We may vulgarize a word by associating it with the market. The wild
pastures abound in summer with well-known fruits, some of jet and some
of azure. We go out with a few friends and gather them with flowers, for
present amusement. These fruits are _Whortleberries_. This is their
poetical and their botanical name, the one that is associated with all
the beautiful things that cluster in the same field. These fruits are
also gathered for the market, and exposed for sale with cucumbers, new
potatoes, and squashes. They are now _Huckleberries_. Shelley has
defined poetry to be the art “that lifts the veil from the hidden beauty
of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not
familiar.” This is done partly by a choice selection of words; and
whenever a common thing is known by two names equally euphonious, we
should always select that which is not in commercial use. We should say
Whortleberries if we are writing an essay or a poem about them, and
Huckleberries if we are going to buy a few of them in the market. The
usages of the market in other matters ought to be excluded from
literature. In commerce, for example, fishes are fish; in natural
history fish are fishes.