i 
 
 ;

 
 GOOD ENGLISH; 
 
 POPULAR ERRORS IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD S. GOULD, 
 
 SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 POLONIUS. What do yon read, my lord ! 
 'HAMLET. Words, words, words I" 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER. 
 
 1875-
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year '867, 
 
 BY W. J. WIDDLETON, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United State? for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
 Cambridge : Presswork by John Wilson and SOD
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 MANY of the following hints on philology have 
 already appeared in print, in the form of occasional 
 contributions, through a series of years, to news- 
 papers and periodical publications, chiefly in the 
 New York Evening Post. They are now, for the 
 first time, brought together in a volume. 
 
 Several books on philology, a part of them of 
 English authorship, have, in the interim, been 
 published in the United States ; and some of them 
 have occupied portions of the same ground as is 
 here reviewed. But the author of this book has 
 borrowed nothing for its pages from any source 
 other than his own previous essays, except in those 
 instances where he mentions the fact of borrowing, 
 or quoting. 
 
 He makes that remark, however, to disclaim 
 direct borrowing from other books of philological 
 criticism ; not to claim originality, properly so 
 called, for anything in his own book : for, in the 
 nature of the case, philological criticism is noth- 
 
 2017248
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 ing more than a re-assertion of principles, which 
 are much older than is any one who now writes 
 or reads them. If there is anything strictly " origi- 
 nal " in such criticisms, it is limited to a mere 
 selection of subjects, the subjects themselves 
 being the handiwork of the people. 
 
 On that point, it is proper to say that the author 
 has not extended his comments beyond such errors 
 in language as are familiar to everybody, such 
 errors as are strictly popular, and which, un- 
 fortunately, are to be found in the pages of nearly 
 all of those who are termed good writers. Pos- 
 sible, or imaginary, errors do not seem to be worth 
 the trouble of exposure or refutation. 
 
 In the winter of 1865, at the request of his 
 friend, the Right Reverend WILLIAM BACON STE- 
 VENS, Bishop of Pennsylvania, the author delivered 
 three lectures on Clerical Elocution, before the Di- 
 vinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 in Philadelphia. The lectures consisted of written 
 precepts, and illustrative readings from the Bible 
 and Prayer Book. The former part was afterward 
 published in the Boston Church Monthly, and was 
 thence transferred to the New York Christian 
 Times. But copies of the lectures, beyond what 
 the regularly printed numbers of those periodicals 
 could supply, have often been called for ; and the
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 author has therefore added them to his philological 
 comments. They are reproduced in the latter part 
 of this volume. 
 
 There is this further reason for such reproduc- 
 tion : Elocution is, practically, quite as little under- 
 stood as is philology ; and, as both subjects are 
 proper to be learned by the same persons, they 
 may appropriately both be discussed in the same 
 volume, which is one of its publisher's educa- 
 tional series. 
 
 KK\V YORK, February 5th,"l867.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIFTH EDITION, 
 
 MY publisher says to me that, although several 
 books on philology have been issued since this vol- 
 ume appeared in 1867, this, nevertheless, " holds 
 its own," and continues to be called for; and, 
 as he is about to put another edition to press, he 
 inquires whether I have any additions or alterations 
 to propose. 
 
 As to additions : many things of more or less 
 importance were omitted in the original compila- 
 tion ; but additions to a stereotyped book involve 
 reconstruction ; and that is more of an under- 
 taking than seems at present advisable. 
 
 As to alterations : several slight changes were 
 made after the first edition was published, at the 
 suggestion of my critics ; and they were specified 
 in the course of my controversy with Mr. Moon, 
 in the columns of The Round Table. I have seen 
 no reason for any further changes. 
 
 Some typographical errors or verbal inadver- 
 tencies have been discovered in each of the pre- 
 ceding editions of the book, all of which have at 
 last yielded to careful proof-reading ; and, in that 
 respect, I believe that the volume now needs no 
 corrections. 
 
 E. s. G. 
 
 NEW YORK, July, 1871.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 WHO is RESPONSIBLE 7 
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS 11 
 
 MISUSED WORDS 28 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH . . . .115 
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY 137 
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION 171 
 
 INDEX 225
 
 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE present age is pre-eminently an age of pro- 
 gress ; and, unfortunately, the progress is not lim- 
 ited to " things of good report." Error follows 
 fast upon the footsteps of truth, and sometimes 
 truth is left behind in the race. 
 
 For example, the English language, within the 
 last quarter of a century, through the agency of 
 good writers, critics and lexicographers, has in 
 many respects been greatly improved ; but, through 
 the heedlessness of those who should be its con- 
 servators, and the recklessness of those who have 
 been, and are, its corrupters, it has deteriorated in 
 other respects in a greater proportion. 
 
 The responsibility for this condition of things 
 rests, mainly, on those who are called " our good 
 writers"; but, to some extent, it rests on all writ- 
 ers, good and bad. How this happens, is easily 
 shown. 
 
 Take, for instance, the innovations on our vo- 
 cabulary. These are of two kinds : the fabrica- 
 tion of new words, and the new use of old words.
 
 2 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 And each of those kinds has two causes or sources, 
 education and ignorance. 
 
 An educated man originates a word. He im- 
 provises it from a foreign source, or by sound in- 
 duction from a vernacular root ; and, if the word 
 satisfies a want, it is adopted by good writers, and 
 is thenceforward recognized as a valuable addition 
 to the language. 
 
 Again, the educated man, by referring to the 
 antecedents of a familiar word, may discover a 
 meaning more or less different from its previously 
 accepted signification ; and, by using it in its new 
 sense, he, again, enriches the language. 
 
 But it is to be observed that, in each of those 
 cases, the burden of proof in support of his inno- 
 vation, is on him. He must show that the word is 
 properly formed, and is needed. 
 
 On the other hand, an ignorant man who catches 
 a word by its sound, without knowing its spelling 
 or its signification, and who, therefore, usually 
 mistakes both, will reproduce the word in a wrong 
 shape or with a wrong meaning. 
 
 Then, as the tendency of things corrupt is to rise 
 in a flowing stream, a partially educated man en- 
 counters this philological novelty in the popular cur- 
 rent, and adopts it as a novelty and a convenience ; 
 but without actually knowing anything more about 
 it than his predecessor did : as your poor judge of 
 currency takes whatever is offered the genuine 
 and the spurious alike and pockets and passes 
 them indiscriminately.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 Next, one after another, of better educated men, 
 gives the novelty his sanction, carelessly receives 
 and circulates the "counterfeit presentment," 
 until finally the best writers, with kindred want of 
 reflection, accept it from the last holder, and mix 
 it up, and pay it out, with their own standard cur- 
 rency. And thus errors increase and multiply. 
 
 Here, again, the fabricator is responsible for his 
 innovation, and the burden of proof is on him. 
 But, when the case comes to be investigated, it is 
 found that, although the fabricator is responsible in 
 the sense of being liable to respond, he is by no 
 means responsible in the sense of being able to 
 respond. That is to say, he cannot justify his in- 
 novation. His word was spurious originally, and 
 he cannot remove its taint, nor can any subsequent 
 indorsement purify it. 
 
 These remarks are true, in particular, of spuri- 
 ously fabricated words; but, also, they are true 
 generally as to every other corruption of language. 
 The errors almost universally originate with igno- 
 rant men ; and they become current only by reason 
 of their careless adoption by men of education. 
 
 As a general rule, the usage of good writers is 
 held to be the common law of a language. Such 
 usage, therefore, is prima facie evidence of the ac- 
 curacy of a disputed word or phrase. But the final 
 proof of accuracy cannot be established by usage ; 
 because the writer, in any particular instance, may 
 have been guilty of carelessness ; he may have used 
 the word or phrase inadvertently ; and if it is fairly
 
 4 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 presumable that, were his attention called to the 
 point, he would admit the error, his example can- 
 not be permitted to justify what sound philological 
 principles must condemn. In other words, the 
 records of usage are liable to review, and therefore 
 usage is not the court of last resort. 
 
 There are, however, many persons who dispute 
 that proposition : persons who lack sensibility to 
 the evils of corruption in philology ; who think the 
 purposes of language are fulfilled, when a speaker 
 or writer has made himself understood; who re- 
 gard conservative views in philology as obstinate 
 adherence to the past; and whose principles, if 
 they can be called such, would go to the extreme 
 of justifying error itself by erroneous precedents. 
 Such reasoning can lead to nothing but literary 
 anarchy. 
 
 Yet the most reckless of such cavillers must make 
 a stand somewhere. For example, he cannot shut 
 his eyes to the very rudiments of grammar. He 
 dares not deny that syntax is subject to gram- 
 matical rules. He must admit the necessity of 
 concord between verbs and nouns in the matters 
 of number and person, as well as the submission 
 of cases to the government of verbs and preposi- 
 tions. And so forth. And, if he does admit such 
 necessity, he must further admit that no amount of 
 usage can supersede it. 
 
 But nothing is easier than to show, by multitu- 
 dinous quotations, that the pages of our best writers 
 are thickly sprinkled with violations of the plainest
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 grammatical rules. A careful collector of such 
 curiosities of literature might readily fill a large 
 volume with them. For the purpose of present 
 illustration, some occasional specimens must suf- 
 fice. 
 
 GIBBON says, 
 
 " The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and 
 injustice, were often subservient to the propagation 
 of the faith." 
 
 " The richness of her arms and apparel were con- 
 spicuous in the foremost ranks." 
 
 JUNIUS says, 
 
 " Both minister and magistrate is compelled to 
 choose between his duty and his reputation." 
 
 " Neither Charles nor his brother were qualified 
 to support such a system." 
 
 BLAIR says, 
 
 " The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank 
 verse is infinitely more favorable than rhyme to all 
 kinds of sublime poetry." 
 
 MACAULAY says, 
 
 " The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age 
 was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northum- 
 brian monasteries." 
 
 ADDISON says, 
 
 " I .do not mean that I think any one to blame for 
 taking due care of their health." 
 
 DEYDEN says, 
 
 " Hence, the reason is perspicuous why no French 
 plays when translated have, or ever can, succeed on 
 the English stage."
 
 6 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 LATHAM says, 
 
 " The following facts may or have been adduced 
 as reasons on the other side." 
 
 JOHNSON says, 
 
 " How happy is it that neither of us were ill in the 
 Hebrides." 
 
 And so on, through the whole catalogue of the 
 best English writers, each furnishing scores of 
 instances. 
 
 In the cases here cited, the mere quotation of 
 the passages suffices ; because everybody knows the 
 grammatical rules that govern in the premises, and 
 therefore no person would undertake to defend the 
 errors on the ground of usage. Besides, no person 
 can doubt that, had the attention of those authors 
 been called to those errors, they would have admit- 
 ted them to be errors, as a matter of course. 
 
 Upon the same ground, it is here claimed that 
 the various philological errors of the present day 
 are not to be justified by the fact of usage, let the 
 literary status of their authors be what it may.
 
 WHO IS KESPOXSIBLE ? 
 
 WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 
 
 SPOKEN language is, in the nature of things, more 
 liable to corruption than written language, for two 
 reasons : there are millions who can speak, but 
 cannot write or read, and their ignorance is their 
 excuse ; and, all classes of educated people permit 
 themselves to make blunders in common conver- 
 sation, which they would never think of putting 
 on paper. 
 
 The former class can, in no sense, be held respon- 
 sible for their philological errors. The latter class 
 are responsible that is, are liable to respond in 
 proportion to their opportunities for avoiding such 
 errors. And their liability falls on them in the 
 same order as it falls on parties who are held liable 
 on a promissory note, the last indorser is held 
 first. And that order is obviously just, because 
 the last indorser, by his opportunity of knowing 
 who had, before him, indorsed the error, and how 
 it was put in circulation, had the best means of 
 avoiding his liability. 
 
 Among writers, those who do the most mischief 
 are the original fabricators of error, to wit: the 
 men generally who write for the newspapers. Next 
 to them, in order, are the authors of the vapid, 
 trashy " sensation novels " of the day.
 
 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 The individuals belonging to tlie former of those 
 two classes follow the example of " the Athenians, 
 who spend their time in nothing else but either to 
 tell, or to hear, some new word" Or, they may 
 more properly be compared to " the enemy who, 
 while men slept, came and sowed tares among the 
 wheat." Dean Alford, however, has nearly ex- 
 hausted the newspaper branch of this subject ; and, 
 as the topic may not be omitted in a book on philo- 
 logical errors ; and as, moreover, no man can safe- 
 ly attempt to improve, or to offer a substitute for 
 the Dean's strictures, the alternative seems to be 
 to copy what the Dean says in "A Plea for the 
 Queen's English," page 244, et seq. 
 
 " This is mainly owing to the vitiated and pre- 
 tentious style which passes current in our news- 
 papers. The writers in our journals seem to think 
 that a fact must never be related in print in the 
 same terms in which it would be told by word of 
 mouth. The greatest offenders in this point are 
 the country journals, and, as might be expected, 
 just in proportion to their want of real ability. 
 Next to them comes the London penny press ; in- 
 deed, it is hardly a whit better; and, highest in 
 the scale, but still by no means free from this fault, 
 the London regular press, its articles being for 
 the most part written by men of education and 
 talent in the various political circles. The main 
 offence of the newspapers, the head and front of 
 their offending, is, the insisting on calling common 
 things by uncommon names; changing our ordinary
 
 WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ? 9 
 
 short Saxon nouns and verbs for long words derived 
 from the Latin. And when it is remembered that 
 this is very generally done by men for the most 
 part ignorant of the derivation and strict meaning 
 of the words they use, we may imagine what de- 
 lightful confusion is thus introduced into our lan- 
 guage. A Latin word which really has a meaning 
 of its own, and might be a very useful one if con- 
 fined to that meaning, does duty for some word 
 whose significance extends far wider than its own 
 meaning ; and thereby, to common English hearers, 
 loses its own proper force, besides utterly confusing 
 their notions about the thing which its new use 
 intended to represent. 
 
 " Our journals seem indeed determined to banish 
 our common Saxon words altogether. You never 
 read in them of a man, or a woman, or a child. A 
 man is an individual, or a person, or a party; a 
 woman is a female, or, if unmarried, & young person, 
 which expression, in the newspapers, is always of 
 the feminine gender ; a child is a juvenile, and 
 children en masse are expressed by that most odi- 
 ous term, the rising generation 
 
 " The newspaper writers never allow us to go 
 anywhere, we always proceed. A man going home 
 is set down as an individual proceeding to his resi- 
 dence. 
 
 " We never eat, but always partake, even though 
 we happen to eat up the whole of the thing 
 
 mentioned We never hear of a place; it 
 
 is always a locality. Nothing is ever placed, but
 
 10 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 located. No one lives in rooms, but always in apart- 
 ments. No man ever shows any feeling, but always 
 evinces it." 
 
 The Dean quotes several other words, and com- 
 ments appropriately on their substitution ; as, 
 
 Commence for Begin, 
 
 Avocation " Vocation, 
 
 Persuasion " Sect, 
 
 Sustain a loss " Lose, 
 
 Experience a sensation " Feel, 
 
 Accord " Award, 
 
 Allude to " Mention, 
 
 and so on. In short, the Dean's comments and 
 specifications show that the fraternity of the press 
 in England sure full-blooded relations of their Arneri 
 can cousins. 
 
 Whether reiterated exposures of popular philo- 
 logical errors will lead in any degree toward their 
 correction, remains to be seen. One thing is cer- 
 tain, that, unless the exposures are reiterated, 
 and in some way "kept before the people," the 
 corrupters of the language will carry everything 
 before them.
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 11 
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 
 
 REFERENCE was made, in the introductory chap- 
 ter, to words fabricated by ignorant people, and 
 afterward adopted by people of education. There 
 are not many of them, speaking comparatively ; 
 but their number is every day increasing, and if 
 their increase cannot be checked, they will soon be 
 " like the stars, for multitude." In the strict sense 
 of the term, such things are not words certainly 
 not English words at all. They do not belong 
 to the language. They have been foisted into it by 
 ignorant or assuming persons under false pretences, 
 and they should be summarily ejected. 
 
 As a specimen of this class, take first the verb to 
 
 JEOPARDIZE. 
 
 To jeopard is a legitimate English verb, as old 
 as the language. Its etymology is, probably, Fr. 
 jeu-parti. It means to put in danger, to expose to 
 loss or injury, to imperil, to hazard, etc. 
 
 But some aspiring wight, being ambitious of 
 long words, or apprehensive of the incompleteness 
 of short words, happened to hear it imperfectly ; 
 and, fancying that euphony required for it an addi- 
 tional syllable, he improved it into jeopardize, and 
 set it afloat with the grave complacency of a man 
 who thinks he has done a good thing. He might
 
 12 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 just as well have made the same improvement on 
 hazard Hazardize is as legitimate English as 
 "jeopardize " ; and, for that matter, so is perilize, 
 or endangerize, or any other ize that anybody may 
 choose to fabricate from any other verb. 
 
 CONTROVERSIALIST. 
 
 This is another instance of the counterfeit cur- 
 rency. It probably was first issued in conversa- 
 tion ; thence it may have made its way into the 
 newspapers ; thence into fashionable novels ; and 
 thence and here, unfortunately, conjecture ends 
 into the pages of MACAULAY, whose claim to the 
 rank of a "good writer" is altogether beyond 
 question. 
 
 If, however, such a man as MACAULAY is to be 
 impeached, and if a word so well accredited as 
 controversialist is to be repudiated, the proceedings 
 must be made and had in due form. 
 
 By reverting to first principles, we find that an 
 act precedes a fact. A verb precedes a noun. A 
 man exists, and thence existence ; he speaks, and- 
 thence speaker. In short, whenever a verb and a 
 noun are cognates, the verb is the primitive and 
 the noun is formed from it with some reference to 
 analogous construction. We have, then, in the 
 first place, the verb controvert. 
 
 Controvert is derived from the Latin contra, 
 against, and vertere, to turn. And it may be well 
 to remark here, parenthetically, on one of the ten 
 thousand inconsistencies of Noah Webster.
 
 SPUEIOUS WORDS. 13 
 
 He undertook to reform English orthography ; 
 and one of his rules was, very properly, that 
 orthography should be controlled by etymology : 
 but, practically, he added the unlucky mental res- 
 ervation whenever he thought such control expedi- 
 ent. His critics have shown that he violated the 
 rule almost as often as he followed it, in trouble- 
 some cases. The inconsistency is this. 
 
 Webster gives nearly twenty primitive words, 
 besides all their derivatives, commencing with tha 
 Latin contra, as contradict, contravene, etc., and ho 
 spells them all with the a, contra. But although 
 the root of " controvert " is the same contra, ho 
 leaves it in a state of non-conformity both to anal- 
 ogy and to his rule. If Webster had " reformed " 
 this word, "controvert"; that is, if he had 
 restored it to what one would think must have 
 been its original orthography, contravert, ho 
 would, for once, have made rather a happy hit, 
 and, probably, escaped censure. 
 
 But, to return from this digression. We have 
 
 Controvert, the verb. 
 Controverter, ^ 
 Controvertist, > nouns. 
 Controversy, J 
 Controversial, j ad j ectives> 
 Controvertible, ) 
 Controversially, 
 Controvertibly, 
 
 But where or whence controversialist f
 
 14 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 It is formed by adding ist to the adjective ; and 
 the question arises, whether a noun can properly be 
 formed from an adjective by the addition of ist, 
 when such formation is made in disregard of the 
 primitive verb ? 
 
 A noun may be so formed from an adjective, 
 when it has no primitive verb; as, for example, 
 sensual, sensualist. And perhaps that distinction 
 may be the rule in the premises. At any rate, 
 although Paley did once use the word, Johnson 
 ignores it, and even Webster,* as recently as 1856, 
 repudiates it. 
 
 The philosophy of the thing would seem to be, 
 that definitions must, to some extent, control deriv- 
 atives, and the formation of a noun must conform 
 to the attribute or prerogative of its antecedent 
 verb. 
 
 * " Webster " here, and in some other instances, is used conven- 
 tionally. " Webster's Dictionary," since its publication in 1 828, has 
 passed through a series of revolutions and " reconstructions," es- 
 pecially in the matter of orthography, and those processes were 
 continued after the lexicographer's death, in 1843; two or more 
 altered editions having been published since that event. The last 
 edition differs from all of its predecessors much more than they 
 differ from each other. For instance, the etymologies and defini- 
 tions are, in the last edition, almost entirely remodelled or renewed : 
 a proceeding that has greatly increased the value of the work ; but 
 which would seem, in the same proportion, to have repudiated the 
 precedent labours of Webster himself and to have detracted from 
 his reputation as a lexicographer. Webster's detestable spelling of 
 a hundred words more or less is retained ; but even that is in 
 many cases presented alternatively with correct orthography ; so 
 that, on the whole, the present title of the Dictionary is a matter 
 of courtesy rather than a matter of fact
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 16 
 
 For example, a separatist is one who separates ; 
 an economist, one who economizes : but a controver- 
 sialist is not, and cannot be, one who controversial, 
 because there is no such act and no such verb. 
 Hence, the word seems to be a malformation ; and, 
 being a word that no scholar would deliberately 
 fabricate, it must have originated in ignorance and 
 have been accredited through inadvertence. And 
 as, besides, the word is not needed (for we already 
 have the true word, controvertist, which is properly 
 formed and expresses the meaning), and is not in 
 such common use as to create a necessity for a 
 synonyme to avoid repetition, no good writer can 
 be justified in using it. 
 
 LENIENCY. 
 
 This is a word if, as previously suggested, it 
 deserves to be called a "word" which is not 
 needed in our language ; which is not justified 
 by the precedents of our language ; which did not 
 originate with educated men ; and which should 
 not receive the sanction of educated men. 
 
 The thing meant to be expressed by the word is 
 lenity, and lenity is English. It is derived from 
 lenitas. Beginning with Johnson, we have 
 
 Lenity, noun. 
 Lenient, adjective. 
 Also, 
 
 medical 
 
 Lenitive, } n< 
 Lenitive, adjective.
 
 16 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 But, when we come to Webster, we find, 
 Lenience, 
 
 _ . , noun, 
 Leniency, 
 
 though, indeed, with very brief notice. He gives 
 no authority. He says, merely, by way of defini- 
 tion, lenity, clemency. 
 
 "Worcester, unfortunately, goes further and fares 
 worse. He says, 
 
 Lenience, ) The quality of being len- 
 Leniency, J ient, etc. Ed. Eev. 
 
 That is, no etymology given, but the Edinburgh 
 Review cited. The Edinburgh Review is undoubt- 
 edly high authority ; and, as Worcester cites it, he 
 must have found the word that is, one of the 
 words somewhere in it. What Worcester meant 
 by giving two such philological abortions, when sure- 
 ly one was too much, the reader must conjecture. 
 And it is worthy of a passing remark, that, while 
 Webster was content with giving but one leniency 
 an the edition of 1856, he, in order not to be be- 
 hind his American rival, copied or borrowed len- 
 ience from Worcester, in the " last Revised," 18G6, 
 " without," as the newspapers say, " giving credit." 
 But the ipse dixit or, perhaps, more properly, 
 the lapsus pennce of one man, even if that man 
 is a writer in the Edinburgh Review, cannot make 
 leniency a good English word. It lacks what is 
 here claimed as essential to legitimacy. It is not 
 properly constructed and it is not needed. Its
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 17 
 
 place is already occupied by the legal proprietor, 
 and its last syllable is akin in vulgarism to the ize 
 of "jeopardize," and the ist of " controversialist." 
 
 There is a necessity for insisting strenuously on 
 this point, because the present tendency of philo- 
 logical corruption is strong in the direction of mul- 
 tiplying words by accumulating final syllables. 
 
 A book called " John Halifax " is what mer- 
 chants would call " a fair average specimen " of 
 contemporaneous and " unreadable " novels. Its 
 author cannot claim rank as a good writer, in the 
 sense of a philological authority ; but he (or she, 
 perhaps) writes as well as the majority of authors 
 in that particular branch of writing and he has 
 readers enough to make his example pernicious, if 
 it is bad. 
 
 In that book, one may find, among other vulgar- 
 isms, conversationalist and experimentalize. And if 
 one will take the trouble to look into Webster's 
 last Dictionary, he will find that the compilers of 
 that work true to the modern system of making 
 each new dictionary contain " ten thousand (more 
 or less) words not contained in any rival work" 
 have duly recorded the Halifax-additions to their 
 vocabulary. They had the grace to note the latter 
 word as "rare" which, let us all hope, it may 
 continue to be ! 
 
 And yet, the compilers aforesaid, but half 
 indeed, much less than half " improved their op- 
 portunity." For if " conversationalist " and "ex- 
 perimentalize " are legitimate words, there is no
 
 18 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Websterian reason for refusing them such legiti- 
 mate descendants as 
 
 Conversationalistic,* 
 Conversationalistically, 
 Conversationalisticability, 
 Conversationalisticableness ; 
 
 Experimentalizer, 
 
 Experimentalizistical, 
 
 Experimentalizistically, 
 
 Experimentalizisticability, 
 
 Experimentalizisticableness. 
 
 In short if that word can be permitted to ap- 
 pear on the same page with those philological 
 Titans there would seem to be no assignable 
 limit to the tagging on of unmeaning syllables, 
 except the width of a page. 
 
 There certainly is no limit to the manufacture 
 of new words by the addition of syllables to old 
 
 * The Hon. George P. Marsh, unquestionably an accomplished 
 philologist, wrote for The Nation a weekly literary paper of a 
 high order of literary merit a scries of articles on Webster's 
 Dictionary; and in such articles one would naturally look for 
 great accuracy, not only of criticism, but of style. 
 
 Occasion will be taken, on a subsequent page, to refer again 
 to Mr. Marsh. He is mentioned here for the purpose of showing 
 his use of a word similar to those above specified. His sentence 
 is (The Nation, Sept. 20, 1866) : 
 
 " In this instance the first, I suppose, in which the word 
 'sensuous' occurs it probably meant, suggestive of images of 
 things perceptible by the senses ; picturesque, materialistic." 
 
 Would not material have answered the purpose of a scholar likt 
 Mr. Marsh, especially when he was criticising a dictionary ?
 
 SPUKIOUS WORDS. 19 
 
 words, if we once admit the principle of equality 
 in the republic of letters. If, in that republic, one 
 man's word is as good as another's, those who as- 
 sent to leniency, cannot refuse, by and by, to recog- 
 nize such vulgarisms as 
 
 Preventative, 
 
 Rotatory, 
 
 Casuality, 
 
 and so forth. Those " words," and many others 
 akin to them, are already in constant oral use 
 among ignorant people, and they are gradually 
 working their way up among people of some edu- 
 cation. And, in the nature of the case, there is no 
 assignable reason why they should not eventually 
 get into our newspapers, books, and dictionaries. 
 Indeed, rotatory has already done so. 
 
 UNDERHANDED. 
 
 This " word " is formed by adding to the adjec- 
 tive underhand a participial termination ; but the 
 addition still leaves the word an adjective, without 
 in the least modifying the sense of the true word. 
 There is no verb to underhand, and no noun an 
 underhand, from which such a compound could be 
 made. The addition of ed, therefore, renders the 
 word a mere vulgarism ; as much so as the same 
 addition would make of beforehand and behindhand. 
 
 What would be said of behindhanded? Or, take 
 a shorter word, bland and make it Handed. 
 
 Yet, strange to say, Worcester accredits the 
 word and cites Smart, and Webster cites Cole-
 
 20 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 ridge ! two strong names on a philological ques* 
 tion. But the indorsement is not strong enough 
 to make the word good. It is no better than 
 leniency ', jeopardize, etc. 
 
 In the same style of corruption, but, perhaps, a 
 little lower in the scale, is the addition of a syllable 
 to undermine. This corruption has not yet made its 
 appearance in newspapers and dictionaries, but it 
 is very common in the conversation of a certain 
 class of people, and may be considered " a candi- 
 date for admission " into the dictionaries, by and 
 by. The people who misuse the word seem to 
 think that its primary formation is undermind, 
 and they therefore have no difficulty in saying, 
 " he underminded them." 
 
 DONATE. 
 
 Here is another intruder into the family circle, 
 which " has not on a wedding garment." 
 
 Webster, of course, records the word ; and he 
 gravely gives its etymology, " from donare, dona- 
 turn," etc., as if the prig who fabricated that bit 
 of literature ever saw a Latin dictionary, or ever 
 heard of the Latin language ! 
 
 There is something intensely farcical in that 
 solemn etymology. It must have been intended 
 for a sly joke. All the world knows that Johnson 
 introduced a sly joke into his dictionary, when he 
 defined the word " lexicographer " ; and it seems 
 that Webster, in imitation of his illustrious prede- 
 cessor, has introduced his sly joke in the etymology 
 of donate.
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 21 
 
 Mr. Richard Grant White, who is well known as 
 an accurate philologist, not long ago published in 
 the New York Evening Post an indignant protest 
 against " donate " ; to which somebody, with per- 
 haps equal indignation, but by no means with equal 
 ability, responded, by elaborately defending dona- 
 tion^ and adding, that a no objection could be urged 
 against the proscribed word which would not apply 
 with equal force against donation" The writer of 
 these pages thereupon " volunteered his services " 
 to the following effect : 
 
 Certain " eatables," spread on a table on certain 
 occasions, constitute what is termed a collation. 
 Would you say to a friend who, with you, was 
 standing near that table, " Come, let us collate ? " 
 Or, if an ovation were about to be offered to a great 
 military captain, would you say, " We intend to 
 ovate General Grant to-morrow ? " Or, again, if 
 Mr. Everett were about to deliver his oration on 
 Washington, at the Academy of Music, would you 
 say, " Let us go to hear Everett orate? " 
 
 " Donate, ' then, may be dismissed with this re- 
 mark : so long as its place is occupied by give, be- 
 stow, grant, present, etc., it is not needed ; and it 
 should be unceremoniously bowed out, or thrust 
 out, of the seat into which it has, temporarily, in- 
 truded. 
 
 AUTHORESS, ETC. 
 
 There is yet another instance of this propensity 
 to fabricate new words by the addition of a sylla- 
 ble ; but it is not altogether so modern as some of
 
 22 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 the preceding cases. That is, the addition of ess 
 to those nouns which indicate persons, in order to 
 designate females. 
 
 The entire number of English words denoting 
 persons, which properly take the ess for such desig- 
 nation, is very small. And a majority of those are 
 titles, where the discrimination is a matter of neces- 
 sity ; as abbess, baroness, duchess, countess, empress, 
 princess, marchioness, etc. Or, they are words of 
 which the primary words are suggestive of men, 
 and which therefore require the change when they 
 are applied to women ; as, ambassador, governor, 
 hunter, priest, prophet, etc. 
 
 In addition to those, there are some words which 
 long usage has sanctioned, although a good reason 
 can hardly be given for their admission into our 
 vocabulary, because the primary words serve all the 
 purposes of their substitutes. Of those, are actor, 
 actress ; benefactor, benefactress ; patron, patroness. 
 
 But there is a class of words, some of them 
 modern, and most of them of very recent fabrica- 
 tion, which sets all philological principles at defi- 
 ance. Two of them that are the least objection- 
 able to ourselves, because they are the most familiar 
 to our ears, are poetess and authoress ; but, philo- 
 logically, they are just as absurd as any of their 
 successors. 
 
 Poet means, simply, a person who writes poetry ; 
 and author, in the sense under consideration, a 
 person who writes poetry or prose : not a man who 
 writes, but a person who writes. Nothing, in either
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 23 
 
 word, indicates sex ; and everybody knows that the 
 functions of both poets and authors are common to 
 both sexes. Hence, " authoress " and " poetess " 
 are superfluous. And they are superfluous, also, 
 in another respect, that they are very rarely 
 used, indeed they hardly can be used, independent- 
 ly of the name of the writer ; as, Mrs., or Miss, or 
 a female Christian name. They are, besides, phi- 
 lological absurdities, because they are fabricated on 
 the false assumption that their primaries indicate 
 men. They are, moreover, liable to the charge of 
 affectation and prettiness, to say nothing of pedan- 
 tic pretension to accuracy. 
 
 If, however, those two words have, by long us- 
 age, become conventionally endurable ; what shall 
 be said of the superfine affectation, prettiness, and 
 pedantry of conductress, directress, inspectress, wait- 
 ress, and so on, which have become as plenty as 
 blackberries ? 
 
 Conductor is a person who conducts ; director, a 
 person who directs ; inspector, a person who in- 
 spects ; waiter, a person who waits. Yet if the ess 
 is to be a permitted or an endured addition to 
 those words, there is no reason in language or in 
 logic for excluding it from any noun that indicates 
 a person ; and the next editions of our dictionaries 
 may be made complete by the addition of writeress, 
 officeress, manageress, superintendentess, secretaryess, 
 treasureress, singeress, walkeress, talheress, and so on, 
 to the end of the vocabulary.
 
 24 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 FIRSTLY. 
 
 This is still another word of the class with the 
 tagged syllable. It is frequently used by those who 
 may be called good writers. Even Dickens, whose 
 style is far above that of novel-writers generally, of- 
 ten uses it. There is no need of expending time or 
 argument on " firstly." No lexicographer has yet 
 ventured to accredit it ; and Webster, while insert- 
 ing it, repudiates it thus, " improperly, used for 
 first." 
 
 As an instance of the force of example, and of 
 the facility with which good writers fall into errors 
 of which examples are everywhere current, a 
 late number of Blackwood's Magazine contains 
 " firstly " ; and not only that, but in the same par- 
 agraph demean is used in the sense of debase : a 
 subject that will be considered in another chapter. 
 
 TOWARD, ETC. 
 
 There are several words ending in ward which 
 the spirit of innovation has " improved " by the 
 addition not, indeed, of a syllable, but of a 
 letter ; to wit, the letter s. As, toward, towards, 
 etc. 
 
 Richardson says, " Toward is made up of two 
 Saxon words, to and ward. Ward, or weard, is the 
 imperative of the verb wardian or weardian, to 
 look at, or to direct the view. Ward may with 
 propriety be joined to the name of any per- 
 son, place, or thing, to or from which our sight 
 may be directed," etc.
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 25 
 
 Hence, we have backtvard, forward, toward, up- 
 ?, onward, downward, hitherward, thitherward, 
 afterward, heavenward, earthward, and so on. And 
 early English writers have given the words in a 
 separate form ; as, for example, the translators of 
 the Bible say to us ward, etc. 
 
 But where is there a warrant for the addition of 
 the final s to any of the words, excepting its in- 
 cidental, or perhaps accidental, use by certain old 
 English writers, as Milton, Shakespeare, Dr. South, 
 and others ? Those authors are doubtless followed 
 by modern writers without number ; but also, one 
 might suppose, without reflection on the part of 
 the writers ; and certainly without our knowing 
 that the fault may not have been with the printer. 
 
 The etymology of the word furnishes no pre- 
 text for the s; its addition is merely arbitrary, 
 though, also, capricious; for few writers use it 
 uniformly. If any person should seek to defend 
 it, he must carry his defence beyond the imme- 
 diate cases, and include anyivhere, everywhere, no- 
 where, anyway, everyivay, noway, and so on. Igno- 
 rant usage has already made that addition. In the 
 common parlance of uneducated people, nothing is 
 more common than somewhere*, anywheres, any- 
 ways, novvheres, etc. ; and, as yet, nothing is more 
 vulgar. 
 
 STAND-POINT. 
 
 But of all the instances in which solemn philo- 
 logical blundering has recently developed itself, 
 stand-point stands forth as the bright particular 
 
 2
 
 26 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 star. It is the very counterpart of Dogberry's 
 " non eom" It faintly suggests, by its sound, what 
 the French call " a suspicion " of a meaning ; but 
 the moment you investigate the thing and attempt 
 to reach the meaning, you find it a mere will-o'-the- 
 wisp. 
 
 The compound is used for point of view ; but 
 why, is not obvious. For if one means point of 
 view, why does not one say point of view ? 
 
 " Stand-point " does not mean point of view for 
 two good reasons, one of which suffices ; namely, 
 it does not mean anything. It is not an English 
 word. " Stand," by itself, is English ; and " point," 
 by itself, is English : but the two words, like certain 
 chemical ingredients, will not unite until a com 
 bining medium is introduced between them. 
 
 Thus, also, " start," by itself, is English ; and so, 
 also, is " point" : but is start-point anything ? In- 
 dependently of the question of meaning, such com 
 binations are philologically defective. The verbs 
 stand and start, in those cases, must be changed to 
 adjectives or participles before they can combine 
 with the noun " point." 
 
 StandV?<7-point and starting-point are something. 
 They have a meaning. They are kindred in con- 
 struction to landing-place, and other familiar terms ; 
 and they mean, simply, the place, or point, where 
 one stands or whence one starts. " Stand-point," 
 therefore, to be English, should be changed to 
 standing-point. 
 
 But when the investigator reaches this " point,"
 
 SPURIOUS WORDS. 27 
 
 he begins to see the point ; to wit, that stand-point 
 certainly does not mean point of view, although that 
 is the sense in which it is constantly used. If, 
 however, those persons who have become accus- 
 tomed to " stand-point " are still too much enam- 
 oured with its conciseness to abandon it alto- 
 gether, an alternative is at hand. 
 
 Their chief and sole object being (as it needs 
 must be) to condense " point of view " into one 
 word, of two syllables, irrespectively of accurate 
 philological construction ; and since, with them, 
 meaning is nothing and brevity everything, let 
 them say and write view-point. That meets the 
 case and covers the ground. " View-point " is 
 precisely the same sort of English as " stand- 
 point " ; and it possesses the substantial advantage 
 of meaning admitting, for the sake of argument, 
 that it means anything what the speaker or writer 
 intends to convey by " stand-point." 
 
 There is little occasion to comment particularly 
 on the other class of newly-made words ; those, 
 namely, that are properly constructed and are 
 needed ; because that is a branch of philology that 
 will always assert itself and protect itself. Words 
 of that class bear their own credentials. They 
 need no advocacy and they are safe from criticism.
 
 28 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 
 
 THE spurious words are less numerous than the 
 misused words ; but in both categories the philo- 
 logical heresy has the same origin, character, and 
 tendency. 
 
 BESIDE. BESIDES. 
 
 Our lexicographers have contented themselves 
 with leaving these two words as they find them 
 in the pages of good and bad writers jumbled 
 together without any attempt at discrimination be- 
 tween them. But, as such discrimination is im- 
 portant, the writer of this volume, having failed to 
 find a satisfactory elucidation of the subject in any 
 work on philology then within his reach, ventured 
 to suggest the following solution of the difficulty 
 through the medium of the New York Evening 
 Post, in or about the year 1856. 
 
 Beside is a preposition, meaning, originally, ly the 
 side of; as, 
 
 " The lovely Thais sits beside thee " ; 
 and usage has modified, or extended, that meaning 
 co one side, or, out of the regular course; as, 
 
 " It is beside my present business to pursue the 
 minor points of the argument." 
 
 And it has been further modified to out of, or, in 
 a state of deviation from ; as,
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 29 
 
 " Paul, thou art beside thyself." 
 
 Again, besides is also a preposition when it means 
 in addition to ; as, 
 
 " Besides all this, between us and you there is a 
 great gulf fixed." 
 
 And, finally, besides is an adverb, when it means 
 
 moreover; as, 
 
 " Set you down this ; 
 And say, besides, that in Aleppo once, 
 When a malignant and a turbaned Turk," etc. 
 
 The sum of the matter, then, is, that beside is 
 always a preposition, and only a preposition. Be- 
 sides, also, is a preposition when it means in addi- 
 tion to; but when it means moreover, it is an 
 adverb. 
 
 Hence, not only is the use of beside as an adverb 
 an error, but the error is aggravated by its taint 
 of affectation : it smacks of attempted prettiness 
 in style. And that painful result also ensues when 
 the preposition meaning in addition to is deprived 
 of its s. These are the two examples : 
 
 " And beside all this, between us and you there 
 is a great gulf." 
 
 " And say, beside, that in Aleppo once." 
 
 In a preceding paragraph, it is remarked that 
 our lexicographers have left these two words as 
 they found them, etc. That was true at the time 
 it was written. But the last edition of Webster 
 (1866) has the following comments, which, in sub- 
 stance, are nearly identical with what was thus 
 written in 1856. They are reproduced here for
 
 30 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 the twofold purpose of relieving the writer of this 
 book from a suspicion of plagiarism ; and to show 
 that his views, as then expressed, are so far cor- 
 roborated : 
 
 "Beside. Besides. These words, whether used as 
 prepositions or adverbs, have been considered strict- 
 ly synonymous from an early period of our liter- 
 ature and have been freely interchanged by our 
 best writers. There is, however, a tendency in 
 present usage to make the following distinction 
 between them. 1. That beside be used only and 
 always as a preposition, with the original meaning 
 by the side of; as, to sit beside a fountain ; or, with 
 the closely allied meaning aside from, or out of; 
 as, this is beside our present purpose : ' Paul, thou 
 art beside thyself.' The adverbial sense to be wholly 
 transferred to the cognate word. 2. That besides, 
 as a preposition, take the remaining sense, in addi- 
 tion to; as, besides all this; besides the consider- 
 ations here offered: 'There was a famine in the 
 land besides the first famine.' And that it also take 
 the adverbial sense of moreover, beyond, etc., which 
 had been divided between the words ; as, besides, 
 there are other considerations which belong to this 
 case." 
 
 LADY- WIFE. 
 
 The word lady, as a substitute for wife, is a snob- 
 bish vulgarism, which may have originated with a 
 clerk in a hotel. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Somebody arrived at the hotel, and 
 the clerk officiously recorded their names " Mr. 
 Somebody and Lady."
 
 MISUSED WOEDS. 31 
 
 Nevertheless, the word wife, as Caesar says of 
 the polar star, 
 
 " Has no fellow in the firmament." 
 
 It has neither synonyme nor substitute ; and any 
 attempt to fabricate either, is a sort of philological 
 affront to the original. 
 
 On the other hand, lady is, to a certain extent, 
 interchangeable with ivoman. As a descriptive 
 term, it serves to discriminate between the orders 
 of society ; and, so far forth, it indicates position, 
 cultivation, refinement. Yet it is by no means 
 essentially the superior word. For example, 
 
 " O woman, in our hours of ease, 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 And, in Portia's reply to Brutus, Julius Ca3sar, 
 Act II. Sc. 1 : 
 
 " Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife ; 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit this sad heart. 
 
 Portia. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
 I grant, I am a ivoman ; but, withal, 
 A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife. 
 I grant I am a woman ; but, withal, 
 A woman well reputed, Gate's daughter. 
 Think you, I am no stronger than my sex, 
 Being so fathered and so husbanded ? " 
 
 In cases like those, lady would make but a sorry 
 figure as a substitute for ivoman.
 
 82 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 But, in the case of the other Portia Merchant 
 of Venice, Act III. Sc. 3 woman would fare 
 quite as indifferently : 
 
 " Bassanio. Gentle lady, 
 
 When I did first impart my love to you, 
 I freely told you, all the wealth I had 
 Kan in my veins ; I was a gentleman ; 
 And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady, 
 Rating myself at nothing, you shall see 
 How much I was a braggart." 
 
 The result is, then, that in a personal address, 
 as in Bassanio's instance, lady is the indispensable 
 word ; and it is also indispensable as a descriptive 
 or discriminating term. But, as the synonyme of 
 wife, it is an imwarrantable and depreciating vul- 
 garism, quite unbecoming educated people. 
 
 COUPLE. 
 
 Couple, as the synonyme of two, is a more diffi 
 cult subject than lady, because it has the support 
 of more general, if not higher, authority. 
 
 The noun couple is necessarily the result of the 
 verb to couple. The act of coupling precedes the 
 fact of being coupled, and therefore the meaning 
 of the noun is controlled by the meaning of the 
 verb. 
 
 The verb, etymologically and by the dictionaries, 
 means to link, chain, fasten, or connect one thing 
 with another, and those definitions provide for all 
 possible cases of two joined. 
 
 Again, the noun is thus defined in our diction- 
 aries :
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 33 
 
 " Two tilings of the same kind connected to- 
 gether ; a pair ; a brace. A male and female con- 
 nected by betrothal or marriage." 
 
 Hence, any " two," on being fastened, chained, 
 joined, linked, connected together, become a couple; 
 and any two not joined, etc., are not a couple. 
 
 Certain other words are used, in a sort of tech- 
 nical sense, to signify two together, or two alike, but 
 not necessarily united ; as, a pair, a brace, a yoke 
 (of oxen), and, in American English, referring to 
 horses, a span. 
 
 These words, in their appropriate connections, all 
 designate two things having something in common. 
 Yet, while these words not one of which neces- 
 sarily involves the fact of two united are always 
 used discriminately, and never as the mere syno- 
 nyme of two; couple, which does inevitably involve 
 the fact of two united, is used twdiscriminately as 
 the synonyme of two, and in reference to things 
 that are never united ! 
 
 People of all classes, and writers of all positions, 
 without the slightest misgiving, compunction, or 
 remorse, daily fabricate such phrases as a couple 
 of days, a couple of dollars, a couple of eggs, a 
 couple of books, a couple of weeks, months, or years ; 
 and so on, to the end of English nouns-substantive. 
 
 And for all that, those very people and those 
 very writers would laugh to scorn any man who 
 ventured to say, a brace of days, weeks, months, or 
 years ; a yoke of eggs ; a pair of dollars ; a span 
 of books. 
 
 2* c
 
 34 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the laugh and the scorn, 
 the latter phrases are not only no worse than the 
 former, but they are more nearly correct than 
 the former, because they do not involve an ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 A pair of days, for example, is a physical possi- 
 bility ; for the two days may be essentially alike, 
 and as near together before, after, or by the 
 side of each other as two things can be : but a 
 couple of days is a physical impossibility, because 
 the two days cannot be " linked or fastened togeth- 
 er." And that is substantially true of the other 
 " couples " here designated ; as, eggs, dollars, and 
 books which, indeed, might be linked or fastened 
 together, but which in fact never are so. 
 
 DEMEAN. 
 
 This word is often used in the sense of debase 
 a blunder which has no better apology for its exist- 
 ence than the fact that the second syllable of the 
 word, when separated from the first, signifies some- 
 thing akin to debasement : just as the second syl- 
 lable of deride, when separated from the first, sig- 
 nifies taking a ride ! Or, again which is more 
 immediately applicable as meaning might be 
 used in the place of grovelling. 
 
 The verb demean and the noun demeanour have 
 a common signification : to behave, to conduct, 
 well or ill ; behaviour, conduct, good or bad. 
 
 If an educated man were to set about attaching 
 a new meaning to the verb, he would see the
 
 MISUSED WOEDS. 85 
 
 necessity of attaching a cognate meaning to the 
 noun. If he made demean signify debase, he must 
 make demeanour signify debasement, or base con- 
 duct ; the absurdity of which is, or should be, 
 sufficient to dispose of the question. 
 
 The lexicographers have very indifferently dis- 
 charged their duty in regard to demean. 
 
 Johnson gives debase as a secondary definition, 
 and cites Shakespeare as one who used the word in 
 that sense. But when the reader goes behind 
 Johnson's certificate, he finds that Johnson is at 
 fault. 
 
 The antecedents of the quoted line, Comedy of 
 Errors, Act IV. Sc. 3, 
 
 " Else he would never so demean himself," 
 
 show that Shakespeare's meaning debase by " de- 
 mean," is arbitrarily assumed by Johnson. Any 
 person can see for himself, by examining the pas- 
 sage, that if behave, or conduct, were substituted 
 for " demean," 
 
 " Else he would never so beJiave himself," 
 " Else he would never so conduct himself," 
 
 the sense of the line would remain unchanged. 
 
 Webster blindly follows Johnson as to the defini- 
 tion and authority, but he introduces a blunder of 
 his own by adding "not used." It certainly is 
 "used," frequently, and by men of education. 
 The "use" is a matter of common observation 
 among all persons who take notice of language. 
 
 Worcester gives the same definition, and cites
 
 86 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Doddridge: and Worcester is at least correct in 
 his citation. But the passage quoted is one of re- 
 ligious rhapsody, in which the writer may not have 
 paused much on the selection of words. Besides, 
 Doddridge may be better authority as a theologian 
 than as a philologist. 
 
 At any rate, until the advocates of the " debase " 
 definition are prepared to accept its consequence, 
 that then demeanour means debasement, or, more 
 properly, base conduct, further argument may be 
 safely postponed. 
 
 CONSEQUENCE. 
 
 This word is constantly used by everybody in 
 the sense of importance; although, etymological- 
 ly, there is nothing in common between the two 
 words. 
 
 Consequence comes from the Latin consequentia 
 and the French consequence; which, respectively, 
 come from the Latin prefix con and the Latin verb 
 sequor, to follow. The chief element of the noun 
 is, therefore, sequence, a result, something that 
 follows. 
 
 On the other hand, importance refers to things 
 of moment in themselves, independently of what 
 follows. 
 
 Yet here, also, the lexicographers are very much 
 in fault. 
 
 Johnson gives as a seventh and final definition 
 of "consequence," importance, moment; and again 
 he cites Shakespeare erroneously. He quotes, in 
 support of his definition, Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 3 :
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 37 
 
 " But, 't is strange ; 
 
 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
 The instruments of darkness tell us truths ; 
 Win us with honest trifles, to betray us 
 In deepest consequence." 
 
 Whereas, in that extract, " consequence " is used 
 in its primary sense, and " deepest " is the word 
 that conveys the sense of " importance." " Deep- 
 est consequence" is equivalent to the direst result; 
 the most important sequel, etc. 
 
 The erroneous citation of Johnson thus leaves 
 one in doubt so far, at least, as the dictionary is 
 concerned whether the Doctor intended to give 
 his own sanction to the definitions of " demean " 
 and " consequence " ; or, merely, to place them in 
 his vocabulary and leave the student to adopt or 
 reject them, according to his own estimate of 
 Shakespeare as an authority. The student has, 
 indeed, the privilege of consulting Johnson's other 
 works, to ascertain whether the lexicographer gives 
 those definitions the sanction of his own practice ; 
 but that is another matter. 
 
 If etymology is to control the point, the result is 
 not doubtful. On that ground, a consequence is 
 a something that follows from an antecedent, or a 
 cause ; a following ; a result. And in that sense, 
 the familiar phrase " it is of no consequence " 
 'which phrase, with some variations, is the form in 
 which the word is questionably used is precisely 
 equivalent to " it is of no following, or result " ; 
 which means nothing. It might be made to mean
 
 38 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 something by a substitution of the verb has for the 
 verb is, " it has no following" no sequence, no 
 result ; but that is not what the speaker, or writer, 
 of the phrase means. 
 
 The phrase, however, is now so universally used, 
 and it is so generally accredited by both lexicog- 
 raphers and good writers, that no man can be 
 justified in asserting dogmatically that it is a cor- 
 ruption of language. But it is unquestionably a 
 departure from "first principles," and it may at 
 least be deplored by conservative philologists. 
 Perhaps, now and then, one or more of such per 
 sons will avoid the phrase! 
 
 PREDICATE. 
 
 The verb predicate comes to us from the Lat- 
 in prcedico-care, to cry in public, to proclaim ; 
 whence, also, comes to preach. And to predict 
 comes from a similar Latin root, prce, before, 
 and dico-cere, to say or tell. All of which goes 
 to show that the functions of the etymological 
 family, whence predicate descends, are limited to 
 speaking, saying, telling, etc. And our lexicog- 
 raphers generally agree in so limiting the defi- 
 nition of predicate ; namely, to say, to affirm, to 
 declare. Webster extends it to " to affirm ; to 
 assert to belong to something ; as, to predicate 
 whiteness of snow." Which is all very well. But 
 Webster, strange to say ! adds a secondary defini- 
 tion which shall be quoted in a subsequent para- 
 graph.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 39 
 
 Ignorant usage and very ignorant usage it must 
 be in the United States, has recently paraded 
 predicate in the sense of to found; as, "his ar- 
 gument was predicated on the assumption," etc. ; 
 " my opinion is predicated on the belief," and so 
 forth. 
 
 The word is used in that sense in the pulpit, at 
 the bar, and of course in novels and newspapers. 
 But it no more means to found, than it means to 
 build, or to destroy. And the good people who are 
 aiding in the circulation of this philological im- 
 posture might as well say, if they will misuse the 
 word, 
 
 " Jenkins predicated his house in the short space 
 of three months ; but it was predicated to the ground 
 during the great fire of the 1st of February." 
 
 Yet, mad as the people may be on this point, it 
 seems that one lexicographer is " as mad as they." 
 The last Revised Edition of Webster gives as a 
 secondary definition of predicate, 
 
 " To rest upon for proof, or as an assertion or an opinion ; 
 to found ; to base ; [U. S.] " 
 
 for which profound definition the " U. S." are made 
 responsible. 
 
 The events of the last five years have shown to 
 the world that the " U. S." are able to do almost 
 anything; but whether they are "able to respond" 
 to the liability of that definition, is a matter of 
 great doubt in some minds. 
 
 Alack! who can hope to stay the progress of 
 corruption in language, when the very men who
 
 40 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 should be its guardians actually help on the cor- 
 ruption ? 
 
 EITHER. NEITHER. 
 
 Either is an Anglo-Saxon word, having two op- 
 posite significations ; but with this in common, that 
 each of them refers to two objects, and two only. 
 
 Either means one or the other in such phrases as 
 " either Monday or Tuesday " ; " either John or 
 Peter," etc. And it means each when we say 
 " forests on either side of the river." 
 
 In the second sense it is, probably, never mis- 
 used. In the first, it is often applied to more than 
 two; as, "either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednes- 
 day" ; "either of the twelve jurors," and so on. 
 And this misuse has the sanction of all writers and 
 all lexicographers. The authorities are as nearly 
 unanimous as may be. 
 
 Yet, the lexicographers agree in the primary 
 definition of the word. They all say " one or the 
 other," which necessarily means of two, and no more. 
 
 And the same remark as to definition is true of 
 neither; namely, " not either"; "not one or the 
 other," which word therefore refers, negatively, to 
 two and no more. Yet it is misused in precisely 
 the same way : " neither Monday, Tuesday, nor 
 Wednesday"; "neither of the twelve jurors," and 
 so forth. 
 
 It is marvellous that so palpable an error could 
 have gained so general a circulation ; and equally 
 marvellous is it, that men of education will con 
 thine to sanction the error.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 41 
 
 Look, for a moment, at an illustration. Either 
 means one or the other ; both means one and the 
 other. Thus, each of them refers to two, and two 
 only. Now, imagine the phrase, " both Monday, 
 Tuesday, and Wednesday"; "both John, Peter, 
 and James " ; " both of the twelve jurors." Would 
 any person endure such expressions ? Would any 
 amount of usage justify them ? Yet both, in such 
 instances, is quite as correct as neither or either. 
 
 Besides, such a use of "both" is not an imagi- 
 nary case. Trench, in " English Past and Present," 
 says : " And thus it will come to pass that what 
 seems, and in fact is, the newer swarm, will have 
 many older words, and very often an archaic air 
 and old-world fashion both about" [these words 
 should be transposed, " about both," which is 
 another blunder of the Dean's] " the words they 
 use, the pronunciation of the words, and the order 
 and manner in which they combine them." 
 
 As to either, Trench, in the same book, manages 
 to apply it to no less than five subjects in this sen- 
 tence : " Either the words were not idiomatic, or 
 were not intelligible, or were not needed, or looked 
 ill, or sounded ill, or some other valid reason 
 existed against them." 
 
 In addition to the misuse of either and neither, 
 these words are both frequently mispronounced ; 
 particularly, by clergymen. 
 
 The pronunciation of English words is nearly 
 independent of philological rules, and it depends 
 almost altogether on usage. This is proved by n
 
 42 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 single illustration. If there were any rule in the 
 case, how could the pronunciation of the several 
 words ending in ougJi be otherwise than uniform, 
 instead of their having four entirely distinct sounds 
 to the horror of all foreigners ? Etymology has 
 some influence on orthoepy sometimes ; and so, 
 sometimes, has analogy ; but, on the whole, cus- 
 tom is supreme. 
 
 The lexicographers with great uniformity give 
 the pronunciation of these two words, e-ther and 
 ne-ther. Webster says " e-ther is the pronuncia- 
 tion given in nearly all the English dictionaries, 
 and is still the prevailing one in the United States ; 
 v-th&r has of late become somewhat common in 
 England. Analogy, however, as well as the best 
 and most general usage, is decidedly in favor of 
 e-ther." 
 
 In these circumstances, it is clear that the ma- 
 jority has the best of the argument. For the 
 great preponderance of usage has taken one side 
 of the question ; and as there is no philological 
 rule or principle to warrant a change, and as, 
 besides, there is no need of a change, the oppo- 
 sing minority become mere schismatics, who can 
 give no higher reason for their action than their 
 own private opinion or caprice ; and that is a very 
 poor excuse for an innovation. 
 
 A common reply, in the United States, to the 
 question, " Why do you say i-ther and ni-ther?" is, 
 " The words are so pronounced by the best-edu- 
 cated people in England." But that reply is not
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 43 
 
 true. That is to say, a majority of the best 
 English usage is not on that side of the question. 
 
 All that any man in the United States can gain 
 by the pronunciation of i-ther and ni-ther is the 
 credit, or the discredit, of affectation, or ostenta- 
 tion, as who should say, " /know how they do it 
 in England " : for assuredly, that pronunciation is 
 not sanctioned by a majority of our best-educated 
 men. The number of those who use it here, is but 
 a very small minority. 
 
 In society, i-ther and ni-ther are not of much 
 moment ; because any member of the disapproving 
 majority can " avenge himself " on his learned 
 friend, by rejoining e-ther and ne-ther. And, at 
 any rate, little inaccuracies and inelegancies 
 not, however, affectations ! of language may as 
 well be tolerated in common colloquy, because 
 they are inevitable. 
 
 But i-ther and ni-ther in public speaking, and 
 especially in the pulpit, where they are now be- 
 ginning to take the horrible proportions of a 
 fashion, are grievous annoyances to which a help- 
 less audience should not be subjected. 
 
 Of all men in the world, a clergyman, in his 
 official capacity, should avoid peculiarity, not to 
 say affectation,* not to say ostentation ; and what- 
 
 * " In man or woman, but far most in man, 
 And most of all in man that ministers 
 And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe 
 All affectation. 'T is my perfect scorn ; 
 Object of my implacable disgust." 
 
 COWPER.
 
 44 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 ever his " private judgment " may be, as to the 
 merits of the question, the fact remains, that i-ther 
 and ni-ther smack strongly of those qualities, and 
 therefore they " are not expedient." 
 
 PARAPHERNALIA. 
 
 The constant misuse of this word has caused it 
 almost entirely to lose its original signification. It 
 is a law-term and only a law-term, originally ; and it 
 so continues. Any use of it, out of the law, can- 
 not be appropriate. A man cannot have parapher- 
 nalia. As it is thus a law-term, " the people " 
 would do much better to let it alone. But as it is 
 a long word, the attempt to make them let it alone 
 is something like trying to make a boy let a long 
 stick of candy alone. As Hamlet says of " French 
 falconers," they " fly it at anything they see," 
 appendages, ornaments, trappings ; in short, a mis- 
 cellaneous collection of any sort of things. 
 
 Not long ago, a remonstrance against a public 
 procession on a Sunday, signed by a number of 
 citizens, including many clergymen and other 
 educated men, was published in the newspapers ; 
 and that remonstrance contained the word para- 
 phernalia no less than three times, all in the same 
 sense as this, 
 
 " The employment of Sunday for public pageants, 
 with bands of music and the paraphernalia, and 
 noisy accompaniment, of a great procession," etc. 
 
 But what are paraphernalia ? The word comes 
 from the Greek, through the Latin, with very little
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 45 
 
 change of spelling or pronunciation, and its mean- 
 ing is, simply and concisely, beyond dower ; inde- 
 pendent of dower ; that is, over and above dower ; 
 and, when combined in Law-Latin thus, parapJier 
 nalia bona, it means " goods in the wife's disposal," 
 " articles which a wife brings with her at her 
 marriage, beyond her dower or jointure." 
 
 Those " articles," or " goods," may happen to 
 consist of ornaments and appendages in the way 
 of female finery ; and they may not. The word 
 refers to the tenure, and not to the nature, of the 
 property. The articles are paraphernalia, not be- 
 cause they are if they are ornaments and ap- 
 pendages, but because they are articles of a wife's 
 property, apart from her dower. 
 
 How absurd is it, then, to apply the word to the 
 appendages of a public procession ! 
 
 ALTERNATIVE. 
 
 This word means a choice one choice be- 
 tween two things. Yet popular usage has so 
 corrupted it, that it is now commonly applied to 
 the things themselves, and not to the choice 
 between them ; as thus. " You may take either al- 
 ternative " ; "I was forced to choose between two 
 alternatives." And, indeed, some people go so far 
 as to say " several alternatives were presented to 
 him." 
 
 Nevertheless, if the primary meaning is respect- 
 ed, there can be but one alternative in any one 
 case. Two alternatives is a contradiction in terms.
 
 46 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 
 
 This is, so to speak, one of the approved vulgar- 
 isms of the day ; and, notwithstanding the num- 
 berless exposures of its vulgarity, in newspapers, 
 reviews, and elsewhere, it continues to flourish and 
 increase. Apparently, nothing can stop it. 
 
 There is no ambiguity or uncertainty about the 
 definition of " mutual." The lexicographers all 
 agree upon it. It means simply, reciprocal, inter- 
 changed ; whence anybody can see that it may 
 apply to actions only and not to things ; or, to speak 
 more precisely, not to living things, or persons. 
 
 The actions may be mental or physical, of the 
 mind or of the body. People may reciprocally, 
 interchangeably, mutually, love, hate, admire, etc. 
 Or, they may reciprocally, etc. strike each other. 
 Passions, sentiments, affections, actions, may be 
 reciprocal, or mutual ; but the actors, the persons 
 themselves, cannot be so. Friendship may be 
 mutual ; but not the friends. Is not that plain ? 
 
 But for all that, the person who reads this page, 
 and turns from the page to a newspaper, will prob- 
 ably find " our mutual friend " in plain, unblush- 
 ing typography ! * 
 
 * Dickens has assumed a very unenviable responsibility in the 
 matter of "mutual friend." He not only frequently uses the 
 phrase in his writings, but he has published a novel bearing the 
 title of " Our Mutual Friend," when any other title would have an- 
 swered his purpose. Indeed, the title bears no relation whatever 
 to the story. This is a defiance of public opinion, for which no 
 apology could be offered. 
 
 There is a show of defence for Dickens in his pronunciation of
 
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 47 
 
 OVER HIS SIGNATURE. 
 
 No well-educated man could have originated 
 such a preposterous conceit as the phrase " over his 
 signature " ; yet many well-educated men permit 
 themselves to follow the example, that ignorance 
 has placed before them ; and if usage could sanc- 
 tion so stupid a blunder, the phrase would soon 
 become good English. 
 
 The words under and over have various mean- 
 ings, besides the designation of mere locality. 
 
 The terms " under oath," " under hand and seal," 
 " under arms," " under compulsion," " under the 
 sanction of,", "under his own hand," " under his 
 own signature," and so on, are fully established 
 and authorized forms of expression ; which have 
 nothing to do with the relative positions of the per- 
 sons and things indicated : they are idiomatic. 
 
 Yet, one or more of those "persons who come to 
 town every day," will every day, for all time to 
 come, announce that 
 
 Whereas mankind have hitherto innocently used 
 the phrase " under his own signature," in innocent 
 unconsciousness that the signature is at the bottom 
 of the instrument signed, they mankind will 
 take note that nothing can be under a thing when 
 
 * 
 
 'umble, that is, in his attempting to put the stamp of vulgarity on 
 that pronunciation ; because, however indefensible Aumble may 
 be, and that point will be fully considered in a subsequent part 
 of this volume, at least there are "two sides to the question." 
 But no philologist defends, or attempts to defend, " our mutual 
 friend."
 
 48 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 it is over it, nothing can be under that which is 
 itself under everything ; and that the said expression 
 should be changed to " over his signature " ; for 
 the plain reason that the contents of the instrument 
 precede, and stand above, to wit, over, the name at 
 the bottom. That is conclusive, because there is 
 no arguing against facts. 
 
 But the proclaimer of that rule should follow it 
 to its consequences. He should further declare 
 that " under seal " is just as disastrous an error as 
 its predecessor, because the seal is also at the bot- 
 tom. Furthermore, " under arms " cannot be 
 correct, because a soldier when under arms is not 
 under arms : that never happens until he is buried 
 with his musket or his sword across his breast. 
 " Under oath " is equally heretical, because the 
 oath is mere breath ; which, being exhaled, is 
 around the witness, not over him. And finally, 
 " under compulsion " may be right ; but it cannot 
 be proved so, until the relative positions of the 
 man and the compulsion shall have been satisfac- 
 torily ascertained. 
 
 EPITHET. 
 
 Many men who are well educated, and many 
 who are not,so, strangely misunderstand this word. 
 The shortest way to deal with it, is to refer to a 
 dictionary. Worcester says, 
 
 "Epithet, an adjective denoting any quality, 
 good or bad ; a term expressing an attribute or 
 quality."
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 49 
 
 That is to say, no part of speech other than an 
 adjective is an epithet, and the import of an epithet 
 is either good or bad. 
 
 Yet a large portion of all those persons, who 
 speak or write the English language, would call 
 the words coivard, thief, villain, fool, scoundrel, etc., 
 etc., " epithets." 
 
 Nor is that all. Very few people of a certain 
 class can be made to understand, that while adjec- 
 tives, only, are epithets ; as vile, cowardly, foolish, 
 etc., yet good, just, honest, handsome, etc., are also 
 epithets. The popular impression is, that to " ap- 
 ply epithets " to a person, is to vilify and insult 
 him. 
 
 " LOOKED BEAUTIFULLY." 
 
 A deal of argument has been expended on the 
 question whether an adjective is more proper than 
 an adverb in such phrases as " the trees looked 
 magnificently," " the clouds looked splendidly," 
 " the water looked frightfully," " Miss Smith 
 looked beautifully," etc. 
 
 But there is little room, or occasion, for argu- 
 ment in the case. Whatever there is of doubt about 
 it, arises from a misapprehension of the meaning 
 of the verb to look, in that phraseology. It there 
 has its strictly neuter meaning of seeming. 
 
 As there used, it does not mean the act of look- 
 ing with the eye, but the fact of appearing to the 
 eye : and all question about the accuracy of the 
 phrases will disappear the moment the right mean- 
 ing is made plain by a substituted word.
 
 50 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 The speaker, in such cases, means that the per- 
 sons, or things, spoken of are, or seem, or appear 
 magnificent, beautiful, etc. No one would think 
 of saying that " the clouds are magnificently" 
 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to add that adverbs 
 refer to, or qualify, what a person or thing does ; 
 and adjectives, what a person or thing is, or seems 
 to be. 
 
 AT LENGTH. 
 
 The phrase at length is often used in the place of 
 at last, but that is not its meaning. 
 
 " I have heard from my friend at length," means 
 that I have heard fully and in detail : a long state- 
 ment, or letter. 
 
 To hear from him at last, is to hear from him 
 after a long delay. 
 
 DISTINGUISH DISCRIMINATE. 
 
 " Distinguish " is often used for " discriminate " ; 
 as, " I could not distinguish between them." 
 
 There is a great array of precedent for this ; but 
 any one who is sensitive to niceties in language 
 must see the advantage of discriminating between 
 the two words. 
 
 "Distinguish" has other and distinct meanings; 
 and its force as to them is weakened by the impo- 
 sing on it of too many duties. The fact, that " dis- 
 criminate " retains its originally limited significa- 
 tion, shows the advantages of such retention, and 
 should be a hint to those persons who are addicted 
 to seeking substitutes.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 51 
 
 CURIOUS. 
 
 A correspondent of the London Athenceum, 
 March, 1866, says : 
 
 " By newspaper writers, and even by those who 
 may be looked upon as authorities, this word is 
 now employed as quite equivalent to strange or 
 remarkable. 
 
 " Nothing is more common than to read in the 
 daily prints of curious coincidences. On every 
 page, we meet with some paragraphs beginning, it 
 is a curious fact. Or, we may even read such a 
 sentence as this : The Emperor himself was pres- 
 ent, but, curiously enough, he asked no questions ! 
 
 " This use of the word is at once novel and 
 absurd ; and, I cannot but think, unknown in the 
 writings of every good author. The word, as it 
 has hitherto been employed by correct writers, has 
 two meanings, akin to each other, differing a little, 
 but both very distinct from that of strange, or ex- 
 traordinary. 
 
 " It was primarily applied only to persons, bear- 
 ing the meaning of prying or inquisitive; only cu- ' 
 rious, unlike those words, does not imply anything 
 of moral blame. Curious men (more usually, the 
 curious), as Addison wrote of them, were simply 
 those who intermeddled with all knowledge. 
 
 " But it is also, with sufficient sanction, applied 
 to things. When so applied, it means very nice, 
 or intricate ; e. g. an elaborate, delicate piece of 
 stone or ivory work might be described as curiously 
 carved.
 
 52 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 To use the word otherwise than in these senses 
 is a wilful abuse of language. We have remarka- 
 ble, strange, queer, and a host of other words per- 
 fectly fitted to fill the place, into which so many 
 people are trying to push poor curious" 
 
 PECULIAR. 
 
 " Peculiar " and " peculiarly " have nearly lost 
 their force and their peculiarity of signification, by 
 having become used interchangeably with extreme- 
 ly, intensely, superlatively, etc. ; although the noun, 
 peculiarity, substantially holds its original position. 
 In this case, as in the case of " distinguish," they 
 lose much of the force of their precision, by being 
 perverted from their strict sense. 
 
 MOST. 
 
 Everybody abuses this word. At least, nobody, 
 with less patience and perseverance than Diogenes, 
 can find an author who is innocent of such abuse. 
 
 Most is the superlative of much ; and also, sec- 
 ondarily, of many ; but, as to many other English 
 words, usage has given it a third duty to perform 
 and a second and subordinate sense to carry ; which 
 duty it performs indifferently, and not without in- 
 jury to itself: for the perversion detracts from its 
 original force. This secondary sense is nearly, if 
 not exactly, the equivalent of very, a word that falls 
 entirely short of being superlative; and the con 
 stant use of "most" in that sense necessarily 
 weakens its force in any sense.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 53 
 
 Indeed, that effect directly follows that cause; 
 as is seen in the fact that good writers have, for a 
 century or two, fallen into a habit of using " most " 
 in its original and superlative sense, yet applying 
 it to adjectives or adverbs that are already, either 
 technically or intrinsically, superlative of them- 
 selves ; or, they prefix it to a verb that expresses 
 superlative action : either of which uses is tauto- 
 logical, superfluous, and impertinent. These re- 
 marks will be best illustrated by citations, in some 
 of which the word is used in its primary, and in 
 others in its secondary, sense. 
 
 MILTON says, 
 
 " If what is urged 
 
 Main reason to persuade immediate war 
 Did not dissuade me most, and seein to cast 
 Ominous conjecture on the whole success ; 
 When he who most excels in fact of arms, 
 In what he counsels and in what excels," etc. 
 
 SHAKESPEAEE says, 
 
 " Most potent, grave, and reverend seignors, 
 My very noble and approved good masters, 
 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 
 It is most true; true, I have married her," etc 
 
 JOHNSON says, 
 
 " It is the sage advice of Epictetus that a man 
 should accustom himself often to think of what is 
 most shocking and terrible, that, by such reflec- 
 tions, he may be preserved from," etc. 
 
 ADDISON says, 
 
 " I had not been long at the university before 1 
 distinguished myself by a most profound silence."
 
 54 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE says, 
 
 "I have considered your suggestions as to so 
 and so ; it is a most just idea." 
 
 BURKE says, 
 
 " If this system has so ill answered its own grand 
 ^retence of saving the king from employing persons 
 disagreeable to him, has it given more peace and 
 tranquillity to his majesty's private hours ? No, 
 most certainly." 
 
 CHESTERFIELD says, 
 
 " He was a most complete orator and debater in 
 the House of Commons." 
 
 LITTLETON says, 
 
 " This was most extraordinary virtue in one who 
 has lived amid all the license of camps," etc. 
 
 SMOLLETT says, 
 
 " He was doubtless an object of most perfect es- 
 teem and admiration," etc. 
 
 GOLDSMITH says, 
 
 " Yet, even in these, the reader's memory may 
 possibly suggest the names of some, whose works, 
 still preserved, discover a most extensive erudi- 
 tion." 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING says, 
 
 "His affections were so social and generous, 
 that when he had money, he gave it most liberally 
 away." 
 
 PRESCOTT says, 
 
 " If I have reserved his name for the last, in the 
 list of those to whose good offices I am indebted, it 
 is, most assuredly, not because I value his services 
 least."
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 55 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER says, 
 
 " But, soon afterward, having reason to suspect 
 that Columbia and Mexico were preparing to at- 
 tack Cuba, and knowing that such an event would 
 most seriously affect us," etc. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT says, 
 
 " It requires little argument to show, that such a 
 system must most widely and most powerfully have 
 the effect of appealing to whatever of energy the 
 land contains." 
 
 Here follow certain random selections from the 
 newspapers : 
 
 " Though the effort be earnest, the coin is base, 
 and it is most effectually nailed to the counter in 
 the short article we have," etc. 
 
 " We will not say that Paulding has no faults as 
 a writer ; but it is most undeniable that, for every 
 one of his faults, a careful critic might produce," 
 etc. 
 
 " The brilliancy of Andrew Jackson's military 
 career is most unalterably certified by," etc. 
 
 " It is a most melancholy and most unaccountable 
 fact, that some hundreds of deluded individuals 
 have given in their adherence," etc. 
 
 " He began in early life as a writer ; and, after 
 forty years' labor, he accomplished a most extensive 
 and valuable collection," etc. 
 
 " This picture is a real gem, and a most undoubted 
 original." 
 
 It is needless to prolong this list of quotations. 
 They might be extended to many thousands. But
 
 56 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 what is worthy of special notice is the fact that 
 they are not selected from others in any one work 
 of their authors. In each instance, the first most 
 that was found in a volume is the one here quoted. 
 And yet, the reader will see that, in almost every 
 case, the sentence would be improved by the omis- 
 sion of the word most. 
 
 The passages from Milton and Shakespeare, being 
 poetry, could not be so abridged, unless another 
 word were substituted ; but that fact is immaterial 
 to the argument. 
 
 What is true of the foregoing extracts is equally 
 true of the pages of English literature generally. 
 That is to say, if a man would cross out " most " 
 wherever he can find it in any book in the English 
 language, he would in almost every instance im- 
 prove the sty'e of the book. 
 
 And, on the other hand, if good writers had, in 
 time past, adhered to the conservative principle of 
 avoiding the free use of certain words in a second- 
 ary sense, they would have done much toward pre- 
 serving the precision of our language. 
 
 THE REVEREND. 
 
 The omission of the definite article before the 
 words " honourable " and " reverend," when one 
 speaks of persons entitled to those epithets, has 
 become very common of late; but the author of 
 this book is not aware of anybody's having assigned 
 a reason for the omission. Its propriety may be 
 tried by the process of illustration. Admit, for the
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 57 
 
 sake of argument, that adjectives do not, when so 
 used, require the article, or any prefixed word ; and 
 then see how its omission affects this paragraph : 
 At last annual meeting of Blank Book Society, 
 honourable John Smith took the chair, assisted by 
 reverend John Brown and venerable John White. 
 The office of secretary would have been filled by 
 late John Green, but for his decease, which ren- 
 dered him ineligible. His place was supplied by 
 inevitable John Black. In the course of the even- 
 ing, eulogiums were pronounced on distinguished 
 John Gray, and notorious Joseph Brown. Marked 
 compliment was also paid to able historian Joseph 
 White, discriminating philosopher Joseph Green, 
 and learned professor Joseph Black. But conspicu- 
 ous speech of the evening was witty Joseph Gray's 
 apostrophe to eminent astronomer Jacob Brown, 
 subtle logician Jacob White, and sound mathema- 
 tician Jacob Green. His reference to learned Jacob 
 Black was a brilliant hit. Profound metaphysician 
 Jacob Gray was not forgotten, and indefatigable 
 traveller Peter Brown was remembered by a good 
 anecdote. Clever artist Peter Gray was, in fact, 
 only celebrity omitted. 
 
 THE BOOK GENESIS. 
 
 The omission of the preposition of, which has 
 recently been practised in the American pulpit, is 
 thus treated by Dean Alford in the " Queen's Eng- 
 lish," in reference to the Queen's clergymen : 
 
 " There is a piece of affectation becoming sadly 
 
 3*
 
 58 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 common among our younger clergy ; namely, the 
 omission of of in proclaiming from the desk Here 
 beginneth the first chapter of the book Genesis, etc. 
 
 " I believe the excuse, if it can be called one, set 
 up for this violation of usage is, that the Book of 
 Genesis and the Book of Daniel cannot both be 
 right, because the former was not written by 
 Genesis, as the latter was by Daniel. But this 
 simply betrays ignorance of the meaning of the 
 preposition of. It is used to denote authorship; 
 as the Book of Daniel : to denote subject-matter ; 
 as the First Book of Kings : and as a note of ap- 
 position signifying which is called; as the book of 
 Genesis, of Exodus, etc. 
 
 " The pedant, who ignores of in the reading-desk, 
 must however, to be consistent, omit it elsewhere : 
 I left the city London, and passed through county 
 Kent, leaving realm England at town Dover" etc. 
 
 WIDOW LADY. 
 
 Widow-Zae?/ and widow-wowzrtn are frequently 
 encountered in conversation and in print. But 
 whether either of them has yet been encountered 
 by a widower-^en^emaw or a widower-wan, remains 
 to be discovered. 
 
 ONE. 
 
 One, when used as a pronoun in the singular 
 number, is a very convenient and useful word ; 
 as, 
 
 "Two opportunities presented themselves, and 
 he, fortunately, chose the right one.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 59 
 
 * There were several swords on the table, but I 
 had the luck to take the best one of all." 
 
 But when the word is used in the plural, although 
 such use is grammatically correct, the effect is gro- 
 tesque ; as, 
 
 " Of the books he sent, I found three very good 
 ones, but the remainder were particularly dull." 
 
 Omit the "very good" in the first branch of that 
 sentence, and the odd expression, three ones, re- 
 mains. 
 
 BUT THAT. 
 
 But that, when the two words are used together 
 and each is used as a conjunction, seems to be a 
 favorite combination with some writers ; and good 
 writers do not always escape it. 
 
 The phrase is bad enough in itself; and is worse 
 in view of its consequence ; namely, the misleading 
 of other people into the lower vulgarism of but 
 what; as in the genial reply of Mr. JoUing (ne 
 Weevle) of Bleak Hoiise : 
 
 " Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I 
 will take a marrow pudding." 
 
 The Joblings of society must of course be left 
 where Dickens places them ; but it is desirable for 
 educated men to set a better example than SOUTHEY 
 did, when he wrote, 
 
 " There can be no question but that both the lan- 
 guage and the characters are Hebrew." 
 
 And even that is not quite so bad as a line of 
 TRENCH, in his book on this very subject of good 
 English, " English Past and Present " :
 
 60 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 He never doubts but that he knows their inten- 
 tions " ; 
 
 because SOUTHEY was writing a work of fiction, 
 "The Doctor," and was not necessarily on his 
 guard : " not but what he should have been," how 
 ever, as Mr. Jobling might say. 
 
 THAT, IN THAT, ETC. 
 
 Many writers have a habit of omitting " that," 
 from what would seem to be a propensity to over- 
 neatness of style ; or, it may be omitted through 
 carelessness. The omission makes a sentence both 
 inaccurate and inelegant. Precision is always an 
 element of a finished style. These are instances 
 of the omission : 
 
 " It was a long time before I ascertained [that] 
 I had lost the book." " We all know [that] his- 
 tory constantly reproduces itself." "He assured 
 me [that] the fact was otherwise." " Those who 
 are competent to judge say [that] he will never 
 succeed." And so on, indefinitely. 
 
 Again, " that" is frequently used by some good, 
 and by all poor, writers in a phrase that is only one 
 remove from slang. Even Trench uses it. He says 
 (" English Past and Present ") : " It is undoubted- 
 ly becoming different from what it has been, but 
 only different [this should be different only] in that 
 it is passing into another stage of its development." 
 
 Here in that means nothing less than in this re- 
 spect, that, which is a very unreasonable burden for 
 so short a word to say nothing of the vulgarism
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 61 
 
 of the phrase. It is making "that" do double 
 duty, as a pronoun and a conjunction. 
 
 Trench also says, in the same volume, " I cannot 
 think but that this is stated too strongly." Which 
 is not only, as Polonius says, " a vile phrase," but 
 it fails to express the meaning of the writer. He 
 means, " I cannot but think that" etc. In other 
 words, he says he cannot think, and he means he 
 cannot help thinking. 
 
 It is not overstating the case to say that Dean 
 Trench, while he is beyond question a writer of 
 general elegance and force, is frequently guilty of 
 extreme carelessness, which, in books of philo- 
 logical criticism, is hardly to be excused. In addi- 
 tion to his already-cited blunders, here is a sentence 
 which, within the compass of fifteen lines, contains 
 four blunders, namely, two errors and two inele- 
 gancies : "It can be regarded in no other light but 
 as a riddle which no one has succeeded in solving. 
 .... Had they had their rise first in books, then 
 it would be easily traced ; had it been from the 
 schools of the learned, these would not have failed 
 to have left a recognizable stamp and mark upon 
 them." 
 
 The " but " should be than; the " then " should 
 be omitted ; and " have left " should be leave. 
 
 IN so FAK AS. 
 
 This is a variation of "in that" ; the chief dif- 
 ference between the two being that, while one of the 
 phrases has too few words, the other has too many.
 
 62 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 As to frequency of use, they are nearly equal. These 
 are instances : 
 
 " We are to act up to the extent of our knowl- 
 edge ; but, in so far as our knowledge falls short," 
 etc. 
 
 " A want of proper opportunity would suffice, in 
 so far as the want could be shown." 
 
 It seems strange that so clumsy a phrase could 
 get into use, when the proper phrase is so familiar 
 and simple ; but so it is that men will cumber them- 
 selves about many things when but few things are 
 needed. The in of the phrase in question is worse 
 than superfluous. It might with equal propriety 
 be added to this, or any similar, sentence : 
 
 " He was much emaciated, in so much so, indeed, 
 that no one recognized him " ; or, " she is beautiful, 
 in so beautiful, that every man falls in love with 
 her." 
 
 CORRESPOND. 
 
 The verb to correspond has two meanings : one, 
 to be adapted to, or appropriate to, etc., when it al- 
 ways requires the preposition to after it ; as, 
 
 " His style of living corresponded to his means " ; 
 
 "The style of its architecture corresponded to 
 the size of the square " ; 
 
 and the other, to hold, or have, intercourse by let- 
 ters ; in which sense it requires the preposition 
 with; as, 
 
 " I have corresponded with him for years." 
 
 But the majority of writers, good and bad, use 
 with in both cases.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 63 
 
 WITHOUT. 
 
 Almost everybody uses this word as the synonyme 
 of unless : " I would not do it without he consented," 
 and so on. But such a use of the word is entirely 
 unjustifiable. 
 
 STOPPING. 
 
 It is a matter of almost daily experience to find 
 in the newspapers sentences like this, 
 
 " General Grant and his family have arrived in 
 town, and are stopping at the Fifth Avenue Hotel." 
 
 On reading such an announcement, one is tempt- 
 ed to inquire, 
 
 " When will General Grant stop stopping ' ? " 
 
 Stopping is not a continuous process, like going, 
 living, etc. To stop is to do a single act that ter- 
 minates the prior action. The act may be repeat- 
 ed, but it cannot be continued.* 
 
 PEN. 
 
 Bulwer, in his play of Richelieu, had the good 
 fortune to do, what few men can hope to do : he 
 wrote a line that is likely to live for ages. The 
 great Cardinal says, 
 
 " Beneath the rule of men entirely great, 
 The pen is migldier than the sword." 
 
 That, however, was written a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago, when the full power of the pen was not 
 developed. Were Bulwer to write his play now, 
 
 * The man who did not invite his (so-called) friend to visit him, 
 understood the meaning of words when he said, " If you come, at 
 any time, within ten miles of my house, just stop."
 
 64 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 with the light which the gentlemen of the newspa- 
 pers have thrown on the subject, he would proba- 
 bly change his immortal line to, 
 
 " The pen is mightier than the man" 
 
 Because, when Bulwer wrote that play, he did 
 write it ; whereas the present newspaper account 
 of the transaction would be that " The new play 
 of Richelieu is attributed to the pen of Bulwer." 
 
 OP ALL OTHERS. 
 
 Criticism has almost exhausted itself in exhibit- 
 ing the absurdity of this phrase : but nobody gives 
 heed to the criticisms. Like " our mutual friend," 
 the more it is criticised, the more people use 
 it. Books, newspapers, and conversation overflow 
 with it. 
 
 It is forced into all varieties of sentences, of 
 which any one or two will suffice as examples : 
 
 " That style of warfare is, of all others, the most 
 barbarous." 
 
 " A stain of all others the most difficult to ex- 
 punge." 
 
 How one thing can be of other things, is the ques- 
 tion. One thing can be above other things, but it 
 cannot be of them. A thing can be of all things, 
 the most; or, of all things, the richest, etc., or, of 
 a class, the best ; but the introduction of " others " 
 into the phrases in question excludes from the 
 " class," or from the " all," the very thing named. 
 
 The two sentences above quoted should be 
 changed by the substitution of above for " of" ; or,
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 65 
 
 by changing " others " to styles and stains, respec- 
 tively. 
 
 A HEARTY MEAL. 
 
 This phrase is appropriated chiefly by the nov- 
 elists ; who, alone, have much occasion for it. 
 Dickens " seriously inclines " to it, although gen- 
 erally he writes the purest English of the whole 
 fraternity ; always excepting Anthony Trollope, 
 and the anonymous author of a recently published 
 story called " Tony Butler." Tony Butler is the 
 work of a master, whoever he may be. 
 
 As to the " hearty meal," it is, no doubt, very 
 acceptable to the personage in the book who eats 
 it ; it is doubtless " quite to his taste " ; but pre- 
 serve us from the taste of the man who writes it ! 
 
 IN OUR MIDST. 
 
 This is a common phrase in sermons, homilies, 
 and religious newspapers ; and it is not uncommon 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Quaint forms of expression, in the treating of re- 
 ligious and moral subjects, have become familiar, 
 and are felt to be appropriate, because our transla- 
 tion of the Bible is full of them. But quaintness 
 must not take the place of accuracy in language : be- 
 sides, though the phrase in question may be traced 
 to the Bible, it cannot be found in the Bible. 
 
 Midst means, simply, middle, and it means noth- 
 ing else ; hence, " in our midst " is no better than 
 in our middle. 
 
 Again, " midst " is not an absolute, or indepen-
 
 66 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 dent, term. It must be used in connection with 
 some other word, or preceded by the definite ar- 
 ticle ; indeed, the article is indispensable. We 
 have " in the midst " in the Bible, midst being 
 there used as one of the parts of a locality, previ- 
 ously indicated. But the more usual form of its 
 correct use requires not only the definite article 
 before it, but the preposition of after it ; as, in the 
 midst of a storm, or the confusion, or the discus- 
 sion, etc. 
 
 Webster's last Dictionary has the following com- 
 ments : 
 
 " The phrase in our midst has, unhappily, gained 
 great currency in this country, and it is sometimes, 
 though rarely, to be found in the writings of re- 
 spectable English authors. The expression seems 
 contrary to the genius of the language, as well as 
 opposed to the practice of our best and most accu- 
 rate writers, and should therefore be abandoned." 
 
 Moreover, here, as elsewhere, the advocates of a 
 phrase must abide its consequences. If " in our 
 midst " is tolerated, who can prevent the next step 
 in the innovation ; namely, " our little midst " ? 
 
 YOU ARE MISTAKEN. 
 
 This phrase, as popularly used, is one of the 
 most widely disseminated of philological errors. 
 
 The verb to mistake is a compound of mis and 
 take; and it means simply to take amiss, to take 
 erroneously. 
 
 The " take " of the combination has two signifi-
 
 MISUSED WOEDS. 67 
 
 cations, taking physically and taking mentally ; 
 that is, to take by or with the hand, and by or 
 with the mind. The word mistake is seldom, 
 perhaps never, used in the former sense. In the 
 latter sense, it may be denned by the verbs mis- 
 judge, misconceive, misapprehend, misunderstand. 
 
 Therefore, to say that a person mistakes the facts 
 of a case, or the acts, opinions, intentions, or words 
 of another person, is equivalent to saying that he 
 misjudges, misconceives, misapprehends, or misun- 
 derstands them. 
 
 And, on the other hand, to say " you are mis- 
 taken," in regard to the acts, facts, opinions, etc., 
 is equivalent to saying you are misjudged, mis- 
 conceived, misapprehended, misunderstood, there- 
 about. 
 
 But, as the phrase is commonly used, that is ex- 
 actly what the speaker does not mean. He intends 
 to tell his friend that he (the friend) is wrong, or 
 in error ; but he says that he is himself in error. 
 
 For example, A says to B, " The Central Park is 
 ten miles long." B replies, " You are mistaken ; 
 it is only three miles long." 
 
 In that case, A is not mistaken, because he is not 
 misunderstood by B. He mistook the fact, and that 
 is what B should have said, " You mistake." 
 
 Again, A says to B, " Dr. Brown has become 
 unsound in his theology ; he said so and so." B 
 replies, "You are mistaken ; he said so and so." 
 
 Here again A is not mistaken ; he mistook, he 
 misapprehended, etc., the Doctor's words or his 
 meaning.
 
 68 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Iii short, whenever A wishes to tell B that he is 
 wrong, or in error, in a remark like those here 
 cited, he should say "you mistake," or "you are 
 wrong," and not " you are mistaken." 
 
 As to the noun, " mistake." Analogically, a 
 mistake seems to be little better than a misjudge, a 
 misconceive, & misapprehend, a misunderstand; and 
 quite as bad as an undertake, or an overtake. And 
 those words, ridiculous as they appear, need not be 
 scouted as impossible applicants for admission into 
 the language; so long as everybody knows that, 
 among ignorant people, " a recommend " is a com- 
 mon substitute for a recommendation; and " an in- 
 vite," for an invitation. Furthermore, we have the 
 exact equivalent of " recommend " and " invite," 
 already adopted and in daily use in one of the 
 " learned professions." Hardly a case is tried in 
 our courts of law, in the progress of which trial pa- 
 pers are not introduced that are called and marked 
 " exhibits" And- our custom-house daily grants 
 its "permits" for the discharge of merchandise 
 from vessels and warehouses. 
 
 Hence, as most of our philological vulgarisms 
 originate with illiterate people, and gradually rise 
 in the popular current witil, at last, they are adopt- 
 ed by good writers, a recommend, an invite, an 
 overtake, and any other words, may become good 
 English, on the theory that usage is the end of the 
 law. Besides, there is this additional difficulty 
 about the noun mistake, when used as the equiva- 
 lent of an error, that it tends strongly toward 
 sanctioning the misuse of the verb, as already dis-
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 69 
 
 cussed. For, when we become accustomed to the 
 use of " a mistake," it seems inconsistent to deny 
 that " you are mistaken " and " you are in error " 
 are interchangeable terms. 
 
 When one has in mind the true meaning of the 
 verb, what a confusing jumble of thought ensues 
 from hearing the phrase, " You made a mistake" 
 as if one should say, " You made a misunder- 
 stand!" 
 
 However, these comments on the noun mistake 
 are intended to be speculative, rather than critical ; 
 for whether the noun is well or ill formed, and 
 whether or not its use tends to accredit the verb in 
 a wrong sense, neither its formation nor its use 
 can now be disturbed. The word is too firmly 
 rooted in the language, to be subject to serious 
 criticism. 
 
 COMPARATIVE ADJECTIVES. 
 
 Comparative adjectives, as wiser, better, larger, 
 etc., etc., and also the contrasting adjectives, differ- 
 ent, other, etc., are very often inelegantly used by 
 being misplaced ; as, 
 
 " That is a much better statement of the case 
 than yours." 
 
 " Yours is a larger plot of ground than John's." 
 
 " This is a different course of proceeding from 
 what I expected." 
 
 '" I could take no other method of silencing him 
 than the one I took." 
 
 Those sentences should be thus altered : 
 
 " That statement of the case is much letter than 
 yours."
 
 70 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 " Your plot of ground is larger than John's." 
 
 "That course of proceeding is different from 
 what I expected." 
 
 " I could take no method of silencing him, other 
 than the one I took." 
 
 The fault, in such cases, is a fault of construc- 
 tion, or position, separating the adjective from 
 the conjunction. As a rule, they should be brought 
 together ; and when the reader sees the two forms 
 side by side, he needs no argument to show him the 
 advantage of bringing them together. 
 
 Yery few writers seem to understand this ; or, 
 at least, very few writers take the trouble to avoid 
 the error ; for the instances of the error, in every 
 department of literature, may be counted by tens 
 of thousands. 
 
 Mr. Marsh, in his series of criticisms on Web- 
 ster's Dictionary published in The Nation, permits 
 himself to write the following formidable specimen 
 of this fault of construction (The, Nation, Septem- 
 ber 20th) : 
 
 " In like manner, false derivations of buoy, cam- 
 let, and hundreds of other words, are almost uni- 
 versally adopted, because lexicographers have found 
 it easier to imagine a connection between vocables 
 so like each other as boja, a fetter or chain, and 
 buoy; camel and camlet; than to search out the 
 actual history of the derivatives in question." 
 
 How easy would it have been for Mr. Marsh to 
 say, " lexicographers have found that to imagine 
 a connection is easier than to search out," etc.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 71 
 
 Mr. Marsh, in the same paper, says, " Neither the 
 history, the form, nor the meaning of a word," 
 thus applying "neither" to three objects. But, 
 per contra, he gives, in the same paragraph, the 
 following able and perspicuous criticism on one of 
 Webster's etymologies : 
 
 " In a dictionary on the plan of that before us 
 there must also be a limit to the amount of collat- 
 eral etymological illustration, and space is occu- 
 pied which might be better employed whenever 
 facts are stated which serve to explain neither the 
 history, the form, nor the meaning of a word. The 
 former editions of Webster were very extravagant in 
 this respect, and though the revisers have, in most 
 cases, retrenched such superfluities, they have some- 
 times, from inadvertence, no doubt, rather than de- 
 liberate intention, suffered them to remain. Thus, 
 the etymology of profession refers us to the French 
 profession, the Provencal professio, the Spanish pro- 
 fesion, the Italian professione, and the Latin profes- 
 sio. Now the French word is important, because it 
 accounts for the form of the English, the Latin 
 because it gives us the proximate source of the 
 French ; the other three explain nothing whatever, 
 and are of 110 more use or instruction to the Eng- 
 lish student than totally unrelated Russian, Hun- 
 garian, or Turkish equivalents of the same word 
 would be." 
 
 This is a quiet, but rather sharp, comment on 
 the former claim of Webster's publishers, that 
 his dictionary was superior to all others by reason
 
 72 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 of, and in proportion to, the voluminousness of 
 its etymologies. 
 
 THE INFINITIVE MOOD. 
 
 The use of a verb any verb in the past tense, 
 with an infinitive in the past tense, is another 
 of the blunders that may be found on almost every 
 page of English literatiire. It is even more com- 
 mon than " of all others"; although, like that, it 
 has been perseveringly criticised for many years. 
 
 JOHNSON says, 
 
 " Had this been the fate of Tasso, he would have 
 been able to have celebrated the condescension of 
 your majesty in noble language." 
 
 SOUTHEY says, 
 
 " Gray might perhaps have been able to have ren- 
 dered him more temperate in his political views." 
 
 WILSON says, 
 
 " Byron's modesty was shocked at the sight of 
 waltzing, which he would not have suffered the 
 Guiccioli to have indulged in, even with her own 
 husband." 
 
 JEFFREY says, 
 
 " Swift, but a few months before, was willing to 
 have hazarded all the horrors of civil war." 
 
 ALISON says, 
 
 " It was expected that Ms first act would have leen 
 to have sent for Lords Grey and Grenville." * 
 
 TRENCH says, 
 
 " Those who would gladly have seen the Anglo 
 
 * This sentence contains a double blunder : but that is nothing 
 uncommon for Alison.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 73 
 
 Saxon to have predominated over the Latin element 
 in our language." 
 
 The infinitives in the foregoing quotations should 
 be, severally, to celebrate, to render., to indulge, to haz- 
 ard, would be to send; while Trench's sentence 
 should be, " the Anglo-Saxon predominate" 
 
 When such writers set such examples, who can 
 wonder that all subsequent writers follow them ? 
 
 The present infinitive, though often misused, 
 is so used much less frequently than the past. Be- 
 sides, the error can be much more briefly explained. 
 
 The present infinitive consists of the particle to 
 and the verb ; as, to speak. But, grammatically, 
 the particle is a part of the verb, and a part in- 
 separable from it, as much so as is any other mere 
 prefix. Indeed, as much so as a prefixed syllable 
 that makes a compound word, as in and separable, 
 in the word inseparable. But some person who 
 happened to hear, or see, a forcible expression 
 made by placing an adverb between an auxiliary 
 and its principal verb which is a very different 
 case from this case wished, probably, to do like- 
 wise with the infinitive ; and he placed his adverb 
 between the particle and the verb. An abundance 
 of followers was found " to immediately imitate " 
 the preposterous example, which is as notable for 
 its pedantry as for its ignorance. 
 
 SHOULD HAVE REGRETTED HIS HAVING BEEN, ETC. 
 
 Akin to this use of the past, for the present, in- 
 finitive, is a compound of past tenses involved in a
 
 74 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 phrase like this : " I should have regretted his hav- 
 ing been killed." In this case, if the speaker means 
 that he would once have regretted what, for reasons, 
 he does not now regret, he should say, " I should 
 have 1 regretted his being killed " ; but if he means 
 that he " would now regret," etc., he ought to say, 
 " I should regret his having been killed." In short, 
 one branch of the sentence must refer to the present 
 time. 
 
 Trench says, in "English Past and Present," 
 " A lover of his native tongue will tremble to think 
 what that tongue would have become, if all the 
 vocables from the Latin and Greek .... had been 
 admitted .... and if .... had not been rejected" 
 etc. 
 
 Obviously, this should be, " what the tongue 
 would be, if so and so had been" ; because, how 
 could a lover of his native tongue tremble at a 
 danger, or an evil, that is past? 
 
 THE POSSESSIVE CASE. 
 
 There seems to be a difference of opinion, even 
 among philologists, about the accuracy of sentences 
 like these : 
 
 " The reason of the king not giving his consent, 
 has at last been divulged." 
 
 " The doctor insisted on John being bled." 
 
 " He would not be satisfied without the major 
 throwing it away." 
 
 " The best apology for the governor signing the 
 paper, is," etc.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 75 
 
 Dean Alford says on this point : 
 
 " A correspondent inquires respecting the correct- 
 ness of such sentences as the following : Day and 
 night are a consequence * of the earth revolving on 
 its axis. He maintains f that, here, revolving is a 
 verbal noun, equivalent to revolution; and that we 
 ought to say, a consequence of the earth's revolv- 
 ing on its axis. He believes he has proved this, by 
 the test of substituting the pronoun for ' earth ' : 
 Day and night are a consequence of its revolving 
 on its axis, where, he rightly says, no one would 
 think of saying it revolving. At first sight, this 
 appears decisive. But, let us examine a little 
 
 * One would suppose that the Dean might as well have rebuked 
 his correspondent for writing " a consequence " instead of conse- 
 quences. 
 
 t This word is of questionable propriety in the circumstances. 
 A critic should avoid doubtful words. The primary meaning of 
 "maintain" involves a successful upholding, which success the 
 Dean proceeds in this case to deny. 
 
 A man once said to his friend, at the end of a discussion, "I 
 maintain my opinion, for all that." "Excuse me," was the re- 
 joinder ; " you retain your opinion." 
 
 Again, the Dean says, " the use of here lies the remains of has 
 teen justified by a correspondent on such and such grounds " ; after 
 which, he proceeds to say, in the same paragraph, that "the 
 defence of his correspondent is unquestionably wrong. How, die: 
 could the correspondent have "justified" the phrase? 
 
 It so happens, that the Dean furnishes a commentary on a pre- 
 cisely similar misuse of a word, in his paragraph 346. He is 
 speaking of the misuse of sustain. " To sustain means to endure, 
 to bear up under; but to sustain a bereavement " that is the 
 phrase he criticises " does not properly mean to undergo or 
 suffer a loss, but to behave bravely under it. In the newspapers, 
 however, 'sustain' comes in for the happening to men of all the 
 ills and accidents possible."
 
 76 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 further. It is somewhat curious,* that in this last 
 sentence we may leave out the possessive pronoun 
 without obscuring the sense : thus, Our earth 
 enjoys day and night as a consequence of revolv- 
 ing on its axis," etc. 
 
 That is strange reasoning. The sentence which 
 the Dean oifers as an illustration is entirely differ- 
 ent from the sentence he professes to illustrate : 
 and thus, though his sentence is correct, its correct- 
 ness does not prove the other incorrect. 
 
 The test of substituting the pronoun is good. 
 The Dean says it " at first sight appears decisive " : 
 which is true. And, moreover, it is decisive at 
 first sight, and at second sight, and at any " sight." 
 
 Does the Dean seriously mean to say that, in a 
 given sentence, a noun does not require the posses- 
 sive case, when a substituted pronoun does require 
 it ? Do the principles of grammatical government 
 vary between a noun and a pronoun ? 
 
 Let us look at the four quoted sentences at the 
 beginning of this section on the Possessive Case ; 
 and reproduce them in the three positions, with 
 and without the possessive of the noun, and with 
 the pronoun : 
 
 The reason of the king (king's) (his*) not giving 
 his consent has at last been divulged ; 
 
 The doctor insisted on John (John's) (his) being 
 bled; 
 
 He would not be satisfied without the major 
 (major's) (his) throwing it away ; 
 
 * See page 51.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 77 
 
 The best apology for the governor (governor's) 
 Qiis) signing the paper, is, etc. 
 
 Of course in all but the second quotation the the 
 before the questionable noun must be omitted when 
 the pronoun is used. 
 
 Now, take the actual equivalent of the corre- 
 spondent's own sentence with such variations as 
 shall try its grammar without changing its syn- 
 tax : 
 
 Disease and death are consequences of the man 
 neglecting the doctor's advice ; 
 
 Disease and death are consequences of me neg- 
 lecting the doctor's advice ; 
 
 Disease and death are consequences of he, or 
 him, neglecting the doctor's advice. 
 
 Can any person doubt that the possessive case is 
 indispensable in those instances ? 
 
 A late number of the London Times has this sen- 
 tence : 
 
 " The solution could only be put off either by 
 the Emperor Napoleon resolving on a prolonged 
 occupation of Mexico, or by the Emperor Maximil- 
 ian being able to reply," etc. 
 
 The almost universal misuse, by the misplacing, 
 of the word only will be considered on a subse- 
 quent page; but a few words here may not be 
 amiss. Strictly speaking, that sentence is so ar- 
 ranged that instead of only's being misplaced, 
 one should say that there is no place for it. 
 
 It means, as the preceding lines of the para- 
 graph would show if they were here quoted, that
 
 78 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 the suggested action of one or the other of the 
 emperors is the only way to postpone the solution. 
 Therefore, its place in the quoted sentence would 
 be this : " The solution could be put off only either 
 by the Emperor Napoleon," etc., which is altogether 
 too outrageous to be thought of ; hence, " only " 
 has no place and must be stricken out. 
 
 But the sentence from the Times .is a recent and 
 responsible instance of the omission of the posses- 
 sive case. The Dean would say that the sentence 
 is correct, but the Dean would be wrong. " Na- 
 poleon" and "Maximilian" should be Napoleon's 
 and Maximilian's. 
 
 The reason for the necessity of the possessive 
 case in such sentences is to be found in the mean- 
 ing of the words : the solution is to be put off 
 if put off by Napoleon's act; to wit, his resolving 
 so and so: or, by Maximilian's act; that is, his 
 " being able " so and so. Dean Alford's argument 
 virtually assumes that Napoleon and Maximilian 
 are in the objective case, and are governed by the 
 preposition by, which is contradicted by the sense 
 of the passage. So, again, in the above-quoted 
 sentence of the Dean, " Day and night are conse- 
 quences of the earth's act, to wit, its revolving on 
 its axis" : the " consequences" are not the " conse- 
 quences of the earth," but of the " revolving," and 
 the revolving is the earth's act : it is the earth's re- 
 volving which is the point at issue. 
 
 Jenkins and Jones have good reason to complain 
 of the squeamishness that refuses them the privilege
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 79 
 
 of a full possessive case, which, however, is freely 
 accorded to Brown and /Smith. On the same page 
 that contains a tribute to Brown's high character, 
 we find another tribute to Jenkins' memory. 
 Byron made short work of that, when he wrote, 
 
 " And ere the faithless truce was broke 
 Which freed her from the unchristian yoke, 
 With him his gentle daughter came ; 
 Nor there since Menelaus's dame 
 Forsook," etc. 
 
 In that case, the printer may do what he pleases 
 with the final s, use it, or omit it ; but the 
 reader will take care to pronounce it if he 
 knows how to read. 
 
 WHOSE. 
 
 Every man who is sensitive on the subject of 
 correct language, must have felt the want of an 
 impersonal relative pronoun, the possessive case of 
 which should hold toward things the relation that 
 " whose" holds to persons. But there is no such 
 pronoun, and no human ingenuity can make one. 
 In its absence, whose has been substituted as a 
 matter of necessity and almost by common con- 
 sent ; as, 
 
 " We found in the grove one enormous tree 
 whose height we estimated to be more than two 
 hundred feet." 
 
 Some of the best English writers have used 
 " whose " in this sense ; Gibbon uses it frequently, 
 and on the whole it should be accepted as inevita- 
 ble.
 
 80 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 But here, as elsewhere, there are dissenting 
 votes. 
 
 Mr. Washington Moon, an expert English phi- 
 lologist, who is known as an able and persistent 
 assailant of Dean Alford's book, has written several 
 letters for the Round Table, in which he sharply 
 criticises the style of Mr. Marsh's communications 
 in The Nation, already mentioned. Mr. Moon 
 thus stands in the position of a critic criticising a 
 criticising critic; in which capacity he has not 
 escaped criticism at the hands of third parties. 
 Mr. Moon, speaking of Mr. Marsh's use of whose in 
 the way above mentioned, says : 
 
 Can either the relative pronoun who, or its 
 possessive whose, correctly be employed concern- 
 ing inanimate objects ? I think not. Of the 
 relative pronouns, who and whose apply either to 
 persons, or to things personified ; which applies 
 to irrational animals, to inanimate objects, and 
 sometimes to infants ; and that is used to pre- 
 vent the too frequent repetitions of who and of 
 which, and applies equally to persons, to animals, 
 and to things. Such is our modern usage ; and 
 to it we ought to conform. I am aware that, in 
 olden time, it was the custom to use which when 
 speaking of persons ; hence the phrase, " Our 
 Father which art in heaven." It was the custom 
 also to say whose when speaking of things ; hence, 
 in the opening lines of Paradise Lost we read 
 
 " Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste."
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 81 
 
 But now the best writers, when speaking of in- 
 animate objects, use of which instead of whose ; 
 and I am surprised to find Mr. Marsh saying, 
 " How can we define that whose being, whose 
 action, whose conditions, whose limitations we can- 
 not comprehend ? " Would it not have been better 
 to say, " How can we define that of which we can- 
 not comprehend the being, the action, the condi- 
 tions, the limitations ? " 
 
 Of which, in the first place, be it remarked, the 
 assertion " the best writers use of which instead 
 of whose " is not true, in the unqualified way 
 here stated. 
 
 Of which, in the second place, be it, remarked, 
 the third sentence of Mr. Moon's paragraph is 
 supererogatory. 
 
 And of which, in the third place, be it remarked, 
 a man may have the best of an argument and yet 
 be practically on the wrong side of the question 
 argued. 
 
 The frequent use of whose, in the way cited, by 
 many of the best writers, for the last hundred 
 years, establishes a prima facie case of necessity ; 
 for so frequent a violation of so obvious a rule, 
 could hardly have been accidental. Whose was so 
 used because there was no help for it, no substi- 
 tute for it. Mr. Moon's suggested substitute is not 
 new ; nor does its grammatical accuracy help it to 
 take, in all cases, the place he assigns to it. It 
 therefore does not satisfy the necessity. 
 
 An innovation upon a philological principle is
 
 82 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 one thing, and a violation of a philological rule is 
 also one thing ; neither of which can be justified 
 in the abstract. And when either is made without 
 necessity, it cannot be justified at all : as, for ex- 
 ample, the fabrication of a word that is not needed ; 
 or, the misuse of a word or phrase that can easily 
 be corrected. But an innovation upon a principle, 
 or a violation of a rule, when either is done to 
 satisfy a universally acknowledged necessity, is 
 another thing. 
 
 In such a case, the plea of Bassanio to Portia, 
 
 " To do a great right, do a little wrong," 
 comes with great force. It is true, Portia replies, 
 
 " It must not be ; 
 'T would be recorded for a precedent " : 
 
 and Justice could make no other response. But 
 Portia, herself, says to Shylock, 
 
 " Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 
 
 That in the course of justice, none of us 
 
 Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy ; 
 
 And that same prayer should teach us all to render 
 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
 That quotation, with necessity substituted for 
 " mercy," is commended to Mr. Moon's notice. 
 
 JOUENAL. 
 
 This word comes to us directly from the French, 
 without any change of spelling and with little 
 change of pronunciation. The French journal is 
 from the Latin diurnalis, whence, also, the Eng- 
 lish diurnal. This etymology renders the defini-
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 83 
 
 tion inevitable and one would think exclusive ; 
 namely, something pertaining to daily use ; and 
 hence its application to a daily newspaper is ob- 
 viously proper. 
 
 But, by a strange latitude of application, the 
 word has finally come to be used for a weekly 
 newspaper and even for a quarterly review. The 
 writers for the English Quarterlies, who certainly 
 rank high as " good writers," frequently refer, in 
 speaking of themselves, " to the course uniformly 
 pursued by this journal." 
 
 UNIVERSE. 
 
 The word universe is very often used as the mere 
 synonyme of world, this world, the earth ; when a 
 writer, or speaker, wishes to give emphasis to an 
 assertion ; as, 
 
 1 " There is not a man in the universe who could 
 do it." 
 
 " That is the finest ship in the universe" 
 " No army in the universe could beat them." 
 No doubt, there is a universe ; but the word 
 means all created things, as a whole ; not only our 
 entire solar system, but all the other systems of 
 which the fixed stars are but the centres. 
 
 Therefore, to use the word as meaning merely 
 the earth which is necessarily involved by 
 peopling or occupying it with things earthly is 
 absurd ; not to say, that it conveys an impression 
 of the ignorance of the meaning of the word, on 
 the part of the writer or speaker.
 
 84 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 EIDE. DRIVE. 
 
 The use of drive, for ride, to express being 
 conveyed in a carriage instead of on a horse, is a 
 miserable affectation of accuracy. There is no 
 accuracy about it. To go from place to place in 
 a carriage, or in any vehicle, is as literally and 
 precisely and philologically riding, as to go over the 
 same ground on a horse. 
 
 The discrimination between the two words, 
 riding and driving, which a pseudo-fashion has 
 attempted to establish, both in England and in the 
 United States, is mere pedantry, without a pre- 
 tence of philological authority. 
 
 A lady says she is " going to drive in the 
 Park," when she is not going to do anything of the 
 kind. Her coachman is to drive, and he drives, not 
 her, but the horses. She is to ride ; and she has 
 nothing to do with driving. To be sure, a lady 
 does sometimes drive, by taking the driver's seat, 
 the whip, and " the ribbons " but that is another 
 matter. 
 
 Pray, what is travelling in a railroad car? Is 
 that " driving " ? 
 
 ISSUE. 
 
 Newspapers, magazines and reviews are issued at 
 stated periods ; and, without exception, each of 
 such publications is numbered consecutively with the 
 others. The first issued is number one, the second, 
 number two ; and so on, for a million, if circum- 
 stances permit. Hence, when a particular paper, 
 or magazine, or review is to be designated, the
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 85 
 
 proper term is, " your paper, or magazine, or re- 
 view of such a date " ; or, more generally, " a late 
 number , or a recent number, of your paper," etc. 
 
 But modern precision, or ambition, has " changed 
 all that " ; and now, we read of " a late issue, or a 
 recent issue, of your paper " ; or, what is quite 
 as common, and even worse, " one of your late 
 issues," or " your issue of yesterday." 
 
 CASE. 
 
 In a recent obituary of a distinguished and much- 
 lamented citizen of New York, a "sensational" 
 writer spoke of the case, and in another sentence 
 of the casket, in which the remains were deposited. 
 
 Did the gentleman know that there is such a 
 word as coffin ? Or, had he in mind the quaint con- 
 ceit of Dickens in Bleak House, which is developed 
 through the profound Skimpole ? A certain 
 butcher applies for the payment of " his little bill" ; 
 as if, by using the diminutive adjective, he some- 
 how made the payment easier. Thus, the news- 
 paper writer may have thought that he was slyly 
 administering consolation to the bereaved friends, 
 by intimating that a man in a " casket " is not 
 quite so dead as a man in a coffin. 
 
 TO THE MUZZLE. 
 
 When a burglar, or any desperate ruffian, is ar- 
 rested " in the fact " and is searched, he is usually 
 found to be armed with a pistol " loaded to the muz- 
 zle." When artillery-men, at sea or on land, grow 
 desperate, they load their guns " to the muzzle "
 
 86 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Does any person who uses those overcharged 
 expressions happen to know what would be the 
 effect of loading a cannon, or any fire-arm, " to the 
 muzzle " ? 
 
 If he should once discharge a weapon loaded in 
 that style, he probably would never again describe 
 the process of such loading. 
 
 APPREHEND, ETC. 
 
 This is a favourite substitute for think, fancy, 
 believe, imagine, etc. 
 
 Says a newspaper writer, " Now we apprehend 
 that this is a very limited view of the case." 
 
 " We apprehend that the President misunderstood 
 the Secretary." 
 
 Even predict is sometimes used to a similar 
 effect : 
 
 " We predict that Johnson did not in fact steal 
 the horse." 
 
 Of these two, predict is a stupid blunder; and 
 apprehend is, to say the least, a very long word. 
 
 One of the New York morning newspapers re- 
 cently remarked, that the only way such a political 
 party " could be resurrected," was so and so. And 
 another, not to be behind in the race, said, that it 
 would be good policy " to placate our opponents." 
 The latter word is accredited in the last edition of 
 Webster ; and no doubt the former will be so, in 
 the next edition. 
 
 A weekly newspaper contains this sentence : " In 
 fact, the opponents of the whole series of amend-
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 87 
 
 ment, unable to hostilize it on its merits, neverthe- 
 less object to it as supererogatory and unneces- 
 sary." At first sight, " hostilize " seems to be a 
 new candidate for admission into the family ; but a 
 reference to the last edition of Webster indicates 
 that it is a superannuated member, labelled " obso- 
 lete." Its revival is rather " supererogatory." 
 
 The same paper contains this very questionable 
 compliment to an absent friend : " This gentleman 
 has spent several months of active travel and dili- 
 gent inquiry in the country, penetrating to the 
 Sierra Nevada, and spending some weeks in close 
 observation in Utah, where, through a concurrence 
 of favourable circumstances, he enjoyed exceptionable 
 opportunities for acquainting himself with the organ 
 ization, probity, and inner life of the Mormons." 
 
 If that had been published in a daily newspaper, 
 one might suppose that the writer, or compositor, 
 or proof-reader, by reason of haste, mistook " ex- 
 ceptionable " for exceptional; for the typographical 
 difference between the two words is not great. 
 But in a weekly paper, the oversight of three men 
 in succession is not so easily explained. 
 
 ONE HALF. 
 
 In the newspaper advertisements of dividends by 
 money corporations, we constantly read that such 
 or such an institution " has declared a dividend of 
 three and one half per cent," etc. 
 
 In arithmetical expression, there can be but one 
 half, because two halves make one whole ; as twenty
 
 88 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 shillings make one pound. Therefore, as in the 
 arithmetical formulas, two halves are unknown, one 
 half is pretentiously precise, and a half is the 
 proper term. Quarters, eighths, etc. exist in 
 larger numbers, and one quarter, one eighth, or 
 three quarters, five eighths, etc., are necessary and 
 proper expressions. 
 
 NEVER. 
 
 Never is often improperly used for not, but it 
 means something more than " not." The words 
 may be used interchangeably in certain cases ; but 
 " never " means, primarily, not ever, not at any 
 time, at no time, etc. ; and, with that definition in 
 view, any one can see that its application to an 
 event that, in the nature of things, could take place 
 but once, is of questionable propriety. For exam- 
 ple, the birth of a person ; or his death ; or the 
 creation or destruction of any one thing ; as, 
 
 " General Washington was never born in New 
 York " ; 
 
 " Napoleon never died in France " ; 
 
 "That tree, that house, that ship, was never 
 destroyed by fire," it being understood that each 
 was destroyed in some way, or, "that house, that 
 ship, was never built by contract," etc. 
 
 MAKE NO MORE NOISE THAN YOU CAN HELP. 
 
 That is wrong, but the correct phrase (cannot 
 help) seems wrong ; and either is clumsy. " Make 
 no noise that you can avoid or help," is a better 
 phrase, but it is rather formal.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 89 
 
 The error of the more familiar phrase is seen 
 when the elliptically omitted words are supplied : 
 " make no more noise than the noise that you can- 
 not help making " ; or, " than such as you cannot 
 help making." 
 
 A FEW. 
 
 The accuracy of a few is sometimes questioned, 
 on the assumption that it cannot be correct because 
 a many is incorrect ; but both are right. 
 
 The indefinite article has a " singular " meaning, 
 but it is also applicable to a collective number ; as, 
 a hundred. A great many, is also correct ; like so 
 many, very many, being a manner of comparative 
 designation. 
 
 " Many a gem of purest ray " 
 
 is but a later and substituted use for a many gems. 
 
 Few, without the article, has almost a negative 
 sense, meaning almost none; as, 
 
 " Few men could be found to do so base an act." 
 
 TO PEOGKESS. 
 
 Much ink has been wasted to prove tia&t progress, 
 as a verb, is both an Americanism and a modern 
 vulgarism. 
 
 Dean Alford says : 
 
 " The verb to progress is challenged by one of 
 my friends as a modern (sic) Americanism. This 
 is not strictly true. Shakespeare uses it in King 
 John, Act V. Sc. 2, 
 
 ' Let me wipe off this honourable dew 
 That silverly doth progress o'er thy cheeks.'
 
 90 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 But you will observe that the line requires the 
 word to be pronounced progress, not progress, so 
 that .this is perhaps hardly a case in point, except as 
 to the word, a verb formed on the noun progress." 
 (The last two lines are copied verbatim et punctua- 
 tim.^) To that, the Dean appends this note : 
 
 " I mention, as in courtesy bound, an account 
 of this construction which has been sent me by a 
 correspondent anxious to vindicate Shakespeare 
 from having used a modern vulgarism.* He would 
 understand doth progress as doeth progress. Surely, 
 he can hardly be in earnest." 
 
 The Dean, afterward, and at length, argues and 
 illustrates the question ; quoting Milton's use of 
 the word in a different sense, which, again, " is 
 hardly a case in point." But he fails to quote 
 from Gibber's alteration of Richard III., what 
 Gloster says, 
 
 " Alas ! she keeps no bed ; 
 
 She has health enough to progress far as Chertsey, 
 But not, to bear the sight of me," 
 
 which, as an illustration of English usage, is at 
 least as much " in point " as the quotation from 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The conclusion of the Dean is, that, notwith- 
 standing all that has been urged against the verb, 
 it is wanted and should be recognized ; but he in 
 no respect retracts his position that its accent on 
 
 1 "Shakespeare's having used a modern vulgarism," is about 
 equal to Jeffrey's remark, in his Essays, " It is well known that 
 the ancients have stolen most of our bright thoughts."
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 91 
 
 the second syllable is a " modern Americanism " 
 and a vulgarism. 
 
 The Dean's position, in that regard, seems, then, 
 to be nothing less than this : that whenever an 
 English verb and noun are, respectively, identical 
 in spelling, they are also identical in pronunciation. 
 
 Assuming that to be the position of the Dean, it 
 is " in order " to remind him of a word precisely 
 " in point " apropos to his remarks on America ; 
 and on the American war, now recently terminated. 
 He says " Queen's English," paragraph 8 : * 
 
 " Look, to take one familiar example, at the 
 process of deterioration which our Queen's English 
 has undergone at the hands of the Americans. 
 Look at those phrases which so amuse us in their 
 speech and books ; at their reckless exaggeration 
 and contempt for congruity ; and then compare the 
 character and history of the nation,! its blunted 
 sense of moral obligation and duty to man ; its 
 open disregard of conventional right where ag- 
 grandizement is to be obtained ; $ and I may now " 
 
 * The paragraphs of the book are numbered consecutively, to 
 the end ; an arrangement that makes references very convenient. 
 
 t This line leads a reader to expect and an American to hope 
 that England is to be made the object of " comparison," or con- 
 trast. But the reader finds that the Dean has blundered in his 
 syntax and not in his nationality. He, the reader, is left to 
 " guess " whether the Dean means to " compare the character and 
 the history of the nation with " something that he has forgotten to 
 put in his paragraph ; or, to "compare the character of the nation 
 with the history of the nation." 
 
 J Might an American venture to ask, How about British rule 
 in India ?
 
 92 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 [October, 1864] " say, its reckless and fruitless (?) 
 maintenance of the most cruel and unprincipled 
 war in the history of the world." 
 
 The word precisely " in point," above mentioned, 
 to which it is deemed "in order" to call the 
 Dean's attention, is rebel. 
 
 Americans pronounce that word rSbel as a noun, 
 and rebel as a verb. Is rebgl, therefore, a " mod- 
 ern vulgarism " ? That is the result of the Dean's 
 argument: ex. gr. Shakespeare and Gibber say 
 pr6gress ; Americans say progress : hence, the 
 latter is a " modern " Americanism and a vulgar- 
 ism. 
 
 Does not the Dean know that Shakespeare, in 
 hundreds of instances, gives a false quantity to 
 words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives indiscrimi- 
 nately, for the sake of rhythm ? 
 
 Macbeth says, 
 
 " I conjure you, by that which you profess, 
 Howe'er you came to know it, answer me." 
 
 Hamlet says, 
 
 " What may this mean, 
 That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel 
 Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon," etc. 
 
 Also, 
 
 " Tears in his eyes, distraction in 'B aspect, 
 A broken voice," etc. 
 
 To anticipate a charge, that this course of argu- 
 ment is not quite fair toward the Dean, on the 
 ground that he speaks of " progress " as one of a 
 class of nouns that have, by usage, been changed
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 93 
 
 into verbs, whereas rebel is, on the contrary, an 
 instance of the reversed process, it is proper to 
 admit, that, in that respect, " rebel " is not strictly 
 " a case in point " ; and that the word was cited as 
 appropriate to the Dean's views of America, rather 
 than as exactly relevant to his charge of " Ameri- 
 canism." 
 
 Therefore, to meet him precisely on his own 
 ground, it is necessary to cite " one tvord or more " 
 that will come within the category of verbs formed 
 from nouns ; which verbs are accented on the 
 second syllable, although the primitive nouns are 
 accented on the first. 
 
 Whether or not such words are difficult to find, 
 happens not to be important ; because the Dean 
 himself, on the very page following his aforesaid 
 philological heresy, furnishes three, digest, object, 
 project ; and he assumes the responsibility of vouch- 
 ing for their derivation.* 
 
 MONEY. MONIES. 
 
 Dean Alford says of the orthography of the sin- 
 gular and plural of money, etc. : 
 
 " There seems to be a liability to error in the 
 formation of some plurals. The words attorney 
 
 * It can hardly be necessary to remark, that when the Dean 
 speaks of verbs' being formed from nouns, and of turning nouns 
 into verbs, he must be understood as speaking chronologically 
 and not etymologically ; for, while there is a Latin verb progredior, 
 progredi, progressus, meaning to go forward, he Can hardly claim 
 that the verb to progress has not, in fact, a Latin etymology. He 
 means, no doubt, that the noun, from progressio, came into use 
 before the verb did.
 
 94 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 and money are thus often made into attornies and 
 monies. This is of course wrong ; we might as 
 well turn the singular key into a plural kies. I am 
 not aware that any one ever wrote monkies or don- 
 kies, for monkeys or donkeys. And this is not a 
 case of rule against usage ; for all our better and 
 more careful writers use the right plurals, viz. at- 
 torneys and moneys" 
 
 That is very well, so far as it goes. But if the 
 Dean wished to convey to his readers practical and 
 available information, he should have exhausted 
 the subject. 
 
 The rule, which is of universal application, and 
 is not limited as the Dean's paragraph negative- 
 ly implies to money and attorney, is this : words 
 ending in y, with a precedent vowel, are formed into 
 plurals by the addition of s ; and words ending in 
 y, without a vowel, are so formed by the omission 
 of the y, and the substitution of ies. And a short 
 process of fixing the rule in the memory is, to note 
 that when any word in question has a vowel in its 
 final syllable in the singular as money, delay, 
 convoy, etc. that word requires no substitution 
 of i for y ; but the words which have no vowel in 
 the final syllable as lady do require such sub- 
 stitution. 
 
 Thus, chimney, chimneys ; money, moneys ; attor- 
 ney, attorneys ; monkey, monkeys ; donkey, donkeys ; 
 etc. And for nouns ending in y : mercy, mercies ; 
 supply, supplies ; pony, ponies ; etc. 
 
 But the Dean says he is " not aware that any one
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 95 
 
 ever wrote monJcies for monkeys, or donkies for don- 
 keys." 
 
 It is positively funny, that, although the Dean 
 failed in his deliberate attempt to be severe on his 
 Transatlantic cousins (quoted on pages 91, 92), he 
 here gives them a really hard hit, without know- 
 ing it. 
 
 The Dean is " not aware that any one ever wrote 
 donkies for donkeys." 
 
 " Hamlet. Dost know this water-fly ? 
 
 Horatio. No, my good lord. 
 
 Hamlet. Thy state is the more gracious, for 't is a vice to 
 know him." 
 
 Thus, although the Dean professes elsewhere to 
 " know " the United States politically, morally, and 
 philologically, his " state is more gracious " than 
 he thinks, as to the last item. He is not aware of 
 what comes of following Webster's dogmas. Web- 
 ster did not, indeed, find the e of donkey " super- 
 fluous " ; but he found so many superfluous letters 
 elsewhere, that publishers who adopt his dictionary 
 as their standard of orthography without, one 
 may presume, having any very enlightened views 
 of their own 011 the subject find themselves 
 sometimes following his principles instead of his 
 practice. So that, after catching from his example 
 the bad habit of holding silent letters to be super- 
 fluous, they carry their practice a little further than 
 the examples go, though not at all further than the 
 principles warrant. 
 
 One may imagine the horror of Dickens, when
 
 96 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 he saw, if he ever saw, a New York reprint of 
 David Copperfield, at beholding, " Janet, donkies ! " 
 Verily, that was a suggestive word for the med- 
 dling of an orthographical reformer ! 
 
 I NEVER MEAN TO. 
 
 This is a very common phrase in conversation 
 and in the colloquial parts of novels ; but it will 
 not bear scrutiny. 
 
 There are three modifications of the use of 
 never, each of which has a distinct signification 
 The correct form of the phrase, namely, " I mean 
 never to do so," signifies, " I now intend never to do 
 so." Again, " I never will do so," is a nearly ac- 
 curate form of the positive assertion for a future 
 course of conduct. And, " I never meant to do 
 so " is a correct form of expressing the entire ab- 
 sence of any past intent to do so. But, " I never 
 mean to " is entirely inadmissible. 
 
 BOURN. 
 
 This word is perpetually misused in the way of 
 quotation or rather, of pretended quotation ; for 
 the process is always a misquotation. It is used in 
 this way : 
 
 " Our friend went (or was accompanied, or has 
 gone) to that bourn from which no traveller re- 
 turns." 
 
 The line is intended to be, and seems generally 
 supposed to be, a quotation from Shakespeare 
 which, however, it certainly is not.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 97 
 
 Hamlet, in his soliloquy on suicide, says that 
 " something after death " is 
 
 " The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
 No traveller returns." 
 
 And " bourn " means boundary, border, limit, or 
 edge of a country ; not the country itself. Inde- 
 pendently of which meaning, the construction of 
 the verse shows that Shakespeare did not use the 
 word in the sense of a locality, but as the dividing 
 line between localities. Shakespeare's meaning 
 would be fully expressed by 
 
 " The undiscovered country, from whose edge 
 No traveller returns." 
 
 And, in that case, were the popular phrase to run 
 thus, " Our friend has gone to that edge from 
 which no traveller returns," the quotation would 
 be just as correct and just as silly as it is now. 
 
 One would suppose that, in legal phrase, the case 
 might " rest " here. But, somehow or other, people 
 are particularly obtuse, when listening to the cor- 
 rection of a widely spread error. They don't see it. 
 They are accustomed to the phraseology in the pop- 
 ular form. They know what the speaker means. 
 The difference is not much, after all. And so forth. 
 
 Well, perhaps the difference is " not much." 
 But at least, it is the difference between sense and 
 nonsense. Look at Hamlet's words, at greater 
 
 length : 
 
 " Who would fardels bear, 
 To groan and sweat under a weary life, 
 But that the dread of something after death 
 The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
 5
 
 98 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 No traveller returns puzzles the will, 
 And makes us rather bear the ills we have 
 Than fly to others that we know not of." 
 
 It is obvious, from this, that the locality whence 
 travellers do not return is " something after death," 
 or, metaphorically, " the undiscovered country " ; 
 and that " bourn " is not, and was not intended to 
 be, the equivalent of either : yet, in the misquota- 
 tion referred to, " bourn " is gravely put forward 
 as the full substitute for both. 
 
 Therefore, when a man writes, or says as ten 
 thousand men do write or say that somebody has 
 gone, or is carried, " to that bourn from which no 
 traveller returns," he caricatures, instead of quot- 
 ing, Shakespeare. 
 
 Akin to this quotation is another, from the Bible, 
 that has gained even more currency than " that 
 bourn " ; and clergymen are guilty of the blunder 
 quite as often as laymen. But there is this to be 
 said in its favour, that the misquoting does not 
 make nonsense of the passage. 
 
 In Genesis iii. 19 we read, " In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto 
 the ground." But did anybody ever hear, or see, 
 that quoted otherwise than " in the sweat of his 
 brow " ? 
 
 OPENED UP. 
 
 No man can now hear or read an essay on public 
 matters, without being informed that " negotiations 
 have been opened up " between certain persons ; or, 
 that " this action, on the part of Congress, opens 
 up the whole subject " ; and so on.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 99 
 
 Can any English scholar inform anybody else 
 what is the propriety of " up " in those and in a 
 thousand similar instances ? No doubt, " up " is 
 a little word, and it may often be overlooked in a 
 crowd ; but it has a very ambitious strut, when 
 thus paraded on stilts. 
 
 FROM HENCE. 
 
 Any man curious in such matters, may look 
 through thousands of volumes in any department 
 of English literature, without finding one free from 
 the incessant recurrence of from hence, from thence, 
 and from whence. 
 
 Yet " hence," by itself, means from here; 
 " thence," from there; and " whence," from where. 
 Therefore, "from whence " and its cousins mean, 
 respectively, from-from here, from-from there, and 
 from- from where. 
 
 FROM OUT. 
 
 Another and a similar blunder is nearly peculiar 
 to the poets. A quotation, or two, will show the 
 way it is used. 
 
 SCOTT says, 
 
 " The train from out the castle drew, 
 But Marmion stopped to bid adieu." 
 
 BYRON says, 
 
 But could the blood before her shed, 
 Since first Timoleon's brother bled, 
 Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 
 Arise from out the earth, which drank 
 The stream of slaughter as it sank," etc.
 
 100 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 The recurrence of this phrase is not so incessant 
 as is " from hence," etc., but probably few English 
 or American poets who have had occasion to say 
 what Scott and Byron here meant to say, are inno- 
 cent of the blunder. Yet none of them says what 
 he means. 
 
 To " draw from out the castle," would inevitably 
 be to draw into the castle. If the poets would take 
 the trouble to transpose the two words, in case 
 they must use just those two words and no others, 
 the difficulty would be obviated. " Out from 
 the castle," " out from the earth," is what they 
 mean : why can they not say so ? 
 
 ONLY. 
 
 Another blunder, of which the instances are 
 innumerable, is the misplacing of the word only. 
 Indeed, this is so common, so absolutely universal, 
 one may almost say that " only " cannot be found 
 in its proper place in any book within the whole 
 range of English literature, to say nothing of 
 newspapers, magazines, and the various depart- 
 ments of spoken language. 
 
 A few instances, taken at random from any book, 
 will suffice to show the manner in which the word 
 is used : 
 
 " The light, sandy soil of the hills only favours 
 the fern." 
 
 " He was elected, but only was seen twice in the 
 House." 
 
 " I only distribute them among the lower ranks."
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 101 
 
 " They only ceased when the day was closing." 
 In these cases, as in thousands of others that 
 might be cited, the error consists in placing " only" 
 before the verb, instead of after it ; the grammati- 
 cal effect of which is to make only apply to the 
 verb, instead of what follows the verb. 
 
 The meaning of the writer is that only the fern 
 is favoured ; that the member " was seen only 
 twice" ; that the distribufion was only to the lower 
 ranks ; and that " they ceased only when (that is, 
 not until) the day was closing." 
 
 WAS. 
 
 The use of the past for the present tense, when 
 the writer or speaker wishes to express an existing 
 fact, is a blunder common to every man, woman, 
 and child who uses the English language. 
 
 These are familiar instances : 
 
 " The truth was, that James struck him first." 
 " I told him that the Mississippi ran southerly." 
 " Did you tell him you were John's brother ? " 
 " They ascertained that the Great Pyramid stood 
 on the bank of the Nile." 
 
 There is no end to the examples that might be 
 given ; but here is one from Mr. Moon, in one of 
 his criticisms on Mr. Marsh, in the Round Table : 
 
 " That no doubt was what he intended to do, but 
 certainly it was not what he did." 
 
 In all these, as in all other cases like them, the 
 verb should be in the present tense : the truth is, 
 the river runs, you are a brother, the Pyramid 
 stands, etc.
 
 102 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 GRADUATED. 
 
 This word, when applied to one who receives a 
 degree from a college, is a past participle of the 
 verb to graduate, (to mark with degrees, to con- 
 fer a degree,) and requires some part of the verb 
 to be before it : yet it is, oftener than otherwise, 
 used in the past tense of the active verb. 
 
 In the memoir of Webster, at the beginning of 
 his dictionary, it is said that " he graduated with 
 reputation in 1788." The biographer might as 
 well have said that " he born on the 16th of Octo- 
 ber, 1758." 
 
 PLEAD. 
 
 In nine cases out of ten, where the verb to plead 
 is used in the past tense, it is spoken and written 
 as if its conjugation were analogous to read; and 
 as people say read (pronounced red), so they say 
 plead, pronounced pled. But that is not the for- 
 mation of the verb. It is analogous to knead, 
 Jcneaded ; and is plead, pleaded. 
 
 FIGURE. 
 
 Newspaper usage and oral usage have made this 
 word synonymous with amount, or sum, or number ; 
 as, " a thousand dollars, or about ih&t figure." " The 
 sale of cotton reached a very large figure." This is a 
 piece of vulgarism that is just one remove from slang ; 
 yet it is working its way up, as all corruptions do. 
 
 Dean Alford says, paragraph 19, " has at- 
 tained a circulation of 1000 : no very large figure, 
 certainly," etc. Mem. Put that against some of the 
 Dean's sneers !
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 103 
 
 MATINEE, ETC. 
 
 Under the present system of education, the 
 French language has become familiar to the peo- 
 ple, especially to those persons who are known by 
 a designating phrase that Dean Alford very justly 
 condemns ; namely, " the rising generation." 
 
 Yet this general introduction of the language 
 among our people has its inconveniences. Many 
 persons use French words and phrases, without 
 understanding them. 
 
 Matinee is an extension of the French matin, 
 morning ; and it is the proper term for a morning 
 reception, or a morning musical or theatrical per- 
 formance. But one of the newspapers recently 
 informed its readers of an " afternoon matine'e " at 
 one of the theatres. 
 
 Au fait, which may be substantially interpreted 
 by the. slang term " posted," is a convenient phrase 
 now and then ; but when a person happens to use 
 it instead of passe, a bygone style, one is apt to 
 think that words and phrases from the French 
 are dangerous to the uninitiated. 
 
 De trop, which idiomatically means " too many," 
 or " one too many," as, a third person intruding 
 on a tete-a-tete, or anywhere else where he is not 
 wanted, is sometimes used as the equivalent of 
 general disagreeableness ; which falls quite short 
 of the force of the phrase. 
 
 TRY AND. 
 
 This is a very common substitute for try to, in 
 contemporaneous literature and in conversation.
 
 104 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 " Try and listen to me for a moment." 
 
 " Begin at the beginning and try and remember 
 
 everything." 
 
 " Let me try and explain away the presumption 
 
 of such a project." 
 
 DECEIVING. 
 
 This word is constantly misused in the phrases, 
 " you are deceiving me," " he is deceiving me " ; 
 because the speaker means the reverse of what he 
 says. His meaning, paraphrased, is, " you are try- 
 ing to deceive me, but you cannot, or will not, ac- 
 complish it " ; or, " you are misrepresenting these 
 facts in order to deceive me " ; and so on. 
 
 "Deceiving" means successful misrepresentation ; 
 and it is not proper for a person thus to apply its 
 action to himself; because his making the remarks, 
 as above cited, shows that the misrepresentation, in 
 his case, is unsuccessful. He sees through it. 
 
 The verb may be used in a past tense, describing 
 a deceit that has actually been practised ; as, " I 
 was deceived," " you have deceived me," etc., but 
 in a presently passing sense, it is self-contradictory. 
 
 The verb may, however, be used in the present 
 tense, when referring to third persons ; as, " You 
 are deceiving him, or them." 
 
 The main reason for the misuse of " deceiving " 
 is, probably, the fact that the speaker's meaning 
 is, lying; and, in ordinary cases, people prefer to 
 avoid that word for some more moderate expres- 
 sion, which will, however, convey the same sense.
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 105 
 
 But there is no short single English word that 
 performs the duty of " lying." Falsifying is the 
 nearest to being a substitute, but that is both too 
 long and too formal for the emergency. 
 
 THE TERMINATION " LOGY." 
 
 As a matter of curiosity or speculation, one may 
 remark on the seemingly capricious terminations 
 that are given to the artificers or operators of the 
 several sciences if they may all be termed 
 sciences expressed by words ending in logy : 
 Archeology, Ornithology, 
 
 Astrology, Osteology, 
 
 Conchology, Theology, 
 
 Craniology, Philology, 
 
 Geology, Phrenology, 
 
 Mineralogy, Physiology, etc. 
 
 Meteorology, 
 
 Of these, one, only, takes er as an exclusive ter- 
 mination, namely, astrologer. One takes gian as 
 its primary and customary termination, theolo- 
 gian. All the others take ist in the first instance, 
 as mineralogist, etc. ; and of them, five others have 
 that termination exclusively, mineralogist, con- 
 chologist, ornithologist., craniologist, and meteorologist: 
 while, according to Webster, though hardly accord- 
 ing to frequent usage, the remainder have these 
 alternative variations : 
 
 Theologian, theologer, theologist; 
 Geologist, geologian, geologer ; 
 Philologist, philologer ; 
 
 5*
 
 106 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Osteologist, osteologer ; 
 Phrenologist, phrenologer ; 
 Physiologist, physiologer ; 
 Archaeologist, archasologian. 
 
 Trench uses pliilologer ; and Webster cites Bur- 
 ton for it, but notes it as obsolete. As these varia- 
 tions seem to be a matter of mere caprice, or even 
 chance, without any rule or reason, it is unfor- 
 tunate that a rule is not generally adopted to 
 make the terminations uniform. This is one of 
 the few cases,where a " reform " could lead to no 
 serious confusion. 
 
 WHARF. 
 
 The plural of this noun is constantly written 
 wharves; but that is incorrect. "Wharf is analo- 
 gous in formation to dwarf, and takes s, merely, in 
 the plural ; dwarfs, wharfs. Calf and half change 
 the / to v in the plural, and become calves and 
 halves. And this also is true of staff, the plural 
 of which is staves ; but this latter word is almost 
 always mispronounced, being made to rhyme with 
 caves ; the result of which is a confusion between 
 it and the other word stave, a part of a barrel, 
 which is staves in the plural. The pronunciation 
 of the plural of staff must be with the broad a, 
 rhyming with halves. 
 
 The Webster quarto of 1866 has the following 
 comment on wharf : 
 
 " The plural of this word is generally writ- 
 ten wharves in the United States, and wharfs in
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 107 
 
 England, but many recent English writers use 
 wharves." 
 
 This is a very easy way of disposing of the mat- 
 ter. It is simply accrediting ignorant usage. 
 The fact, however, remains, that wharves is just as 
 much a violation of correct orthography as dwarves 
 would be. 
 
 The word is one of that class that seldom 
 appears in the works of men of letters : it is rather 
 confined to legislative (State or city) acts, and to 
 newspaper comments and advertisements, and 
 hence its frequent misspelling. Probably it would 
 be difficult to make good the statement of Web- 
 ster's Dictionary about " many English writers," 
 for the word could hardly be found in the quarters 
 indicated by that phrase. 
 
 PEOMISE. 
 
 There is no need of denning a word with which 
 everybody is familiar ; but it is very often misused 
 in conversation and in the dialogues of novels. 
 People say, and certain authors write, " I promise 
 you, I was very much astonished." " So far from 
 his being able to win, I promise you, I think he 
 must lose." The word is used as the equivalent 
 of assure, with which it has no connection. 
 
 DIRECTLY. 
 
 Many English novelists use this word as the 
 equivalent of " as soon as " : thus, " Directly he 
 arrived, he called for ale." " I gave him the letter 
 directly I saw him."
 
 108 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Hitherto, this use of the word has not gained 
 currency in the United States ; and as it has been 
 used in England since the days of Pelham, that is, 
 for nearly forty years, we may hope to. escape it 
 altogether. 
 
 A late English novel has produced a variation 
 of " directly " in this sentence : " Immediately the 
 name was uttered, the whole scene of the railway- 
 carriage presented itself to me." The variation is 
 no improvement. 
 
 THE FIRST. 
 
 " The tyrant custom," as Othello has it, has 
 brought this phrase into very equivocal associa- 
 tions : it has assumed the proportions of something 
 very little better than slang ; and it has worked its 
 way up from the lower stratum of ill-educated 
 visage to the pages of respectable writers. 
 
 " I have yet to see the first instance of a lady's 
 being affronted in the cars." " I have not met 
 with the first objection to my plan." And so on. 
 
 The phrase stands about midway between the 
 painfully ambitious and the painfully elaborate 
 styles, with a suspicion of the painfully emphatic 
 somewhere about. No good writer would ever coin 
 such a phrase, but he might accept it and pass it 
 without much consideration, as is often done. 
 
 SENTENCES. 
 
 As a rule, good writers do not affect long sen- 
 tences ; and, also as a rule, inferior writers do not
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 109 
 
 undertake them. They are not among the pre- 
 vailing faults of English composition ; and, indeed, 
 there is no objection to a long sentence now and 
 then, if it is properly constructed and punctuated. 
 Hence, there seems to be no occasion for any ex- 
 tended comment on that subject. But, as a matter 
 of curiosity, a single instance is here quoted from 
 Trench, in which something is omitted, either in 
 the way of words or of punctuation, that renders 
 both the reading and the comprehension of the 
 passage anything but a holiday task. It is taken 
 from " English Past and Present," pages 53, 54, 
 Redfield's edition, and the entire paragraph is 
 given, for the reader's convenience : 
 
 " Looking at this process of the reception of 
 foreign words, and afterwards their assimilation to 
 our own, and the great number of words in which 
 this work has been accomplished, we may trace, I 
 think, as was to be expected, a certain conformity 
 between the genius of our institutions and that of 
 our language. As it is the very character of our 
 institutions to repel none, but rather to afford a 
 shelter and a refuge to all, from whatever quarter 
 they come, and after a while longer or shorter all 
 the strangers and incomers have been incorporated 
 into the English nation, within one or two genera- 
 tions have forgotten that they were ever any other 
 than members of it, retaining no other reminis- 
 cence of their foreign extraction than some slight 
 difference of name, and that often disappearing or 
 having disappeared, exactly so has it been with the
 
 110 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 English language. None has been less exclusive ; 
 none has stood less upon niceties ; none has thrown 
 open its arms wider, with a greater confidence, a 
 confidence justified by experience, that it could 
 make truly its own, assimilate and subdue to itself, 
 whatever it thought good to receive into its 
 bosom." 
 
 The second sentence is certainly formidable ; 
 and the Dean has, in the preceding sentence, so 
 placed the words " I think," as to leave the reader 
 in doubt whether they relate to what immediately 
 precedes, or to what follows them. 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 Why should this word be pronounced biz-ness ? 
 Usage and all our lexicographers agree in pro- 
 nouncing 
 
 Lazy, la-zi-ly, la-zi-ness, 
 Easy, ea-si-ly, ea-si-ness, 
 Weary, wea-ri-ly, wea-ri-ness, 
 Hardy, har-di-ly, har-di-ness, 
 
 and so on. Why, then, should they not pronounce 
 Busy, bus-i-ly, bus-i-ness ? 
 
 No person can doubt that the original pronunci- 
 ation of business must have been analogous to that 
 of the similarly formed words here cited, and of 
 many more that might be cited ; and if that were 
 the fact, its present pronunciation in two syllables 
 is a corruption, and is therefore a proper subject 
 for criticism.
 
 'MISUSED WORDS. Ill 
 
 An attempt to introduce a similar change in the 
 pronunciation of other words, as 
 
 Laze-ness, 
 
 Ease-ness, 
 
 Were-ness, 
 
 Hard-ness, 
 would be laughed at by everybody. 
 
 USUAL, 
 
 which is now usually treated in the same way as 
 " business," namely, 
 
 U-zhal, 
 
 has not yet received the sanction of our lexicog- 
 raphers ; but, judging from experience, it soon 
 will do so. 
 
 In the mean time, would it not be well for the 
 great number of people who persist in saying 
 u-zhal) to consider how 
 
 Mu-chal and 
 
 Perpet-chal 
 
 would sound as substitutes for 
 
 Mu-tu-al and 
 Pet 
 
 HUMBLE. 
 
 The pronunciation of this word has been very- 
 much discussed, and it remains unsettled. It is 
 a more important point than is the pronunciation 
 of some other words, because the word is in con- 
 stant use in the Episcopal Church service ; which
 
 112 ' GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 renders a want of uniformity very annoying to 
 church-going people. 
 
 Dean Alford is very much in earnest about this 
 word ; but, unfortunately, on the wrong side. He 
 says : 
 
 " We still, sometimes even in good society, hear 
 'ospital, 'erb, and 'umble, all of them very offen- 
 sive, but the last of them by far the worst when 
 heard from aii officiating clergyman. The English 
 Prayer Book has at once settled the pronunciation 
 of this word for us Dy causing us to give to God 
 our humble and hearty thanks in the general thanks- 
 giving. Umble and hearty few can pronounce with- 
 out a pain in the throat ; and umble-an-arty we 
 certainly never were meant to say ; /mmble and 
 hearty is the only pronunciation which will suit the 
 alliterative style of the prayer. If it be urged 
 that we have an humble and contrite heart, I answer, 
 so have we the strength of an horse. The following 
 are even more * decisive : holy and humble men of 
 heart ; thy humble servants, not thine. It is diffi- 
 cult to believe that this pronunciation can long 
 survive the satire of Dickens in David Copper- 
 field." 
 
 Passing by the sneer of the Dean' at wha^t he 
 " still sometimes hears in good society," which 
 sneer, he may be assured, is reciprocated by those 
 who have a right, equal with his, to their own 
 opposite opinion, his argument may be thus 
 stated : 
 
 * Does the Dean hold that decisive is an adjective that admits of
 
 MISUSED WORDS. 113 
 
 I. The English Prayer Book is the end of the 
 law in modern pronunciation. 
 
 II. " Umble and hearty " gives people a pain in 
 the throat. 
 
 III. " We never were meant to say umble-an- 
 arty." 
 
 IY. JSiimble and Aearty is the only pronuncia- 
 tion which will suit the alliterative style of the 
 prayer. 
 
 V. An humble, etc., is nothing to the purpose, 
 because an horse is somewhere in the Bible, or else- 
 where. 
 
 VI. Umble cannot survive the satire of Dickens. 
 In reply to which, one may venture to say, 
 
 I. The Prayer Book is no authority at all. 
 
 II. " Umble and hearty " does not give people a 
 pain in the throat ; and if it did, 'onest and happy 
 would have the same effect; and then, as the 
 Frenchman said about " the facts," " so much the 
 worse for the throat." 
 
 III. The assumption that we must say 'arty if 
 we say 'umble, is nonsense. 
 
 IV. To say that " humble and hearty " is allit- 
 erative, is to assume the point in question ; and to 
 say that the authors of the Prayer Book intended it 
 to be alliterative, is another assumption. How does 
 the Dean know that they intended any such thing ? 
 especially, when, 
 
 V. The fact of their placing an before humble in 
 another sentence proves their opinion to have been 
 exactly opposite to the Dean's. As to the an horse
 
 114 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 of the Bible, if the Dean credits it to the Bible, 
 pshaw ! 
 
 VI. Umble probably will survive the satire of 
 Dickens. 
 
 Webster's synopsis of orthoepy shows that umble 
 is authorized by Perry, Walker, Knowles, Smart, 
 and Cull ; and that Worcester and Cooley respec- 
 tively accredit loth humble and umble. The author- 
 ities, therefore, are strongly against the Dean..
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 1J5 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 
 
 NUMEROUS references to, and quotations from, 
 this book have been made in the preceding pages ; 
 but it requires further and more particular consid- 
 eration ; because it has been extensively circulated 
 in the United States, and has been, to a certain 
 extent, adopted as a text-book. This is fortunate, 
 so far as its author is correct in his views. Many 
 of his precepts are of great value ; and they, com- 
 bined with his illustrations and his generally accu- 
 rate style, will render substantial service in correct- 
 ing popular errors, and staying, in some degree, the 
 tide of popular corruption. 
 
 But, on the other hand, whatever his book con- 
 tains of a doubtful or erroneous character, ought 
 to be carefully exposed, so that its effects may be 
 prevented ; for his faults will find both admirers 
 and imitators. 
 
 Before proceeding in the task of such exposure, 
 the author, or compiler, of this (his own) book 
 deems it proper to say : 
 
 First, That Dean Alford first published his 
 " Queen's English " in the consecutive numbers of 
 an English weekly paper, and that he afterward 
 collected them into a volume ;
 
 116 GOOD ENGLISH. . 
 
 Secondly, That the volume now before the pres- 
 ent writer bears a London and New York imprint, 
 is dated 1866, and is designated as one of the 
 "tenth thousand" of copies already published; 
 and, 
 
 Thirdly, That, although from the Dean's state- 
 ments, passim, in the " Queen's English," it seems 
 that his book has been very frequently criticised in 
 England, not a word of such criticism, except such 
 as the Dean himself quotes, has ever been seen by 
 the present writer ; a statement which must 
 relieve him from the charge of having know- 
 ingly gone over the same ground as the English 
 critics ; and also from that of having borrowed 
 their strictures. 
 
 The object of the " secondly " of the foregoing 
 paragraphs is to show that the Dean can plead 
 neither haste nor inadvertence in his present work , 
 and that he may fairly be held responsible for every 
 error it contains, if it contains any. 
 
 Several of what the present writer claims to be 
 errors have already been designated ; but there is 
 one subject to which the Dean has devoted a num- 
 ber of paragraphs ; which, if discussed at all, must 
 be treated at some length. 
 
 The Dean says, in paragraphs 159, 160 : 
 
 " The one rule which is supposed by the ordinary 
 rhetoricians to regulate the arrangement of words 
 in sentences is this : that those parts of a sentence 
 which are most closely connected in their meaning, 
 should be as closely as possible connected in posi-
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 117 
 
 tion." And he then quotes Blair's somewhat am- 
 plified statement of the same rule. 
 
 " Now, doubtless," he continues, " this rule is in 
 the main and for general guidance, a good and 
 useful one ; indeed, so plain to all that it surely 
 needs no inculcating. But there are more things 
 in the English language than seem to have been 
 dreamt of in the philosophy of the rhetoricians. 
 If this rule were uniformly applied, it would break 
 down the force and the living interest of style in 
 any English writer, and reduce his matter to a 
 dreary and dull monotony. For it is in exceptions 
 to its application that almost all vigour and char- 
 acter of style consist. Of this, I shall give abun- 
 dant illustration by and by." 
 
 In a subsequent paragraph, referring, however, 
 to the same subject, the Dean quotes from the 
 Edinburgh Review: 
 
 " If a man writes in a way which cannot be mis- 
 understood by a reader of common candour, he has 
 done all, as regards clearness, that can be expected 
 of him. To attempt more, is to ask of language 
 more than language can perform : the consequences 
 of attempting it, any one may see who will spend 
 an hour with the statutes at large : 
 
 " Jack was very respectful to Tom, and always 
 took off his hat when he met him : Jack was very 
 rude to Tom, and always knocked off his hat when 
 he met him. 
 
 " Will any one pretend that either of these sen- 
 tences is ambiguous in meaning, or unidiomatic in
 
 118 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 expression ? Yet critics of the class now before us 
 are bound to contend that 
 
 Jack showed his respect by taking off Tom's 
 hat ; or else, that he showed his rudeness by knock- 
 ing off his own. 
 
 "It is useless to multiply examples ; no book 
 was ever written that could stand a hostile exami- 
 nation in this spirit ; and one that could stand it, 
 would be totally unreadable." 
 
 It would certainly seem that this from a man 
 who has taken the trouble to write a book called 
 " A Plea for the Queen's English," in which book 
 he has with great force contended for purity and 
 accuracy of style is rather startling. But later 
 in the book, paragraphs 364, 365, wherein he has 
 the newspapers for antagonists, he takes the oppo- 
 site side of the same question : 
 
 " Just let me, as I pass, notice one defence which 
 has been deliberately set up for English of this kind. 
 It has been said that one who sits in his study wri- 
 ting at leisure, may very well find time to look about 
 him and weigh the structure of his sentences ; but 
 the contributors of articles to the daily press are 
 obliged to write always in a hurry, and have no 
 such opportunities of consideration. 
 
 " Now this plea either fails in its object of ex- 
 cusing the practice complained of, or it proves too 
 much. If it fails, it does not assign sufficient cause 
 for the phenomenon : if, as I believe, it is not mere 
 haste which causes a man to write such English as 
 this, but deficiency in his power of putting thoughts
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 119 
 
 into words : it proves too much if it really does suf- 
 ficiently * excuse the writers : for, if such writing 
 is the inevitable result of the hasty publication of 
 these critiques, why is not more time given for their 
 production, and why are not more pains bestowed 
 on them ? For surely it is an evil for people to be 
 daily accustomed to read English expressed thus 
 obscurely and ungrammatically ; it tends to con- 
 fuse thought and to deprive language of its proper 
 force, and by this means to degrade us as a nation 
 in the rank of thinkers and speakers." 
 
 A proper estimate of the value of these conflict- 
 ing statements will presently be undertaken, by 
 the simple process of quoting the several examples 
 given by the Dean in illustration of his two posi- 
 tions, accompanied by his explanatory and concur- 
 rent remarks. Previously to making those quota- 
 tions, it is proper to remark that the Dean usually 
 speaks of those who concur with him as "friends," 
 "correspondents," or " critics "; while he frequent- 
 ly designates his censors, or those who, he imagines, 
 might be such, as ''pedants.'''' 
 
 1. " In a Somersetshire paper, I saw that a man 
 had his legs burned by sitting for warmth, and fall- 
 ing asleep, on the top of a lime-kiln. The lime was 
 called the seething mass (to seethe means to boil, and 
 sod or sodden is its passive participle) ; and it was 
 said, he would soon have been a calcined corpse, 
 which I take it would have been an unheard-of 
 chemical phenomenon." 
 
 * Is not "excuse" sufficient, without " sufficiently "?
 
 120 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 2. " Iii the same paper I read the following ele- 
 gant sentence: 'Our prognostications as regards 
 the spirit of the young men here to join the Stor- 
 gusey rifle-corps proves correct.' The same paper, 
 in commenting on the Hopley case, speaks through 
 a whole leading article of corporeal punishment. I 
 may mention that, in this case, the accused person 
 figures throughout, as so often in provincial papers, 
 as a demon incarnate, and a fiend in human shape" 
 
 3. " In the London Morning Chronicle's account 
 of Lord Macaulay's funeral occurred the following 
 sentence : ' When placed upon the ropes over the 
 grave, and while being gradually lowered into the 
 earth, the organ again pealed forth.' Here, of 
 course, on any possible grammatical understanding 
 of the words, it was the organ which was placed 
 over the grave, and was being lowered into the 
 earth." 
 
 4. " After one of Mr. Glaisher's balloon ascents, 
 we read that, ' After partaking of a hearty break- 
 fast, the balloon was brought into the town amidst 
 the cheers and congratulations of the major part of 
 the inhabitants.' They may well have applauded 
 a balloon which had performed so unheard-of* a 
 feat." 
 
 5. " In a leading article of the Times, not long 
 since, was this beautiful piece of slipshod Eng- 
 lish: 'The atrocities of the middle passage, which 
 
 * Not " unheard-of " surely ; for if the Dean had not heard of it 
 (or read of it, which is the same thing) how could he write 
 about it?
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 121 
 
 called into action the Wilberforces and Clarksons 
 of the last generation, were not so fully proved, 
 and were certainly not more harrowing in their 
 circumstances, than are the iniquities perpetrated 
 upon the wretched Chinese.' 
 
 " Here, you will observe, we are, by the form 
 of the sentence, committed to the combination of 
 were not so fully proved .... than. This is a 
 fault into which careless writers constantly fall, 
 the joining together * two clauses with a third, 
 whose construction suits the latter of them, but not 
 
 the former The Times' s writer might have 
 
 said, were not so fully proved as are the iniqui- 
 ties perpetrated upon the wretched Chinese, and 
 were certainly not more harrowing in their circum- 
 stances." 
 
 The Dean then quotes the contents of two posted- 
 up handbills, and a sentence on the back of a rail- 
 road ticket ; but no more sentences from the news- 
 papers. That is to say, in legal phrase, so far as 
 the newspapers are concerned, " that is the Dean's 
 case " ; and, really, there is not much of it. 
 
 Observe the scope of the indictment : 
 
 " if it is not mere haste which causes a man 
 to write such English as this, .... if such writing 
 is the inevitable result of the hasty publication of 
 these critiques^ .... English thus expressed .... 
 tends to degrade us as a nation," etc. 
 
 * Will the Dean defend the omission of o/here, -"the joining 
 together of two clauses " ? 
 
 t In paragraph 380, the Dean, while giving some concluding 
 6
 
 122 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 And the sum total of his case, on trial, for his 
 complaint, here, is not about misused words, but 
 about ill-constructed sentences, is this : 
 
 Three lines quoted from a Somersetshire paper, 
 three lines from the Morning Chronicle, three lines 
 from something not specified, and six lines from 
 the London Times. 
 
 The errors in those quotations are, respectively, 
 proves for prove ; the omission in the sentence 
 though the omitted words must have preceded the 
 sentence quoted of "the coffin was," and the 
 omission of "it was"; the omission of an ante- 
 cedent to " partaking " ; and a sentence in the 
 Times so jumbled that nothing but reconstruction 
 can redeem it. 
 
 Well; each instance is bad and inexcusable, 
 whether the writers were, severally, in haste or 
 not. But the whole together fails to form that 
 array of specification which the Dean's formality 
 of complaint would lead one to expect. Besides, 
 the sentences cited are, excepting that in the Times, 
 mere news items which are necessarily made up 
 for a paper by subordinate persons, who cannot be 
 called " editors," and for whose language the 
 editors cannot properly be held responsible. 
 
 On the other hand, the sentences which the 
 Dean proposes to defend against the restriction of 
 
 advice to his readers, says : "Be simple, be unaffected," etc., "in 
 your writing. Never use a long word when a short one will do." 
 Critiques is not strictly a "long word"; but, for the occasion, it is 
 a very large word.
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH 123 
 
 the rule cited and commented on, paragraphs 159, 
 160, must now be considered. 
 
 The Dean prefaces his quoted sentences and 
 comments,with certain remarks on emphasis ; which 
 some writers, and all good readers, will be very apt 
 to dispute. His chief point, to which his other 
 remarks are preliminary, is this : 
 
 " Whenever we wish to indicate that a stress is 
 to be laid on a certain word, or clause, in a sen- 
 tence, we must do it by taking that word, or that 
 clause, out of its natural place which it would hold 
 by the above rule," that is, the rule of para- 
 graph 159, " and putting it into some more 
 prominent one." 
 
 That is, it is the business of the writer to teach 
 the reader how to read, by violating the rule of 
 grammar, paragraph 159. 
 
 When a writer lays down such a principle as 
 that, one may expect, as lago says, to "see an 
 answerable sequestration." 
 
 And now, for the Dean's instances of necessary 
 transposition. 
 
 Paragraph " 163. Take, as an example, the 
 words Tie restored me to mine office : where the words 
 are arranged in accordance with the ordinary law. 
 But suppose a distinction is to be made between 
 the narrator, who had been restored to office, and 
 another man who had been very differently treated. 
 Of course, we might still observe the rule, and say, 
 He restored me to mine office, and he hanged Am ; 
 but the sentence becomes thus (and it is to this
 
 124 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 that I request the reader's attention) a very tame 
 one, not expressing the distinction in itself, nor 
 admitting of being so read as to express it sharply 
 and decisively. Now let us violate the rule, and 
 see how the sentence reads, Me he restored unto 
 mine office, and him he hanged. Thus wrote our 
 translators of Genesis xli. 13, and they arranged 
 the words rightly. No reader, be his intelligence 
 ever so little, can help reading this sentence as it 
 ought to be read." 
 
 Paragraph " 164. And let there be no mistake 
 about this being a violation of the rule. The 
 words nearest connected are restored and me, which 
 it governs ; hanged and him, which it governs.* 
 When I take me out of its place next restored, and 
 begin the sentence with it, letting the pronoun he 
 come between them, I do most distinctly violate 
 the rule, that those words which are most nearly 
 connected in the sense should be also most nearly 
 connected in the arrangement. I have purposely 
 chosen this first instance of the simplest kind, to 
 make the matter clear as we advance into it. Let 
 us take another. St. Peter, Acts ii. 23, says to the 
 Jews, speaking of our Lord, Him, being delivered 
 by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of G-od, 
 
 * A person who has any knowledge of grammar will know 
 what the Dean means here. But the Dean says elsewhere that 
 that is not sufficient ; and that it is the duty of a writer to make his 
 words convey his meaning. Now, what does that sentence mean to 
 the apprehension of one not familiar with the rule that an active 
 verb governs an objective case? What is "it"? and what does 
 ft " govern " ?
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 125 
 
 ye have taken, and ly wicked hands have crucified 
 and slain. Here we have the pronoun Him placed 
 first in the sentence, and at a considerable distance 
 from the verbs that govern it. Yet who does not 
 see that the whole force of that which was intend- 
 ed to be conveyed by the sentence is thus gained, 
 and could not otherwise be gained? Arranged 
 according to the common rule, the sentence would 
 have been, Ye have taken him, being delivered ly the 
 determinate counsel and foreknowledge of G-od, and 
 by wicked hands have crucified and slain him, and 
 the whole force and point would have been lost." 
 
 Paragraph " 165 " recites the nature, use, and 
 importance of a parenthesis, but avers that " ev- 
 ery parenthesis is a violation of the supposed uni- 
 versal rule of position." * 
 
 Paragraph " 166. Thus, for example, I am 
 narrating a circumstance which, when it happened, 
 excited my astonishment. Undoubtedly, the natu- 
 ral order of constructing the sentence would be to 
 relate what happened first, and my surprise at it 
 afterwards. f I was looking at a man walking on 
 
 * This averment is a mere assumption. The rule is, that " the 
 parts connected in meaning should be connected in position as 
 closely as possible. The Dean says elsewhere, when commenting on 
 too strict an interpretation of rules, " really, we do not write for 
 idiots " ; and the rhetoricians, for whose rule the Dean has such con- 
 tempt, would probably retort his remark ; and add, that " as close- 
 ly as possible " means as closely as possible, and no closer. They 
 never intended the rule to hold against exceptions, and a parenthe- 
 sis is not necessarily a violation of the rule. 
 
 t Perhaps it would. But the " natural order " is one thing, and 
 the rule is another thing. Hence, the Dean is quite out of the
 
 126 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 the bank of the river, when he suddenly turned about, 
 and plunged in, to my great surprise. But who 
 does not see the miserable way in which the last 
 clause drags behind, and loses all its force ? We 
 therefore take this clause out of its place, and in- 
 sert it before that to which it applies, and with 
 which it ought to be constructed ; we word the sen- 
 tence thus : I was looking at a man walking on the 
 bank of the river, when, to my great surprise, lie sud- 
 denly turned round and plunged in. I need not 
 further illustrate so common a transposition." 
 
 Paragraph " 169. One of my censors quoted as 
 faulty in this respect the following sentence, which 
 occurred in these notes : I said that certain per- 
 sons fall, from their ignorance, into absurd mistakes. 
 The parenthetical clause here is, from their igno- 
 rance. My censor would amend it thus : certain 
 persons, in consequence of their ignorance, fall into 
 absurd mistakes. Now, this is not what I wanted 
 to say ; at least, it is a blundering and roundabout 
 way of explaining it. The purpose is, to bring the 
 fact stated into prominence ; and this is done by 
 
 record. He is not illustrating the rule of the rhetoricians, who 
 say nothing about " natural order," hut a rule of his own, en- 
 acted for the occasion. And, observe, he assumes the necessity of 
 telling his whole story in one sentence, apparently for the very 
 purpose of violating the rule, though the rule does not touch his 
 case, because the rule does not prohibit a parenthetical line. The 
 sentence, as he amends it, is the best possible form ; but the amend- 
 ment is not a violation of the rule. The very phraseology of the 
 rule, " as closely as possible," intimates that immediate contact, or 
 proximity, is not always " possible," with proper deference to other 
 considerations.
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 127 
 
 making the verb /aft immediately follow its subject, 
 certain persons." And so forth, for, really, the 
 remainder of this paragraph is mere twaddle. The 
 Dean's " censor " was quite right in saying that 
 the sentence, as written, is liable to this misin- 
 terpretation : persons fall from ignorance, into ab- 
 surd mistakes ! 
 
 Paragraph " 170 In Deuteronomy vi. 11, 
 
 Israel is admonished, When thou shalt have eaten 
 and be full, beivare lest thou forget the Lord. We 
 all know that this means, when thou shalt have eaten 
 and shalt be full." 
 
 Paragraph " 171 Take another example, 
 
 Acts xxii. 4 : And I persecuted this way unto the 
 death. This violates the supposed law of arrange- 
 ment,* and falls under the charge of ambiguity. 
 .... Take again verse 29 : Then they departed from 
 him which should have examined him. Now, we all 
 
 know what this means I must not, however, 
 
 forget that some of my correspondents find it con- 
 venient to depreciate the language and grammar 
 of our authorized version of the Scriptures. I 
 would recommend them to try the experiment of 
 
 amending that language I have often tried 
 
 the experiment! and found" that, generally, it was 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 This is the end of the Dean's citations on that 
 side of the question ; and the reader can judge 
 
 * The Dean does not say how it violates the law. 
 t "Tried the experiment"! That is, tried the trial, "experi- 
 ment " being a '.rial : say, made the experiment.
 
 128 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 whether they, with the Dean's assisting explana- 
 tions and reasoning, prove what is said in paragraph 
 160 (page hereof 117), that if the rule of the 
 rhetoricians " were uniformly applied, it would break 
 down the force, etc., of any English writer, and 
 reduce his matter to a dreary and dull monotony. 
 For it is in exceptions to its application that almost 
 all vigour and character of style consist. Of this 
 I shall give abundant illustration by and by." 
 
 Perhaps this concluding promise has been ful- 
 filled. The reader can judge of that, too, having 
 before him all the " illustrations " given by the 
 Dean. There are but seven of them. The present 
 writer is unable to see that the Dean has made out 
 his case the Dean's case on his, the Dean's, 
 own showing. But the Dean cannot be left to his 
 own showing ; and the question, how far he has 
 the better of the rhetoricians, must be considered. 
 
 One's first impression, on reading the quotations 
 and comments, is, that the Dean is disingenuous, 
 and does not write in good faith in support of his 
 views. For example, he elaborately defends the 
 style of the Bible, when nobody assails it but him- 
 self; that is, he quotes no criticisms on it, but he 
 officiously applies the rhetoricians' rule to it. That 
 was unnecessary; and his instances are not in 
 point. The translators of our Bible completed 
 their work in the year 1611 ; and yet the Dean 
 attempts to try the force of a modern rhetorical 
 rule by its applicability to the style of those writers. 
 And then, he requires people to take his word for
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 129 
 
 it, that the language of the translators is above the 
 reach of rules and beyond the power of improve- 
 ment, which may be true, and may not be true. 
 The Dean certainly offers no proof of its being 
 true. 
 
 But what if it were true ? Does the Dean 
 propose the quaint style of the translators as a 
 model for present English composition ? Does he. 
 write in that style ? or, would he have others do 
 so? 
 
 He makes a great point of the power of the 
 transposed pronoun in Acts ii. 23 : " Him, being 
 delivered," etc. Does he claim that the force of 
 - this transposition is intrinsic, independently of the 
 sacred Antecedent ? If he does riot, he writes in 
 bad faith. If he does, the same power of trans- 
 position must ensue in other cases ; as Acts xvi. 3 : 
 "Him would Paul have to go forth with him " ; 
 Romans xiv. 1 : "Him that is weak in the faith, 
 receive ye " ; Philippians ii. 23 : "Him, therefore, 
 I hope to send presently." Will the Dean claim 
 that in these three instances " the whole force of 
 that which was intended to be conveyed by the sen- 
 tence is thus gained, and could not otherwise be 
 gained " ? 
 
 And let the question be here, parenthetically, 
 put to the Dean : 
 
 You say, " which was intended to be conveyed 
 by the sentence," how do you Mow the " inten- 
 tion " of the translators ? They wrote according 
 to the style of the age in which they wrote, and the 
 6* x
 
 130 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 transposition, which the Dean cites so confidently, 
 was not in exception, but in conformity, to the 
 style of the period, and to the translators' own 
 style in other places : as, see the three above-cited 
 instances and many more which may be found in 
 the Bible. 
 
 Then, as to Genesis xli. 13. Is " Me he restored 
 unto mine office, and him he hanged," so infinitely 
 superior to " He restored me to mine office, and he 
 hanged him," as the Dean avers it to be? He 
 states, magisterially, and as a matter of course 
 which everybody must admit, that the latter is a 
 " very tame " sentence, and neither " expresses the 
 distinction in itself, nor admits of being so read as 
 to express it sharply and decisively." But, " by 
 what authority says he those things " ? And ob- 
 serve, his " saying those things," and some other 
 things, is what he relies on, for discrediting the 
 rule of the rhetoricians. 
 
 The bad faith, or the inconsistency, of the 
 Dean is further shown in his comment on " When 
 thou shalt have eaten and be full" etc. ; and on 
 " Then they which should have examined him," 
 etc. He says of each of those sentences, " We 
 all know what this means"; and he offers that 
 remark in reply to criticisms, not that have ever 
 been made, but which he says " the captious and 
 childish critic may make" (!) on the construction 
 of those passages. 
 
 If the Dean seriously means to say that the gram- 
 mar of When thou shalt have eaten and be full"
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 181 
 
 is justified by the fact that " we all know what it 
 means," how can he permit himself to denounce tho 
 London Times for " degrading the British people as 
 a nation" by its complicated sentence on "the mid- 
 dle passage," " Wilberforce," etc. ? Does the Dean 
 mean to say, or to insinuate, that " we do not know 
 what the Times means " in that sentence ? 
 
 Finally, the Dean really ought to remember his 
 own position, enunciated in paragraph 149 a: "1 
 may once for all notice a fallacious way of arguing 
 into which the sciolists who would legislate for our 
 language are continually betrayed. It consists in 
 assuming that, of two modes of expression, if one 
 be shown to be right, the other must necessarily be 
 wrong. Whereas, very often the varying expres- 
 sions are equally legitimate, and each of them full 
 of interest, as bearing traces of the different sources 
 from which our language has sprung." 
 
 As to the rule of the rhetoricians. It may be 
 good and it may be bad. At least, there is this in 
 its favour : it is founded in common sense ; it has 
 nad the approval of the literary world for many 
 years ; and it has not often been assailed. Prob- 
 ably, it will survive the arguments, the ridicule, 
 and the misrepresentations of the worthy Dean of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 And now, as to the style of the Dean's book, taken 
 as a whole. He must be held responsible for every 
 error in it ; because, as has been shown, he has had 
 full leisure for its revision. The errors are, never- 
 theless, numerous ; and the shortest way to exhibit 
 them is in a tabular form :
 
 132 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Paragraph 
 4. "into another land than" should be " into a land other than." 
 
 16. "we do not follow rule in spelling other words, but cus- 
 tom," should be, " we do not follow rule, but custom, in 
 spelling," etc. 
 
 18. " The distinction is observed in French, but never appears 
 
 to have been made," etc. Read, " appears never to have 
 
 been made." 
 61. " rather to aspirate more than less," should be " to aspirate 
 
 more rather than less." 
 9. "It would be just as easy to give examples," etc. "Just 
 
 as easy " as what f 
 13. " matters of controversy which have been still retained." 
 
 What is the use of still " ? 
 13. " I have been unwilling to part with arguments," etc. Why 
 
 have been ? Is he not so, still ? 
 
 19. " I had imagined that their endeavour .... had entirely 
 
 failed," etc. Omit the first " had." 
 34. " If we had wished to keep," etc. Why had ? 
 39. in note. " I had supposed this form, etc., and had ascribed 
 
 it to," etc. Why had f 
 
 19. "no very large figure": read "no very large number." 
 21. " A comely thing for those thatMke it": read, lt who like it." 
 28. " But if we do" etc. Do v;hat ? grammatically speaking. 
 30. "but did not apply." Apply to what? grammatically 
 speaking. This phrase is precisely parallel in ambi- 
 guity to those which the Dean ridicules in paragraph 
 174: which, see. 
 
 82. " and to them we do not superadd another s" etc. See 
 paragraph 380, " never use a long word when a short 
 one will do." 
 
 38. "has been justified on the ground," etc. See note on page 
 
 75 of this book. 
 
 39. " thus much indulgence as to confess," etc. Query? 
 
 9. " It is said also only to occur three times," etc. Read, 
 
 " occur only three times." 
 
 44. this doubling only takes place in a syllable," etc. : read, 
 " takes place only."
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 133 
 
 142. " which can only be decided when those circumstances 
 are known " : read, " can be decided only when," etc. 
 
 166. " I will only say that it produces," etc. : read, " I will say, 
 only" etc. 
 
 170. "It is said that this can only be filled in thus": read, 
 
 " can bejilled in only thus." 
 
 210. " It can only be used as expressing determination ": read, 
 " can be used only" etc. 
 
 '221. "This .... only conveys the sense," etc. : read, "con- 
 veys only," etc. 
 
 233. "I can only regard them as Scotticisms": read, " I can 
 regard them only" etc. 
 
 289. " and also when it is only true of them taken together": 
 read, " true of them only when taken" etc. 
 
 368. "I can only deal with the complaint in a general way": 
 
 read, " deal with the complaint only" etc. 
 86. " In so far as they are idiomatic," etc. What is the use of 
 in? 
 
 142. " an hotel." Authority, that " an horse" of the Bible. 
 
 367. " a hotel." Here, we have it right. 
 
 160. "neither of which are taken into account," etc. Com- 
 ment, here, is needless ! 
 
 354. "This is fiction; but the following are truth." Again, 
 comment is needless. 
 
 171. "fry the experiment"; "tried the experiment." Read, 
 
 make and made. 
 
 189. " It would have been better if they had not repeated" etc. 
 This should be, " it would be better," etc. 
 
 210. "'I fear I won't' is an impossible and unmeaning junc- 
 
 tion of terms. If it meant anything," etc. The verb 
 is makes the case present; therefore say, "if it means 
 anything." 
 
 211. " he means the station-master to conclude" etc. That is, 
 
 very clumsy, if not worse. Say, " he intends that the 
 station-master shall conclude " ; or, " he means to make 
 him conclude," etc. 
 
 227. > "unneeded." Query, is that word needed in the lan- 
 273.1 guage? It is not given in Webster's Dictionary.
 
 134 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 162. " at the risk of our words not conveying," etc. " Words" 
 should be in the possessive case. 
 
 189. " As to the translators having often judiciously u^ed," etc. : 
 say translators', that is, the possessive case. 
 
 309. The fact of such an objection having been made " : read, 
 objection's. 
 
 867. " owing to the fact of a n\$it-watchman being employed," 
 etc.: read, watchman's; and the same phrase is re- 
 peated in the same paragraph. 
 
 368. " as much as possible for every word being understood," 
 etc. : read, word's. 
 
 867. " The following sentence, occurring in a hotel advertise- 
 ment," etc. " Occurring ? " Query ? 
 
 345. " It is most generally used of that very sect," etc. Why 
 most ? 
 
 362. " the joining together two clauses with a third," etc. : 
 read, " of two clauses," etc. 
 
 869. "By and by, a decided weak point is detected." The 
 Dean says, in paragraph 273, "Exception is taken to 
 an expression occurring in these notes, a decided weak 
 point. But there can be no doubt that my censor is 
 wrong. A decidedly weak point, is one thing : a de- 
 cided weak point, is another In the phrase under 
 
 consideration, had I written a decidedly weak point, I 
 should have spoken of a point decidedly weak: but, 
 writing as I did, I spoke of a weak point of whose exist- 
 ence there could be no doubt." 
 
 Does the Dean mean the "existence" of the 
 weakness or the "existence" of the point ^ for 
 those two concluding lines are really " ambiguous." 
 " We do not all know what they mean." 
 
 If he " means " the existence of the point, he 
 means nonsense. If he means the existence of the 
 weakness, his word " decided " is no better than his
 
 A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. 135 
 
 censor's, " decidedly," for the purpose of express- 
 ing that meaning: and, grammatically, his word 
 is wrong ; and his censor's, right. 
 
 The only method by which the Dean could escape 
 his censor is this ; namely, by saying that his phrase 
 means a point, which, ly competent authority, has been 
 decided to be weak. The "point" then, to wit, the 
 weak point, would be placed among res adjudicatas, 
 it would be a decided point, or a point finally 
 decided. 
 
 The writer of this volume, after his manuscript 
 of it was finished and handed to his publisher, 
 read, for the first time, Mr. Washington Moon's 
 book called " The Dean's English." He finds that, 
 in some particulars, his own strictures have been 
 anticipated by Mr. Moon ; especially, the " decided 
 weak point"; the pronunciation of humble; and 
 the " Americanism " progress. It seems that the 
 neuter verb to progress is recorded in Bailey's 
 Universal Dictionary, published in 1755, which 
 finishes that argument against Dean Alford. 
 
 Mr. Moon's book is a masterpiece ; at least, in 
 its exposure of the blunders of Dean Alford. Its 
 very title " speaks volumes." And any one, after 
 reading it, can see how well deserved is the com- 
 mendation it has received from the British peri- 
 odical and newspaper press. That commendation 
 would seem, from Mr. Moon's citations, to have 
 been nearly universal. And, to paraphrase Dean 
 Alford's comment on the probable effect he being 
 judge of Dickens's satire on 'umble, "it is diffi-
 
 136 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 cult to believe that the Queen's English can long 
 survive the satire of the Dean's English" 
 
 Mr. Moon, however, has himself fallen into griev- 
 ous errors, while exposing those of his antagonist ; 
 and, on the whole, it is safe to say, that, in the 
 matter of mere style, there is but little to choose 
 between the two writers. Each of them is very 
 self-complacent, very " English," and very uncon- 
 scious of the beam in his own eye. 
 
 Mr. Moon has shown great critical acumen in 
 detecting the errors of The Queen's English, pity 
 that he could not have presented them to his read- 
 ers in what he so confidently assumes that he him- 
 self has mastered ; namely, "pure English."
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 137 
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 IP the representatives, or the publishers, of 
 Webster's Dictionary had, collectively or severally, 
 as much power to injure the opponents of the Dic- 
 tionary, as Webster had to injure the language, 
 the exposure of Webster's orthographical heresies 
 might be a dangerous pastime. For it is a fact 
 within the knowledge of all persons who have read 
 the occasional criticisms on Webster's orthography, 
 and the replies of the Webster party, as both have 
 appeared in the newspapers and elsewhere for the 
 past five-and-twenty years, that the Websterian 
 replies have uniformly been bitter in tone, and have 
 been very free in the imputation of personal mo- 
 tives, or interested or improper motives, on the 
 part of opposing critics, to say nothing of the 
 unparliamentary personalities of such replies. 
 
 The writer of these present comments is fully 
 warranted in making them. They are in no re- 
 spect gratuitous. In his capacity as an occasional 
 contributor to newspapers and magazines, and 
 anonymously,* as became such contributor, he 
 
 * The author of this book desires to avail himself of this first 
 though late opportunity of "rising to a question of privilege," 
 as they say in Congress. He hopes that his doing so will not be 
 deemed supererogatory. 
 
 In the year 1851, the Hon. James W. Beekman, then a senator
 
 138 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 has for many years exposed the fallacies of Web- 
 ster's " system " (if that can be called a system 
 whose all-pervading characteristic is, a total want 
 of system) ; and, as such anonymous writer, he has, 
 on several occasions, been engaged in a direct con- 
 troversy with the literary and legal representatives 
 of the dictionary. And in such controversies, as 
 well as in the course of replies to his occasional 
 essays apart from regular controversy, he has uni- 
 formly been accused of unworthy motives in his 
 criticisms. 
 
 The fact that he had, and, in the nature of 
 things, could have, no motive other than the interest 
 
 in the New York Legislature, was appointed chairman of a Com- 
 mittee on Literature, whose duty was, among other things, to re- 
 port on the expediency of ordering the introduction of Webster's 
 Dictionary into the district schools of the State. 
 
 Mr. Beckman, as chairman, addressed to Irving, Bryant, Ban- 
 croft, and many others, letters of inquiry as to the merits of the 
 dictionary ; and, in his report to the Senate, he made quotations 
 from the answers that lie received from those gentlemen. 
 
 The author of this book was one of the number so addressed ; 
 and. in his answer, he discussed the subject both more fully and 
 more freely than he might have done, except in what he supposed 
 was in some respects a private letter. 
 
 Mr. Beekman, in the press of legislative business, availed him- 
 self of the systematic form of that letter, and quoted it entire ; 
 forgetting that it contained one sentence which should by no means 
 have been made public. The act was one of mere inadvertence on 
 the part of Mr. Beckman ; but the readers of the published Report, 
 who could not know the circumstances (here, now, for the first 
 time related) were likely to consider the writer of the letter respon- 
 sible for what was entirely improper to be said in print. The 
 thing was unfortunate ; but, having been done, there was no reme- 
 dy for it.
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 139 
 
 which every literary man has in resisting the prog- 
 ress of philological corruption, is quite imma- 
 terial to the issue. But the fact of such motives' 
 being constantly charged upon him, has always in- 
 dicated, on the part of his accusers, a consciousness 
 of the weakness of their own cause. If they could 
 have answered their critic's arguments, they would 
 never have troubled themselves about his motives. 
 
 The most elaborate of his essays on the subject 
 was published in the Democratic Review, a New 
 York monthly magazine, in March, 1856. It was 
 an article of considerable length; yet, it so pre- 
 cisely hit the literary public opinion, that it was 
 copied into several of the daily and weekly papers 
 of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The 
 editor of the New York Evening Post who cer- 
 tainly stands among the best of American writers, 
 whether of prose or poetry made the following 
 comments on it : 
 
 " We do not remember to have seen elsewhere 
 such full justice done to Noah Webster's system of 
 orthography, under which the English language has 
 been undergoing a process of corruption for the 
 last quarter of a century, as in an article which we 
 find in the last number of the Democratic Review. 
 We have copied it at length in our columns, and 
 we would gladly contribute toward the expense of 
 having it read twice a year in every school-! louse 
 in the United States, until every trace of Web- 
 sterian spelling disappears from the land. It is 
 a melancholy proof of the amount of mischief
 
 140 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 one man of learning can do to society, that Web- 
 ster's system of orthography is adopted and prop- 
 agated by the largest publishing house, through 
 the columns of the most widely circulated month- 
 ly magazine, and through one of the ablest and 
 most widely circulated newspapers in the United 
 States." * 
 
 Such an article, so indorsed, could not be treated 
 with silent contempt ; and the people interested in 
 it sent a communication to the Democratic Review, 
 which they called an " Answer " to the criticism ; 
 but which, in the colloquial phrase, " did n't an- 
 swer at all." That " answer " was answered ; and, 
 so far as the magazine was concerned, there the 
 discussion ended. 
 
 It was the purpose of the present writer to intro- 
 duce, at the latter part of this book, the first above- 
 mentioned article, with some modifications, as he 
 supposed its strictures are as much needed now 
 as they were ten years ago ; but a careful exam- 
 ination of the last edition of Webster's Dictionary, 
 1866, leads him to infer that several of his sugges- 
 tions, which were scouted at in the " Answer " in 
 the Democratic Review, have subsequently been 
 treated with more consideration. He therefore 
 finds himself under the necessity of modifying his 
 former strictures, in order to adapt them to the 
 dictionary as it now stands. 
 
 * The poet and satirist, Holmes, of Boston, says of New 
 York : 
 
 " Where their own printers teach them how to spell."
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 141 
 
 Some preliminary remarks are indispensable to 
 a review of Webster's orthography. 
 
 It is an old and veritable saying that, " whoever 
 would bring home with him the wealth of the 
 Indies, must first take out with him the wealth of 
 the Indies " ; which, as to lexicographers, may be 
 thus paraphrased : whoever would undertake to 
 reform the orthography of a language (which or- 
 thography was acceptable to the masters of the 
 language from the days of Johnson to the day of 
 such reformer), must bring to the task something 
 more than the qualities of a patient, diligent stu- 
 dent. 
 
 If the usage of good writers, which conven- 
 ient term will be used elsewhere, as it is here, with 
 a proviso that it includes not merely the best class 
 of men who write, but the best class of men who 
 speak, the language ; men, who, as clergymen, 
 lawyers, or statesmen, develop the power of lan- 
 guage by their use of it ; and who, by their man- 
 ner of using it, show the world their capacity to 
 legislate upon it, if the usage of good writers is 
 the common law of language, language is, recipro- 
 cally, in the guardianship of good writers. They 
 are both its judges and its legislators. 
 
 A good writer, then, by virtue of his natural 
 gifts and his acquirements, is something more 
 than a mere student ; because his intellect has co- 
 operated with his industry to secure the world's 
 notice. He is a good writer because he is able to 
 write what the world recognizes as worth the
 
 142 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 world's attention. Genius, of some sort, is in- 
 volved in a general literary success ; and no man 
 ever took an acknowledged rank as a good writer, 
 in the proper sense of the term, who was not able 
 to produce something from within which he had 
 not learned, and which he could not learn, from 
 poring over books. 
 
 Thus it is, that a man who takes with him to 
 the Indies a cargo adapted to the Indies, may bring 
 home the wealth of the Indies ; while the man who 
 goes to the Indies " in ballast " only, will bring 
 back nothing more than he carried. Also, a man 
 who would undertake to reform the accepted or- 
 thography of a language, without having first been 
 elevated, by his own acts and by common consent, 
 to the position of a judge and a legislator of that 
 language, will be much more likely to injure than 
 to improve the object of his solicitude. 
 
 Besides, a lexicographer is one thing, and a re- 
 former is another thing ; and a good writer is a 
 very different thing from either. It so happened 
 that Johnson was an intellectual giant who could 
 grasp the three capacities in his own hand. But 
 Johnson's case was an exception, and therefore his 
 example is a dangerous one to follow.* 
 
 * Webster's faculty of word-making is not relevant to the matter 
 just now in hand, although it is a very serious count in the indict- 
 ment against his dictionary. His boast, or that of his publishers, 
 was, that a certain edition contained " twelve thousand words not to 
 be found in any preceding dictionary." Any one can see that 
 such a result could never have been attained, except by Webster's 
 dragging in recruits from all sources, creditable or discreditable
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 143 
 
 A lexicographer is one who writes a lexicon ; 
 and " lexicon " is, as Webster defines it, " a vocab- 
 ulary or book containing an alphabetical arrange- 
 ment of the words in a language, with their defi- 
 nitions." 
 
 A reformer, according to the same authority, is 
 " one who effects a reformation or amendment." 
 
 A good writer is one whose writing combines 
 grammatical accuracy with a style perspicuous and 
 adapted to his subject ; and who so conveys instruc- 
 tion or entertainment as to receive the approval of 
 the intelligent and educated part of the people. 
 
 Hence, obviously, the mere lexicographer is the 
 secretary of the good writer. His duty is to record, 
 not to legislate : to say what language is, not what 
 it should be. And so long as he occupies the 
 secretary's desk, his business is to confine himself 
 to the secretary's duties. But to discharge even 
 those duties properly, he must have learning, to 
 know what is correct ; and judgment, discreetly to 
 weigh all questionable matters : so that he will 
 follow neither the vagaries nor the negligences of 
 those who may be, generally, good writers. 
 
 Hence, also, a reformer is not one who under- 
 takes a reform without the qualities requisite to 
 success. Many men volunteer their services in the 
 way of a reform, who prove to be mere innova- 
 
 as the case might be. And this reminds one of Johnson's remark 
 to Boswell on the proper duties of a lexicographer : " Sir, my busi- 
 ness was to explain words, not to make them." In that respect Web- 
 ster would have done well to follow Johnson !
 
 144 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 tors. Besides, even the man who is capable of 
 achieving a reformation, must first discover and 
 show that a reformation is needed. His private 
 opinion of such necessity will not suffice. The 
 alleged or fancied evil must be shown to be an 
 evil. And, in the case under review, the judges in 
 the premises to wit, the good writers and their 
 above-mentioned colleagues must have admitted 
 the evil, before even the capable reformer has a 
 right to commence his work. The burden of proof 
 as to the existence of the evil shoeing the neces- 
 sity for its remedy is on the reformer. An at- 
 tempt to reform, where no reform is needed, can 
 produce nothing but mischief. It is applying a 
 remedy where there is no disease. " The whole 
 need not a physician." Or, if the would-be reformer 
 chooses to say that English orthography is not 
 " every ivUt whole," the good writer might say, in 
 much more homely but not less appropriate phrase, 
 " it does very well," and " it is better to let well 
 alone." 
 
 Now, it is saying very little to say, that the only 
 proof ever offered by Webster of existing ortho- 
 graphical evils, or of the need of their reforma- 
 tion, or of his ability to reform them, was his 
 own opinion on the three propositions. 
 
 And, as many persons think that Webster's claims 
 to be ranked among the good writers of English, 
 properly so called, or among men of high intellect 
 and high literary cultivation and accomplishment, 
 are not great ; and, as his claims to the privileges
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 145 
 
 and prerogatives of a reformer have yet to be es- 
 tablished ; he, thus far, stands before the world as 
 a mere lexicographer, whose work may be the best 
 in the world, but whose work must rest on its own 
 merits, and not on his pretensions. 
 
 The things to be considered, then, are, the value 
 of Webster's opinion, and the true character of the 
 work which his opinion led him to produce. 
 
 The value of Webster's opinion on the proper 
 manner of spelling words may be estimated by the 
 way Webster spelled words, so far, at least, as he 
 ran to extremes that are entirely beyond all debat- 
 able ground, and from which he was forced to re- 
 treat, by public scorn and derision.* 
 
 The following words, and many others not here 
 specified, come within that category : 
 
 1806. 
 
 1828. 
 
 1838. 
 
 Aker 
 
 Aker 
 
 Aker. 
 
 Gag (keg) 
 
 Gag 
 
 Gag. 
 
 Croud 
 
 Crowd 
 
 Crowd. 
 
 Chimist 
 
 Chimist 
 
 Chimist. 
 
 Determin 
 
 Determine 
 
 Determine. 
 
 Disciplin 
 
 Discipline 
 
 Discipline. 
 
 Fantom 
 
 Fantom 
 
 Fantom. 
 
 Fether 
 
 Feather 
 
 Feather. 
 
 Groop 
 
 Group 
 
 Group. 
 
 Grotesk 
 
 Grotesk 
 
 Grotesk. 
 
 * Observe, here, that Webster published his first dictionary in 
 1806. He was at that time forty-eight years of age: a period 
 when his opinions on orthography could not have been otherwise 
 than very deliberately formed. 
 
 7 *
 
 146 
 
 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Gillotin 
 
 Guillotin 
 
 Guillotine. 
 
 Hainous 
 
 Hainous 
 
 Hainous. 
 
 Hagard 
 
 Hagard 
 
 Hagard. 
 
 Hand 
 
 Island 
 
 Island. 
 
 Imagin 
 
 Imagine 
 
 imagine. 
 
 Insted 
 
 Instead 
 
 Instead. 
 
 JLeperd 
 
 Leopard 
 
 Leopard. 
 
 Lether 
 
 Leather 
 
 Leather. 
 
 Maiz 
 
 Maiz 
 
 Maize. 
 
 Neger 
 
 Neger 
 
 Neger. 
 
 Porpess 
 
 Porpess 
 
 Porpess. 
 
 Requisit 
 
 Requisite 
 
 Requisite. 
 
 Soe 
 
 Sew 
 
 Sew. 
 
 But 
 
 Soot 
 
 Soot. 
 
 Suveran 
 
 Suveran 
 
 Sovereign. 
 
 Steddy 
 
 Steady 
 
 Steady. 
 
 Thred 
 
 Thread 
 
 Thread. 
 
 Thret 
 
 Threat 
 
 Threat. 
 
 Thum 
 
 Thumb 
 
 Thumb. 
 
 Tung 
 
 Tung 
 
 Tung. 
 
 Vant 
 
 Vant 
 
 Vant. 
 
 Wimmen 
 
 Women 
 
 Women. 
 
 Zeber 
 
 Zebra 
 
 Zebra, etc., etc. 
 
 What can be said of the orthographical wonders 
 of that first column ? Do they not, for all time, 
 discredit the mere opinions of their author, in the 
 matter of spelling ? Do they not even cast a shade 
 of suspicion over his attempts to speak authorita- 
 tively on any department of philology? 
 
 A comparison of the three columns which
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 147 
 
 carry the " system " of Webster nearly to the date 
 of his death will show how perseveringly he ad- 
 hered to his errors. The same spirit, exerted in a 
 better cause, might have been productive of good. 
 But Webster could not be made to understand the 
 folly of his career. His failure to force on the 
 public the adoption of his extreme views, was at- 
 tributable to their obtuseness, not to his perversity. 
 Scott says : " The miscarriage of an experiment no 
 more converts the political speculator, than the 
 explosion of a retort undeceives an alchemist." 
 And the orthographical speculator stands in the 
 same predicament. Webster clung " to each par- 
 ticular" of his experiments for they were noth- 
 ing else than experiments on the public endurance 
 with the tenacity of a child to a toy, or a miser 
 to a coin. He never abandoned a spelling that he 
 dared to retain. 
 
 Fortunately, his successors have taken a wiser 
 course. They have virtually repudiated his entire 
 system of etymology and definitions, and have re- 
 tracted much of his spelling. The quarto of 1854 
 is a decided modification of all precedent Webste- 
 rian orthography, and that of 1866 goes still further 
 in the right direction. Only three of the spellings 
 of that first column are to be found in the latter 
 work, caff, (which, being interpreted, means 
 fag!) fantom,. and porpess: the last, however, is 
 " put under a bushel " by the brief direction, " see 
 porpoise" 
 
 In the same book, Webster's change of offence to
 
 148 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 offense is retained undisturbed; although defence 
 and pretence are placed, severally, in the embrace 
 of a bracket with their illegitimate cousins, defense 
 and pretense. What offence " offence" has commit- 
 ted that caused it to be denied the same privilege, 
 is, with truly Websterian inconsistency, left unex- 
 plained. 
 
 Webster attempted to justify his change of the c 
 for the s in those three words, which change, be 
 it observed, was part of his " system " of assump- 
 tion that great changes were needed, and that he 
 was authorized to make them (he being judge), 
 on the ground that they were " the only three 
 words" (of a "certain class," which class would 
 be found very wwcertain were one to seek the mean- 
 ing of the expression) " remaining," that had not 
 been similarly changed by usage. Hence, " it be- 
 came necessary " (!) for him to change these. He 
 added the further reason, that the derivatives of 
 these words require the s ; as, offensive, defensive, 
 etc. 
 
 The compilers of the edition of 1866, in under- 
 taking the defence of the same change, say that it 
 is warranted by etymology, as the Latin roots of 
 the three words have the s, as offensa, defensa, 
 etc. ; and they add that the " s is used in all their 
 derivatives " : which latter remark is of question- 
 able accuracy, considering that the book which 
 contains it contains the words pretentious, preten- 
 tiously, pretentiousness, each thus having a t instead 
 of an s in the third syllable. The compilers, how-
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 149 
 
 ever, say nothing about " the only three remaining 
 words." 
 
 The fallacy of the reasons of both "Webster and 
 his successors can be shown at once by the citation 
 of the word sentence. /Sentence is derived from the 
 Latin sententia ; its root therefore has no c ; and its 
 derivatives are sententious, sententiously ', etc., which 
 also have no c. Now, if the rule of these gentlemen 
 that etymology controls the spelling of a primi- 
 tive, and that the primitive controls the spelling of 
 its own derivatives has any force ; it must be of 
 general application, and must not be limited to 
 such words as their caprice may select for its 
 subjects. 
 
 It will be shown, in subsequent paragraphs, that 
 Webster entirely repudiates the validity of the rule 
 (that primitives control the spelling of their own 
 derivatives) by reversing the rule. He makes it 
 "work both ways," which, in common parlance, 
 is said to be proof of a good rule ; but which will 
 hardly do, in its serious, practical application to 
 philological principles. But, in the mean time, one 
 may remark, that if the rule justifies the change of 
 offence to offense, it certainly requires the change 
 of sentence to sentents : there we have the t of the 
 root and of the derivatives and " the pronuncia- 
 tion is not endangered ! " 
 
 Something more, here, on the rule of Webster, 
 that etymology controls orthography. If Webster 
 appeals to that rule in one case, he must submit to 
 it iii other cases. He cannot be permitted to use
 
 150 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 or reject it intermittently, or spasmodically, at the 
 caprice of the moment. And be it observed for 
 the following illustration involves that point that 
 Webster did not limit his changes of orthography 
 to words whose spelling had given rise to objections 
 or difficulties. 
 
 Profit is derived " directly," and without change 
 of spelling, from the French profit ; and Webster 
 gives several roots, including the Latin profectus : 
 all of which are spelled with one/. 
 
 Proffer is derived, in the same way : French, 
 prqferer; ~L&tm,proferre; also with one/. 
 
 Why, then, did Webster leave those two words 
 as he found them spelled, one with one / and the 
 other with two ? proffer, profit. Certainly, the 
 pronunciation of profit is as much "endangered" 
 by one / as enrol is with one Z, and much more 
 so. 
 
 Couple is derived directly from the French couple, 
 therefore its orthography is unimpeachable. But 
 supple is derived from the French souple; and 
 where is Webster's authority, on his principles, for 
 leaving it spelled with two p's? Besides, how 
 could he leave couple as he found it, considering 
 the "danger of mispronunciation"? Webster 
 should have changed it to cupple, on his alter- 
 nating rule. 
 
 In Webster's Dictionary of 1866, the following 
 words are retained in their exclusiveness, that is, 
 they are not, severally, united by brackets with or- 
 thodox orthography :
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 151 
 
 Biasing, 
 
 Counselor, 
 
 Counseling, 
 
 Dueling, 
 
 Graveling, 
 
 Jeweler, 
 
 Worshiper, 
 
 Worshiping, 
 
 Enroll, 
 
 Install, 
 
 Enthrall, 
 
 Fulfill, 
 
 Instill, 
 
 Dullness, 
 
 Skillful, 
 
 Willful. 
 
 And, on the other hand, the following words are 
 thus alternatively spelled in brackets ; a process 
 which at least gives the student his choice between 
 the right and the wrong spelling, although it gives 
 him no direction by which his choice might be 
 guided. 
 
 Axe coupled 
 
 with 
 
 Ax. 
 
 Comptroller 
 
 
 
 Controller. 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 tt 
 
 Cotemporary. 
 
 Ambassador 
 
 a 
 
 Embassador. 
 
 Gauntlet 
 
 j( 
 
 Gantlet. 
 
 Manoeuvre 
 
 (( 
 
 Manoeuver. 
 
 Mould 
 
 (( 
 
 Mold. 
 
 Moult 
 
 it 
 
 Molt. 
 
 Plough 
 
 tt 
 
 Plow. 
 
 Staunch 
 
 a 
 
 Stanch. 
 
 Ton 
 
 
 
 Tun. 
 
 Bevelling 
 
 n 
 
 Beveling. 
 
 Cancelling 
 
 tt 
 
 Canceling. 
 
 Cavilling 
 
 it 
 
 Caviling. 
 
 Drivelling 
 
 tt 
 
 Driveling. 
 
 Labelling 
 
 it 
 
 Labeling.
 
 152 
 
 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Libelling 
 
 coupled with 
 
 Libeling. 
 
 Levelling 
 
 
 
 Leveling. 
 
 Marshalling 
 
 Marshaling. 
 
 Modelling 
 
 u 
 
 Modeling. 
 
 Panelling 
 
 1C 
 
 Paneling. 
 
 Perilling 
 
 
 
 Periling. 
 
 Ravelling 
 
 
 
 Raveling. 
 
 Rivalling 
 
 a 
 
 Rivaling. 
 
 Revelling 
 
 tt 
 
 Reveling. 
 
 Shovelling 
 
 n 
 
 Shoveling. 
 
 Travelling 
 
 u 
 
 Traveling. 
 
 Traveller 
 
 it 
 
 Traveler. 
 
 Calibre 
 
 u 
 
 Caliber. 
 
 Centre 
 
 n 
 
 Center. 
 
 Fibre 
 
 ti 
 
 Fiber. 
 
 Accoutre 
 
 tt 
 
 Accouter. 
 
 Lustre 
 
 n 
 
 Luster. 
 
 Meagre 
 
 u 
 
 Meager. 
 
 Metre 
 
 It 
 
 Meter. 
 
 Mitre 
 
 u 
 
 Miter. 
 
 Ochre 
 
 11 
 
 Ocher. 
 
 Sabre 
 
 it 
 
 Saber. 
 
 Sceptre 
 
 ( 
 
 Scepter. 
 
 Sombre 
 
 tt 
 
 Somber. 
 
 Theatre 
 
 11 
 
 Theater. 
 
 This presentation of alternative spelling is 
 great concession on the part of Webster's succes- 
 sors ; and it is a favour for which the advocates of 
 correct orthography may as well be thankful. Yet 
 one cannot help looking the gift horse in the
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 153 
 
 mouth ; and wondering that men of education could 
 carry so far the delusion that there can be two 
 correct ways of spelling any one word. 
 
 Besides, on what principle, or by what rule, do 
 they discriminate between the two lists ? Why 
 should the words in the first column of the first 
 list, 
 
 Biasing, 
 
 and the others ending in ing, with 
 
 Counselor, 
 
 Jeweler, 
 
 Worshiper, 
 
 be refused the alternative double spelling, when it 
 is given to beveling and to sixteen other words (in 
 the second list) of precisely similar construction ? 
 Again : those gentlemen, in their prefatory essay 
 on orthography, say, as Webster said in his es- 
 say, that certain words must be excepted from 
 the Websterian rule of change, because changing 
 them would endanger their pronunciation; how 
 then can they justify their retention of Webster's 
 change of 
 
 Bevelling into Beveling, 
 
 Gravelling " 
 Drivelling " 
 Labelling " 
 Libelling " 
 Levelling " 
 Modelling " 
 Panelling " 
 7* 
 
 Graveling, 
 Driveling, 
 Labeling, 
 Libeling, 
 Leveling, 
 Modeling, 
 Paneling,
 
 154 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Ravelling into Raveling, 
 Revelling " Reveling, 
 Shovelling " Shoveling, 
 Travelling " Traveling, 
 Traveller " Traveler ; 
 
 when, beyond all dispute, the words so altered are 
 liable to be pronounced in two syllables ? Indeed, 
 if the ordinary rule of pronunciation is followed, 
 they must all be pronounced in two syllables, as 
 are shaveling, starveling, etc. Who is to recon- 
 cile the arbitrary rule that the superfluous I must 
 be stricken out Webster being the judge of the 
 superfluity with the rule that it must not be 
 stricken out, when the striking out endangers the 
 pronunciation ? Can anything be more ridiculous 
 than this, even supposing that the ridiculousness 
 of it were the worst of it ? 
 
 Webster's strongest reliance for justification in 
 expunging the second I from travelling, etc., and 
 that which his successors the most confidently 
 bring forward as altogether conclusive in the mat- 
 ter, is this remark of Walker : 
 
 " Dr. Lowth justly observes that an error fre- 
 quently takes place in the words worshipping, coun- 
 selling, etc., which, having the accent on the first 
 syllable, ought to be written worshiping, counseling. 
 An ignorance of this rule has led many to write 
 bigotted for bigoted; and from this spelling has fre- 
 quently arisen a false pronunciation. But no letter 
 seems to be more frequently doubled improperly 
 than Z. Why we should write libelling, revelling,
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 155 
 
 travelling, and yet offering, suffering, reasoning, I 
 am totally at a loss to determine." 
 
 The first obvious point of reply to that quota- 
 tion is the transparent fallacy of its last sentence. 
 Walker overlooks, as Webster and his disciples do, 
 the requirements of pronunciation ; and that, too, in 
 spite of the fact that the very subject of pronun- 
 ciation is mentioned in the preceding sentence. 
 What Walker is " totally at a loss to determine," 
 and what Webster and his disciples are innocent of 
 discovering, is the simple fact, that, while Walker's 
 illustrations, offering, suffering, and reasoning, could 
 not be mispronounced with the single consonant, 
 libeling, leveling, and traveling almost inevitably 
 would be so. 
 
 But, secondly, and this, which is equally ob- 
 vious to every one but the alchemists, is also inno- 
 cently overlooked, the very fact of Walker's 
 making his remark is so far from justifying Web- 
 ster's innovation, that it actually condemns it. 
 WJiy did not Walker do what he intimated should be 
 done ? " Ay, there 's the rub " ! Walker knew, 
 what Webster did not know, that 
 
 " The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us." 
 
 He knew that the attempt would fail, and produce 
 nothing but confusion, as it has done ! Many 
 men will recommend others to undertake what they 
 themselves take very good care not to undertake. 
 Besides, Walker only suggested; he did not rec- 
 ommend.
 
 156 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Has not the civilized world agreed in thinking 
 that the name of our country is a blunder ? And 
 that instead of " the United States of America," it 
 should have been called almost anything else ? 
 something that would identify it with its great 
 discoverer, or its, perhaps, greater deliverer ? And 
 have not men of mark " recommended " a change ? 
 Irving wrote a very elaborate recommendation to 
 that effect, and others have preceded or followed 
 him. And what then ? Their reasoning as to what 
 should have been is unimpeachable ; but reflection 
 shows that what they think might be, is impractica- 
 ble. The essential difference between this illustra- 
 tion and Walker's is, that the attempt to change 
 the name of our country might perhaps have been 
 harmless, if undertaken, though it would certain- 
 ly have failed : whereas Webster's experiment has 
 not only failed to secure any general adoption, but 
 it has wrought serious mischief, by unsettling an 
 order of things which, if not sufficiently uniform 
 to meet his approbation, at least satisfied the major 
 ity of literary men. 
 
 Again : Webster and his successors announce the 
 danger of mispronunciation, arising from misspell- 
 ing "as they count" misspelling instal, en- 
 thral, and enrol, in the derivatives : that is, they say 
 instalment, enthralment, and enrolment must be 
 spelled installment, enthrallment, and enrollment, 
 lest those words should otherwise be mispro- 
 nounced : they do not say how they would be mis- 
 pronounced, if spelled with one I.
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 157 
 
 The short answer to that averment is a flat de- 
 nial : the words would not be mispronounced if not 
 altered. Who ever heard of a mispronunciation 
 of instalment? 
 
 But the gentlemen do not stop with adding the I 
 to the derivatives. They reverse the rule of primi- 
 tives' governing the spelling of derivatives, and 
 coolly ordain that, inasmuch as instalment, enthral- 
 ment, and enrolment have been changed to secure 
 their proper pronunciation, they being judges 
 thereof, and having made the change, instal, en- 
 thral, and enrol must also take the double I, in- 
 stall, enthrall, and enroll, because the derivatives 
 are so spelled! ! 
 
 And yet, after they have taken all that trouble 
 to make their case perfectly absurd, they leave con- 
 trol and controlment without change, as if those 
 two words differed in the slightest degree from 
 enrol and enrolment! 
 
 Nor is even that all. Dull, fill, full, and still are 
 monosyllabic words, spelled with a double terminat- 
 ing consonant ; but good usage has for a century or 
 two more or less dropped that second I in com- 
 position, as it was formerly termed ; that is, in the 
 derivatives of those words, as, dulness, fulness, ful- 
 fil, instil, and distil But Webster didn't approve 
 of that condition of things. It needed a reform. 
 Accordingly, he decreed, 
 
 Dullness, 
 Fullness, 
 Fulfill,
 
 158 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 Instill, 
 Distill. 
 
 That is, he reversed back again the rule of prim- 
 itives' governing derivatives. Why he did n't spell 
 fulfil, fullfill, is not explained; for, as that is a 
 word in which two primitives are brought together, 
 there is no reason why either should yield an "ell" 
 to the other. 
 
 The inconsistency of Webster's spelling counsellor 
 with one I, and chancellor with two, has often been 
 commented on ; and it has never been replied to 
 but with the sort of reasoning that one might ex 
 pect from the alchemist, after the explosion of his 
 ninety-ninth retort. The solemn explanation which 
 Webster made, and which his successors reiterate, 
 is, that chancellor is derived directly from the Latin 
 cancellarius ! 
 
 As to which, in the first place ; it has already 
 been shown, and it might be shown a thousand 
 times if the game were worth the candle, that 
 Webster alternately recognizes and repudiates that 
 rule of derivation with perfect indifference. 
 
 As to which, in the second place ; Webster, in 
 giving the etymologies of the two words, cites, 
 among others, Latin consiliarius and French con- 
 seiller for counsellor; and Latin cancellarius and 
 French chancelier for chancellor. After which cita- 
 tions, it is simply absurd for him to allege that one 
 of the words, any more than the other, came directly 
 from the Latin ; or, that either of them did so. 
 
 And as to which, in the third place; if Webster
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. . 159 
 
 wished to make people believe that chancellor did 
 not come " directly from the " French, he would 
 have done better to omit chancelier from his ety- 
 mologies : for, verily, the h of that root places the 
 matter quite beyond the power of Webster's denial 
 of the " direct " French origin. Where did the h 
 of chancellor come from, if not from the French 
 root ? If chancellor came immediately from the Lat- 
 in cancellarius (not through the French), why did 
 he not spell it cancellor ? On his theory, he might 
 spell one of the words chounselor ; as well as the 
 other, chancellor. And touching the point of " di- 
 rect derivation from the Latin," it is to be observed 
 that, so far as we know, England had no " chan- 
 cellor " previously to the Norman conquest ! 
 
 After that exhibition, it seems trifling to point 
 out such an inconsistency in Webster as his spell- 
 ing amour with, and enamor without, the u. 
 
 But that brings up the subject of Webster's spell- 
 ing honour, favour, etc., without the u. 
 
 Webster says that this class of words " come to 
 us from the Latin through the French," honneur, 
 faveur, etc., etc. But here, as elsewhere, it is bet- 
 ter to admit the direct derivation from the French, 
 on the principle that the last indorser is first re- 
 sponsible. He would not have said "from the 
 Latin through the French," if there had been no 
 disputed orthography in the case. The " superflu- 
 ous letter " was his real object. 
 
 But as the usage of good writers had, up to 
 the time of Webster's innovation, recognized the
 
 160 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 French etymology by sanctioning the u in "the 
 remaining words" from which Webster thought 
 proper to strike it out, Webster would have done 
 better to leave the words as he found them. In 
 his capacity of lexicographer, he had no right to 
 go behind the certificate of the good writers both 
 in England and the United States, as to the French 
 derivation. As an antiquary, he might have gone 
 to the ends of the earth for roots, if he saw fit. 
 But all this was done to justify his assumption 
 that the u is a superfluous letter. And he holds 
 it to be superfluous by the same style of reason- 
 ing, probably, that led him to find the gh of plough 
 superfluous, namely, that the gh is silent. 
 
 It would be easy to show that such reasoning 
 proves too much : for if the theory of superfluous 
 letters is admitted as to plough, it cannot stop 
 there. It would expunge silent letters from all 
 other words ; and that process would plough a fur- 
 row through the language, that no disciple of Web- 
 ster is likely to approve. 
 
 The fallacy of Webster's position as to honour, 
 favour, etc., goes beyond even that : for it does just 
 so happen that the proscribed and " superfluous " 
 u is not a silent letter. The o is the silent letter in 
 those words. We say hon-ur, not hon-or. 
 
 Besides, why did Webster limit his hostility, or 
 his partiality, whichever you please, to one 
 class of words with the u ? Serious, curious, furi- 
 ous, famous, etc., etc., have also the u, and they 
 come to us, as Webster might say, " from the Latin
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 161 
 
 through the French." Why did Webster spare the 
 u in them ? To be sure, in them, as in honour, u 
 is not the silent letter. But why not treat the two 
 classes of words alike ? Why change honour, favour, 
 etc., and leave serious, curious, etc., as they are? 
 Certainly, if the u is not silent, the o is so : why 
 not spell them serius, curius ? 
 
 Again, in such words as guide, guard, guilt, 
 build, etc., the u actually is silent. Why is it 
 spared there ? 
 
 As to theatre, lustre, centre, sepulchre, and so on, 
 Webster transposes the termination into er, be- 
 cause, although in every instance the etymology 
 forbids it, theatron, Greek ; theatrum, Latin ; 
 theatre, French ; teatro, Spanish and Portuguese ; 
 lustrum, Latin ; lustre, French ; lustre, Spanish ; 
 lustra, Italian ; kentron, Greek ; centrum, Latin ; 
 centre, French ; centra, Spanish, Portuguese, and 
 Italian ; sepulcrum, Latin ; sepulcre, French ; sepul- 
 cro, Spanish and Portuguese, and so on, because 
 (to repeat, after that long parenthesis, made long 
 in order to make the case clear) cider, chamber, and 
 certain other words have been changed in that way, 
 they having that is, some of them having --a 
 similar etymology ; and Webster's opinion hap- 
 pened to be that the former should correspond to 
 the latter ! ! Could anything be more monstrous 
 than that, even if that were all ? But that is not 
 all. 
 
 The words that Webster transposed have which 
 the others have ^/ derivatives into which he
 
 162 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 could not carry his transposition. These are some 
 of them : 
 
 Theatre requires Theatrical, 
 Sepulchre " Sepulchral, 
 Lustre " Lustrous, 
 Centre " Central, 
 and so on. 
 
 So that, after Webster had transposed the ter- 
 mination of the primitives to conform to his rule, 
 he was compelled to transpose it back again to con- 
 form to a spelling that he dared not violate ; though 
 it would be hard to say why he dared not spell 
 theaterical, sepulcheral, centeral, lusterous, after he 
 had spelled theater, scpulcher, center, and luster. By 
 not changing the derivates, he again reaffirmed the 
 position that primitives do not control derivatives. 
 
 In the so-called " Answer " in the Democratic 
 Review, the representative of Websterism hazard- 
 ed the position that terminations in er do not 
 necessarily retain that form in the derivative, be- 
 cause the derivatives of enter, wonder, monster, and 
 disaster are, by common consent, spelled entrance, 
 monstrous, wondrous, disastrous. 
 
 At first sight, that seemed to be a good point ; 
 and, at any rate, it was adroitly put. But it proves, 
 on examination, to be only a Websterian fallacy. 
 We do certainly spell entrance, but we also spell 
 entered, entering. As to the other three words, a 
 reference to Richardson shows that they were orig- 
 inally spelled ivonderous, monsterous, disasterous ; 
 afterward, wond'rous, monstrous, disastrous; and
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 163 
 
 that now they are merely exceptional abbreviations ; 
 for, almost (if not quite) every other word in the 
 language terminating in er, including wonder, re- 
 tains that termination in the derivative ; as, 
 
 Wonder, Wondering, etc. 
 Flatter, Flattering, etc. 
 Offer, Offering, etc. 
 
 Utter, Utterance, etc. 
 Temper, Temperance, etc. 
 Further, Furtherance, etc. 
 
 Danger, Dangerous, etc. 
 Prosper, Prosperous, etc. 
 Murder, Murderous, etc. 
 
 Any one can see that such instances could be 
 quoted indefinitely ; so that the four exceptional 
 words of the "Answer" prove nothing at all. 
 
 Webster found practise, the verb, spelled with an 
 , and the noun, practice, with a c, in the last syl- 
 lable. He thought proper to make the spelling of 
 the verb conform to the spelling of the noun, and 
 wrote it practice. His own reason is : " The dis- 
 tinction in spelling between the noun and the verb 
 properly belongs only to words which are accented 
 on the last syllable, as device and devise, where the 
 verb has the sound of ize." The additional reason 
 of one of Webster's accredited representatives 
 to wit, him of the Democratic Revieiv, in " Answer " 
 is, " The pronunciation being alike in noun and 
 verb, persons are often puzzled to recollect which
 
 164 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 ought to have the c and which the s. By abolish- 
 ing the unnecessary and misleading distinction, 
 Webster established a genuine reform." 
 
 At first sight, all that may seem plausible to peo- 
 ple who have not had occasion to analyze Webste- 
 rian arguments. But try an illustration. The 
 verb prophesy is spelled with an s, and the noun 
 prophecy with a c, by Webster and by all lexicog 
 raphers. In that case, the accent does not fall on 
 " the last syllable," as in practice and practise it 
 does not ; and " persons are often puzzled to recol- 
 lect which ought to have the c and which the s." 
 Then, why did not " Webster establish another gen- 
 uine reform," by changing prophesy, the verb, to 
 prophecy ? 
 
 Again : Webster's reasoning, when pushed one 
 step further, leads to the edifying discovery that, as 
 accent and pronunciation have been duly consid- 
 ered in the spelling of device and devise, the same 
 rule should be applied to the nouns excuse and 
 abuse. Clearly, they should be spelled excuce and 
 abuce. 
 
 His reason for changing mould and moult to 
 mold and molt is simply puerile : " These words are 
 written without the u in analogy with the words 
 bold, bolt, colt, gold, etc., from which the whas been 
 dropped." Why did not the lexicographer change 
 court to cort, " in analogy with port and fort, from 
 which the u has not been dropped " ? Surely, the 
 latter reason is as good as the former. The " anal- 
 ogy " is but a partial escape from the bolder and
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 165 
 
 certainly " original " rule that all words (without 
 regard to derivation or established use) should be 
 spelled precisely as they are pronounced. 
 
 But it is idle to waste further argument on a 
 " system " that has no system ; that is not founded 
 in reason, nor conducted with reason. 
 
 The fact remains, that all Webster really accom- 
 plished by his alchemy, is a hopeless confusion in 
 the spelling of (derivatives and all) perhaps two 
 hundred words in a dictionary that contains nearly 
 a hundred thousand words. Whereas, before Web- 
 ster commenced his tinkering, the spelling of those 
 two hundred words, however irregular to his ap- 
 prehension, was more uniform than probably it 
 ever will be again. He has proved how much 
 easier it is to sow tares than to root them out. 
 
 It is lamentable that he should have done a mis- 
 chief that his successors, even if so disposed, have 
 of themselves little power to undo. 
 
 But, on the other hand, it is fortunate that Web- 
 ster's experiments on orthography, although to a 
 certain extent approved by people of a certain 
 class ; have never received the sanction of good 
 writers and educated men, unless in exceptional 
 instances. And after the concessions made in the 
 quarto of 1866, there is some hope that the further 
 progress of the plague may be stayed, as to all men. 
 
 There might be something invidious in the ques- 
 tion, who does in fact approve of Webster's orthog- 
 raphy ? had not the publishers arrayed a list of 
 recommendations in the quarto of 1866, which one
 
 166 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 may suppose embodies them all. The list is divid- 
 ed between what are sent by letters from individ- 
 uals, and what are copied from newspapers. 
 
 Of individuals there are just thirty-three whose 
 names are given ; the majority of whom speak in 
 favour of the great changes that have been made 
 from all former editions ; and four, only, of whom 
 refer at all to the orthography : and their reference 
 is so expressed that it seems quite as likely to 
 apply to the alternative spelling (in brackets) as to 
 Webster's spelling. The four instances are men 
 entirely unknown as " good writers." 
 
 Of newspaper recommendations there are just 
 thirty, including one from Constantinople. The 
 only one that refers to orthography, expresses his 
 views in these words : " The philosophical analy- 
 ses, the systematic arrangement of meanings, the 
 fulness and clearness of definitions, the orthoepy 
 and even the orthography, with many another ex- 
 cellence, all contribute to secure pure, unre- 
 served praise of this great work." 
 
 The work as it now stands, and with the excep- 
 tions hereinabove designated, is worthy of the 
 praise bestowed on it ; for its entire reconstruction 
 has made it what it should be, always excepting 
 the uneradicated tares of Webster's sowing. If 
 there were nothing as there is now very little 
 of Webster left in it, no one could withhold from it 
 the very highest meed of praise. 
 
 After so much has been said of Webster's Dic- 
 tionary, it would be both invidious and unjust not 
 to mention Worcester's Dictionary.
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 1(57 
 
 That great and admirable work is entirely free 
 from the ridiculous attempts at reform in orthog- 
 raphy which disfigure and debase every edition of 
 Webster from the first to the last, always except- 
 ing Worcester's omission of the u in honour, fa- 
 vour, etc. But the difference between Worcester 
 and Webster in that regard is, that Worcester did 
 not attempt to legislate on the subject ; he merely 
 recorded the words as he found them in general 
 American usage, when he commenced his labours : 
 whereas Webster struck out the letter as a super- 
 fluity, he being the judge. 
 
 Worcester's etymologies have been always ap- 
 proved ; and his definitions are simple and perspic- 
 uous in a degree far exceeding any precedent dic- 
 tionary of the English language. 
 
 Any extended notice of a work which has re- 
 ceived universal praise would be supererogatory 
 here, even if such notice were appropriate to the 
 purposes of this volume. But it is simple justice 
 to say, that Worcester's is the only American dic- 
 tionary which deserves to be regarded as a standard 
 of English orthography.
 
 168 GOOD ENGLISH. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE editor of The Round Table, in his paper 
 of December 29th, 1866, makes the following an- 
 nouncement : 
 
 " Considerations of convenience and expediency have led 
 us to arrive at the determination to eschew hereafter the 
 Websterian orthography to which THE ROUND TABLE has 
 given so fair and protracted a trial. We do this not without 
 regret, since there are national as well as other reasons to rec- 
 ommend Dr. Webster's innovations. It is possible that, should 
 these become more generally adopted, we may return to them 
 at a future day ; but for the present we conceive that our in- 
 terest and the wishes of the majority of our readers will be best 
 subserved by resuming the spelling which is most generally 
 accepted. The change has not been hastily made, having 
 been for some time in contemplation, and it has been thought 
 that the beginning of the NEW VOLUME would afford the 
 most favorable opportunity for making it." 
 
 This determination, on the part of the editor of 
 The Round Table, is interesting to all those who 
 care for correct orthography ; and his is not an 
 isolated case. One of the large book-publishing 
 firms in New York, and one of the leading New 
 York daily newspapers, have, severally, taken a 
 similar course ; not, indeed, to the same extent ; 
 not to the full repudiation of "Webster's heresies ; 
 but, to a partial repudiation. And, as their course 
 was taken without an announcement either of 
 reasons or intention, no uninitiated person can say 
 just when the thing began, nor how far it is, or
 
 WEBSTER'S ORTHOGRAPHY. 169 
 
 is to be, carried. Judging from the pages of 
 the books of the one and of the newspapers of the 
 other, a looker-on may conjecture that the repudi- 
 ating of Webster, and the accrediting of Worces- 
 ter, stand, now, about in the proportion of six 
 of one to half a dozen of the other, a condi- 
 tion of things rather perplexing to compositors and 
 proof-readers. It is to be hoped that, in due time, 
 the publishers and the editor will follow the exam- 
 ple of The Round Table in full.
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS 
 
 OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL OF THE PROTESTANT 
 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 IT is a matter of common observation, that, 
 while accurate elocution is of the highest im- 
 portance to a clergyman, there are, nevertheless, 
 very few good readers in the Church. And, al- 
 though an adequate remedy for so widely spread an 
 evil is the tiling chiefly to be sought, a brief inquiry 
 as to its cause may be not inappropriate at the 
 outset. If everybody asks, as everybody does ask, 
 why is it that clergymen generally are such poor 
 readers? anybody may attempt a reply; and a 
 reply must be the result of investigation, and in- 
 vestigation must go back to first principles. 
 
 The first lesson of a child in reading sentences 
 aloud in school, is an exercise made up of the sim- 
 ple utterance of printed words, with little or no 
 reference to their meaning. He pronounces me- 
 chanically ; the easy words at sight, and the hard 
 words by syllabic spelling : the main point being, 
 not that he shall read with propriety, but read at 
 all, read without stopping. And if it happened 
 to be in the power of teachers to put a scholar 
 through the lessons without requiring him to artic- 
 ulate the words ; if the scholar could be made to 
 read to himself, that is, with his eyes only, and
 
 174 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 the teacher could yet know that the boy was mas- 
 tering his task ; there might be a reasonable chance 
 that the boy would avoid the contraction of a habit 
 of formal, monotonous, prosy utterance which is 
 universally prevalent among children reading at a 
 school, and which, in after years, is found to be 
 a habit almost impossible to be eradicated. 
 
 This first lesson in oral reading is not intended 
 as an elocutionary exercise. It is rather an exercise 
 preliminary to the study of other lessons that are to 
 be learned and repeated ; as grammar, geography, 
 and so forth ; but, in the mean time, the habit of a 
 vicious elocution has been contracted ; and when, 
 subsequently, the scholar is set to reading for elo- 
 cutionary purposes, the same formality, monotony, 
 and prosiness characterize his utterance. 
 
 If this habit were now his sole impediment to 
 reading well, his own increasing intelligence, and 
 the sense of the language he reads acting on that 
 intelligence, might lead him to break away from 
 his habit. But, in the first place, reading aloud . 
 before a class, or a school, is certain to embar- 
 rass the boy ; and, for the time being, few things 
 prevent the action of one's mind more effectually 
 than embarrassment. And, in the second place, 
 the selections that fill up those books denominated 
 " Readers," portions of which are given to the 
 scholars for practice, are the finest, the most elabo- 
 rate, and the most highly wrought passages of 
 our language, passages which, in an elocutionary 
 sense, are as near the impossible as anything human
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 175 
 
 ingenuity could devise, passages which no one hut 
 a thoroughly accomplished elocutionist could mas- 
 ter : and, therefore, passages just as entirely beyond 
 the capacity of school-boys either to read or to 
 comprehend as if they were written in an un- 
 known tongue. The chance of a boy's improvement 
 in elocution, by practising on such passages as those, 
 would be extravagantly estimated at one in a mil- 
 lion. 
 
 Now, combine the bad habit with the embarrass- 
 ment and the impossible passages, and we can 
 easily see, that while, in regard to accurate elocu- 
 tion, boys at school learn absolutely nothing, they 
 acquire absolutely something ; and that something 
 is error, and only error continually. 
 
 When young men, under such a system of tui- 
 tion, are graduated from the various seminaries of 
 learning, they are certain to take with them quite 
 enough of false notions on the subject of elocution. 
 But when one of them enters upon the duties and 
 services of the Church, ho is careful to add to his 
 elocutionary defects a preconceived fancy that his 
 own voice, in its natural development, is not suited 
 to religious rites and ceremonies ; and, influenced 
 by that erroneous conceit, he assumes a tone and 
 manner that effectually extinguish any germs of 
 correct elocution which were born with him, and 
 which may have survived his educational disci- 
 pline. His purpose in assuming this artificial 
 style is honest and commendable. He intends 
 to be solemn and impressive ; but he so far over-
 
 176 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 does the matter, that, if his performance were 
 judged by critical rules, it would be pronounced 
 ludicrous. In many instances of both young and 
 old clergymen, this elaborated effort at solemnity is 
 carried to such an extent, that nothing but the sur- 
 roundings of the scene and the well-understood 
 intentions of the reader, prevent the general effect 
 from being literally and irresistibly comic. What 
 many clergymen persuade themselves is a solemn 
 tone or a " holy tone" is, in fact, a broad 
 burlesque of anything and everything serious. 
 
 In addition to this mistaken effort at impressive- 
 ness, which vitiates one's entire delivery, occasional 
 phrases are rendered in a way that puts all 
 thought of solemnity at defiance. For example, 
 the words " Lord." Those two vowels the 
 long and short o are prolonged to the extent of 
 a musical semibreve : a thing impossible to a man 
 who feels that he is really addressing his Maker ; 
 yet, it seems, a thing " very easily possible " to pro- 
 fessional men, who, under the pressure of routine, 
 mannerism, and formality, substitute sound for 
 feeling, and think that they give intensity to the 
 imitated feeling by exaggerating the sound: that 
 is, the more noise they make, the more feeling they 
 exhibit. The line, " Holy, holy, holy Lord God of 
 Sabaoth," is often delivered with this protracted 
 and inflated utterance. The first " holy " is made 
 too long and too loud ; and the reader seems to 
 think it necessary to double those faults on the 
 first, and quadruple them on the second repetition.
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 177 
 
 The habit of prolonging a word with a view of in- 
 creasing its impressiveness, or in any way attempt- 
 ing to evoke solemnity out of sonorousness, is a 
 blunder in all its details. It is popularly termed 
 " mouthing," and it is separated from true elocu- 
 tion by a distance equal to the entire diameter of 
 the system. It is the antipodes of good reading. 
 If, by virtue of any modern invention, a clergyman 
 of this stamp and their "name is legion" 
 could get his elocution photographed for the eye 
 and ear, and would examine privately the mixture 
 of strange sounds that he has perpetrated publicly, 
 he would see for himself what cannot be ade- 
 quately described. 
 
 The assumption that something out of one's natu- 
 ral tone and manner is indispensable to a proper 
 rendering of the Church Service is almost uni- 
 versal ; yet different individuals hit upon different 
 methods of carrying the assumption into practice. 
 Some men adopt the various intonations of whi- 
 ning ; others essay the equally various notes of 
 drawling ; and others, again, introduce tones for 
 which it would be difficult to find a descriptive 
 epithet. And all this strange and unnatural ma- 
 chinery is set in motion for the purpose of harmo- 
 nizing with, and adding impressiveness to, what is 
 serious and solemn ; and what, therefore, requires 
 to be treated with simplicity. On any principle of 
 reason, it is difficult to believe that a majority of 
 an entire class of educated men should voluntarily 
 adopt, and resolutely persist in maintaining, what
 
 178 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 is so totally at variance with well established con- 
 clusions. 
 
 I have now, at what I suppose to be sufficient 
 length, considered the causes, and some of the 
 effects, of the present condition of elocution in 
 the Church. A matter of much more importance 
 to those who are in the service of the Church, as 
 well as to those who propose to enter it, remains to 
 be discussed : namely, a remedy for this wide-spread 
 evil. I approach this part of the subject with diffi- 
 dence ; because, although I may think that, to some 
 extent, I understand it, I am not at all certain 
 of being able to convey my impressions to others. 
 The case may be briefly stated in two proposi- 
 tions : 
 
 First, every man has naturally, within himself, 
 the power of attaining perfection in the art of 
 elocution. 
 
 Secondly, he must be, to a very great extent, his 
 own teacher. 
 
 That every man has the power of attaining ft 
 perfect elocution, is shown by the fact that he 
 practises perfect elocution every day of his life ; 
 and, moreover, he does this not as the result of 
 study or education ; but involuntarily, instinctively, 
 and as a matter of literal necessity. Indeed, every 
 child who is old enough to have learned to talk, 
 does the same thing ; and he does this, as every 
 older person does it, in his ordinary familiar con- 
 versation. Listen to an uneducated boy five years 
 old, speaking his own thoughts, in his own Ian-
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 179 
 
 guage, to and with his own companions. You will 
 find that he uses proper emphasis and inflection ; 
 that he pauses in the right place, without pausing 
 too long ; that his intonations will conform to the 
 most rigid elocutionary rules ; and, in short, that he 
 will so entirely fulfil all the requisites of elocution, 
 that no severity of criticism can convict him of a 
 fault. And the same remarks apply with equal 
 truth to any person further advanced in life. Any 
 man, speaking his own thoughts familiarly and un- 
 reservedly, without consciousness of an audience, 
 and without considering how his words will sound, 
 cannot err in his elocution. Accuracy of delivery, 
 in such circumstances, is instinctive and inevitable. 
 
 If these allegations are true, and a very little 
 intelligent observation and reflection will prove 
 them to be so, it follows that every person has 
 within himself the power of perfect elocution ; and 
 that, if he chooses to set himself about it, he can 
 be his own teacher. - For all he has to do is to ap- 
 ply to the words of OTHERS the same practical rules 
 by which he regulates the utterance of his OWN words. 
 Therein in that brief sentence, and so far as the 
 public reading of the Church Service is concerned 
 lies the whole art of elocution. Deliver the 
 words of others as you deliver your own, is the pre- 
 cept ; and our matter in hand is, how to put it in 
 practice. 
 
 The first step in that undertaking is, to ascertain 
 how we speak our own words ? Well; in the con- 
 ditions designated, that is, when we speak famil-
 
 180 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 iarly, unreservedly, without embarrassment, with- 
 out consciousness of an audience, and without 
 considering how the words will sound, we speak 
 simply, naturally, unaffectedly : we use no manner- 
 ism ; we do not drawl, nor whine, nor mouth our 
 words ; we speak them, as Hamlet says, " trippingly 
 on the tongue " ; and, acting in conformity to our 
 inward and untrammelled impulses, we give to each 
 word its intrinsic or relative importance. We, in 
 short, show that we understand the meaning of 
 what we say, and we unfailingly make every audi- 
 tor understand it ; and, by the same token, we con- 
 vey to him the full force and effect of our language. 
 To be sure, our language may not be very forcible 
 or effective ; but whatever of force or effect is in it, 
 this manner of speaking must bring out ; and that 
 is the purpose and prerogative of elocution. That, 
 also, is the duty of a clergyman in reading the 
 Church Service. He must make the most of, he 
 must develop all there is in, the language that he 
 utters. And he will certainly do that whenever, 
 by study and practice, he shall have brought him- 
 self to deliver that language as if it were literally 
 his own. 
 
 To prevent misapprehension, let me remark here, 
 parenthetically, that I am at present treating of the 
 reading of the Bible and Prayer Book, and not of 
 the reading of one's own sermons ; and that when 
 I. speak of one's " own language," I do not mean 
 one's written language. The manner in which a 
 clergyman should deliver his sermon is a matter 
 for subsequent and separate consideration.
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 181 
 
 Our Liturgy is composed of miscellaneous pas- 
 of Scripture, religious precepts and sugges- 
 tions, general petitions and special prayers. The 
 officiating clergyman speaks or reads these by 
 authority ; partly addressing the congregation and 
 partly directing his words to the Throne of Grace 
 for the congregation, himself included. In these 
 several conditions he may he supposed, in spirit, to 
 speak as from and of his private impulses ; for, al- 
 though the sentences are known to be printed, and 
 not to be his, he, for the time being, represents the 
 original writers. Conventionally, he addresses the 
 Deity and the people in his own person, and it is 
 therefore proper for him to use the printed lan- 
 guage as if it were spontaneously emanating from 
 himself. Indeed, his assuming that exact relation 
 to his audience is one of the first requisites of ac- 
 curate elocution. He must virtually make the 
 language his own, in order to deliver it with pro- 
 priety, and ho will never deliver it appropriately 
 until he so appropriates it. 
 
 Placing himself, then, in the position of an 
 authorized teacher and theoretically speaking his 
 own words, ho must adopt a tone and manner cor- 
 responding to his position. His tone must be his 
 conversational tone, and his manner, (reverential as 
 to the Deity, colloquial as to the congregation,) his 
 natural manner, varied, indeed, according to the 
 subject, but still so really his own that any listen- 
 ing friend would recognize him to be the speaker 
 by his tone and manner alone.
 
 182 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 It is obvious that, in mastering this part of his 
 elocutionary task, a clergyman must be substan- 
 tially his own teacher. He best knows, or should 
 know, what are his natural tone and manner in 
 private colloquial intercourse, and he can best train 
 himself to pronounce the printed words of others 
 in conformity thereto. 
 
 To do this, he should begin by putting all thought 
 of a congregation out of his mind. He should, in 
 imagination, reduce his audience to " two or three," 
 and compel himself to speak to the many as he 
 would to the few ; and he should prepare for such 
 public exercise by privately studying and practising 
 the language before him, sentence by sentence, 
 until he brings its utterance into exact harmony 
 with his own natural style. This may seem to be 
 a tedious process ; it may even seem to be an un- 
 necessary toil ; but very few men who neglect it 
 will make much progress in elocution. Besides, 
 the task will not be found so formidable in practice 
 as it may appear in contemplation. 
 
 But, on the other hand, I must not so far 
 understate the difficulties of self-teaching, as to 
 lead you to underrate them. And, in that regard, 
 let me call your attention to one point that may 
 easily be overlooked ; namely, that- inasmuch as the 
 manner of a speaker, or reader, is the most nearly 
 natural, and therefore the most nearly perfect, 
 when he is unconscious of his manner ; he may, 
 and will, be somewhat impeded in ascertaining 
 exactly what his natural manner is. The very act
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 183 
 
 ot his observing, or looking after, his own manner, 
 takes away his unconsciousness. A man must 
 therefore, to some extent, separate himself from 
 himself, in order to find himself out: a process 
 that, indeed, would not be amiss in other matters, 
 as well as in the study of elocution. 
 
 Again, strictly speaking, there can be no excep- 
 tion to the rule that one's natural manner of speak- 
 ing one's own words is necessarily the perfection 
 of elocution. Yet, there are two exceptions to that 
 natural manner itself, which, practically, become 
 exceptions to the rule. 
 
 One of these is a habit which many people ac- 
 quire, of rapid and indistinct utterance in their 
 ordinary conversation. To them this habit be- 
 comes a sort of " second nature " ; but that is not 
 the sort of nature to which I refer. It is illegiti- 
 mate, and it must be repudiated. 
 
 The other exception is also an illegitimate off- 
 shoot from nature ; namely, affectation. Whether 
 that contemptible quality is born with its victims, 
 or is acquired through injurious training, it comes 
 to the same deplorable result: not one of them 
 seems to be capable of a natural tone or of a grace- 
 ful action. Everything they do is stiff, clumsy, and 
 artificial. And it is hardly necessary to add, that 
 whoever has acquired the habit of affectation, or 
 of rapid utterance, will make no progress in elo- 
 cution by speaking the words of others as he speaks 
 his own words. Such a man has as much to un- 
 learn as to learn ; and the former process is the 
 more difficult of the two.
 
 184 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 Colton thus felicitously describes the difference 
 between ignorance and error : Ignorance is a blank 
 sheet, on which the learner can transcribe what he 
 acquires ; but error is a scribbled sheet, the dis- 
 figuration of which must be erased before the 
 learner can commence his record. 
 
 In the same way, affectation, and rapidity of 
 utterance, must be thoroughly erased before any 
 real progress in elocution can be made. 
 
 Let me now interrupt this series of precepts by 
 introducing a practical example. Take the first 
 sentence in the Prayer Book ; and, as a universally 
 indispensable preliminary, analyze it, in order to 
 ascertain its precise meaning ; because the mean- 
 ing of a passage controls its emphasis, as, recipro 
 cally, the emphasis develops its meaning. The 
 Prophet Habakkuk, in the original passage, an- 
 nounces that the Lord is present, and that there- 
 fore all the earth must keep silence. The clergy- 
 man, in the same passage when appropriated to the 
 Service of the Church, reminds the congregation 
 that the Lord is present and that they must keep 
 silence ; not literal silence, however, but rather 
 reverence and attention, for the people are to join 
 the clergyman in portions of the Service. If this 
 verse were written, " The Lord is here : keep 
 silence," which is substantially its meaning, 
 no one could mistake the proper emphasis in read- 
 ing it ; but it is often improperly read ; as, for in- 
 stance, by the emphasizing of lemple, before, etc. 
 Lord and silence are the only words essentially
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 185 
 
 emphatic ; but as the sentence, like so many pas- 
 sages of Scripture, is constructed antithetically, 
 "Lord" and "earth" being contrasted, the prop- 
 erly emphatic words are "Lord," "earth," and 
 " silence." Some persons contend that " temple" 
 is also emphatic ; but as the words are pronounced 
 " in the temple," as all who hear them are in the 
 temple, and as tliey knoiv that the Lord is always 
 in his holy temple when " two or three are gathered 
 together" there; such an emphasis would contra- 
 dict the spirit of the passage. It could be justified 
 only on the hypothesis that the phrase " holy tem- 
 ple " indicates some place other than where the 
 people arc assembled. A familiar illustration will 
 make this plain, if, indeed, it is not so already. 
 If Mr. Lincoln were in this city, you would say, 
 " The President is in Philadelphia " ; but if he 
 were in a neighbouring city, you would say, " The 
 President is in New York." 
 
 You may think that I have enlarged unneces- 
 sarily on this simple passage. But you may be 
 assured that it is not easy to over-study the lan- 
 guage which is to be publicly read or repeated. 
 The great actors Kean and Macready are reported 
 and I have no doubt that the report is true to 
 have appropriated no less than three years of study 
 to such characters as Lear, Hamlet, Othello, before 
 they would venture to produce them on the stage ; 
 although, at the commencement of such study, they 
 must already have been very familiar with those 
 plays. The acquisition of the mere words of the
 
 186 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 three characters would occupy but a short time, 
 for the individual parts sustained by the actor do 
 not contain more than some six hundred lines each, 
 in the stage version of the plays. So that those 
 distinguished masters of elocution, after making 
 sure of the language of the poet, studied its delivery 
 at an average rate of less than a line a day. And 
 the result was, that they gained the prize for which 
 they contended ; namely, enduring fame. 
 
 That, by way of illustration. The prize for which 
 you are to contend is not fame, but usefulness ; and 
 your text-book is not Shakespeare, but the Bible. 
 The language of the Bible, however, requires quite 
 as careful, and sometimes quite as profound, study 
 as the language of Shakespeare. Every verse of 
 Scripture, and every sentence of the Liturgy, needs 
 to be deliberately considered and analyzed; first, 
 as to the exact meaning, and then, as to the- best 
 method of expressing that meaning. And my ob- 
 ject in minutely analyzing the first sentence of the 
 Prayer Book, as well as in citing the practice of the 
 actors, is to impress on your minds, by virtue of a 
 single example, the nature of the process which it 
 is necessary for you to apply to every line that you 
 deliver to a congregation. There is no royal road 
 to elocution ; and a clergyman can commit no 
 greater error in regard to elocution, than to assume 
 that a proper rendering of the Bible and Prayer 
 Book is to be attained by " running his eye " as 
 the phrase is over the services of the day on the 
 morning of the day. On the contrary, everything
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 187 
 
 must be patiently and faithfully studied. And that 
 is as true for the proficient, as for the tyro, in elo- 
 cution. For elocution is but an instrument, and 
 language is its written music ; and after one has 
 mastered the difficulties of the instrument itself, 
 he must master, severally and independently, the 
 pieces to be performed; and in both cases, the 
 quality of the performance will depend very much 
 on the quantity of midnight oil that he expends. 
 
 To treat this point more in detail, the student 
 should practise, line by line, on every part of the 
 Prayer Book and the Lessons, in the same manner 
 as a singer practises on every line and word of a 
 song. He should make sure of the precise mean- 
 ing of everything he is to read ; of the emphasis, 
 pause, and inflection that will certainly convey that 
 meaning to his auditors ; and of the tone and 
 style that entirely accord with his colloquial utter- 
 ances, apart from an audience. According to the 
 subject, he may read somewhat more slowly than 
 the rate of his ordinary conversation ; but no other 
 change should be made. And it is to be observed 
 that, in elocution, each man has, and must use, his 
 own style and tone. Music is more arbitrary, and 
 therefore less natural. The score of music is ab- 
 solute ; and whoever sings the tune must follow the 
 score ; so that a hundred people may sing together, 
 and sing accurately, and sing alike. But a hun- 
 dred men never talk alike ; and if they read or 
 speak naturally, they will not read or speak alike. 
 Thus, every man who would excel in elocution ia
 
 188 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 really forced to use his own style ; for, if he at- 
 tempts to imitate the style of another, however 
 good that style may be in the original, he will cer- 
 tainly " come to grief." Imitation is never natu- 
 ral. It is always exaggeration, and it usually ends 
 in caricature. Besides, what is strictly natural in 
 one man is not necessarily so in another. Men 
 differ as widely in their manner of expressing the 
 same sentiment or emotion, as they differ in features 
 or in handwriting ; and yet, in each of the three 
 instances, individuality is perfectly maintained. 
 Let the manner of expressing an emotion differ in 
 separate individuals as it may, the emotion itself is 
 still just as easily recognized, in each several in- 
 stance, as a man's face or his signature. 
 
 Take an illustration, which is extreme in the 
 sense that anger has no place in a church : some 
 men are boisterous when they are intensely angry ; 
 and others, in the same condition, will speak al- 
 most in a whisper ; and the latter development is, 
 to a spectator, much the more startling of the two. 
 But no spectator would fail to see that each exhi- 
 bition was genuine passion, naturally expressed. 
 And were the two men to change their parts, and 
 each attempt to exhibit anger after the manner, 
 and in the style, of the other ; each would totally 
 fail to impress the spectator with anything but con- 
 tempt for the performer's power of imitation, 
 or, what comes to the same thing, the performer's 
 power of representing true passion. In short, each 
 would then do just what any man, or any clergy-
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION 189 
 
 man, does when he seeks to express an emotion, or 
 a passion, by any agency other than his own facul- 
 ties, naturally exercised. 
 
 It is, however, to be taken into account that peo- 
 ple when under the excitement of passion are not 
 usually conscious of its external display ; they do 
 not necessarily know how it appears ; but the ap- 
 pearance, so to speak, takes care of itself, and 
 never misrepresents itself. And, therefore, when a 
 man wishes to exhibit an emotion contained in the 
 language of another, his proper study, in the first 
 instance, is, not the external display, but the inter- 
 nal sentiment. He must not work up an expres- 
 sion for his voice, or his face ; but must bring his 
 heart and mind into sympathy and unison with his 
 author ; leaving his face and voice, for the time be- 
 ing, to their own natural action. The voice must 
 afterward be trained into harmony with the read- 
 er's own proper utterance, and in that exercise his 
 ear becomes his tutor. This variety of form, in 
 which the same emotion expresses itself in differ- 
 ent persons, is a remarkable physiological fact; 
 and it seems to indicate, even with the force of a 
 natural law, that every man shall be, to a great ex- 
 tent, his own teacher in elocution, as in any- 
 thing where peculiarity is the rule, and uniformity 
 the exception. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that this self-teaching is 
 easy, especially at the outset. If it were easy, and 
 if men found it so, and if men by practice would 
 prove it so ; elocution would not be so rarely ac-
 
 190 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 quired, and these remarks on it would be uncalled 
 for. But, on the other hand, though the task is 
 not easy, it is also not impossible. Its difficulties, 
 formidable as they may seem when contemplated 
 in the aggregate, soon disappear when grappled in 
 detail. 
 
 And, by way of detail, we will now briefly recur 
 to the first sentence of the Prayer Book, a sen- 
 tence as simple in its construction, and as readily 
 adapted to a practical test, as any that could be 
 selected. We have already seen its meaning and 
 its appropriate emphasis. Its proper delivery re- 
 mains to be considered ; and that point resolves it- 
 self into the inquiry, how would you pronounce 
 the words if you were not a clergyman, were not 
 officiating in a church, but were one of " two or 
 three " met together in a sanctuary, and wished to 
 remind your companions of the familiar fact of the 
 Lord's presence ? For you must observe that the 
 number of a clergyman's auditors by no means 
 changes his relations to the individuals who com- 
 pose that number. He is still one man, whether 
 he addresses two men, or two thousand men ; and 
 each of the two, or the two thousand, is an individ- 
 ual, individually addressed, just as literally as if 
 such individual were the sole auditor. And any 
 style of address the words being the same 
 that to the one would be improper or extravagant, 
 must be equally so to the many. Now, in precisely 
 the circumstances above indicated, how would you 
 remind your two companions of the familiar fact
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 191 
 
 of the Lord's presence ? You of course would not 
 utter the words pompously, or sonorously, or in 
 any way out of your ordinary colloquial tone. On 
 the contrary, you would speak them quietly, sim- 
 ply, naturally, and loud enough to be heard by those 
 whom you addressed. And it is needless for me to 
 add, that your doing so would cost you no effort. 
 You would merely have done what you do every 
 day, without a thought as to hoiv you do it. Now, 
 would it be a great undertaking to practise on 
 those words, privately, till you can repeat them in 
 precisely the same manner, first, to an imaginary 
 audience of " two or three," and afterward to a 
 similar audience of a thousand ? Yet, when you 
 have literally and faithfully done just that, so far as 
 that sentence is concerned, you will virtually have 
 acquired the art of elocution ; and you will, there- 
 after, find much less difficulty in applying elocu- 
 tionary rules and principles to any other passages in 
 the Church Service. You will have mastered the 
 instrument, and you will thereafter have to study 
 only the music. 
 
 Observe, however, that the music so to be 
 studied, that is, the passages to be first analyzed, 
 and then adapted to a natural delivery, are neither 
 few nor small. The Psalter, Lessons, Epistle, and 
 Gospel make together an average aggregate of per- 
 haps three hundred lines for every Sunday morn- 
 ing and evening throughout the year, each of 
 which is a separate study. And to those add tho 
 other services of the Prayer Book, which are the
 
 192 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 same for every Sunday, and which do not require a 
 separate weekly study. But they require a sepa- 
 rate weekly care ; for their constant repetition will 
 otherwise lead the reader into a mechanical, undis- 
 criminating style, which, perhaps, is the worst of 
 all styles ; because it indicates that the clergyman 
 takes no personal interest in his precepts and peti- 
 tions. If you direct your attention to the subject, 
 you will observe that almost every clergyman reads 
 that part of the service worse than any other. 
 Just a a man will write his own name more illegi- 
 bly and therefore worse than he writes any- 
 thing else. He writes it so often, that he gives 
 little or no heed to his manner of writing it. I 
 have known instances of clergymen who had de- 
 voted much time and attention to the study of elo- 
 cution, and who, in other respects, were very good 
 readers ; who, nevertheless, uniformly failed in 
 their rendering of those parts of the service which 
 are read every Sunday. And it is to such cases 
 particularly, though not exclusively, that the cele- 
 brated and oft-quoted remark of Garrick applies. 
 A clergyman inquired of the actor' why the elocu- 
 tion of the stage was so much more impressive 
 than the elocution of the Church? Garrick re- 
 plied, that, whereas the actor spoke his fiction as if 
 it were truth, the clergyman delivered his truth as 
 if it were fiction. The grievousness of this com- 
 mon fault cannot easily be overstated ; for, of all 
 things to be strenuously guarded against and 
 avoided in the performance of the Church Service,
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 193 
 
 whatever partakes of carelessness or irreverence is 
 the most prominent.* Yet those are precisely the 
 qualities suggested, if not developed, by that me- 
 chanical style which results from a frequent repeti- 
 tion of the same language. 
 
 The mechanical style is, as a moment's reflec- 
 tion will show that it necessarily would be, much 
 more common with clergymen " of a certain age," 
 than with younger members of the profession ; 
 because it is a style that grows on all men who do 
 not resolutely resist it. 
 
 Many of the older clergymen have travelled in 
 Europe, and have listened with impatience and 
 contempt to the dull, lifeless, monotonous style in 
 which the guides, or showmen, of the public 
 buildings in European capitals describe their ob- 
 jects of curiosity. Did those clergymen ever hap- 
 pen to consider that their audiences may listen with 
 the same impatience and contempt to their dull, 
 lifeless, monotonous style of reading the Church 
 Service ? 
 
 The style, in either case, is just one remove from 
 the articulation of an automaton, supposing an 
 automaton could be made to speak. The only real 
 difference between the two cases is, that the guides 
 don't, and the clergymen should, " know better." 
 
 * Garrick once said to a clergyman, " What books were those that 
 you used this morning in reading the service? " "Books ? " re- 
 ioined the clergyman ; " why, the Bible and Prayer Book." " Ah," 
 said Garrick; " I observed that you handled them as if they were 
 ft leger and day-book." 
 
 Q *
 
 194 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 I am here reminded of a remark made by Mac- 
 ready, the tragedian, when speaking of the con- 
 stant repetition of his great Shakespearian charac- 
 ters. He said, that, so far from finding the reiter- 
 ation of the several parts tedious, he always found 
 in each of them some new point of interest that 
 had escaped his previous study ; and that, as to 
 his acting, he never commenced one of those famil- 
 iar characters without resolving to play it, on that 
 occasion, better than he ever played it before. 
 That remark which Macready made to me per- 
 sonally is well worthy of your attention. It is 
 very suggestive ; and it covers much ground which 
 you are interested in cultivating. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as intimating, in 
 a recent paragraph, that all parts of the Bible, or 
 Prayer Book, are as easily mastered as the simple 
 quotation from Habakkuk. The Bible compre- 
 hends almost every form and style of language, 
 mandate, precept, invocation, narrative, descrip- 
 tion, monologue, dialogue, and so on. And the 
 manner of reading them must necessarily be varied 
 according to their several characteristics. But. in- 
 asmuch as there is no form of language in the 
 Bible or Prayer Book which does not, at some 
 time, come within every man's colloquial experi- 
 ences, no man can really find himself in want of 
 an adequate model with which to compare, and by 
 which to regulate, his public reading of the Church 
 Service. Therefore, whether the passages to be 
 read are simple or complex, quiet or impassioned,
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 195 
 
 they are all within the grasp of a careful, pains- 
 taking student. He can, if he will, bring every 
 one of them under elocutionary control. Some 
 aid may be obtained from the advice and sugges- 
 tions of teachers or friends, since we cannot see 
 ourselves as others see us ; but the chief progress 
 and final success of the student must depend on 
 his own efforts. I have insisted on this cardinal 
 point a man's ability to teach himself at much 
 length, because I think it should be both under- 
 stood and believed. If you lack faith in its im- 
 portance or its feasibility, you will make little 
 progress in pursuing it. 
 
 If any of you would take the trouble to watch 
 the familiar conversation of two or more persons, 
 young or old, you would discover one fact, which, 
 unless your attention has been previously directed 
 to the subject, you may have never yet known or 
 thought of, namely, that the tones of the several 
 speakers run through almost every note of a musi- 
 cal octave, and that hardly three consecutive words 
 are uttered in, or on, the same note. That is to 
 say, ordinary and natural conversation is uncon- 
 sciously carried on in a great variety of tones. 
 Yet, let one of those talkers, in the midst of that 
 conversation, read a paragraph from a book or a 
 newspaper, and he will immediately assume a mo- 
 notonous utterance, rendering entire lines on a 
 single note, and probably giving the last word of 
 every sentence also on one, but a lower, note. He 
 will almost certainly do this that is, end all his
 
 196 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 sentences on one note if he reads the Bible. 
 For of all methods that human ingenuity could de- 
 vise, if employed for the express purpose of ren- 
 dering good reading impossible, the division of the 
 Bible into verses is the best. 
 
 We are so accustomed to this typographical ar- 
 rangement, that we are not only resigned to it, but 
 we are also partly insensible to its great defects. 
 Yet a moment's consideration as to the effect of 
 a similar disfiguration of any other book the 
 " Spectator," for example would show its inhe- 
 rent monstrosity. The single and imaginary ad- 
 vantage of this division is, its facilitating the search 
 for any particular passage ; but for all ordinary oc- 
 casions indeed for any occasion the designa- 
 tion of a chapter is sufficiently explicit : while the 
 disadvantages of the division are real, and of par- 
 amount importance. Such a division is, in fact, 
 equivalent to printing the Bible in a new language ; 
 or, at least, a language newly constructed and sub- 
 ject to new laws of composition : a language, or a 
 style of language, that is perverted from the form 
 in which its original translators presented it to the 
 world, and that is an abrogation of the form in 
 which any living language is printed. 
 
 One essential principle of printed or written lan- 
 guage is, the assignment of a separate section or 
 paragraph to each division, or branch, of a subject, 
 an arrangement originating in a literal necessi- 
 ty, an arrangement that simplifies the compre- 
 hension of what is written to a degree that, perhaps,
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUIION. 197 
 
 is fully appreciated only when it is repudiated. 
 The eye and the mind of a reader rest on, and de- 
 pend on, the paragraphical divisions as on beacons 
 or landmarks ; and when those are in sight, he 
 proceeds safely and confidently on his voyage ; but 
 when they are removed, or, what is worse, when 
 they are replaced by false beacons, he cannot be 
 sure of his course. He may have studied his way 
 by the chart, and may think that he has mastered 
 its sinuosities ; but the misleading power of the 
 verse divisions which seem to be guides and are 
 not constantly betrays him into difficulty. And, 
 as if this minute and perplexing subdivision were 
 not enough, many editions of the Bible are cum- 
 bered with asterisks, letters, and numbers, refer- 
 ring to marginal notes, and with interpolated par- 
 allel readings ; and all these are so intermingled 
 with the punctuation, that, to renew the metaphor, 
 the channel is choked with shallows and snags, and 
 no amount of coolness, skill, or foresight can carry 
 the navigator safely through its perils. The act of 
 reading through clearly defined paragraphs is quite 
 enough to tax all the powers of a reader ; it is all 
 he can do to read well, when his course is free from 
 typographical obstacles ; and his mind and eye are 
 sufficiently occupied while rendering language that 
 is divested }f adventitious impediments : but when 
 his attention is divided between the ship and the 
 rocks, when he must keep one eye on the engine 
 and another on the wheel, his faculties become 
 overtasked, and he can hardly escape shipwreck.
 
 198 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 In these circumstances, a due regard to the vari- 
 ous requisites of elocution is impossible ; but the 
 reader of the Bible in verses is apt not only to read 
 ill generally ; he is also apt to read ill particularly, 
 in the matter of a constantly recurring period on 
 one note. It is common, in the reading of any 
 other book, for the reader to begin a paragraph on 
 one note, and end it, also, on one note ; but the 
 usual length of a paragraph prevents the sound of 
 that from becoming disagreeable, or observable. 
 It is harmless from its infrequency. But when the 
 same thing occurs at the end of every second or 
 third line, it becomes offensive by its dull, unmean- 
 ing monotony. It degenerates from reading to a 
 sort of recitative; the words fall successively on the 
 ear without reaching the understanding, as drops 
 of water from a leaky reservoir, in ever-beginning, 
 never-ending routine ; and the effect on an audi- 
 tor's nerves is the same as would be produced by 
 any succession of sounds that have no meaning 
 whatever : as, one, two, three, four, five; one, 
 two, three, four ; one, two, three, four, five, six, 
 seven, eight, nine; one, two, three"; and so on, the 
 single characteristic being the iitterance of every 
 word but the last on one note, and the last also 
 always on one, but a lower, note. This may seem 
 to be exaggerated. But if you will listen to any 
 ordinary reading of the Bible, keeping this point 
 in mind, you will not listen often without hearing 
 precisely that succession of dull, uniform sounds. 
 
 One remedy for this obstacle to good reading is,
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 199 
 
 tlie use of a Paragraph Bible, of which two or three 
 editions are extant. I wish they were more com- 
 mon ; and I doubt whether the American Bible 
 Society could render to elocution a service greater 
 than making them so. 
 
 One thing more remains to be said on this sub- 
 ject, namely, a suggestion on the injury to the 
 voice, produced by the habit of monotonous de- 
 livery. 
 
 You are all aware, from your own observation, 
 that a man can talk through a whole evening with 
 less fatigue to his vocal organs than would ensue 
 from his reading half an hour. Why is this ? The 
 human voice is like a stringed instrument of music. 
 It has a certain number more or less in individ- 
 ual cases of tones, or notes ; and, in common 
 conversation, almost every one of these notes is 
 brought into use : and, when used properly, each 
 is kept in order, and even improved, by use. But 
 if two or three only are used, as in monotonous 
 reading, they become fatigued and permanently 
 injured by being used too much ; while the others 
 become rusty, weak, discordant, from not being 
 used at all. In other words, and to drop the meta- 
 phor, the diseases of the throat, so common among 
 the clergy, are easily and directly traced to their 
 habit of monotonous delivery. 
 
 The next point to which I would call your atten- 
 tion is audibleness ; a matter, in one respect, more 
 important than any other principle of elocution; 
 for, if a clergyman's words cannot be heard by his
 
 200 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 congregation, it is quite immaterial how well or ill 
 they are delivered. 
 
 The want of audibleness prevails to a greater 
 extent among clergymen than, probably, they them- 
 selves are aware. Many of them, even, who have 
 great vocal power, and are conscious that the sound 
 of their voices fills a church, are still entirely defi- 
 cient in distinct articulation, because they project 
 the words from the roof of the mouth instead of from 
 their lips ; and the result is a confusion of sounds 
 without any syllabication. Others speak from the 
 throat in a hollow, sepulchral tone, and with an elab- 
 oration of syllables and emphasis so mixed togeth- 
 er that no ear can eliminate the individual words. 
 Others, again, drop the voice to a whisper at the end 
 of a sentence ; and, as this habit, like any habit good 
 or bad, increases by use, they eventually pronounce 
 not only the last word, but many preceding words, 
 in the same low tone. Others have a trick of clip- 
 ping their words, which sacrifices a considerable 
 proportion of monosyllables, and reduces words of 
 three or four syllables, to two. And, again, some 
 men of a sensitive temperament allow their feelings 
 to run away with their faculties in impassioned or 
 pathetic sentences, so that their utterance is im- 
 peded or choked by the internal impulse, and dis- 
 tinct articulation becomes impossible. 
 
 Those five specifications include readers or speak- 
 ers who are unconscious of being inaudible, and 
 who, therefore, are at no pains to amend their 
 errors. But there is a large class of clergymen
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 201 
 
 who know the difficulty of making themselves 
 heard, without knowing the right method to over- 
 come it. Their custom is to raise the voice a note 
 or two above its natural key, and then exert all 
 their vocal power upon that false key. This soon 
 exhausts the speaker, but it does not help the 
 hearer. Every man has one natural key, and the 
 moment he abandons that, he loses all proper 
 control of his voice ; he has little power over his 
 emphasis, and none over his modulations or in- 
 flections ; and his utterances, like false coin, come 
 back to him without having performed their office. 
 
 And in addition to these specified causes of inaudi- 
 bleness, there remains the entire category of elocu- 
 tionary faults that I have already designated as ap- 
 pertaining to any delivery that is artificial, any- 
 thing out of one's Own tone and manner. In short, 
 each and every form of vocal utterance which is 
 not literally and strictly the natural manner of the 
 speaker or reader, apart from an audience, will 
 certainly be inaudible in the exact ratio of its vari- 
 ation from nature. So that the various styles of 
 false elocution not only fail to catch the sympathy 
 of an auditor, but they also, in proportion as they 
 are false, fail to reach his ears. 
 
 On the other hand, the correct elocutionist suc- 
 ceeds in every point where the pretenders fail. 
 For, when he has once brought his tone and man- 
 ner to the requisite standard, he has but to throw 
 additional force into his voice, without raising its 
 key, and he will be distinctly heard in any part of a
 
 202 CLEKICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 church that is properly constructed and is of mod- 
 erate size. This principle is perfectly simple, and it 
 is corroborated by the same principle in music. A 
 church choir, if practising in a parlour, will neces- 
 sarily preserve the key of the several tunes, while, 
 however, they graduate the force of their voices to 
 the size of the apartment ; and when they practise 
 or sing in a church, they give their full power of 
 voice, but still always on the same key. If they 
 should change the key, they would not be heard 
 the better, but their rendering of the music would 
 be altogether the worse, by reason of the change. 
 
 I have now submitted to your consideration the 
 subjects, severally, of natural and affected delivery ; 
 audible and inaudible delivery ; and the importance 
 of a careful study of what is to be delivered, in the 
 various services of the Church. And, thus far, I 
 have entered but slightly upon practical illustra- 
 tion, because to do so would require more time 
 than is now at my disposal. But I must warn you 
 against disregarding the precepts you have heard, 
 on the ground that they have not been more fully 
 supported by illustrations. No man can safely 
 natter himself that the obstacles to good reading 
 are imaginary, or that he has a peculiar faculty for 
 overcoming them without labour. Such an opinion 
 would prove nothing but his own obtuseness, and it 
 would certainly be reversed by his auditors. He 
 may deceive himself, but he cannot deceive them. 
 True elocution goes straight to the understanding 
 and the heart ; every listener is a judge of it by ii<
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 203 
 
 stinct ; and bad reading must create dissatisfaction, 
 though it may not elicit open complaint. 
 
 And it is by no means as a mere matter of taste, 
 or in subordination to exacting criticism, that accu- 
 rate elocution is to be required at the hands of the 
 clergy. Men must be taken as they are. They 
 must be dealt with, by their spiritual teacher, ac- 
 cording to their infirmities. They may be un- 
 reasonable in their tacit, or expressed, demands 
 for the outward accomplishments of a clergyman. 
 But the one great duty of those who preach the 
 Gospel is to call sinners to repentance ; and they 
 should labour to make that call effectual by adapt- 
 ing it to human weaknesses, and by embellishing 
 it with all the attractions which their ability can 
 supply. The greater the apathy or the obstinacy 
 of the hearer, the more need is there for the im- 
 pressive and persuasive elocution of the preacher. 
 And, surely, no amount of time, care, or study de- 
 voted to that end, can be said to be lost. 
 
 When you come to apply these general prin- 
 ciples to the delivery of particular parts of the 
 service, and when you have thoroughly ascertained 
 the meaning of what is before you, emphasis be- 
 comes your primary consideration. By way of 
 an example, we will take a sentence in which 
 excepting, indeed, audibleness emphasis is the 
 sole elocutionary requisite ; for it is so simply con- 
 structed that neither pause nor inflection has much 
 to do with its proper delivery ; and, if the emphasis 
 is rightly placed, the meaning cannot be mistaken j
 
 204 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 while, on the other hand, a wrong emphasis com- 
 pletely neutralizes the spirit of the words. I refer 
 to the ninth commandment. 
 
 Strange as it is, it is not the less true, that this 
 passage is read wrong more commonly than, per- 
 haps, any other in the Bible. One reason for this 
 is, probably, that each of the four commandments, 
 from the sixth to the ninth, contains a single pro- 
 hibitory precept in a single line ; and, in the first 
 three, the substance of the prohibition lies in the 
 last word ; so that when the reader, by a sort of 
 routine, has said, "Thou shalt do no murder" ; 
 " Thou shalt not commit adultery " ; " Thou shalt 
 not steal " ; it would seem to be, as it generally 
 proves to be, a matter of course that he should 
 add, " Thou shalt not bear false-witness against thy 
 neighbour" But " neighbour " is no part of the 
 gravamen of the prohibition. If it were so, false- 
 witness against any one else would not be inter- 
 dicted by the mandate. The essence of the inter- 
 dict is false-witness; as is shown, if proof were 
 needed, by our Saviour's recapitulation of the 
 commandments to the young man who " had great 
 possessions," Matthew xix. Some clergymen, with 
 similar want of reflection, place the emphasis on 
 *' against " ; thus virtually implying that false-wit- 
 ness in a neighbour's favour might be permitted. 
 But the true reading renders literally wwemphatic 
 every word except the thing forbidden ; and as the 
 last three words are, in an elocutionary sense, su- 
 perfluous, they should, as to emphasis, be disre-
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 205 
 
 garded ; thus, " Thou shalt not bear false-witness 
 against thy neighbour." 
 
 And here let me remark, briefly, that a slight 
 pause after or, according to the form of the sen- 
 tence, before an emphatic word, adds force to 
 the emphasis. A very little addition to the voice, 
 followed or, in certain cases, preceded by a 
 momentary pause, gives, in fact, a better effect 
 than speaking a word in a loud tone. 
 
 There is another class of instances where a wrong 
 emphasis is very common, without being fatal to 
 the sense of the passage, although the error weak- 
 ens its force. For example, the phrases " King of 
 kings," "Lord of lords," "Hebrew of the He- 
 brews," etc. The preposition is here used out of 
 its ordinary sense, and it signifies over, above, chief 
 among; and that meaning comes out distinctly 
 with the emphasis, making the difference between 
 " Lord of lords " and " Lord of lords " obvious to 
 the most superficial observation. And if an " of" 
 is thus important, an and may be even more so. 
 " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," is the usual 
 reading of that line; yet that reading implies 
 something in common between the two names ; 
 whereas, " God and Mammon " develops the an- 
 tithesis, which is the point of the assertion. 
 
 Those are a few of the simple passages that are 
 almost constantly wwread ; which shows how little 
 care clergymen bestow on what they read; and it 
 therefore is not strange that the niceties of more 
 complex sentences are overlooked. Examples of
 
 206 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 the latter kind are abundant ; but as I am just now 
 citing the force of small words, we will take the 
 '' it " of the fourth verse of the twelfth chapter of 
 the Second Book of Samuel: " And there came a 
 traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take 
 of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for 
 the wayfaring man that was come unto him ; but 
 took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the 
 man that was come to him." 
 
 In the twenty-sixth verse of the ninth chapter of 
 St. John, there is an instance of the power of em- 
 phatic monosyllables, when accompanied by the ris- 
 ing inflection. And as this is my first particular 
 reference to inflections, I will mention the rule that 
 regulates them when applied to interrogatories. 
 The rule is, that questions which need a response 
 of yes or no, require the rising, and all other ques- 
 tions, the falling, inflection. The rule is general ; 
 but, as applied to isolated inquiries, it is a rule 
 almost without an exception. In the verse re- 
 ferred to, you will see that the emphasizing of 
 " what " and " how," with a disregard of the rule 
 of inflection, suggests, even to one who has not 
 heard the preceding verses of the chapter, that the 
 two questions are a repetition, in brief, of what has 
 already been asked at more length. And not only 
 so, but what is much more relative to the princi- 
 ple I have insisted on, namely, the importance of 
 making the language of others our own that 
 emphasis and that inflection are certainly just what 
 the actual speakers in the Gospel narrative would
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 207 
 
 have used. The verse referred to is, " Then said 
 they to him again, WJiat did he to thee ? how 
 opened he thine eyes ? " 
 
 I will give one more example of the importance 
 of mere emphasis, apart from other elements of 
 elocution ; and this is worthy of notice from the 
 fact, that, while the passage in Matthew requires a 
 certain emphasis to develop its full force, the same 
 words in Luke require a different emphasis, by 
 reason of the occurrence of the word " prophet " in 
 the immediately preceding verse. The verses are, 
 respectively, the thirty-seventh of the twenty-third 
 chapter of Matthew, and the thirty-third and thirty 
 fourth of the thirteenth chapter of Luke. In 
 Matthew we read : " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
 that killest the prophets, and stonest them which 
 are sent unto thee, how often would / have gath- 
 ered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth 
 her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to call your attention 
 to the additional force given to that verse by chang- 
 ing the emphasis from "killest" and "stonest," 
 which is the common reading, to prophets and 
 sent; the change makes obvious the difference in 
 aggravation between the two crimes of, so to speak, 
 a common murder and the murder of one sent from 
 God. But that emphasis cannot be properly given 
 to the same words in Luke, because the preceding 
 verse is : " Nevertheless, I must walk to-day and to- 
 morrow, and the day following : for it cannot be 
 that a prophet perish out of. Jerusalem." As
 
 208 CLEKICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 " prophet " is used in this verse, and is emphatic, 
 it cannot properly be emphasized again in the very 
 next line. 
 
 The second sentence of the Prayer Book, " From 
 the rising," etc., is another instance of a passage 
 that requires a change of reading with a change of 
 connection : the change of reading, however, is not 
 one of emphasis, but of inflection, and it develops 
 the comparative power of the rising and falling in- 
 flection in the particular case. The verse is the 
 eleventh of the first chapter of Malachi, and it is 
 adopted into the Prayer Book with the omission of 
 its first word ; which word is essential in the con- 
 text by reason of its connection ; but is superfluous 
 in the Liturgy, because the prophecy is there used 
 independently of antecedents. 
 
 Malachi, in the tenth verse, denounces the irre- 
 ligion of the Israelites ; and, in the eleventh, con- 
 trasts their condition with the coming state of the 
 Gentiles. The eleventh verse commences with the 
 word " For," which is omitted in the Prayer Book. 
 " For" is here equivalent to farf, as will soon be 
 shown ; but the whole verse, as quoted in the 
 Prayer Book, should first be analyzed. 
 
 The antithesis of the rising and setting sun un- 
 mistakably indicates the proper emphasis of that 
 phrase ; but the reference to the sun's apparent 
 motion is one of locality, not of time ; it does not 
 mean from the hour of the rising to the setting, but 
 from the place of the rising to the setting, that 
 is, over the whole earth. And hence, in the second
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 209 
 
 clause of the verse, " every place " is not emphatic, 
 because that phrase is virtually a repetition as to 
 space occupied, or to be occupied, while it contains 
 an additional prophecy relative to the works, as the 
 first clause of the verse relates to the faith, of 
 the Gentiles. Therefore, the " incense " offered be- 
 comes emphatic in that clause, as does the quality 
 of the offering "pure" in the second clause. 
 And in the third clause which is a repetition as 
 to the " Name " of the Lord, but which refers to 
 a people other than Jew or Gentile, namely, the 
 heathen that term becomes emphatic. The read- 
 ing of the Prayer Book version is, therefore, " From 
 the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of 
 the same, my name shall be yreat among the G-en- 
 tiles^; and in every place incense shall be offered 
 unto my name, and a pure offering : for my name 
 shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of 
 hosts." 
 
 But when the tenth and eleventh verses of Mala- 
 chi are taken together, a different reading becomes 
 necessary. Thus : " Who is there even among 
 you that would shut the doors for nought ? neither 
 do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have 
 vio pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither 
 irill I accept an offering at your hand" " For," 
 [that is, but] " from the rising of the sun even unto 
 the going down of the same, my name shall be great 
 among the Cr entiles " etc. 
 
 Now apply the falling inflection to the " Gen- 
 tiles," and you will see the difference : " I have no
 
 210 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering at 
 your hand. But from the rising of the sun even 
 unto the going doivn of the same, my name shall 
 be great among the G-entiles" 
 
 You perceive how much force is given to the 
 passage by the rising inflection on " Gentiles," 
 though you may not perceive the reason. And, for 
 my own part, I must confess that I am not prepared 
 to enlighten you. The difference between the two 
 inflections strikes my ear and commends itself to 
 my judgment by a process much shorter than 
 reasoning, and I feel the result without being able 
 to account for it. 
 
 In one respect this citation is of no practical im- 
 portance, because the first chapter of Malachi is 
 not appointed to be read in the Church Service ; 
 but it furnishes another example of the proper 
 method of analyzing a sentence for the purpose of 
 ascertaining its emphatic words ; and it is another 
 proof of the power of the rising inflection, in cer 
 tain cases. 
 
 Perhaps no instance of the power of a false em- 
 phasis to destroy the meaning of a passage, is more 
 striking than one that can be applied to the eigh- 
 teenth verse of the second chapter of St. Matthew : 
 
 " In Rama was there a voice heard ; lamentation, 
 and weeping, and great mourning ; Rachel weeping 
 for her children, and would not be comforted, be- 
 cause they are not": that is, because they live 
 not, exist hot : which is one of the meanings of 
 the verb to be, though it is seldom so used at pres-
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 211 
 
 ent. "Are" is, of course, the emphatic word in 
 the last line. But see the result of transferring 
 the emphasis to they! 
 
 " Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
 be comforted, because they are not": which has the 
 strange effect of rendering a repetition of " com- 
 forted," an understood part of the sentence, and 
 which changes the meaning to, " Rachel would 
 not be comforted because her children are not com- 
 forted." 
 
 These few instances serve to show the great im- 
 portance of emphasis, and the necessity for a care- 
 ful study of even the most simple sentence, in 
 order to ascertain its emphatic words. But we 
 must remember, that, while a neglect of emphasis 
 is fatal to elocution, the abuse of it is equally dis- 
 astrous. To overdo it is as bad as to omit it. In- 
 deed, the two things come to the same result ; for, 
 if emphasis is distributed indiscriminately, it, like 
 indiscriminately lavished honours, ceases to have 
 any value whatever. If a sentence has but two 
 emphatic words, and, nevertheless, thrice that num- 
 ber are emphasized ; all the distinction aimed at, is 
 lost. I enlarge on this truism, because many read- 
 ers fall into this error. In their anxiety to make 
 the most of a sentence, they emphasize it down to 
 zero. It follows, then, that, as there is no manual, 
 or formulary, by which emphatic words may be as- 
 certained, their discovery must be left to study and 
 to "private judgment." As Hamlet says, "yoiir 
 own discretion must be your tutor." And thus, IP
 
 212 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 regard to this branch of our subject, we come back 
 to the cardinal point, so often insisted on, that 
 a man at least may be his own teacher. For, any 
 man of cultivation and ordinary intelligence can, 
 by his own efforts, ascertain the philological mean- 
 ing of any passage of Scripture ; and when he has 
 done that, he has done all that is needed to show 
 what are the emphatic words of such passage. 
 
 The chief topics remaining to be considered are 
 pause, modulation, and inflection. But they can- 
 not be discussed by means of general precepts. 
 Their disposition, in each several instance, depends 
 on the character of the passage to be read ; and 
 their treatment, therefore, must be practical, and 
 must be applied to the sentences or paragraphs 
 selected for illustration. 
 
 I would like, now, briefly to call your attention to 
 some remarks applicable generally to the manner 
 and deportment of an officiating clergyman. 
 
 Of the difficulties that beset a young man at the 
 commencement of his public duties in the Church, 
 the first in order, and while it continues the 
 first in importance, is embarrassment. Until he can 
 divest himself of that, all his proficiency in elocu- 
 tion will be of little use ; for, while under that in- 
 cubus, he can not practise what he has learned of 
 reading or speaking, any more than a man can walk 
 or use his arms when he is bound hand and foot with 
 cords. And, what makes the matter worse, he gets 
 no sympathy from his audience ; they make no al- 
 lowance for his dilemma, partly because they are
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 213 
 
 not aware of it, and partly because they see no 
 reason for it. The majority of a congregation will 
 perceive the effect, but remain ignorant, or unmind- 
 ful, of the cause ; and the remainder, not being 
 themselves embarrassed, cannot see why the clergy- 
 man should be so. But, for all that, he is so ; it is 
 in the nature of things that he should be so ; and 
 he is nearly helpless while he remains so. And 
 another unfortunate feature of the case is, that em- 
 barrassment, above all other elocutionary obstacles, 
 is the most difficult to control ; because it depends 
 on the nerves rather than on the will ; and the 
 nerves, in Shakespeare's phrase, " will not be com- 
 manded" : they cannot even be reasoned with; and 
 the only sure way of escaping their tyranny is, as an 
 Irishman might say, to submit to it, as one does to 
 sea-sickness, " until the tyranny be overpast." In 
 other words, it is a kind of disease which the ma- 
 jority of clergymen must have once, though some 
 will have it more lightly than others ; and it can be 
 treated only by palliatives. There is no preven- 
 tion, and no summary cure. The best method of 
 dealing with it is, perhaps, the novice's accustom- 
 ing himself to the night of a congregation, by sit- 
 ting for a few Sundays in the chancel without offi- 
 ciating at all ; and, after that, to undertake at first 
 but a small portion of the service ; and thus, by 
 degrees, to familiarize himself to the situation, and 
 to the sound of his own voice in the situation. 
 
 That suggestion, however, may be supererogatory 
 on my part ; for what I thus advise may already be
 
 214 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 an adopted custom. And, indeed, it is quite possi- 
 ble that many of my suggestions are not new, and 
 might better have been spared. But, in submit- 
 ting to you my views on elocution, it appeared to 
 me the safer course to present the whole case, so 
 far as I can ; for if I were to assume that you are 
 partly informed, and were I therefore to omit some 
 things conjecturally, in deference to what you may 
 already know, I might happen to omit so much as 
 to leave you in doubt whether I myself understand 
 what I have undertaken to communicate. 
 
 Assuming, now, that embarrassment has run its 
 course, and is disposed of, a result that necessa- 
 rily depends on yourselves, for no one can materi- 
 ally aid you, the next point is, a special study of 
 the services of the day, so that you shall perfectly 
 understand what you are to read, and how to read 
 it. This study must be private ; and, at whatever 
 outlay of patient toil it may at first be undertaken, 
 you should read, and re-read, aloud, every sen- 
 tence, until you have disciplined yourselves, com- 
 pelled yourselves, to bring your reading utterances 
 into exact harmony with your colloquial tones. 
 And, when you enter the church, you should 
 entirely divest yourselves of that unfortunate, fatal, 
 preconceived notion entertained by so many men, 
 that your own natural voice is not suited to relig- 
 ious services. 
 
 Your next consideration is audibleness ; to se- 
 cure which you must not raise the key of the voice, 
 but give more strength to it on its natural key ;
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 215 
 
 and you may be assured, despite any previous im- 
 pression to the contrary, that if your words are 
 distinctly articulated on the true key, they will cer- 
 tainly make their way to the ears of the congrega- 
 tion. It would, however, be a wise precaution to 
 secure the attendance of two or three friends in 
 different parts of the church, whose special purpose 
 shall be to ascertain whether you make yourselves 
 heard ; because, some additional strength of voice 
 being necessary, no one can tell precisely how much 
 is wanted, without more or less of practical experi- 
 ment ; and, besides, too much additional strength 
 is as undesirable for the speaker, as too little is for 
 the hearer. In this, as in other things, the happy 
 medium is the desideratum. One thing, however, 
 is to be noted : the additional strength should be 
 equally applied to every word. Many clergymen 
 whose delivery is what may be called of a proper 
 average strength, distribute the strength so unequal- 
 ly as to fail of making themselves heard. The 
 same thing occurs with many of us in conversation 
 with a person partially deaf. We speak the larger 
 and the more important words in a tone unneces- 
 sarily loud, and the monosyllables proportionate- 
 ly low, and our sentences become unintelligible for 
 want of the small connecting words. Any famil- 
 iar remark will illustrate this ; for instance, " I am 
 surprised at what you tell me." If that is spoken 
 in the ordinary way, thus : [repeated orally,'] each 
 word is moderately pronounced, with a slight 
 emphasis on the second syllable of " surprised."
 
 216 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 But many persons, in saying that to one partially 
 deaf, would vociferate "prised" and " tell" and so 
 hurry and mumble every other syllable of the sen- 
 tence that not one of them would be really audible 
 to anybody ; thus : [repeated orally.'] The point 
 to be secured is, a sufficiency of strength with a uni- 
 formity of application. 
 
 When a clergyman is reading the Lessons, he 
 should remember that he is reading the Lessons, 
 and keep his eyes fixed on the Bible. There are 
 many readers who seem to practise on the problem, 
 how much they can repeat while looking away from 
 the book ! and sometimes that really seems to be 
 their chief object ; the words they deliver, and the 
 meaning and effect of the words, being subordi- 
 nated to the solution of the problem. But no man 
 can read well who divides- his attention between 
 the book and the people ; and if he happens, as he 
 often will, to " lose the place " while looking away 
 from the book, he of course comes to a full stop, 
 and breaks down altogether. 
 
 One more suggestion as to reading. Never, 
 never, never allow the last word, or the several con- 
 cluding words of a sentence, to be uttered in a 
 whisper, or in any tone approaching a whisper. 
 The universality of the habit of dropping one's 
 voice on the last word or words of a sentence, is 
 amazing. Even clergymen of long experience, and 
 those who are aware of the frequency of the fault 
 in themselves and in others, and who have tempo- 
 rarily cured themselves of it, will still perpetually
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 217 
 
 relapse into it. Many men do this unconsciously ; 
 but the thing could hardly be so common if some 
 clergymen did not persuade themselves that au 
 occasional whisper is very impressive, and if each 
 one who uses it did not flatter himself that his 
 whisper is audible. I may remark, however, that, 
 while a low tone at the end of a sentence is com- 
 mon to both readers and preachers, the actual 
 whisper is usually reserved for the sermon. Nev- 
 ertheless, as a rule, no whisper is audible in a 
 church, and therefore no man can be justified in 
 using it. 
 
 The delivery of a sermon is an exercise, in 
 many respects, different from reading the Bible 
 and Prayer Book ; but, as an elocutionary exer- 
 cise, it differs only by reason of its additional re- 
 quirements. The meaning of the language is not, 
 indeed, a necessary study ; but that is only because 
 a writer must be presumed to know his own mean- 
 ing without study. A knowledge of meaning is in- 
 dispensable in any case. Neither is it necessary or 
 proper for a preacher to keep his eyes on his manu- 
 script ; on the contrary, he should dispense with 
 his manuscript so far as he can without injury to 
 a fluent utterance ; for, other things being equal, 
 every sentence of a sermon literally spoken has 
 twice the power of the same words read. But, in 
 every other particular, what has already been in- 
 sisted on as essential to reading, is equally so to 
 preaching. 
 
 Of requirements additional to those for reading,
 
 218 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 it may be remarked, generally, that the most im- 
 portant of them appertain to the control, or want 
 of control, of the voice ; the reason for which is, 
 that, in sermons, the various subjects to be con- 
 sidered, and the manner of their treatment, involve 
 more development of personal interest and feeling 
 than are ordinarily excited in reading the Bible or 
 Prayer Book ; and that the preacher, with all his 
 efforts to make the printed service practically his 
 own, seldom attains that object so completely as in 
 dealing with what he has himself written, which is 
 really his own. But such is the perverseness of 
 human nature it often happens that just in pro- 
 portion as a man's opportunities for doing well 
 increase, his propensity to do ill, or to overdo, also 
 increases ; and hence, a clergyman, in the delivery 
 of his own words, will go to extremes into which 
 his discreet enthusiasm never betrays him when 
 delivering the words of others. Thus, while, con- 
 currently with other faults, the prevailing charac- 
 teristic of reading is monotony, that of preaching 
 is extravagance, and the latter quality pertains 
 chiefly to the management or control of the voice. 
 It may be said, to be sure, that the whole art of 
 elocution consists of the proper management and 
 control of the voice ; and, in the comprehensive 
 sense of the words, that is true. But there are 
 two kinds of such management and control: one 
 is co-operative with the mind of the reader and the 
 meaning of his language, which is the greater in- 
 cluding the less ; the other is a mere keeping of
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 219 
 
 the voice in mechanical or physical subordination 
 to the higher rules and principles of the art. 
 
 In this regard, then, let it be understood that 
 a speaker should always retain full command of 
 his voice. He must not allow his feelings to 
 run away with it. Whether ministering to the 
 afflicted, or entreating the careless ; admonishing 
 the impenitent, or denouncing the hardened trans- 
 gressor, whatever, indeed, may be the impulse, 
 and however deeply he may be moved by it, he 
 must still hold his voice under subjection. He 
 must not permit it to be choked by sympathy, so 
 that pathos becomes sobbing ; nor overstrained by 
 impetuosity, until energy is vulgarized into vocifer- 
 ation. There is no greater error in any relation 
 of life, public or private, than an attempt to give 
 force to language by intemperance, either of tone 
 or gesticulation. Personal dignity disappears the 
 moment that violence shows itself, and the influ- 
 ence of the speaker disappears with it; so that 
 whenever he loses command of himself, he loses 
 control of his audience. There is nothing in elo- 
 cution so unexceptionally vicious, as violence of 
 delivery: it is worse, even, than inaudibleness ; for 
 while the latter fatigues a congregation, the for- 
 mer disgusts them. Earnestness is commendable : 
 even vehemence is sometimes endurable ; but vio- 
 lence, never. The extreme exercise of a man's 
 vocal power, which is the equivalent of roaring, 
 or screaming, and which is moderately speak- 
 ingsometimes practised in the pulpit; is a tres-
 
 220 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 pass on good taste, on every principle of elocution, 
 and on the sanctity of the place, which nothing can 
 excuse or palliate. A man who, in different ca- 
 pacities, is serving his Maker and his fellow-men, 
 and who, in the name of the One, is exhorting the 
 other, has no right to disregard the proprieties at- 
 taching to both relations. Neither is it wise to go 
 still further and exaggerate even that extreme of 
 indecorum into utter absurdity, as some men do, 
 when their violence becomes undiscriminating : 
 they seem to be, as it were, intoxicated with the 
 reverberation of their own voices ; they are agree- 
 ably astonished to find that they can make so 
 much noise ; and, by showering their stentorian 
 utterances at random, they give fearful prominence 
 to an and or a but, as often as to a more important 
 word. And another thing may be mentioned. 
 When the declamatory afflatus is at its zenith, 
 the speaker, finding that his utmost vocal efforts 
 fall short of his enthusiasm, reinforces the power 
 of voice with the power of gesticulation ; and he 
 brings that part of his performance to a climax 
 with a violent slap of his hand, or blow of his fist, 
 on his sermon, or on the Bible or the cushion that 
 holds it. He thus, in Hamlet's phrase, " suits the 
 action to the word," because both are tempestu- 
 ous: but he raises more dust than sympathy. 
 
 Now, if clergymen did but know it, or would 
 but know it, every time they indulge in this ex- 
 travagance, they not only defeat their immediate 
 object; but they injure their position with their
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 221 
 
 audience by betraying a weakness, which they 
 would do much better to conceal. 
 
 In conclusion of the requisites to the proper de- 
 livery of a sermon, I would say a few words on 
 gesticulation, as to which, the safest course for a 
 novice is to avoid it altogether; at least as a matter 
 of either experiment or study. Remember, as a 
 controlling fact, that there is no need of gestures 
 at all. No elocutionary rule requires them, and if 
 there is any rule about them, it is a rule whose sole 
 office is prohibition. It enjoins simply this, that 
 inappropriate gesture shall be avoided : and one 
 reason for its going no further is to be found in 
 the nature of the case : for no precept could be so 
 framed as to include all the varieties of proper ac- 
 tion in the pulpit, and to provide for the still greater 
 variety of circumstances that would affect its appli- 
 cation. Besides, what is improper cannot easily be 
 known to the preacher himself, because he cannot 
 see himself: the congregation are the sole witnesses 
 and judges of that. But if a clergyman will never 
 study, or premeditate, or privately practise a ges- 
 ture ; and, as an invariable rule, will permit his 
 hands and arms to obey nothing but his internal 
 impulse at the moment, independently of how the 
 thing may look, he will never go far wrong. 
 
 A very disagreeable habit, and by no means an 
 uncommon one of either young or old clergymen, 
 is a frequently repeated motion of the right arm, 
 always describing the same circle, or semicircle, or 
 angular or curved line, uniform in extent of feet
 
 222 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 
 
 and inches, and made without the slightest refer- 
 ence to the words it accompanies. The action is 
 usually ungraceful, because it is studied ; and it 
 has the effect on a spectator that anything obvi- 
 ously artificial will always have. There are many 
 other gestures with one arm, or both, equally 
 stereotyped and equally vicious ; but every ges- 
 ture that is premeditated, or uniform, should be 
 strenuously avoided. 
 
 And to bring this matter of pulpit deportment 
 to an end I will add that some clergymen have 
 a habit of looking in only one direction while de- 
 livering their sermons. The object of their atten- 
 tion excepting, of course, the manuscript is 
 the ceiling, or the floor, or the organ, or a column 
 on the right or left ; or, a part of the congregation 
 on one side, or the other, or in front ; but in each 
 particular instance, the one object is the only object 
 looked at. This is a habit that seems to indicate 
 either apathy or embarrassment on the part of a 
 preacher. The only proper course for a clergyman 
 in the pulpit, after giving the necessary attention 
 to his manuscript, is to direct his eyes easily and 
 occasionally to every part of the congregation, so 
 that every person present may have reason to con- 
 sider himself individually addressed. 
 
 I would like now to make two suggestions about 
 sermons themselves, which are not in any way con- 
 nected with their delivery. 
 
 The first is not very important, and it is merely 
 a matter of taste. A great number, perhaps a
 
 CLERICAL ELOCUTION. 223 
 
 majority, of clergymen state where the text is to 
 be found, then read it, and then repeat the an- 
 nouncement in both particulars. The only effect 
 of this, so far as I can judge, is to encourage an 
 old and very bad, but now comparatively infre- 
 quent custom on the part of the congregation, of 
 verifying the preacher's announcement by looking 
 up the text in their Bibles, gravely reading it, and 
 handing the book up or down the pew that others 
 may also verify the announcement. If the preacher 
 would wait while all this is in progress, there would 
 be less impropriety, though no less superfluity, in 
 the custom ; but the preacher does not wait, and 
 therefore the only effect of the custom is a general 
 interruption. But the repetition by the preacher is 
 itself superfluous. It is a sort of assumption of 
 the importance of a text as appertaining to a 
 sermon ; whereas, the importance of a text is in- 
 trinsic, independently of the sermon. A preacher 
 may, and may not, make an important use of a 
 text in the course of his sermon, but he can give it 
 no importance by announcing it. 
 
 My second suggestion relates to the theme of a 
 sermon. It is a matter of common observation 
 that young clergymen almost always overshoot 
 the mark in their initiatory efforts at writing for 
 the pulpit. They are apt to attempt too much. 
 Instead of contenting themselves with expounding 
 the plain precepts of the Gospel, which alone they 
 are called on to consider, and which they are per- 
 fectly able to discuss, they are prone to undertake
 
 224 CLERICAL ELOCUTION 
 
 some new phase of a doctrinal point ; or, to expa- 
 tiate on some of the mysteries of the Gospel dispen- 
 sation ; or, to attempt fine writing, and to sprinkle 
 their paragraphs with large words and figures of 
 rhetoric ; or, to aim at originality, or at some other 
 thing not easily attained and not worth attaining. 
 They do, in short, just what young men do because 
 they are young men, what a majority of their pred- 
 ecessors have done, and what they will themselves 
 cease to do, whenever they cease to be young men. 
 And the object of this suggestion is, to point out 
 a common fault that can readily be discerned and 
 identified, and which would therefore be much bet- 
 ter avoided at first, than be left to the chances of 
 being cured, or not cured, by experience. 
 
 I have now offered to your consideration all that 
 my limited time permits of elocutionary principles, 
 independently of practical illustrations ; and it all 
 comes to but this at last, that a student of elo- 
 cution must be substantially his own teacher,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbess ' 
 
 Abuse 
 
 Actor 
 
 Actress 
 
 Addison 
 
 Affectation . 
 
 Alford, Den 
 
 Alternative 
 
 Al 
 
 Ambassador 
 
 American i 
 
 Amour 
 
 Analys; 
 
 Anywheres 
 
 Apprehend . 
 
 Archceolo; 
 
 Astrology 
 
 At length 
 
 Attorney, Attorni 
 
 Audibleness 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Pagp 
 
 meal . 
 
 65 
 
 Chancellor . 
 Chesterfield 
 
 . 158 
 
 
 . 164 
 
 
 . 54 
 90 
 
 . 
 
 22 
 
 Coleridge . 
 
 105 
 19 
 
 
 5, 53 
 
 Collate . 
 
 21 
 
 on . 
 
 43, 183 
 
 Colton 
 
 184 
 
 )ean, 8, 75, 8 
 ive . 
 
 dor . 
 
 9, 93, 102, 112 
 . 45 
 72 
 . 22 
 
 Comparative adjectives . 
 Contrasting adjectives 
 Conchology . 
 Conductress 
 
 . 69 
 69 
 . 105 
 23 
 
 nisin 
 
 89 
 
 Consequence . 
 
 . 36 
 
 
 . 159 
 
 Controversialist . 
 
 12 
 
 of a sentem 
 
 e 184 j Conversationalist, etc. . 
 
 . 17 
 
 res . 
 id . 
 
 . 25 Correspond . 
 86 ! Counsellor 
 
 62 
 . 158 
 
 >gy 
 
 . 105 i Countess . 
 
 22 
 
 <f . 
 
 . 105 
 
 Couple .... 
 
 32, 150 
 
 i 
 
 A *4. :,. 
 
 . 50 
 
 Curious 
 
 51, 158 
 
 Au fait .... 103 
 Author, Authoress . . .21 
 
 Baroness .... 22 
 Beekman, James W. . . 137 
 Benefactor, Benefactress . 22 
 Beside, Besides ... 28 
 Blackwood's Magazine . 24 
 Blair 5 
 Book Genesis, The . . 57 
 Bourn 96 
 Brace . . . - - 33 
 
 Dean's English, The . . 135 
 Debase . . . . 24, 34 
 Debasement ... 35 
 Deceiving . . . .104 
 Defence, Defense . . 148 
 Delivery of a Sermon . . 217 
 Demean . . . .24, 34 
 Demeanour . . . .34 
 Democratic Review, The . 139 
 Deride 34 
 Deportment of a clergyman 212 
 De trop . . .103 
 Device, Devise . . 164 
 Dickens . . .24, 46, 95 
 Directly ... .107 
 Directress .... 23 
 Discriminate . . . .50 
 Distil - 1SS 
 
 Build 
 Buhver 
 Burke . 
 Business 
 But that 
 Byron 
 
 Case, Casket, Coffin 
 Casuality . 
 
 . 161 
 63 
 . 54 
 . 110 
 . 59 
 . 72, 79 
 
 . 85 
 19 
 . 161 
 
 Distinguish . 
 Doddridge . 
 Donate . 
 Donkey, Donkies 
 
 . 50 
 36 
 . 20 
 94
 
 226 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Drive 84 I I never mean to . 
 
 Dropping the voice . 
 Drvden 
 
 216 
 5 
 
 gnorance . . 
 
 . 184 
 
 188 
 
 Dulness .... 
 
 157 
 
 mportance . 
 
 . 36 
 
 
 
 n our midst 
 
 65 
 
 Earnestness .... 
 
 219 
 
 n so fur 
 
 . 61 
 
 PftBV 
 
 11" 
 
 n that 
 
 60 
 
 Economist .... 
 
 15 
 
 nfinitive Mood 
 
 . 72 
 
 Edinburgh Keview . 16, 
 
 117 
 
 nspectress . 
 
 23 
 
 Either 
 
 40 
 
 nstal 
 
 . 156 
 
 
 212 
 
 nstil 
 
 158 
 
 Emphasis .... 
 
 111!' 
 
 nvite 
 
 . 68 
 
 Emphasis overdone . 
 
 211 
 
 rving, Washington . 
 
 54, 156 
 
 Enamour .... 
 
 151) 
 
 
 
 Enrol 
 
 15H 
 
 Jenkins and Jones . 
 
 78 
 
 Enthral .... 
 
 15li 
 
 
 . 72, 90 
 
 Epithet . . 
 
 48 
 
 184 
 
 Jeopardize . 
 John Halifax 
 
 11 
 
 . 17 
 
 
 Everett .... 21 
 
 , 55 
 
 Johnson 6, 20, 35, 36, 
 
 53, 72, 143 
 
 Exceptionable . 
 Excuse ..... 
 
 87 
 
 Journal 
 
 82 
 , . v 4 
 
 Exhibit 
 
 OS 
 
 Justified . 
 
 75 
 
 Experimentalize ... 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 Kean, Edmund 
 
 . 185 
 
 Famous .... 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 Few, a .... 
 
 89 
 
 Latham . 
 
 . 5 
 
 Figure 
 
 
 Lazy .... 
 
 . 110 
 
 First, the .... 
 
 108 
 
 Leniency 
 
 . 15 
 
 Firstly . 
 
 24 
 99 
 99 
 
 Lexicographer, A 
 London Times, The 
 London Athenaeum 
 
 . 143 
 . 77, 120 
 51 
 
 From hence, thence, whence 
 From out . 
 
 Fulfil .... 
 
 157 
 
 157 
 
 London Morning Chronicle . 120 
 Logy, the termination . 105 
 
 Fulne'ss . 
 
 Furious . . . * 
 
 100 
 
 Looked beautifully 
 
 . 49 
 
 
 
 Lustre 
 
 . 161 
 
 Garrick . . . 192, 
 
 193 
 
 Lyttleton . . 
 
 . 54 
 
 General Grant . . 21 
 
 , (53 
 
 
 
 Genesis, The Book . 
 
 57 
 
 Macaulay . . . 
 
 5, 12, 120 
 
 Geology 
 
 105 
 221 
 
 Macready 
 Macbeth . 
 
 . 185, 194 
 . 37, 92 
 
 Gesticulation 
 
 Gibbon .... 5 
 
 .79 
 
 Maintain 
 
 . 75 
 
 Goldsmith .... 
 
 54 
 
 Make no more noise the 
 
 in vou 
 
 Governor . 
 Good writers . . 141, 
 Graduated .... 
 
 22 
 102 
 
 can help 
 Manageress . 
 Many a ... 
 
 88 
 . 23 
 89 
 
 Guide, Guard, Guilt . 
 
 161 
 
 Marchioness . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Hamlet . 
 
 92 
 
 Marsh, George P. 18 
 Materialistic 
 
 , 70, 71, 80 
 18 
 
 Hardy .... 
 
 lli) 
 
 Matinee . 
 
 . 103 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 
 Honour .... 
 Hostilize 
 
 14" 
 15!) 
 86 
 
 Mechanical style 
 Meteorology . . 
 Milton 
 
 . 193 
 . 105 
 . 25, 53 
 
 Humble .... 
 Hunter . 
 
 111 
 
 22 
 
 Mineralogy . . 
 Misacorehend 
 
 . 105 
 68
 
 INDEX. 
 
 227 
 
 Misconceive . 
 
 Misjudge 
 Misunderstand 
 Mistaken . . 
 Money, Monies 
 Monkey, Monkies 
 Moon, G. Washington 
 Most . 
 Mould, Moult 
 Mutual 
 Mutual friend 
 
 Nation, The 
 Neither . 
 
 . 6S 
 68 
 . 08 
 66 
 . 93 
 94 
 . 80, 135 
 52 
 . 164 
 111 
 . 46 
 
 18, 70, 80 
 
 Prescott 
 Pretence, Pretense 
 Preventative . 
 Priest, Priestess 
 Princess 
 Profit . 
 Proffer . . . ' . 
 Progress . . . 
 
 . 54 
 
 . 148 
 . 19 
 22 
 . 22 
 . 150 
 . 150 
 89 
 
 Prophet ... 22 
 Prophecy, Prophesy . . 164 
 
 Reading the Lessons . . 216 
 1 Rebel 93 
 Recommend ... 68 
 Reformer, A . . .143 
 Repetition of texts . . 223 
 Reverend, The . . . 56 
 Resurrected ... 86 
 Richelieu .... 63 
 Hide 84 
 Rising inflection . . 206, 209 
 Rotatorv . . . . 19 
 Round Table, The . . 80, 167 
 
 School Readers . . . 174 
 Scott, Walter . . .147 
 Secretaryess . . 23 
 Sentences . . . .108 
 Sepulchre .... 161 
 Separatist . . . .15 
 Serious .... 160 
 Should have regretted his hav- 
 ing been . . . .73 
 Singeress .... 23 
 
 Never .... 
 Newspapers . 
 New York Evening Post 
 Ninth Commandment 
 Nowheres 
 
 Of all others 
 Offence, Offense . 
 Officeress . 
 One 
 
 88 
 
 21,28/139 
 . 204 
 . 25 
 
 64 
 . 148 
 23 
 
 One half . 
 Onlv 
 
 87 
 
 Opened up . 
 Orate 
 Ornithology 
 Osteology 
 Our mutual friend 
 Ovate 
 
 98 
 . 21 
 . 105 
 . 105 
 46 
 . 21 
 
 Over his signature 
 Overtake 
 
 47 
 . 68 
 
 Paley 
 Paragraph Bible 
 Paraphernalia . 
 Patron, Patroness 
 Pause, for emphasis 
 Peculiar 
 
 . 14 
 . 195 
 . 44 
 22 
 . 205 
 52 
 
 Smollett 
 somewheres . . . 
 Southey 
 
 54 
 . 25 
 . 59, 72 
 
 South, Dr. ... 
 Span .... 
 Stand-point . 
 
 . 25 
 33 
 . 25 
 26 
 . 63 
 23 
 . 150 
 98 
 
 . 23 
 60 
 . 161 
 223 
 . 105 
 85 
 . 65 
 
 Permit 
 Perpetual 
 niilology . 
 Phrenology . . 
 Physiology 
 
 68 
 . Ill 
 . 105 
 . 105 
 . 105 
 86 
 
 Stopping 
 Superintendentess . 
 Supple .... 
 Sweat of his brow 
 
 Talkeress 
 That .... 
 Theatre .... 
 Theme of a Sermon . 
 Theology 
 To the muzzle . 
 I'onv Butler . 
 1'oward .... 
 
 Plead 
 
 102 
 
 Plough . 
 Poet, Poetess 
 Possessive Case, The . 
 Practice, Practise 
 Predicate 
 Predict 
 
 . 160 
 22 
 . 74 
 . 163 
 
 . 38 
 86
 
 228 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Treasureress . 
 Trench 41, 59, 60, 61, 72, 74, 
 Trollope, Anthony 
 
 23 
 108 
 65 
 
 101 
 
 Was, for is, etc. . 
 Wearv .... 
 Webster, Daniel 
 Webster, Noah 14, 20, 30, 39, 
 
 101 
 . 110 
 65 
 
 66,95 
 
 Underhanded 
 Underminded > 
 Universe .... 
 Usage of good writers . 
 Usual 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 88 
 8 
 
 111 
 
 Webster's Dictionary 
 Wharf, wharfs, wharves . 
 Whispers 
 White, Richard Grant 
 Whose .... 
 
 14,71 
 106 
 . 217 
 . 21 
 . 79 
 
 Variety of tones . 
 
 196 
 
 Widow lady 
 Widow woman 
 Wife 
 
 68 
 . 68 
 30 
 
 
 
 Wilson . 
 
 72 
 
 View-point . . . 
 
 27 
 
 Without . 
 
 63 
 . 31 
 
 Voice injured by monotony 
 
 Waitress .... 
 Walker 
 
 I'M 
 
 23 
 151 
 28 
 
 Worcester . . 
 Worcester's Dictionary . 
 Writeress .... 
 
 Yoke .... 
 
 16,48 
 . 166 
 23 
 
 . 83 
 
 WalDole .... 
 
 ui 
 
 You are mistaken . . 
 
 66 
 
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