is afforded by a knowledge of their root-meanings, by which latter is meant not the unsympathetic knowledge which comes from looking up derivations in a catalogue, though this is better than nothing, but that more intimate feeling or tact which comes from familiarity with the structure and spirit of the original language. Herein lies the true practical value of classical study: it gives ancestry and family distinction to one's mother-tongue. A word whose derivation is felt defines itself; the writer is so far forth independent of a dictionary.

EXAMPLES. Under the foregoing paragraph the difference between the two words justify and extenuate is felt, and the accurate use of them assured, as soon as one thinks of the Latin originals underlying them, justus and facio on the one hand, and tenuis on the other. So also between the two words (p. 49, 2) canorous (cano, "to sing ") and sonorous (sono, "to make a noise").

In the following sentence Dr. O. W. Holmes has the support of derivation for deepening the meaning of a common word: “He used to insist on one small point with a certain philological precision, namely, the true meaning of the word 'cure.' He would have it that to cure a patient was simply to care for him. I refer to it as showing what his idea was of the relation of the physician to the patient. It was indeed to care for him, as if his life were bound up in him, to watch his incomings and outgoings, to stand guard at every avenue that disease might enter, to leave nothing to chance; not merely to throw a few pills and powders into one pan of the scales of Fate, while Death the skeleton was seated in the other, but to lean with his whole weight on the side of life, and shift the balance in its favor if it lay in human power to do it."1

In the following sentence Matthew Arnold builds his whole conception of urbanity on the support of the root-word urbs: "For not having the lucidity of a large and centrally placed intelligence, the provincial spirit has not its graciousness; it does not persuade, it makes war; it has not urbanity, the tone of the city, of the centre, the tone which always aims at a spiritual and intellectual effect, and not excluding the use of banter, never disjoins banter itself from politeness, from felicity." 2

1 HOLMES, Medical Essays, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. ix, p. 307.

2 ARNOLD, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 66. — Derivation is an important aid in Exposition; see below, p. 576.

A knowledge of derivation alone, however, may be misleading, for sometimes in the course of their history words pass through_different shadings and applications, until their rootmeaning is only very indirectly helpful. The present status of a word also must be recognized - not a difficult or uncertain task for one whose habitual observation of etymology has sharpened his sense of words.1

EXAMPLES. — In the verse, “And when he was come into the house Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom and tribute?" the root-meaning of the word (from pre and venio) is followed; but since the translation was made the word prevent has so changed in meaning that it is no longer an accurate word.

It is interesting to trace the history of such words as pagan, heathen, barbarian, villain, knave, knight, and see how, in addition to what they reveal of original meaning, they have preserved the spiritual attitude and sentiment of their original users. To trace the steps by which the word nice connects itself with the Latin nescius would be quite baffling and unpractical; one must depend wholly on its present status.

II. INTELLIGIBLE USE.

The adaptation of the word to the idea, which calls for accurate use, has its limits. The word must also be adapted to the reader; and in general literary work the reader must be treated not as a learned man but as a man of average information and intelligence. In the choice of words, therefore, the sensible rule is to keep as close to everyday habits of speech and thinking as is consistent with accuracy; and where the subject-matter is necessarily abstruse, endeavor to

1 The science which treats of the development of words through different senses is called Semantology; see EARLE, English Prose, p. 137. Another good result of familiarity with the history of words is thus described by PATER, Appreciations, p. 12: "And then, as the scholar is nothing without the historic sense, he will be apt to restore not really obsolete or really worn-out words, but the finer edge of words still in use: ascertain, communicate, discover · words like these it has been part of our business' to misuse."

see it through common eyes and translate so far as practicable into the current medium.

The following considerations are important in adapting words to the reader.

4. The Tissue of Idiom.Idioms are turns of expression peculiar to the language; generally irregular, not to be squared with strict grammar, and for that reason having the flavor of sturdy unstudied speech. A test of an idiom is that it cannot be translated literally into any other language. At first effect rugged, perhaps odd and racy of the soil, it is after all quite consistent with all due dignity and refinement, while it adds a strength and homeliness that no other way of speaking could do. As the best basis or ground-tissue of plain language, therefore, idiom is to be valued and cultivated; it is preeminently the medium through which cultured and uncultured may feel their common interests and kinship.'

In certain stages of culture a young writer is apt to regard everything that presents any ruggedness of diction, or that is not transparently conformed to grammatical rules, as a blemish; and he is tempted to smooth down everything into propriety and primness. This tendency is to be watched and repressed, for in yielding to it, even in the interests of elegance, a writer may easily throw away much of the native strength and character of his mother-tongue.

EXAMPLES. -1. The following, from the great store of English idioms, will suffice merely to give an idea of idiomatic homeliness and flavor: "It was something that he could not put up with"; "They unexpectedly got

...

1 "I have been careful to retain as much idiom as I could, often at the peril of being called ordinary and vulgar. . . Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language: and none such ever entertained a fear or apprehension that strength and sublimity were to be lowered and weakened by it."— - LANDOR, Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 150 (Demosthenes and Eubulides).

"In the breath of the native idiom there is as it were a moral fragrance, akin to the love of home and domestic faith; it is in discourse what the tenderness of nat ural piety is in the beauty of human character."- EARLE, English Prose, p. 308.

the start of him"; "In the long run this will prove its utility"; "A man instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or print as soon as it is matured"; "He could never get used to this new manner of living."

2. While the above examples serve to illustrate the flavor of idiom, the extent to which idiom is a tissue, a basis of common speech, needs to be illustrated by enumerating some of the most prevalent idioms of English:— a. The double genitive; as "that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's " (where one possessive is expressed phrasally, the other by inflection).

b. The noun phrase, one noun doing duty as adjective for another; as, “the country schoolmaster,” “a two-foot rule,” “the small coals man.” c. The English use of shall and will, should and would, of which more under Phraseology; see below, p. 233.

"For

d. It with singular verb and plural or collective predicate; as, who, when they had heard, provoked? — nay was it not all who came out from Egypt by means of Moses?"

e. The use, in many cases, of the adjective form for the adverbial, and its obviously greater naturalness; as, "speak louder," "walk faster" (“speak more loudly,” “walk more rapidly” are hard to tolerate).

f. The use of a preposition at the end of a clause; as, "Where do you come from?" "What are you blaming me for?" This is a thing I cannot get used to." (The alternative expressions, "Whence" or "From whence do you come?" "For what are you blaming me?" "This is a thing to which I cannot get used" or "become accustomed," sound bookish.)

Grammar, as Professor Earle remarks,1 is the natural enemy of idiom, and is continually trying to replace its rugged forms by something more amenable to rule. Of course, wherever grammar succeeds, it, rather than idiom, is the arbiter of usage.

NOTE. - Grammatical insistence has succeeded, for example, in banishing "it is me," which used to be natural and idiomatic, and substituting "it is I." Also, whereas men used to say, "I do not doubt but what this is so," it is at once better grammar and better usage to say, "I do not doubt that this is so." The word but is sometimes retained even when what is changed to that; but this is unnecessary. The proper particles to use with doubt are: affirmative, "I doubt if," "I doubt whether"; nega

tive, "I do not doubt that."

1 EARLE, English Prose, p. 255.

5. Provincialisms, Americanisms, Dialect. Provincialisms are words, idioms, or meanings current in some limited region, but not universal enough in usage to be admissible in general literature. Within their district they are accepted conversational forms; elsewhere they sound somewhat like slang; employed in literature they savor of crudeness and lack of culture.

EXAMPLES OF PROVINCIALISMS. The word clever, in the sense of good-natured; as, " He is so clever that he will do anything for you"; likely, in the sense of promising; as, "William is a likely lad"; favor, in the sense of resemble; as, "He favors his father"; near, in the sense of close or stingy; as, "He is an honest man and just, but a little near" (a New England provincialism, savoring of euphemism); smart, in the sense of able; as," Luke is the smartest scholar in his class"; mad, in the sense of angry; as, “Such treatment as this makes me mad." For the proper use of these words consult the dictionary.

Americanisms are words or phrases wherein, owing to varying conditions of life and history, American usage has come to differ from British. For the use of these we are much criticised by our friends across the water, as if they, being the mother nation, must necessarily set the standard and we count as provincial; but the truth is, while some of our ways of speaking, in the light of standard literature, are provincial, some of theirs are equally so; while for the rest, our peculiar usage has as good right and as good pedigree as theirs. There is no more call on us to ape their manner of speech than on them to ape ours.1

1

EXAMPLES. -The American use of the word guess, for think or conjecture, is indeed too provincial for literary usage; but so, it would seem, is the English use of different to for different from. We have a peculiar use of the word right, as in "Put it right there"; and of the expression right away for immediately; these are provincial. So, on the other side, is the use of very pleased for very much pleased and directly or immediately for

1 BRANDER MATTHEWS, Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 1–31.