Minor Notes.
_The Word "Repudiate."_--I cannot help following DR. KENNEDY'S example,
and calling attention to another word in our language which is
now-a-days, on many occasions, used very erroneously; I allude to the
word _repudiation_, or rather the verb _repudiate_.
How frequently does one hear at public meetings such phrases as these:
"I utterly repudiate the idea," "I repudiate the sentiment," "I
repudiate the insinuation." A page might be filled with phrases of this
description occurring in reported speeches of recent date. The word, in
fact, is made by public speakers of "unadorned eloquence" and newspaper
writers, to do duty for such words as to _refuse_, _repel_, _reject_,
_abandon_, _disown_, _cast off_.
Now, Sir, I humbly conceive that repudiation means simply a dissolving
of the marriage contract, hence of any contract or obligation and I
believe I may say with safety, that in no standard classical author,
ancient or modern, is the term _repudiation_, or the verb, _repudiate_,
used, except in connexion with some _obligation_ expressed, or in
figurative allusion to such obligation. The term, when applied to the
"drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania," is undoubtedly proper; they have
indeed _repudiated_ their debt, and perhaps brought the word and the
thing into vogue; but to use such a phrase as "I repudiate the notion,"
is, I submit, surely to talk nonsense.