chandelier, dame, police, figure, nature, prestige, grace, jargon, glacier, rôle, mauve, from the Italian, canto, dilettante, lava, macaroni, villa, piano, loggia, piazza, fiasco; from the Spanish, mosquito, negro, merino, cañon, siesta; from the German, gneiss, landau, meerschaum, zinc.

All these words, and countless others, though of foreign origin, have become so naturalized that they are as good English as if they had been members of our linguistic community ever since the days of King Alfred. Hospitality to foreign words is one of the fixed habits of our language, and new terms are constantly applying for admission.

Yet it is manifestly unwise to interlard our English writing with words and phrases that are still felt as foreign. For, in the first place, such terms may be unintelligible to our readers, and, in the second place, their extensive use is an affectation, like "putting on airs" in company.

When we are tempted to employ a French or a Latin word or phrase that has not yet become an accepted part of the English vocabulary, we should ask ourselves if there is not some English expression (native or naturalized) that will answer. Commonly, we shall find such an expression if we look for it; but, if our language furnishes no satisfactory equivalent, we may be forced to use the foreign term.

A foreign word which has not yet been admitted into the English vocabulary is sometimes called a barbarism. The term is convenient, but not very appropriate. It is of little utility to set up the dogma that "barbarisms are bad English." Their continual use is to be avoided, not because they are bad English, but because they savor of affectation and may not be generally understood.

SECTION 228.

COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE AND SLANG.

The language that we write will always differ somewhat from the language that we speak. Colloquial English (that is, the language of ordinary conversation) admits many words, phrases, forms, and constructions which would be out of place in serious composition.1

The distinction is important, though frequently overlooked in estimating the correctness of a word or phrase. Written language is expected to be more careful and exact than spoken language. The requirement is only reasonable. When we talk, the expression of our thoughts is aided by gesture, by stress or emphasis of the voice, and by oral inflections or modulations 2; in writing, we have none of these at our command.

Moreover, when we converse with anybody, he forms his opinion of us not only from what we say, but also from our appearance, our manners, and the quality of our voices. He is therefore less likely than a reader to misjudge us or to misinterpret our words.

Hence, though conversational language should not be slangy or slipshod, it may properly enough take liberties that written composition must avoid.

Slang, from its very nature, can never be in good use. Whenever a slang term becomes reputable, it ceases to be slang. Mob, banter, hoax, bore (in the sense of to weary), gerrymander were once slang terms, but have

1 Compare "The Mother Tongue," Book II, p. xxii.

2 For some of the means which writers use to reproduce these effects, see pp. 57-59, 279-81, 287, 290-4, 299.

worked their way first into the colloquial vocabulary and then into the language of books. Most slang, however, has no such good fortune.

The reasons for avoiding slang are plain enough. In the first place, slang changes with great rapidity, both in its words and in the meanings they bear. It is too unstable and evanescent to serve the purposes of recording one's thoughts.

Secondly, the habitual use of a slang word starves out a number of nicely discriminated synonyms. If we call everything that we like stunning, — from a good dinner to a fine poem, we ignore a multitude of far more expressive adjectives which would indicate with precision our thought or feeling in a great variety of circumstances. Slang words are seldom specific; they are the lazy man's substitute for the mental exertion involved in thinking up the terms that really express his thought. Hence their use tends to weaken our power of discrimination and to enervate our minds.

Finally, almost all slang is vulgar, either in its origin or in its associations. Its habitual use is taken as a sign of low breeding or of affected rowdiness. This is in itself a sufficient reason for avoiding it.

Provincialisms and dialect words should not be confused. with slang. They are not the idle and fantastic coinages of the moment, but, in most cases, old words or meanings that have either gone out of use except in a limited district or have never come into general use. They differ greatly in respectability, some of them being well established in colloquial speech while others are seldom heard from educated people. The reason for avoiding them is that they are not universally intelligible.

Examples of provincial or dialect words are the following:calaboose, ruination, pernickety, sunup; guess, expect, calculate, reckon, and allow in the sense of think or suppose; right smart; clever for good-natured; "tell him good-bye" for "bid him goodbye"; raised for reared (of persons); red up for clear up; 'tarnal for very great; ridiculous for abominable or outrageous; all over for everywhere; some place for somewhere; "I am through ” for “I have finished"; do be for be; tuckered for tired out; "some pretty" for "somewhat pretty"; pie plant for rhubarb; spider for frying pan.1

SECTION 229.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CHOICE.

Within the limits of good usage, and in every case controlled by it, there are four great principles which should guide us in the choice of words, correctness, precision, appropriateness, and expressiveness.

Correctness is the most elementary of all requirements. The meanings of words are settled by usage. If we use a word incorrectly, — that is, in a sense which does not customarily belong to it, our readers will miss our thought, or, at best, they must arrive at it by inference or guesswork.

In the second place, we must fit our words as exactly and precisely as possible to the thoughts which we wish to express. We may write correctly enough and still, by neglecting precision, so blur or obscure our meaning by vague or ambiguous language as to leave the reader with a very indistinct impression of the thought that we desire to convey.

1 For the use of dialect in stories, see p. 138.

In the third place, our words must be appropriate to the subject and the occasion. Otherwise, no matter how correct they are, or how precisely we fit them to our meaning, they will fail to produce the effect that we intend.

Finally, our words must be expressive. They may be correctly used, they may set forth our meaning precisely, they may be appropriate to the occasion; and yet, after all, they may be so dull and lifeless as to leave the reader uninterested and unmoved. If words are really to serve our purpose, they must express the color and vividness of our feelings about the subject that we are treating.

correctness, pre

We shall study these four principles cision, appropriateness, and expressiveness in the sections that follow. Meantime, a few concrete examples will make their bearing evident.

1. Correctness. A man's vocation is his "calling," his "occupation"; his avocation, on the contrary, is "that which calls him away from his regular business," as music in the case of a lawyer, or baseball in the case of a college student. It is correct, then, to say: "The business of his life is politics; he makes literature an avocation." If, now, we use avocation for vocation, we violate the principle of correctness, and run the risk of being understood in a sense that is directly opposite to what we intend to say.1

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2. Precision. Suppose we wish to set forth the thought Shakspere is a great poet," and, through carelessness, say merely "Shakspere is a great writer." We have violated no principle of correctness; what we say is good English and in every way unassailable in itself. Yet it does not express with precision the idea that was in our mind.

1 The use of avocation for vocation is gaining ground, but good writers commonly avoid it. In the plural, however, avocations has established itself in the sense of "regular and habitual pursuits."