be given to novices uncertain of their own
discrimination is to keep carefully off the debatable ground. Full
idiom and full slang are as far apart as virtue and vice; and yet
They oft so mix, the difference is too nice
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.
Any one who can confidently assign each of the following phrases to its
own territory may feel that he is not in much danger:
Outrun the constable, the man in the street, kicking your heels,
between two stools, cutting a loss, riding for a fall, not seeing the
wood for the trees, minding your Ps and Qs, crossing the _t_s, begging
the question, special pleading, a bone to pick, half seas over, tooth
and nail, bluff, maffick, a tall order, it has come to stay.
PARTICULAR WORDS
Individual, mutual, unique, aggravating.
To use _individual_ wrongly in the twentieth century stamps a writer,
more definitely than almost any other single solecism, not as being
generally ignorant or foolish, but as being without the literary
sense. For the word has been pilloried time after time; every one who
is interested in style at all--which includes every one who aspires
to be readable--must at least be aware that there is some mystery
about the word, even if he has not penetrated it. He has, therefore,
two courses open to him: he may leave the word alone; or he may find
out what it means; if he insists on using it without finding out, he
will commit himself. The adjectival use of it presents no difficulty;
the adjective, as well as the adverb _individually_, is always used
rightly if at all; it is the noun that goes wrong. An _individual_
is not simply a person; it is a single, separate, or private person,
a person as opposed to a combination of persons; this qualification,
this opposition, must be effectively present to the mind, or the word
is not in place. In the nineteenth, especially the early nineteenth
century, this distinction was neglected; mainly under the impulse of
‘polysyllabic humour’, the word, which does mean _person_ in some sort
of way, was seized upon as a facetious substitute for it; not only
that; it spread even to good writers who had no facetious intention; it
became the kind of slang described in the last section, which is highly
popular until it suddenly turns disgusting. In reading many of these
writers we feel that we must make allowances for them on this point;
they only failed to be right when every one else was wrong. But we, if
we do it, sin against the light.
To leave no possible doubt about the distinction, we shall give many
examples, divided into (1) right uses, (2) wrong uses, (3) sentences in
which, though the author has used the word rightly, a perverse reader
might take it wrongly. It will be observed that in (1) to substitute
_man_ or _person_ would distinctly weaken the sense; in the sentence
from Macaulay it would be practically impossible. The words italicized
are those that prove the contrast with bodies, or organizations, to
have been present to the writer’s mind, though it may often happen that
he does not actually show it by specific mention of them. On the other
hand, in (2) _person_ or _man_ or _he_ might always be substituted
without harm to the sense, though sometimes a more exact word (not
_individual_) might be preferable. In (3) little difference would be
made by the substitution.
(1) Many of the _constituent bodies_ were under the absolute control
of individuals.--MACAULAY.
Regarding the general effect of Lord Kitchener’s proclamation,
everything so far as is known here points to the conclusion that the
document has failed to secure the surrender of any _body of men_.
Merely a few individuals have yielded.--_Times._
The wise Commons, considering that they are, if not a French _Third
Estate_, at least an aggregate of individuals pretending to some title
of that kind, determine....--CARLYLE.
(2) That greenish-coloured individual is an advocate of Arras; his
name is Maximilien Robespierre.--CARLYLE. (person)
Surely my fate is somehow strangely interwoven with that of this
mysterious individual.--SCOTT. (person)
And, as its weight is 15 lb., nobody save an individual in no
condition to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw could possibly mistake
it for a saluting charge.--_Times._ (person)
The Secretary of State for War was sending the same man down to
see what he could do in the Isle of Wight. The individual duly
arrived.--_Times._ (he)
My own shabby clothes and deplorable aspect, as compared with this
regal-looking individual.--CORELLI. (person)
In the present case, however, the individual who had secured the cab
had a companion.--BEACONSFIELD. (man)
I give my idea of the method in which Mr. Spencer and a Metaphysician
would discuss the necessity and validity of the Universal Postulate.
We must suppose this imaginary individual to have so far forgotten
himself as to make some positive statement--A. J. BALFOUR. (person)
But what made her marry that individual, who was at least as much like
an oil-barrel as a man?--C. BRONTË. (monstrosity)
He was a genteelly dressed individual; rather corpulent, with dark
features.--BORROW. (man)
During his absence two calls were made at the parsonage--one by a very
rough-looking individual who left a suspicious document in the hands
of the servant.--TROLLOPE. (man)
(3) Almost all the recent Anarchist crimes were perpetrated
by _isolated_ halfwitted individuals who aimed at universal
notoriety.--_Times._
Which of these two individuals, in plain white cravat, that have come
up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their king? For
a king or leader they, as all _bodies of men_, must have.--CARLYLE.
Some apology is due for so heaping up instances of the same thing; but
here, as with other common blunders to be treated of later, it has
seemed that an effect might be produced by mere iteration.
The word _mutual_ requires caution. As with _individual_, any one who
is not prepared to clear his ideas upon its meaning will do well to
avoid it; it is a very telltale word, readily convicting the unwary,
and on the other hand it may quite easily be done without. Every one
knows by now that _our mutual friend_ is a solecism. _Mutual_ implies
an action or relation between two or more persons or things, A doing
or standing to B as B does or stands to A. Let A and B be the persons
indicated by _our_, C the _friend_. No such reciprocal relation is here
implied between A and B (who for all we know may be enemies), but only
a separate, though similar relation between each of them and C. There
is no such thing as a mutual friend in the singular; but the phrase
_mutual friends_ may without nonsense be used to describe either A and
C, B and C, or, if A and B happen to be also friends, A and B and C.
_Our mutual friend_ is nonsense; _mutual friends_, though not nonsense,
is bad English, because it is tautological. It takes two to make a
friendship, as to make a quarrel; and therefore all friends are mutual
friends, and _friends_ alone means as much as _mutual friends_. _Mutual
wellwishers_ on the other hand is good English as well as good sense,
because it is possible for me to be a man’s wellwisher though he hates
me. Mutual love, understanding, insurance, benefits, dislike, mutual
benefactors, backbiters, abettors, may all be correct, though they are
also sometimes used incorrectly, like _our mutual friend_, where the
right word would be _common_.
Further, it is to be carefully observed that the word _mutual_ is an
equivalent in meaning, and sometimes a convenient one for grammatical
reasons, of the pronoun _each other_ with various prepositions. To use
it as well as _each other_ is even more clearly tautological than the
already mentioned _mutual friendship_.
If this be the case, much of the lost mutual understanding and unity
of feeling may be restored.--_Times._
Correct, if _mutual_ is confined to _understanding_: they no longer
understand _each other_.
Once their differences removed, both felt that in presence of certain
incalculable factors in Europe it would be of mutual advantage to draw
closer together.--_Times._
Slightly clumsy; but it means that they would get advantage _from each
other_ by drawing together, and may stand.
... conversing with his Andalusian lady-love in rosy whispers about
their mutual passion for Spanish chocolate all the while.--MEREDITH.
Surely you have heard Mrs. Toddles talking to Mrs. Doddles about their
mutual maids.--THACKERAY.
Indefensible.
There may be, moreover, while each has the key of the fellow breast, a
mutually sensitive nerve.--MEREDITH.
A nerve cannot respond to each other; nerves can; _a common nerve_
would have done; or _mutually sensitive nerves_.
It is now definitely announced that King Edward will meet President
Loubet this afternoon near Paris. Our Paris Correspondent says the
meeting will take place by mutual desire.--_Times._
Right or wrong according to what is meant by _desire_. (1) If it means
that King Edward and M. Loubet desired, that is, had a yearning for,
each other, it is correct; but the writer probably did not intend so
poetic a flight. (2) If it means that they merely desired a meeting,
it is wrong, exactly as _our mutual friend_ is wrong. The relation is
not one between A and B; it is only that A and B hold separately the
same relation to C, the meeting. It should be _common desire_. (3) If
_desire_ is here equivalent to _request_, and each is represented as
having requested the other to meet him, it is again correct; but only
politeness to the writer would induce any one to take this alternative.
The carpenter holds the hammer in one hand, the nail in the other, and
they do their work equally well. So it is with every craftsman; the
hands are mutually busy.--_Times._
Wrong. The hands are not _busy_ with or _upon each other_, but with
or upon the work. As _commonly_ would be ambiguous here, _equally_
or _alike_ should be used, or simply _both_. _Mutually serviceable_,
again, would have been right.
There were other means of communication between Claribel and her new
prophet. Books were mutually lent to each other.--BEACONSFIELD.
This surprising sentence means that Vanity Fair was lent to Paradise
Lost, and Paradise Lost to Vanity Fair. If we further assume for
politeness’ sake that _mutually_ is not mere tautology with _to each
other_, the only thing left for it to mean is _by each other_. The
doubt then remains whether (1) Paradise Lost was lent to Vanity Fair by
Paradise Lost, and Vanity Fair to Paradise Lost by Vanity Fair, or (2)
Paradise Lost was lent to Vanity Fair by Vanity Fair, and Vanity Fair
to Paradise Lost by Paradise Lost. This may be considered captious; but
we still wish the author had said either, They lent each other books,
or, Books were lent by them to each other.
A thing is _unique_, or not unique; there are no degrees of
uniqueness; nothing is ever somewhat or rather unique, though many
things are almost or in some respects unique. The word is a member
of a depreciating series. _Singular_ had once the strong meaning
that _unique_ has still in accurate but not in other writers. In
consequence of slovenly use, _singular_ no longer means singular, but
merely remarkable; it is worn out; before long _rather unique_ will be
familiar; _unique_, that is, will be worn out in turn, and we shall
have to resort to _unexampled_ and keep that clear of qualifications as
long as we can. Happily it is still admitted that sentences like the
three given below are solecisms; they contain a self-contradiction.
For the other regrettable use of _unique_, as when the advertisement
columns offer us what they call _unique opportunities_, it may
generally be assumed with safety that they are lying; but lying is not
in itself a literary offence, so that with these we have nothing to do.
Thrills which gave him _rather_ a _unique_ pleasure.--HUTTON.
A _very unique_ child, thought I.--C. BRONTË.
... is to be translated into Russian by M. Robert Böker, of St.
Petersburg. This is a _somewhat unique_ thing to happen to an English
text-book.--_Westminster Gazette._
To _aggravate_ is not to annoy or enrage (a person), but to make worse
(a condition or trouble). The active participle should very rarely, and
the rest of the active practically never, be used without an expressed
object, and that of the right kind. In the sentence, _An aggravating
circumstance was that the snow was dirty_, the meaning is not that the
dirt was annoying, but that it added to some other misery previously
expressed or implied. But, as the dirt happens to be annoying also,
this use is easily misunderstood, and is probably the origin of the
notorious vulgarism; since it almost inevitably lays a writer open
to suspicion, it is best avoided. Of the following quotations, the
first is quite correct, the other five as clearly wrong; in the fifth,
_aggrieved_ would be the right word.
A premature initiative would be useless and even dangerous,
being calculated rather to aggravate than to simplify the
situation.--_Times._
Perhaps the most trying and aggravating period of the whole six months
during which the siege has lasted was this period of enforced idleness
waiting for the day of entry.--_Times._
There is a cold formality about the average Englishman; a lack of
effusive disposition to ingratiate himself, and an almost aggravating
indifference to alien customs or conventions.--_Times._
Mrs. Craigie may possibly be regarding him with an irony too fine for
us to detect; but to the ordinary mind he appears to be conceived in
the spirit of romance, and a very stupid, tiresome, aggravating man he
is.--_Times._
‘Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,’ said the
unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated.--DICKENS.
Nevertheless, it is an aggravating book, though we are bound to admit
that we have been greatly interested.--_Westminster Gazette._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Romance languages are those whose grammatical structure, as
well as part at least of their vocabulary, is directly descended from
Latin--as Italian, French, Spanish. Under Romance words we include
all that English has borrowed from Latin either directly or through
the Romance languages. And words borrowed from Greek in general use,
ranging from _alms_ to _metempsychosis_, may for the purposes of this
chapter be considered as Romance. The vast number of purely scientific
Greek words, as _oxygen_, _meningitis_, are on a different footing,
since they are usually the only words for what they denote.
[2] As in the second quotation from _The Times_ on p. 4.
[3] Even in the legitimate sense (see p. 16), originally a happy
metaphor for mysterious leaking out, but now vulgarized and ‘dead’.
[4] Not that this word calls for censure in itself; but when packed
into a sentence with _snow-white_, _green_, and _shrimp-pink_,
it contributes noticeably to that effect of brief and startling
exhaustiveness which is one variety of what we have stigmatized as
efficiency.
[5] It has. ‘It would be difficult to say just how many weddings of
famous people have been celebrated at St. George’s Church, Hanover
Square.’--_Westminster Gazette._
[6] Readers of history are of course likely to be familiar with it; it
occurs, for instance, scores of times in Carlyle’s _Friedrich_. In such
work it is legitimate, being sure, between context and repetition, to
be comprehensible; but this does not apply to newspaper writing.
[7] The _Oxford Dictionary_ has fourteen varieties.
[8] _Alit_ is due, no doubt, to mere inadvertence or ignorance: the
form _litten_ (‘red-litten windows’, &c.), for which the _Oxford
Dictionary_ quotes Poe, Lytton, W. Morris, and Crockett, but no old
writer, is sham archaism.
[9] The use deprecated has perhaps crept in from such phrases as _the
sun was partially eclipsed_, an adaptation of _a partial eclipse_; and
to such phrases it should be restricted. ‘The case was partially heard
on Oct. 17’ is ambiguous; and the second example in the text is almost
so, nearly enough to show that the limitation is desirable. The rule
should be never to write _partially_ without first considering the
claims of _partly_.