ought to be reserved for the professional man who designs structures, the civil engineer. The man who merely drives an engine ought not to be called engineer.

99. Present. Obsolete words and phrases are not often a source of danger to the prose-writer. Very few at the present day would be tempted to use perchance, peradventure, haply for perhaps; eke for also; verily for truly, really; in sooth for in truth. The verb eke, in the phrase to eke out, is still current. Furthermore is hardly to be treated as obsolete, or even as obsolescent.* Hight, swain, wight are permissible only in humorous prose.

Thou, thee, thine, verbal forms of the second person singular, and verbal forms of the third singular in -eth, are now used only in poetry or in prose of an exalted cast. Thus Carlyle:

Poor wandering, wayward man! Art thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am. . . . O my Brother, my Brother! Why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom and wipe away all tears from thy eyes?

Forgotten, only-begotten, ill-gotten (gain), still retain the -en; but the uncompounded gotten, occasionally heard, sounds quaint or affected. Worn, formed after the analogy of born, torn, etc., has supplanted the earlier and correcter weak form weared.

The diction of the King James Bible translation and of Shakespeare having become the common property of all English-speaking persons, we are familiar with many words and phrases that have ceased to be current. We should be on our guard, therefore, against imitating them in our own writing. To echo the archaisms of Shakespeare suggests literary pedantry, to echo biblical archaisms suggests religious pedantry.

100. Reputable.-Newly-coined words are sometimes called Neologisms. This term, however, designates also the employment of a well-established word in a novel

*So treated in Genung, Practical Rhetoric, p. 39.

sense. The present and succeeding sections treat of Neologisms and also of words borrowed from foreign languages.

Neologisms in General. No precise rule can be given for the use or avoidance of neologisms. Some of them, e. g., the verb enthuse, or predicate in the sense of affirm, predict, are so crude and barbarous as to fall under the head of vulgarisms or slang. Others deserve at least respectful treatment, and still others will doubtless become standard English.

It is impossible to predict the fate of a neologism. But there are one or two tests by which we may estimate its chances of survival. First, is it formed according to the analogy of other words of its class? Second, does it supply a real want, or does it merely duplicate another word already established?

Thus, since the substitution of electricity for hanging in capital punishment, the need has arisen of a new term for the new method. Various neologisms have been proposed, chiefly electrocide and electrocute. Electrocide looks like homicide, regicide, tyrannicide, but there is a fundamental difference. Whereas the last three mean the killing (or killer) of a man, of a king, of a tyrant, electrocide is intended to mean killing by means of electricity. Thus the formation. is not analogous. Electrocution is still worse. It looks like execution; but this latter is not compounded of exe- and -cution it goes back ultimately to the Latin ex-sequi. Moreover, electrocide, when used at all, is used as a verb, from which is formed the past participle electrocided. What then shall be the noun? Shall it be electrocision? This would wrongly suggest the analogy of ex-cision, "cutting out." Both neologisms seem doomed to failure.

An interesting example of recent coinage, one likely to remain, is the verb boycott. It is formed from the name of a Captain Boycott, the person to whom the now familiar process was first applied, about 1880.

The formation of new compound words is controlled by one general principle, viz. that both parts of the compound should be of the same language. Thus in telegram both tele- and -gram are Greek; the same is true of telegraph. But in cablegram the cable- part is French; therefore the compound is objectionable.

Yet there are a few old words compounded from different languages; e. g., piecemeal, made up of the French piece and meal, from the Anglo-Saxon malum, a dative plural used to form adverbs of manner.

Certain classes of neologisms should be treated separately.

101. Verbs Formed from Standard Nouns. E. g., to cable, to wire, to umpire, etc. Fastidious critics object to all or nearly all such verbs. This is scarcely justifiable. If the verb to telegraph, i. e., to send a message by means of the telegraph, has become good English only in the last thirty or forty years, it is hard to see why to cable, in the sense of to send a message by cable, should not be equally recognized. It meets a practical demand. But there is less need of to wire; it is a mere doublet of to telegraph.

Shall we say, "B. umpired the game impartially "? Most critics reject the verb to umpire. But, in the present craze for athletic sports, the word is likely to become. standard. It is convenient; like battery, for pitcher and catcher. In legal speech, to referee a case is fairly established; certainly, "to deed away property," "the property was deeded to A.," are no longer questioned. But to clerk, to clerk it, in the sense of to act as clerk, will scarcely be accepted. To sculp, i. e., to model a statue, is unpardonably vulgar.

To suicide and to duel are still rejected by the fastidious, with a possible chance of acceptance. To burglarize has no such chance. To interview will probably last as long as the practice itself.

102. Abbreviations. Some have already established them

selves; e. g., mob, from mobile vulgus; cab, from cabriolet ; hack, from hackney. But in general the language is intolerant of abbreviations. Photo for photograph has not been accepted. Such abbreviations as gents, pants, prof. (for professor), doc. (for doctor), cap. (for captain), an invite (for invitation), a combine (for combination), diff. (for difference), are hopelessly vulgar. Postal for postal card and editorial for editorial article are fairly established in this country; in England the terms are post-card and leader. (See $98.)

Exam. and prelim. are still college slang.

Abbreviations like isn't, doesn't, didn't, I'll, he'll are permissible in conversation, but not in writing, except such writing as reproduces conversation. Don't (for does not), ain't, shan't, won't are not permissible at all.

103. Useless Words. These are to be rejected because they are useless; many of them are also formed incorrectly. Among the useless and incorrect are illy, firstly, thusly. The persons who use such spurious adverbs forget that ill, first, thus are already adverbs. Muchly is also vulgar. Some years ago there was a craze in the United States for nouns in -ist, to designate the doer of an act. The termination is proper in certain Greco-Latin and French formations, e. g., thaumaturgist, revolutionist, druggist, chemist, etc., but is wholly improper in native words, the termination of which should be -er. Yet, although the language had already an ample supply of -er nouns, the craze did not stop until it had produced the monstrosities walkist, talkist, fightist, skatist, etc. But the craze is dying out, and the monstrosities are dropping one by one into oblivion.

104. Misused Words. Thus far only new formations have been discussed with regard to their probable acceptance or rejection. In the present section old wellestablished words are discussed in their misapplication. Sometimes the misapplication is common in the United States, sometimes it is local.

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To fix, which properly means to fasten or make permanent (as when the photographer fixes his negative), is misused in the sense of to mend or repair; even in the sense of to put in order, as in the phrase "to fix up things." Mad, properly meaning insane, is misused in the sense of angry. Leave and let are discriminated in good English; but from the uneducated one often hears the expression, "Leave me be." To allow, in the sense of to declare or assert, is perhaps Western rather than Eastern. But to claim, in the same improper sense, is heard in both sections. Properly, to allow is to grant or concede, and to claim is to demand as a right. To confess, which properly means to state explicitly one's own shortcoming, is often misused, even by writers who should know better, in the general sense of to admit or concede something which may be either good or bad, in one's self or in others; e. g., "It must be confessed that a small college offers certain advantages which a large university cannot offer." When an enthusiastic undergraduate asserts that his college is. the peer of American colleges, he intends to say that it is the best; in reality he says merely that it is one of many equal in rank and excellence.

To materialize, which properly means to put into material form, or to assume material form, is misused in the sense of to make one's appearance, or simply to come. "He was invited, but failed to materialize" is downright slang. Also, "he failed to put in an appearance."

Calculated, in the sense of likely, is not elegant, although it has the sanction of Goldsmith and Hawthorne. To favor, in the sense of to resemble, "John favors his father," is provincial. Plenty, as an adverb, e. g., " plenty good enough," is ungrammatical. Some, for somewhat, slightly, as in "I was some tired," is slang.

In the use of certain verbs with the reflexive pronoun there seems to be a difference between England and the United States. In England the correct form is, "The Ohio