Page images
PDF
EPUB

"He then returned to the Golden Lamb, and waited there for his first visitant, the minstrel." 1

"Quite a sentimental chapter." 2

"I quite feel that, in deciding as we do, we are going counter to Hodgson v. Johnson." 8

"The whole of General Grant's men at that time may have aggregated fifty thousand."

“We are more liable to become acquainted with a man's faults than with his virtues."

"I confess that I think that it is impossible, or at least that it would be very unwise, if it were possible, to maintain the House of Lords." 5

"He kindly learns us to endure."

VII. Among Improprieties belong tautological" expressions like the following: —

First or original aggressor, mutually reciprocal, funeral obsequíes,' ver Other impro- dant green,umbrageous shade,sylvan forest,standard pattern, prieties. some few, a coal collier, popular (in the sense of "ordinary" or "common") people (one sometimes hears that a politician is popular with the people), more superior, more standard, more preferable, false misrepresentations, somewhat unanimous, universal panacea of all.

Under this head, too, fall superlative forms of adjectives that are already superlative in meaning; as,

Most perfect, most unbounded, most extreme, most unprecedented, too universal, very priceless, most hopeless, most merciless, most complete, most unparalleled, very incessant, so inseparable, more or less invariable.

In poetry which represents a state of feeling too intense to be satisfied with ordinary expressions, violations of grammatical propriety, like those last named, are permitted; but in ordinary prose they are inexcusable.

1 Bulwer: Kenelm Chillingly, book iii. chap. xii.
2 Thackeray: Vanity Fair, vol. i., heading to chap. xii.
'Justice Lush: 1 Queen's Bench Rep., p. 290. (1876.)

Helps: Thoughts on Government, chap. iv.
The Quarterly Review. (1876.)

Disraeli first speech in Parliament.

chap. xxiv.

See also p. 80.

4 See p. 8.

6a See p. 113.

Bulwer: The Coming Race,

• See John Bright: Speeches, vol. i. p. 469; Speech at Manchester (1878).

VIII. Each word in a phrase may be used in its proper sense, and yet the phrase, taken as a whole, may contain an Impropriety.

"Adam

The goodliest man of men, since born

His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve." 1

Improprieties in phrases.

"The solace arising from this consideration seems, indeed, the weakest of all others." 2

"Andrew Johnson, the last survivor of his honored predecessors." "I do not reckon that we want a genius more than the rest of our neighbors.'

[ocr errors]

"We are at peace with all the world, and seek to maintain our cherished relations of amity with the rest of mankind." 4

"The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one.

995

"I solemnly declare that I have not wilfully committed the least mistake." 6

"Never did Atticus succeed better in gaining the universal love and esteem of all men."7

"How many are there by whom these tidings of good news were never heard? "' 8

"This subject, which caused mutual astonishment and perplexity to us both, entirely engrossed us for the rest of the evening."9

Some Improprieties, though ungrammatical, are rhetorically defensible.

Rhetoric overruling

"He [Cerberus] was a big, rough, ugly-looking grammar. monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others." 10

1 Milton: Paradise Lost, book iv. line 323.

2 Johnson: The Rambler, No. 52.

8 Swift: Proposal for ascertaining the English Tongue.

4 President Taylor: Message to Congress, Dec. 4, 1849, as printed in the newspapers of the day from the official copy. The sentence was so much ridiculed at the time, that it was partly corrected in "The Globe," and altogether in the permanent official record.

5 Swift: Gulliver's Travels; A Voyage to Laputa.

6 Swift: Remarks on the Barrier Treaty.

8 Bolingbroke.

7 The Spectator, No. 467.

9 Miss Burney: Evelina.

10 Hawthorne: Tanglewood Tales; The Pomegranate Seeds.

“This made several women look at one another slyly, each knowing more than the others, and nodding while sounding the others' ignorance." 1

Evidently, in these instances, the literal statement cannot be true; but the imagination makes it seem true, by making each of the three objects compared appear, at the moment it is looked at, superior to the others in the point of comparison.

1 R. D. Blackmore: Cripps the Carrier, chap. xii.

BOOK II.

CHOICE AND USE OF WORDS.

CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF CHOICE.

HAVING defined that good use which determines what is and what is not pure English, and noted some violations of its rules, such as even writers of credit inadvertently commit, we have now to consider how communication by language can be rendered efficient for its purpose.

In every spoken or written composition, three things should be regarded: (1) the choice of words; (2) their number; and (3) their arrangement.

Value of

Other things being equal, a speaker or writer who has the largest stock of words to choose from will choose the best words for his purpose. an ample Hence, the desirableness of an ample vocabulary.

vocabulary.

In the copiousness and variety of the vocabularies at their command, men differ widely. Of the one hundred thousand words computed to exist in the English language, there occur in Shakspere "not more than fifteen thousand, in the poems of Milton not above eight thou

1

sand. The whole number of Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols does not exceed eight hundred, and the entire Italian operatic vocabulary is said to be scarcely more extensive." The vocabulary of business has not been estimated, but it is certainly a small one. So is that which suffices for the ordinary necessities of a traveller. Poverty of language is the source of much slang, a favorite word as nice, nasty, beastly, jolly, awful, stunning, splendid, lovely, handsome, immense - being employed for so many purposes as to serve no one purpose effectively. A copious vocabulary, on the other hand, supplies a fresh word for every fresh thought or fancy.

The first thing, then, to be done by a man who would learn to speak or to write well, is to enlarge his vocabulary; and the best way to do this is to make himself familiar with the classics of his native tongue, taking care always to learn with the new word its exact force in the place where it occurs. Words may, of course, be gathered from a dictionary; but for most people it is better to study them in their context. For this purpose, books that one really enjoys are better than those in which, though intrinsically more valuable, one takes a languid interest; for the memory firmly retains that only which has fastened the attention.

How to enlarge one's Vocabulary.

2

Care should, however, be taken to educate the taste; for one who is familiar with the best authors will naturally use good language, as a child who hears in the family circle none but the best English talks well without knowing it. As, moreover, every person, however well brought up, comes in contact with those who have not had his advantages, hears from his companions or I Marsh: English Language, lect. viii.

2 Chatham "told a friend that he had read over Bailey's English dictionary twice from beginning to end." Lecky: England in the 18th century, vol. ii., chap. viii,

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »