DR. ADDISON has stated that for some time past it has been the
practice riot to use the word "pauper" in official documents when it
was possible to use another expression; and no well-conditioned
person will cavil at the spirit which has prompted the use of a less
invidious substitute. But surely the process might be carried a good
deal further. The practice of giving a dog a bad name is not only
condemned by the proverbial philosophy of the ancients but by the most
emancipated of the orthopsychical educationists of to-day.
If you keep on calling a man a "criminal," you will end by making
him one. How much wiser it would be to refer to the impulses which
occasionally bring him into conflict with the custodians of law and
order as emanating from a dynamic individualism! In that way you may
very possibly convert him into a static individualist and sterilize
his potential malignance by a subliminal _serum._.
The amount of harm done by disparaging nomenclature is incalculable.
Take the word "thief," for example. Its meaning can be expressed with
infinitely greater precision and delicacy in the phrase, "one who is
unable to discriminate between _meum_ and _tuum_." Here you have in
place of one mean little word a well-cadenced phrase of ten. Euphony
as well as humanity prompts the variation.
Classical writers may have objected to the use of sesquipedalian
words, but we know better, and Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S famous synonym
for "lie" is permanently enshrined in the annals of circumlocution.
One of the most offensive words in the language is "idiot"; yet it can
be shorn of nearly all its sting when replaced by the definition, "a
person of infra-normal mentality."
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[Illustration: _Demolilisation Officer_. "WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF YOUR
GROUP?"
_Private_. "I DON'T KNOW, SIR. I WAS A TURF ACCOUNTANT."
_Demobilisation Officer_. "AH! AGRICULTURE--GROUP 1."]
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"London, Dec. 16.--At a meeting of the County Cricket Advisory
Committee it was decided to run the County Championship during
1919, the matches to be limited to two days. There will be no
change in the number of balls in the over.--Reuter's.
The Soviets are preparing the sharpest
counter-measure.--Reuter's."--_Canton Times_.
But we are confident that whatever the Soviets' little game is it will
not be cricket.
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