Chapter I: Vocabulary (1)

GENERAL

Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the domain of vocabulary as follows:--

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the short word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.[1]

These rules are given roughly in order of merit; the last is also the least. It is true that it is often given alone, as a sort of compendium of all the others. In some sense it is that: the writer whose percentage of Saxon words is high will generally be found to have fewer words that are out of the way, long, or abstract, and fewer periphrases, than another; and conversely. But if, instead of his Saxon percentage’s being the natural and undesigned consequence of his brevity (and the rest), those other qualities have been attained by his consciously restricting himself to Saxon, his pains will have been worse than wasted; the taint of preciosity will be over all he has written. Observing that _translate_ is derived from Latin, and learning that the Elizabethans had another word for it, he will pull us up by _englishing_ his quotations; he will puzzle the general reader by introducing his book with a _foreword_. Such freaks should be left to the Germans, who have by this time succeeded in expelling as aliens a great many words that were good enough for Goethe. And they, indeed, are very likely right, because their language is a thoroughbred one; ours is not, and can now never be, anything but a hybrid; _foreword_ is (or may be) Saxon; we can find out in the dictionary whether it is or not; but _preface_ is English, dictionary or no dictionary; and we want to write English, not Saxon. Add to this that, even if the Saxon criterion were a safe one, more knowledge than most of us have is needed to apply it. Few who were not deep in philology would be prepared to state that no word in the following list (extracted from the preface to the _Oxford Dictionary_) is English:--_battle_, _beast_, _beauty_, _beef_, _bill_, _blue_, _bonnet_, _border_, _boss_, _bound_, _bowl_, _brace_, _brave_, _bribe_, _bruise_, _brush_, _butt_, _button_. Dr. Murray observes that these ‘are now no less “native”, and no less important constituents of our vocabulary, than the Teutonic words’.

There are, moreover, innumerable pairs of synonyms about which the Saxon principle gives us no help. The first to hand are _ere_ and _before_ (both Saxon), _save_ and _except_ (both Romance), _anent_ and _about_ (both Saxon again). Here, if the ‘Saxon’ rule has nothing to say, the ‘familiar’ rule leaves no doubt. The intelligent reader whom our writer has to consider will possibly not know the linguistic facts; indeed he more likely than not takes _save_ for a Saxon word. But he does know the reflections that the words, if he happens to be reading leisurely enough for reflection, excite in him. As he comes to _save_, he wonders, Why not _except_? At sight of _ere_ he is irresistibly reminded of that sad spectacle, a mechanic wearing his Sunday clothes on a weekday. And _anent_, to continue the simile, is nothing less than a masquerade costume. The _Oxford Dictionary_ says drily of the last word: ‘Common in Scotch law phraseology, and affected by many English writers’; it might have gone further, and said ‘“affected” in any English writer’; such things are antiquarian rubbish, Wardour-Street English. Why not (as our imagined intelligent reader asked)--why not _before_, _except_, and _about_? Bread is the staff of life, and words like these, which are common and are not vulgar, which are good enough for the highest and not too good for the lowest, are the staple of literature. The first thing a writer must learn is, that he is not to reject them unless he can show good cause. _Before_ and _except_, it must be clearly understood, have such a prescriptive right that to use other words instead is not merely not to choose these, it is to reject them. It may be done in poetry, and in the sort of prose that is half poetry: to do it elsewhere is to insult _before_, to injure _ere_ (which is a delicate flower that will lose its quality if much handled), and to make one’s sentence both pretentious and frigid.

It is now perhaps clear that the Saxon oracle is not infallible; it will sometimes be dumb, and sometimes lie. Nevertheless, it is not without its uses as a test. The words to be chosen are those that the probable reader is sure to understand without waste of time and thought; a good proportion of them will in fact be Saxon, but mainly because it happens that most abstract words--which are by our second rule to be avoided--are Romance. The truth is that all five rules would be often found to give the same answer about the same word or set of words. Scores of illustrations might be produced; let one suffice: _In the contemplated eventuality_ (a phrase no worse than what any one can pick for himself out of his paper’s leading article for the day) is at once the far-fetched, the abstract, the periphrastic, the long, and the Romance, for _if so_. It does not very greatly matter by which of the five roads the natural is reached instead of the monstrosity, so long as it _is_ reached. The five are indicated because (1) they differ in directness, and (2) in any given case only one of them may be possible.

We will now proceed to a few examples of how not to write, roughly classified under the five headings, though, after what has been said, it will cause no surprise that most of them might be placed differently. Some sort of correction is suggested for each, but the reader will indulgently remember that to correct a bad sentence satisfactorily is not always possible; it should never have existed, that is all that can be said. In particular, sentences overloaded with abstract words are, in the nature of things, not curable simply by substituting equivalent concrete words; there can be no such equivalents; the structure has to be more or less changed.

1. =Prefer the familiar word= to the far-fetched.

The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously because it _antagonized the unalterable supremacy of Colonial nationalism_.--_Times._ (stood in the way of that national ambition which must always be uppermost in the Colonial mind)

Buttercups made a sunlight of their own, and in the shelter of scattered coppices the pale _wind-flowers_ still dreamed in whiteness.--E. F. BENSON.

We all know what an _anemone_ is: whether we know what a _wind-flower_ is, unless we happen to be Greek scholars, is quite doubtful.

The state of Poland, and the excesses committed by mobilized troops, have been of a far more serious nature than has been allowed to _transpire_.--_Times._ (come out)

Reform converses with possibilities, _perchance_ with impossibilities; but here is sacred fact.--EMERSON. (perhaps)

Tanners and users are strongly of opinion that there is no room for further enhancement, but on that point there is always room for doubt especially when the _export phase_ is taken into consideration.--_Times._ (state of the export trade)

Witchcraft has been put a stop to by Act of Parliament; but the mysterious relations which it _emblemed_ still continue.--CARLYLE. (symbolized)

It will only have itself to thank if future disaster rewards its _nescience_ of the conditions of successful warfare.--_Outlook._ (ignorance)

_Continual vigilance is imperative on the public_ to ensure....--_Times._ (We must be ever on the watch)

These manoeuvres are by no means new, and _their recrudescence is hardly calculated to influence the development of events_.--_Times._ (the present use of them is not likely to be effective)

‘I have no particular business at L----’, said he; ‘I was merely going _thither_ to pass a day or two.’--BORROW. (there)

2. =Prefer the concrete word= (or rather expression) to the abstract. It may be here remarked that abstract expression and the excessive use of nouns are almost the same thing. The cure consists very much, therefore, in the clearing away of noun rubbish.

_The general poverty of explanation as to the diction of particular phrases seemed to point in the same direction._--_Cambridge University Reporter._ (It was perhaps owing to this also that the diction of particular phrases was often so badly explained)

_An elementary condition of a sound discussion is a frank recognition of the gulf severing two sets of facts._--_Times._ (There can be no sound discussion where the gulf severing two sets of facts is not frankly recognized)

_The signs of the times point to the necessity of the modification of the system of administration._--_Times._ (It is becoming clear that the administrative system must be modified)

_No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the statement that_ the work of government is becoming increasingly difficult.--_Spectator._ (Every year shows again how true it is that....)

The first private conference _relating to the question of the convocation of representatives of the nation_ took place yesterday.--_Times._ (on national representation)

_There seems to have been an absence of attempt at conciliation between rival sects._--_Daily Telegraph._ (The sects seem never even to have tried mutual conciliation)

Zeal, however, must not outrun discretion in changing abstract to concrete. _Officer_ is concrete, and _office_ abstract; but we do not _promote to officers_, as in the following quotation, but to _offices_--or, with more exactness in this context, to _commissions_.

Over 1,150 cadets of the Military Colleges were _promoted to officers_ at the Palace of Tsarskoe Selo yesterday.--_Times._

3. =Prefer the single word= to the circumlocution. As the word _case_ seems to lend itself particularly to abuse, we start with more than one specimen of it.

Inaccuracies were _in many cases_ due to cramped methods of writing.--_Cambridge University Reporter._ (often)

The handwriting was on the whole good, with a few examples of remarkably fine penmanship _in the case both of_ boys and girls.--_Ibid._ (by both boys....)

Few candidates showed a thorough knowledge of the text of 1 Kings, and _in many cases the answers_ lacked care.--_Ibid._ (many answers)

The matter will remain in abeyance until the Bishop has had time to become more fully acquainted with the diocese, and to ascertain which part of the city will be most desirable for _residential purposes_.--_Times._ (his residence)

M. Witte is _taking active measures for the prompt preparation of material for the study of the question of the execution of the Imperial Ukase dealing with reforms_.--_Times._ (actively collecting all information that may be needed before the Tsar’s reform Ukase can be executed)

The Russian Government is at last face to face with the greatest crisis of the war, _in the shape of the fact that_ the Siberian railway is no longer capable....--_Spectator._ (for) or (:)

Mr. J---- O---- has _been made the recipient of_ a silver medal.--_Guernsey Advertiser._ (received)

4. =Prefer the short word= to the long.

One of the most important reforms mentioned in the rescript _is the unification of the organization of the judicial institutions and the guarantee for all the tribunals of the independence necessary for securing to all classes of the community equality before the law_.--_Times._ (is that of the Courts, which need a uniform system, and the independence without which it is impossible for all men to be equal before the law)

I merely desired to point out _the principal reason which I believe exists for the great exaggeration which is occasionally to be observed in the estimate of the importance of the contradiction between current Religion and current Science put forward by thinkers of reputation_.--BALFOUR. (why, in my opinion, some well-known thinkers make out the contradiction between current Religion and current Science to be so much more important than it is)

Sir,--Will you permit me to _homologate_ all you say to-day regarding that selfish minority of motorists who....--_Times._ (agree with)

On the Berlin Bourse to-day the prospect of a general strike was cheerfully _envisaged_.--_Times._ (faced)

5. =Prefer the Saxon word= to the Romance.

_Despite the unfavourable climatic conditions._--_Guernsey Advertiser._ (Bad as the weather has been)

* * * * *

By way of general rules for the choice of words, so much must suffice. And these must be qualified by the remark that what is suitable for one sort of composition may be unsuitable for another. The broadest line of this kind is that between poetry and prose; but with that we are not concerned, poetry being quite out of our subject. There are other lines, however, between the scientific and the literary styles, the dignified and the familiar. Our rendering of the passage quoted from Mr. Balfour, for instance, may be considered to fall below the dignity required of a philosophic essay. The same might, with less reason, be said of our simplified newspaper extracts; a great journal has a tone that must be kept up; if it had not been for that, we should have dealt with them yet more drastically. But a more candid plea for the journalist, and one not without weight, would be that he has not time to reduce what he wishes to say into a simple and concrete form. It is in fact as much easier for him to produce, as it is harder for his reader to understand, the slipshod abstract stuff that he does rest content with. But it may be suspected that he often thinks the length of his words and his capacity for dealing in the abstract to be signs of a superior mind. As long as that opinion prevails, improvement is out of the question. But if it could once be established that simplicity was the true ideal, many more writers would be found capable of coming near it than ever make any effort that way now. The fact remains, at any rate, that different kinds of composition require different treatment; but any attempt to go into details on the question would be too ambitious; the reader can only be warned that in this fact may be found good reasons for sometimes disregarding any or all of the preceding rules. Moreover, they must not be applied either so unintelligently as to sacrifice any really important shade of meaning, or so invariably as to leave an impression of monotonous and unrelieved emphasis.

The rest of this chapter will be devoted to more special and definite points--malaprops, neologisms, Americanisms, foreign words, bad formations, slang, and some particular words.

MALAPROPS

Before classifying, we define a malaprop as a word used in the belief that it has the meaning really belonging to another word that resembles it in some particular.

1. =Words containing the same stem, but necessarily, or at least indisputably, distinguished by termination or prefix.=

‘She writes _comprehensively_ enough when she writes to M. de Bassompierre: he who runs may read.’ In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal applications for cash.--C. BRONTË.

The context proves that _comprehensibly_ is meant.

The working of the staff at the agent’s disposal was to a great extent voluntary, and, therefore, required all the influence of _judicial_ management in order to avoid inevitable difficulties.--_Times._ (judicious)

A not uncommon blunder.

By all means let us have bright, hearty, and very _reverend_ services.--_Daily Telegraph._ (reverent)

Not uncommon.

He chuckled at his own _perspicuity_.--CORELLI.

If the writer had a little more _perspicuity_ he would have known that the Church Congress would do nothing of the kind.--_Daily Telegraph._

_Perspicuity_ is clearness or transparency: insight is _perspicacity_. _-uity_ of style, _-acity_ of mind. Very common.

Selected in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and _trustfulness_.--DICKENS. (trustworthiness)

Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and _insensate_--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?--C. BRONTË.

Apparently for _insensible_ in the meaning _hardhearted_. Though modern usage fluctuates, it seems to tend towards the meaning, _stupidly unmoved by prudence or by facts_; at any rate _acute_ and _insensate_ are incompatible.

In the meantime the colossal advertisement in the German Press of German aims, of German interests, and of German policy _incontinently_ proceeds.--_Times._

The idiomatic sense of _incontinently_ is _immediately_; it seems here to be used for _continually_.

I was _awaiting_ with real curiosity to hear the way in which M. Loubet would to-day acquit himself.--_Times._ (waiting)

_Awaiting_ is always transitive.

But they too will feel the pain just where you feel it now, and they will _bethink_ themselves the only unhappy on the earth.--CROCKETT.

There is no sort of authority for _bethink_--like _think_--with object and complement. _To bethink oneself_ is to remember, or to hit upon an idea.

And Pizarro ... established the city of Arequipa, since _arisen_ to such commercial celebrity.--PRESCOTT.

Arethusa arose; a difficulty arises; but to greatness we can only rise--unless, indeed, we wake to find ourselves famous; then we do arise to greatness.

2. =Words like the previous set, except that the differentiation may possibly be disputed.=

The long drought left the torrent of which I am speaking, and such others, in a state peculiarly favourable to _observance_ of their least action on the mountains from which they descend.--RUSKIN. (observation)

_Observance_ is obedience, compliance, &c. The _Oxford Dictionary_ recognizes _observance_ in the sense of watching, but gives no authority for it later than 1732 except another passage from Ruskin; the natural conclusion is that he accidentally failed to recognize a valuable differentiation long arrived at.

It is physical science, and experience, that man ought to consult in religion, morals, _legislature_, as well as in knowledge and the arts.--MORLEY. (legislation)

_Legislature_ is the legislative body--in England, King, Lords, and Commons. To call back the old confusion is an offence.

The apposite display of the diamonds usually stopped the tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a _complaisant_ state until....--DICKENS. (complacent)

Our Correspondent adds that he is fully persuaded that Rozhdestvensky has nothing more to expect from the _complacency_ of the French authorities.--_Times._ (complaisance)

_Complaisant_ is over polite, flattering, subservient, &c. _Complacent_ means contented, satisfied.

In the spring of that year the privilege was withdrawn from the four associated booksellers, and the _continuance_ of the work strictly prohibited.--MORLEY.

_Continuation_ is the noun of continue, go on with: _continuance_ of continue, remain. With _continuance_ the meaning would be that the already published volumes (of Diderot’s _Encyclopaedia_) were to be destroyed; but the meaning intended is that the promised volumes were not to be gone on with--which requires _continuation_. Again, the next two extracts, from one page, show Mr. Morley wrongly substituting _continuity_, which only means continuousness, for _continuance_.

Having arrived at a certain conclusion with regard to the _continuance_ ... of Mr. Parnell’s leadership....--GLADSTONE.

The most cynical ... could not fall a prey to such a hallucination as to suppose ... that either of these communities could tolerate ... so impenitent an affront as the unruffled _continuity_ of the stained leadership.--MORLEY.

The Rev. Dr. Usher said he believed the writer of the first letter to be earnest in his inquiry, and agreed with him that the topic of it was _transcendentally_ important.--_Daily Telegraph._

_Transcendently_ means in a superlative degree: _transcendentally_ is a philosophic term for independently of experience, &c.

Until at last, gathered _altogether_ again, they find their way down to the turf.--RUSKIN. (all together)

At such times ... Jimmie’s better angel was always in the ascendency.--_Windsor Magazine._

Was in the _ascendant_: had an _ascendency_ over.

The inconsistency and _evasion_ of the attitude of the Government.--_Spectator._

_Evasiveness_ the quality: _evasion_ a particular act.

The _requisition_ for a life of Christianity is ‘walk in love’.--_Daily Telegraph._

_Requisite_ or _requirement_, the thing required: _requisition_, the act of requiring it.

We will here merely chronicle the _procession_ of events.--_Spectator._ (progress or succession)

I was able to watch the Emperor during all these interviews, and noticed the forcible manner in which he spoke, especially to the Sultan’s uncle, who came from Fez _especially_.--_Times._ (specially)

As it stands, it implies that he came chiefly from Fez, but from other places in a minor degree; it is meant to imply that he came for this particular interview, and had no other motive. The differentiation of _spec-_ and _espec-_ is by no means complete yet, but some uses of each are already ludicrous. Roughly, _spec-_ means particular as opposed to general, _espec-_ particular as opposed to ordinary; but usage must be closely watched.

That it occurs in _violence to_ police regulations is daily apparent.--_Guernsey Advertiser._ (violation of)

In the field it aims at efforts of unexpected and extreme violence; the _research_ of hostile masses, their defeat by overwhelming and relentless assault, and their wholesale destruction by rigorous pursuit.--_Times._ (discovery)

The object of research is laws, principles, facts, &c., not concrete things or persons. Entomological research, for instance, does not look for insects, but for facts about insects.

3. =Give-and-take forms=, in which there are two words, with different constructions, that might properly be used, and one is given the construction of the other.

A few companies, _comprised_ mainly _of_ militiamen.--_Times._ (composed of? comprising?)

The _Novoe Vremya_ thinks the Tsar’s words will undoubtedly _instil_ the Christians of Macedonia _with_ hope.--_Times._ (inspire them with hope? instil hope into them?)

He appreciated the leisurely solidity, the leisurely beauty of the place, so _innate with_ the genius of the Anglo-Saxon.--E. F. BENSON. (genius innate in the place? the place instinct with genius?)

4. =Words having properly no connexion= with each other at all, but confused owing to superficial resemblance.

Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, to read prayers at the work-house, _euphuistically_ called the ‘College’.--ELIOT. (euphemistically)

_Euphemism_ is slurring over badness by giving it a good name: _euphuism_ is a literary style full of antithesis and simile. A pair of extracts (_Friedrich_, vol. iv, pp. 5 and 36) will convince readers that these words are dangerous:

Hence Bielfeld goes to Hanover, to grin-out _euphuisms_, and make graceful court-bows to our sublime little Uncle there.--CARLYLE.

Readers may remember, George II has been at Hanover for some weeks past; Bielfeld diligently grinning _euphemisms_ and courtly graciosities to him.--CARLYLE.

Troops capable of _contesting_ successfully against the forces of other nations.--_Times._

Though there is authority, chiefly old, for it, good general usage is against _contest_ without an object--contest the victory, &c. And as there is no possible advantage in writing it, with _contend_ ready to hand, it is better avoided in the intransitive sense.

In the present _self-deprecatory_ mood in which the English people find themselves.--_Spectator._ (self-depreciatory)

_Depreciate_, undervalue: _deprecate_, pray against. A bad but very common blunder.

‘An irreparable colleague,’ Mr. Gladstone notes in his diary.--MORLEY. (irreplaceable)

No dead colleague is reparable--though his loss may or may not be so--this side the Day of Judgement.

Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith than in having _resource_ to vice, in running after milkmaids, for example.--BORROW. (recourse)

You may indeed have recourse to a resource, but not vice versa. You may also resort to, which makes the confusion easier.

What she would say to him, how he would take it, even the vaguest _predication_ of their discourse, was beyond him to guess.--E. F. BENSON. (prediction)

_Predication_ has nothing to do with the future; it is a synonym, used especially in logic, for _statement_. The mistake is generally whipped out of schoolboys in connexion with _praedĩcere_ and _praedĭcare_.

5. =Words whose meaning is misapprehended without apparent cause.= The hankering of ignorant writers after the unfamiliar or imposing leads to much of this. We start with two uses of which correct and incorrect examples are desirable: _provided_, where _if_ is required; and _to eke out_ in wrong senses. _Provided_ adorns every other page of George Borrow; we should have left it alone as an eccentricity of his, if we had not lately found the wrong use more than once in _The Times_.

_Provided_ is a small district in the kingdom of _if_; it can never be wrong to write _if_ instead of _provided_: to write _provided_ instead of _if_ will generally be wrong, but now and then an improvement in precision. So much is clear; to define the boundaries of the district is another matter; we might be wiser merely to appeal to our readers whether all the examples to be quoted, except one, are not wrong. But that would be cowardly; we lay down, then, that (_a_) the clause must be a stipulation, i. e., a demand yet to be fulfilled, (_b_) there must be a stipulator, who (_c_) must desire, or at least insist upon, the fulfilment of it.

Ganganelli would never have been poisoned _provided_ he had had nephews about to take care of his life.--BORROW.

There is no stipulator or stipulation. Grammar would have allowed Providence to say to him ‘You shall not be poisoned, provided you surround yourself with nephews’.

The kicks and blows which my husband Launcelot was in the habit of giving me every night, _provided_ I came home with less than five shillings.--BORROW.

Launcelot, the stipulator, does not desire the fulfilment. If _kisses_ are substituted for _kicks and blows_, and _more_ for _less_, the sentence will stand.

She and I agreed to stand by each other, and be true to old Church of England, and to give our governors warning, _provided_ they tried to make us renegades.--BORROW.

The stipulators, she and I, do not desire the fulfilment. _Not_ to give warning, provided they did _not_ try, would be English. There is similar confusion between the requirements of negative and positive in the next:

A society has just been founded at Saratoff, the object being, as the members declare in a manifesto to the Liberals, to use violent methods and even bombs _provided_ the latter do so themselves.--_Times._

In these circumstances the chances are that the direction to proceed to Vladivostok at all costs, _provided_ such instruction _were_ ever given, may have been reconsidered.--_Times._ (if indeed ... was)

There is no stipulation; it is only a question of past fact.

What will the War Council at the capital decide _provided_ the war is to continue?... The longer Linevitch can hold his position the better, provided he does not risk a serious action.--_Times._ (if, or assuming that)

There is no stipulation, stipulator, or desire--only a question of future fact. The second _provided_ in this passage is quite correct. The _Times_ writer--or the Russian War Council, his momentary client--insists that Linevitch shall not run risks, and encourages him, if that stipulation is fulfilled, to hold on.

To _eke out_ means to increase, supplement, or add to. It may be called a synonym for any of these verbs; but it must be remembered that no synonyms are ever precise equivalents. The peculiarity of _eke out_ is that it implies difficulty; in technical language, agreeing with _supplement_ in its denotation, it has the extra connotation of difficulty. But it does not mean to make, nor to endure. From its nature, it will very seldom be used (correctly), though it conceivably might, without the source of the addition’s being specified. In the first of the quotations, it is rightly used; in the second it is given the wrong meaning of _make_, and in the last the equally wrong one of _endure_.

A writer with a story to tell that is not very fresh usually _ekes_ it _out_ by referring as much as possible to surrounding objects.--H. JAMES.

She had contrived, taking one year with another, to _eke out_ a tolerably sufficient living since her husband’s demise.--DICKENS.

Yes, we do believe, or would the clergy _eke out_ an existence which is not far removed from poverty?--_Daily Telegraph._

Next, some isolated illustrations of our present heading:

‘There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere, which I rather wish than hope to see adopted in our own.’ It was with these words of characteristic _irony_ that More closed the great work.--J. R. GREEN.

The word _irony_ is one of the worst abused in the language; but it was surely never more gratuitously imported than in this passage. There could be no more simple, direct, and literal expression of More’s actual feeling than his words. Now any definition of irony--though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted--must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same. The only way to make out that we have irony here is to suppose that More assumed that the vulgar would think that he was speaking ironically, whereas he was really serious--a very topsy-turvy explanation. _Satire_, however, with which _irony_ is often confused, would have passed.

A literary tour de force, a _recrudescence_, two or three generations later, of the very respectable William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne), his unhappy wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Lord Byron.--_Times._ (reincarnation, avatar, resurrection?)

_Recrudescence_ is becoming quite a fashionable journalistic word. It properly means the renewed inflammation of a wound, and so the breaking out again of an epidemic, &c. It may reasonably be used of revolutionary or silly opinions: to use it of persons or their histories is absurd.

A colonel on the General Staff, while arguing for a continuation of the struggle on _metaphysical_ grounds, admitted to me that even if the Russians regained Manchuria they would never succeed in colonizing it.... The _Bourse Gazette_ goes still further. It says that war for any definite purpose ceased with the fall of Mukden, and that its _continuation is apparent_ not from any military or naval actions, but from the feeling of depression which is weighing upon all Russians and the reports of the peace overtures.--_Times._

We can suggest no substitute for _metaphysical_. Though we have long known _metaphysics_ for a blessed and mysterious word, this is our first meeting with it in war or politics. The ‘apparent continuation’, however, seems darkly to hint at the old question between phenomena and real existence, so that perhaps we actually are in metaphysics all the time.

In a word, M. Witte was always against all our aggressive measures in the Far East.... M. Witte, who was always supported by Count Lamsdorff, has no share in the responsibility of all that has _transpired_.--_Times._ (happened)

As a synonym for _become known_,[2] _transpire_ is journalistic and ugly, but may pass: as a synonym for _happen_, it is a bad blunder, but not uncommon.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son would _demean_ himself by a marriage with an artist’s daughter.--THACKERAY.

The actors who raddle their faces and _demean_ themselves on the stage.--STEVENSON. (lower, degrade)

To _demean_ oneself, with adverb of manner attached, is to behave in that manner. The other use has probably arisen by a natural confusion with the adjective _mean_; one suspects that it has crept into literature by being used in intentional parody of vulgar speech, till it was forgotten that it was parody. But perhaps when a word has been given full citizen rights by Thackeray and Stevenson, it is too late to expel it.

‘Oxoniensis’ approaches them with courage, his thoughts are expressed in plain, unmistakable language, _howbeit_ with the touch of a master hand.--_Daily Telegraph._

_Albeit_ means _though_: _howbeit_ always _nevertheless_, beginning not a subordinate clause, but a principal sentence. A good example of the danger attending ignorant archaism.

In a word, Count von Bülow, who took a very rosy view of the agreement last year, now suddenly discovers that he was slighted, and is indignant _in the paulo-post future tense_.--_Times._

This jest would be pedantic in any case, since no one but schoolmasters and schoolboys knows what the paulo-post-future tense is. Being the one represented in English by _I shall have been killed_, it has, further, no application here; _paulo-ante-past tense_, if there were such a thing, might have meant something. As it is, pedantry is combined with inaccuracy.

6. =Words used in unaccustomed, though not impossible, senses or applications.= This is due sometimes to that avoidance of the obvious which spoils much modern writing, and sometimes to an ignorance of English idiom excusable in a foreigner, but not in a native.

No one can imagine non-intervention carried through so desperate and so _consequential_ a war as this.--GREENWOOD.

If _important_ or _fateful_ will not do, it is better to write _a war so desperate and so pregnant with consequences_ than to abuse a word whose idiomatic uses are particularly well marked. A consequential person is one who likes to exhibit his consequence; a consequential amendment is one that is a natural consequence or corollary of another.

Half of Mr. Roosevelt’s speech deals with this double need of justice and strength, the other half being a _skilled_ application of Washington’s maxims to present circumstances.--_Times._ (skilful)

Idiom confines _skilled_, except in poetry, almost entirely to the word _labour_, and to craftsmen--a skilled mason, for instance.

It is to the Convention, therefore, that reference must be made for an _intelligence_ of the principles on which the Egyptian Government has acted during the present war.--_Times._ (understanding)

No one can say why _intelligence_ should never be followed by an objective genitive, as grammarians call this; but nearly every one knows, apart from the technical term, that it never is. Idiom is an autocrat, with whom it is always well to keep on good terms.

Easier to reproduce, in its _concision_, is the description of the day.--H. JAMES. (conciseness)

_Concision_ is a term in theology, to which it may well be left. In criticism, though its use is increasing, it has still an exotic air.

7. =Simple love of the long word.=

The wide public importance of these proposals (customs regulations) has now been conceived in no _desultory_ manner.--_Guernsey Advertiser._

We have touched shortly upon some four dozen of what we call malaprops. Now possible malaprops, in our extended sense, are to be reckoned not by the dozen, but by the million. Moreover, out of our four dozen, not more than some half a dozen are uses that it is worth any one’s while to register individually in his mind for avoidance. The conclusion of which is this: we have made no attempt at cataloguing the mistakes of this sort that must not be committed; every one must construct his own catalogue by care, observation, and the resolve to use no word whose meaning he is not sure of--even though that resolve bring on him the extreme humiliation of now and then opening the dictionary. Our aim has been, not to make a list, but to inculcate a frame of mind.

NEOLOGISMS

Most people of literary taste will say on this point ‘It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh’. They are Liberal-Conservatives, their liberalism being general and theoretic, their conservatism particular and practical. And indeed, if no new words were to appear, it would be a sign that the language was moribund; but it is well that each new word that does appear should be severely scrutinized.

The progress of arts and sciences gives occasion for the large majority of new words; for a new thing we must have a new name; hence, for instance, _motor_, _argon_, _appendicitis_. It is interesting to see that the last word did not exist, or was at least too obscure to be recorded, when the _Oxford Dictionary_ began to come out in 1888; we cannot do without it now. Nor is there in the same volume any sign of _argon_, which now has three pages of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ to itself. The discoverers of it are to be thanked for having also invented for it a name that is short, intelligible to those at least who know Greek, free of barbarism, and above all pronounceable. As to barbarism, it might indeed be desired that the man of science should always call in the man of Greek composition as godfather to his gas or his process; but it is a point of less importance. Every one has been told at school how _telegram_ ought to be _telegrapheme_; but by this time we have long ceased to mourn for the extra syllable, and begun seriously to consider whether the further shortening into _wire_ has not been resisted as long as honour demands.

Among other arts and sciences, that of lexicography happens to have found convenient a neologism that may here be used to help in the very slight classification required for the new words we are more concerned with--that is, those whose object is literary or general, and not scientific. A ‘nonce-word’ (and the use might be extended to ‘nonce-phrase’ and ‘nonce-sense’--the latter not necessarily, though it may be sometimes, equivalent to nonsense) is one that is constructed to serve a need of the moment. The writer is not seriously putting forward his word as one that is for the future to have an independent existence; he merely has a fancy to it for this once. The motive may be laziness, avoidance of the obvious, love of precision, or desire for a brevity or pregnancy that the language as at present constituted does not seem to him to admit of. The first two are bad motives, the third a good, and the last a mixed one. But in all cases it may be said that a writer should not indulge in these unless he is quite sure he is a good writer.

The couch-bunk under the window to conceal the _summerly recliner_.--MEREDITH.

The adjective is a nonce-sense, _summerly_ elsewhere meaning ‘such as one expects in summer’; the noun is a nonce-word.

In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel _regenesis_.--SPENCER.

Opposition on the part of the _loquently_ weaker of the pair.--MEREDITH.

Picturesquities.--SLADEN.

The _verberant_ twang of a musical instrument.--MEREDITH.

A Russian army is a solid machine, as many _war-famous_ generals have found to their cost.--_Times._

Such compounds are of course much used; but they are ugly when they are otiose; it might be worth while to talk of a war-famous brewer, or of a peace-famous general, just as we often have occasion to speak of a carpet-knight, but of a carpet-broom only if it is necessary to guard against mistake.

Russia’s disposition is aggressive.... Japan may conquer, but she will not aggress.--_Times._

Though _aggress_ is in the dictionary, every one will feel that it is rare enough to be practically a neologism, and here a nonce-word. The mere fact that it has never been brought into common use, though so obvious a form, is sufficient condemnation.

She did not answer at once, for, in her rather _super-sensitized_ mood, it seemed to her....--E. F. BENSON.

The word is, we imagine, a loan from photography. Expressions so redolent of the laboratory are as well left alone unless the metaphor they suggest is really valuable. Perhaps, if _rather_ and _super-_ were cancelled against each other, _sensitive_ might suffice.

Notoriously and unctuously _rectitudinous_.--_Westminster Gazette._

Some readers will remember the origin of this in Cecil Rhodes’s famous remark about the unctuous rectitude of British statesmen, and the curious epidemic of words in _-ude_ that prevailed for some months in the newspapers, especially the _Westminster Gazette_. _Correctitude_, a needless variant for _correctness_, has not perished like the rest.

We only refer to it again because Mr. Balfour clearly thinks it necessary to vindicate his claims to correctitude. This desire for correctitude is amusingly illustrated in the _Outlook_ this week, which....--_Westminster Gazette._

All these formations, whether happy or the reverse, may be assumed to be conscious ones: the few that now follow--we shall call them new even if they have a place in dictionaries, since they are certainly not current--are possibly unconscious:

The minutes to dinner-time were numbered, and they _briskened_ their steps back to the house.--E. F. BENSON. (quickened)

He was in some amazement at himself ... _remindful_ of the different nature....--MEREDITH. (mindful)

_Remindful_ should surely mean ‘which reminds’, not ‘who remembers’.

Persistent _insuccess_, however, did not prevent a repetition of the same question.--_Times._ (failure)

The best safeguard against any _deplacement_ of the centre of gravity in the Dual Monarchy.--_Times._ (displacement)

Which would condemn the East to a long period of _unquiet_.--_Times._ (unrest)

Mere slips, very likely. If it is supposed that therefore they are not worth notice, the answer is that they are indeed quite unimportant in a writer who allows himself only one such slip in fifty or a hundred pages; but one who is unfortunate enough to make a second before the first has faded from the memory becomes at once a suspect. We are uneasily on the watch for his next lapse, wonder whether he is a foreigner or an Englishman not at home in the literary language, and fall into that critical temper which is the last he would choose to be read in.

The next two examples are quite distinct from these--words clearly created, or exhumed, because the writer feels that his style requires galvanizing into energy:

A man of a cold, _perseverant_ character.--CARLYLE.

Robbed of the just fruits of her victory by the arbitrary and _forceful_ interference of outside Powers.--_Times._

All the specimens yet mentioned have been productions of individual caprice: the writer for some reason or other took a liberty, or made a mistake, with one expression; he might as well, or as ill, have done it with another, enjoying his little effect, or taking his little nap, at this moment or at that. But there are other neologisms of a very different kind, which come into existence as the crystallization of a political tendency or a movement in ideas. _Prime Minister_, _Cabinet_, _His Majesty’s Opposition_, have been neologisms of this kind in their day, all standing for particular developments of the party system, and all of them, probably, in more or less general use before they made their way into books. Such words in our day are _racial_, and _intellectuals_. The former is an ugly word, the strangeness of which is due to our instinctive feeling that the termination _-al_ has no business at the end of a word that is not obviously Latin. Nevertheless the new importance that has been attached for the last half century to the idea of common descent as opposed to that of mere artificial nationality has made _a_ word necessary. Racial is not _the_ word that might have been ornamental as well as useful; but it is too well established to be now uprooted. _Intellectuals_ is still apologized for in 1905 by _The Spectator_ as ‘a convenient neologism’. It is already familiar to all who give any time to observing continental politics, though the Index to the _Encyclopaedia_ (1903) knows it not. A use has not yet been found for the word in home politics, as far as we have observed; but the fact that intellect in any country is recognized as a definite political factor is noteworthy; and we should hail _intellectuals_ as a good omen for the progress of the world.

These, and the scientific, are the sort of neologism that may fairly be welcomed. But there is this distinction. With the strictly scientific words, writers have not the power to decide whether they shall accept them or not; they must be content to take submissively what the men of science choose to give them, they being as much within their rights in naming what they have discovered or invented as an explorer in naming a new mountain, or an American founder a new city. _Minneapolis_, _Pikeville_, and _Pennsylvania_, may have a barbaric sound, but there they are; so _telegram_, or _aestho-physiology_. The proud father of the latter (Herbert Spencer) confesses to having docked it of a syllable; and similarly Mr. Lecky writes of ‘a eudaemometer measuring with accuracy the degrees of happiness realized by men in different ages’; consequently there will be some who will wish these long words longer, though more who will wish them shorter; but grumble as we may, the _patria potestas_ is indefeasible. On the other hand, with such words as _racial_, _intellectuals_, it is open to any writer, if he does not like the word that threatens to occupy an obviously vacant place, to offer a substitute, or at least to avoid giving currency to what he disapproves. It will be remembered that when it was proposed to borrow from France what we now know as the closure, it seemed certain for some time that with the thing we should borrow the name, _clôture_; a press campaign resulted in _closure_, for which we may be thankful. The same might have been done for, or rather against, _racial_, if only some one had thought of it in time.

AMERICANISMS

Though we take these separately from foreign words, which will follow next, the distinction is purely _pro forma_; Americanisms are foreign words, and should be so treated. To say this is not to insult the American language. If any one were asked to give an Americanism without a moment’s delay, he would be more likely than not to mention _I guess_. Inquiry into it would at once bear out the American contention that what we are often rude enough to call their vulgarisms are in fact good old English. _I gesse_ is a favourite expression of Chaucer’s, and the sense he sometimes gives it is very finely distinguished from the regular Yankee use. But though it is good old English, it is not good new English. If we use the phrase--parenthetically, that is, like Chaucer and the Yankees--, we have it not from Chaucer, but from the Yankees, and with their, not his, exact shade of meaning. It must be recognized that they and we, in parting some hundreds of years ago, started on slightly divergent roads in language long before we did so in politics. In the details of divergence, they have sometimes had the better of us. _Fall_ is better on the merits than _autumn_, in every way: it is short, Saxon (like the other three season names), picturesque; it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like _autumn_; and we once had as good a right to it as the Americans; but we have chosen to let the right lapse, and to use the word now is no better than larceny.

The other side of this is that we are entitled to protest when any one assumes that because a word of less desirable character is current American, it is therefore to be current English. There are certain American verbs that remind Englishmen of the barbaric taste illustrated by such town names as Memphis and those mentioned in the last section. A very firm stand ought to be made against _placate_, _transpire_[3], and _antagonize_, all of which have English patrons.

There is a real danger of our literature’s being americanized, and that not merely in details of vocabulary--which are all that we are here directly concerned with--but in its general tone. Mr. Rudyard Kipling is a very great writer, and a patriotic; his influence is probably the strongest that there is at present in the land; but he and his school are americanizing us. His style exhibits a sort of remorseless and scientific efficiency in the choice of epithets and other words that suggests the application of coloured photography to description; the camera is superseding the human hand. We quote two sentences from the first page of a story, and remark that in pre-Kipling days none of the words we italicize would have been likely; now, they may be matched on nearly every page of an ‘up-to-date’ novelist:

Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, _honey-coloured_[4] rocks on the beach the green water was troubled with _shrimp-pink_ prisoners-of-war bathing.--KIPLING.

Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern _waddled_ in from the deep sea.--KIPLING.

The words are, as we said, extremely efficient; but the impulse that selects them is in harmony with American, not with English, methods, and we hope it may be developed in America rather than here. We cannot go more fully into the point in a digression like this. But though we have digressed, it has not been quite without purpose: any one who agrees with us in this will see in it an additional reason for jealously excluding American words and phrases. The English and the American language and literature are both good things; but they are better apart than mixed.

Fix up (organize), back of (behind), anyway (at any rate), standpoint (point of view), back-number (antiquated), right along (continuously), some (to some extent), just (quite, or very--‘just lovely’), may be added as typical Americanisms of a different kind from either _fall_ or _antagonize_; but it is not worth while to make a large collection; every one knows an Americanism, at present, when he sees it; how long that will be true is a more anxious question.

And, _back of_ all that, a circumstance which gave great force to all that either has ever said, the rank and file, the great mass of the people on either side, were determined....--CHOATE.

Hand-power, _back-number_, flint-and-steel reaping machines.--KIPLING.

Some of them have in secret approximated their _standpoint_ to that laid down by Count Tisza in his programme speech.--_Times._

We close the section by putting _placate_ and _antagonize_ in the pillory. It may be remarked that the latter fits in well enough with Emerson’s curious bizarre style. Another use of _just_ is pilloried also, because it is now in full possession of our advertisement columns, and may be expected to insinuate itself into the inside sheets before long[5].

When once _placated_ the Senators will be reluctant to deprive honest creditors of their rights.--_Spectator._

It is true the subject is American politics; but even so, we should have liked to see this stranger received ceremoniously as well as politely, that is, with quotation marks; the italics are ours only.

The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously because it _antagonized_ the unalterable supremacy of Colonial nationalism.--_Times._

If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and _antagonizes_ Fate.--EMERSON.

Have you ever thought _just how much_ it would mean to the home if....--_Advertisements passim._

FOREIGN WORDS

The usual protest must be made, to be treated no doubt with the usual disregard. The difficulty is that some French, Latin, and other words are now also English, though the fiction that they are not is still kept up by italics and (with French words) conscientious efforts at pronunciation. Such are _tête-à-tête_, _ennui_, _status quo_, _raison d’être_, _eirenicon_, _négligé_, and perhaps hundreds more. The novice who is told to avoid foreign words, and then observes that these English words are used freely, takes the rule for a counsel of perfection--not accepted by good writers, and certainly not to be accepted by him, who is sometimes hard put to it for the ornament that he feels his matter deserves. Even with the best will in the world, he finds that there are many words of which he cannot say whether they are yet English or not, as _gaucherie_, _bêtise_, _camaraderie_, _soupçon_, so that there is no drawing the line. He can only be told that all words not English in appearance are in English writing ugly and not pretty, and that they are justified only (1) if they afford much the shortest or clearest, if not the only way to the meaning (this is usually true of the words we have called really English), or (2) if they have some special appropriateness of association or allusion in the sentence they stand in. This will be illustrated by some of the diplomatic words given below, and by the quotation containing the word _chasseur_.

Some little assistance may, however, be given on details.

1. To say _distrait_ instead of _absent_ or _absent-minded_, _bien entendu_ for _of course_, _sans_ for _without_ (it is, like _I guess_, good old English but not good English), _quand même_ for _anyhow_, _penchant_ for _liking_ or _fancy_, _rédaction_ for _editing_ or _edition_, _coûte que coûte_ for _at all costs_, _Schadenfreude_ for _malicious pleasure_, _œuvre_ for _work_, _alma mater_ (except with strong extenuating circumstances) for _University_--is pretension and nothing else. The substitutes we have offered are not insisted upon; they may be wrong, or not the best; but English can be found for all these. Moreover, what was said of special association or allusion may apply; to call a luncheon _déjeuner_, however, as in the appended extract, because it is to be eaten by Frenchmen, is hardly covered by this, though it is a praise-worthy attempt at what the critics call giving an atmosphere.

It was resolved that on the occasion of the visit of the French Fleet in August the Corporation should offer the officers an appropriate reception and invite them to a _déjeuner_ at the Guildhall.--_Times._

But speaking broadly, what a writer effects by using these ornaments is to make us imagine him telling us he is a wise fellow and one that hath everything handsome about him, including a gentlemanly acquaintance with the French language. Some illustrations follow:

Motorists lose more than they know by _bêtises_ of this kind.--_Times._

His determination to conduct them to a successful issue _coûte que coûte_ might result in complications.--_Times._

The gloom which the Russian troubles have caused at Belgrade has to some extent been lightened by a certain _Schadenfreude_ over the difficulties with which the Hungarian crisis threatens the neighbouring Monarchy.--_Times._

A recent reperusal ... left the impression which is so often produced by the exhibition in bulk of the _œuvre_ of a deceased Royal Academician--it has emphasized Schiller’s deficiencies without laying equal emphasis on his merits.--_Times._

The following are instances of less familiar French or Latin words used wantonly:

So, one would have thought, the fever of New York was abated here, even as the smoke of the city was but a gray _tache_ on the horizon.--E. F. BENSON.