'De Quincey once said that authors are a dangerous class for any
language'--so Professor Krapp has reminded us in his book on _Modern
English_, and he has explained that De Quincey meant 'that the literary
habit of mind is likely to prove dangerous for a language ... because it
so often leads a speaker or writer to distrust natural and unconscious
habit, even when it is right, and to put in its stead some conscious
theory of literary propriety. Such a tendency, however, is directly
opposed to the true feeling for idiomatic English. It destroys the sense
of security, the assurance of perfect congruity between thought and
expression, which the unliterary and unacademic speaker and writer often
has, and which, with both literary and unliterary, is the basis for all
expressive use of language'.
And since I have borrowed the quotation from Professor Krapp I shall
bring this rambling paper to an end by borrowing another, from the
_Toxophilus_ of Roger Ascham (1545).
'He that will wryte well in any tongue must folowe this council of
Aristotle, to speake as the common people do, to think as wise men do.
Many English writers have not done so, but using straunge wordes as
latin, french, and Italian, do make all things darke and harde. Once I
communed with a man whiche reasoned the englyshe tongue to be enryched
and encreased thereby, sayinge--Who wyll not prayse that feaste where a
man shall drinke at a diner bothe wyne, ale and beere? Truly, quod I
they all be good, every one taken by hym selfe alone, but if you put
Malmesye and sacke, read wine and whyte, ale and beere, and al in one
pot, you shall make a drynke neyther easie to be knowen nor yet holsom
for the body.'