The Verbalist Part 2

ARTIST. Of late years this word has been appropriated by the members of so many crafts, that it has well-nigh been despoiled of its meaning.

Your cook, your barber, your tailor, your boot-maker, and so on to satiety, are all _artists_. Painters, sculptors, architects, actors, and singers, nowadays, generally prefer being thus called, rather than to be spoken of as _artists_.

AS. "Not _as_ I know": read, "not _that_ I know." "This is not _as_ good as the last": read, "not _so_ good." "It may be complete _so_ far as the specification is concerned": correctly, "_as_ far as."

_As_, preceded by _such_ or by _same_, has the force of a relative applying to persons or to things. "He offered me the _same_ conditions _as_ he offered you." "The same conditions _that_" would be equally proper. See, also, LIKE.

ASCRIBE. See IMPUTE.

AT. Things are sold _by_, not _at_, auction. "The scene is more beautiful _at_ night than by day": say, "_by_ night."

AT ALL. "It is not strange, for my uncle is King of Denmark." Had Shakespeare written, "It is not _at all_ strange," it is clear that his diction would have been much less forcible. "I do not wish for any _at all_"; "I saw no one _at all_"; "If he had any desire _at all_ to see me, he would come where I am." The _at all_ in sentences like these is superfluous. Yet there are instances in which the phrase is certainly a very convenient one, and seems to be un.o.bjectionable. It is much used, and by good writers.

AT BEST. Instead of _at best_ and _at worst_, we should say at _the_ best and at _the_ worst.

AT LAST. See AT LENGTH.

AT LEAST. This adverbial phrase is often misplaced. "'The Romans understood liberty _at least_ as well as we.' This must be interpreted to mean, 'The Romans understood liberty _as well as we_ understand liberty.' The intended meaning is, 'that whatever things the Romans failed to understand, they understood _liberty_.' To express this meaning we might put it thus: 'The Romans understood _at least_ liberty as well as we _do_'; 'liberty, _at least_, the Romans understood as well as we do.' 'A tear, _at least_, is due to the unhappy'; '_at least_ a tear is due to the unhappy'; 'a tear is due _at least_ to the unhappy'; 'a tear is due to the unhappy _at least_'--all express different meanings. 'This can not, _often at least_, be done'; 'this can not be done _often, at least_.' (1. 'It often happens that this can not be done.' 2. 'It does not often happen that this can be done.') So, 'man is _always_ capable of laughing'; 'man is capable of laughing _always_.'"--Bain.

AT LENGTH. This phrase is often used instead of _at last_. "_At length_ we managed to get away": read, "_at last_." "_At length_ we heard from him." To hear from any one _at length_ is to hear fully; i. e., in detail.

AUTh.o.r.eSS. With regard to the use of this and certain other words of like formation, Mr. Gould, in his "Good English," says: "_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 word indicates s.e.x; and everybody knows that the functions of both poets and authors are common to both s.e.xes. Hence, _auth.o.r.ess_ and _poetess_ are superfluous.

And they are superfluous, also, in another respect--that they are very rarely used, indeed they hardly _can_ be used, independently of the _name_ of the writer, as Mrs., or Miss, or a female Christian name. They are, besides, philological absurdities, because they are fabricated on the false a.s.sumption that their primaries indicate _men_. They are, moreover, liable to the charge of affectation and prettiness, to say nothing of pedantic pretension to accuracy.

"If the _ess_ is to be permitted, there is no reason 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 _writress_, _officeress_, _manageress_, _superintendentess_, _secretaryess_, _treasureress_, _walkeress_, _talkeress_, and so on to the end of the vocabulary."

AVOCATION. See VOCATION.

BAD COLD. Inasmuch as colds are never _good_, why say a _bad_ cold? We may talk about _slight_ colds and _severe_ colds, but not about _bad_ colds.

BAGGAGE. See LUGGAGE.

BALANCE. This word is very frequently and very erroneously used in the sense of _rest_, _remainder_. It properly means _the excess of one thing over another_, and in this sense and in no other should it be used.

Hence it is improper to talk about the _balance_ of the edition, of the evening, of the money, of the toasts, of the men, etc. In such cases we should say the _rest_ or the _remainder_.

BARBARISM. Defined as an offense against good usage, by the use of an improper word, i. e., a word that is antiquated or improperly formed.

_Preventative_, _enthuse_, _agriculturalist_, _donate_, etc., are barbarisms. See also SOLECISM.

BEEN TO. We not unfrequently hear a superfluous _to_ tacked to a sentence; thus, "Where have you been _to_?"

BEG. We often see letters begin with the words, "I _beg_ to acknowledge the receipt of your favor," etc. We should write, "I _beg leave_ to acknowledge," etc. No one would say, "I beg to tell you," instead of, "I beg _leave_ to tell you."

BEGIN--COMMENCE. These words have the same meaning; careful speakers, however, generally prefer to use the former. Indeed, there is rarely any good reason for giving the preference to the latter. See also COMMENCE.

BEING BUILT. See IS BEING BUILT.

BELONGINGS. An old idiomatic expression now coming into use again.

BESIDE--BESIDES. In the later unabridged editions of Webster's dictionary we find the following remarks concerning the use of these two words: "_Beside_ and _besides_, whether used as prepositions or adverbs, have been considered synonymous from an early period of our literature, 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 addition to_; as, _besides_ all this; _besides_ the consideration 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."

BEST. See AT BEST.

BETWEEN. This word is often misused for _among_; thus, "The word _fellow_, however much in use it may be _between_ men, sounds very objectionable from the lips of women."--"London Queen." Should be, "_among_ men." _Between_ is used in reference to two things, parties, or persons; _among_, in reference to a greater number. "Castor and Pollux with one soul _between_ them." "You have _among_ you many a purchased slave."

BLAME IT ON. Here is a gross vulgarism which we sometimes hear from persons of considerable culture. They use it in the sense of _accuse_ or _suspect_; thus, "He _blames it on_ his brother," meaning that he _accuses_ or _suspects_ his brother of having done it, or of being at fault for it.

BOGUS. A colloquial term incompatible with dignified diction.

BOTH. We sometimes hear such absurd sentences as, "They _both_ resemble each other very much"; "They are _both_ alike"; "They _both_ met in the street." _Both_ is likewise redundant in the following sentence: "It performs at the same time the offices _both_ of the nominative and objective cases."

BOUND. The use of this word in the sense of _determined_ is not only inelegant but indefensible. "I am _bound_ to have it," should be, "I am _determined_ to have it."

BRAVERY--COURAGE. The careless often use these two words as though they were interchangeable. _Bravery_ is inborn, is instinctive; _courage_ is the product of reason, calculation. There is much merit in being courageous, little merit in being brave. Men who are simply _brave_ are careless, while the courageous man is always cautious. _Bravery_ often degenerates into temerity. _Moral courage_ is that firmness of principle which enables a man to do what he deems to be his duty, although his action may subject him to adverse criticism. True _moral courage_ is one of the rarest and most admirable of virtues.

Alfred the Great, in resisting the attacks of the Danes, displayed _bravery_; in entering their camp as a spy, he displayed _courage_.

BRING--FETCH--CARRY. The indiscriminate use of these three words is very common. To _bring_ is to convey to or toward--a simple act; to _fetch_ means to _go_ and bring--a compound act; to _carry_ often implies motion from the speaker, and is followed by _away_ or _off_, and thus is opposed to _bring_ and _fetch_. Yet one hears such expressions as, "Go to Mrs. D.'s and _bring_ her this bundle; and here, you may _fetch_ her this book also." We use the words correctly thus: "_Fetch_, or _go bring_, me an apple from the cellar"; "When you come home _bring_ some lemons"; "_Carry_ this book home with you."

BRITISH AGAINST AMERICAN ENGLISH. "The most important peculiarity of American English is a laxity, irregularity, and confusion in the use of particles. The same thing is, indeed, observable in England, but not to the same extent, though some gross departures from idiomatic propriety, such as _different to_ for _different from_, are common in England, which none but very ignorant persons would be guilty of in America....

In the tenses of the verbs, I am inclined to think that well-educated Americans conform more closely to grammatical propriety than the corresponding cla.s.s in England.... In general, I think we may say that, in point of naked syntactical accuracy, the English of America is not at all inferior to that of England; but we do not discriminate so precisely in the meaning of words, nor do we habitually, in either conversation or in writing, express ourselves so gracefully, or employ so cla.s.sic a diction, as the English. Our taste in language is less fastidious, and our licenses and inaccuracies are more frequently of a character indicative of want of refinement and elegant culture than those we hear in educated society in England."--George P. Marsh.

BRITISH AGAINST AMERICAN ORTHOePY. "The causes of the differences in p.r.o.nunciation [between the English and the Americans] are partly physical, and therefore difficult, if not impossible, to resist; and partly owing to a difference of circ.u.mstances. Of this latter cla.s.s of influences, the universality of reading in America is the most obvious and important. The most marked difference is, perhaps, in the length or prosodical quant.i.ty of the vowels; and both of the causes I have mentioned concur to produce this effect. We are said to drawl our words by protracting the vowels and giving them a more diphthongal sound than the English. Now, an Englishman who reads will habitually utter his vowels more fully and distinctly than his countryman who does not; and, upon the same principle, a nation of readers, like the Americans, will p.r.o.nounce more deliberately and clearly than a people so large a proportion of whom are unable to read, as in England. From our universal habit of reading, there results not only a greater distinctness of articulation, but a strong tendency to a.s.similate the spoken to the written language. Thus, Americans incline to give to every syllable of a written word a distinct enunciation; and the popular habit is to say _dic-tion-ar-y_, _mil-it-ar-y_, with a secondary accent on the penultimate, instead of sinking the third syllable, as is so common in England. There is, no doubt, something disagreeably stiff in an anxious and affected conformity to the very letter of orthography; and to those accustomed to a more hurried utterance we may seem to drawl, when we are only giving a full expression to letters which, though etymologically important, the English habitually slur over, sputtering out, as a Swedish satirist says, one half of the word, and swallowing the other.

The tendency to make the long vowels diphthongal is noticed by foreigners as a peculiarity of the orthoepy of our language; and this tendency will, of course, be strengthened by any cause which produces greater slowness and fullness of articulation. Besides the influence of the habit of reading, there is some reason to think that climate is affecting our articulation. In spite of the coldness of our winters, our flora shows that the climate of even our Northern States belongs, upon the whole, to a more southern type than that of England. In southern lat.i.tudes, at least within the temperate zone, articulation is generally much more distinct than in the northern regions. Witness the p.r.o.nunciation of Spanish, Italian, Turkish, as compared with English, Danish, and German. Partic.i.p.ating, then, in the physical influences of a southern climate, we have contracted something of the more distinct articulation that belongs to a dry atmosphere and a clear sky. And this view of the case is confirmed by the fact that the inhabitants of the Southern States incline, like the people of southern Europe, to throw the accent toward the end of the word, and thus, like all nations that use that accentuation, bring out all the syllables. This we observe very commonly in the comparative Northern and Southern p.r.o.nunciation of proper names. I might exemplify by citing familiar instances; but, lest that should seem invidious, it may suffice to say that, not to mention more important changes, many a Northern member of Congress goes to Was.h.i.+ngton a _dactyl_ or a _trochee_, and comes home an _amphibrach_ or an _iambus_. Why or how external physical causes, as climate and modes of life, should affect p.r.o.nunciation, we can not say; but it is evident that material influences of some sort are producing a change in our bodily const.i.tution, and we are fast acquiring a distinct national Anglo-American type. That the delicate organs of articulation should partic.i.p.ate in such tendencies is altogether natural; and the operation of the causes which give rise to them is palpable even in our handwriting, which, if not uniform with itself, is generally, nevertheless, so unlike common English script as to be readily distinguished from it.

"To the joint operation, then, of these two causes--universal reading and climatic influences--we must ascribe our habit of dwelling upon vowel and diphthongal sounds, or of drawling, if that term is insisted upon.... But it is often noticed by foreigners as both making us more readily understood by them when speaking our own tongue, and as connected with a flexibility of organ, which enables us to acquire a better p.r.o.nunciation of other languages than is usual with Englishmen.

In any case, as, in spite of the old adage, speech is given us that we may make ourselves understood, our drawling, however prolonged, is preferable to the nauseous, foggy, mumbling thickness of articulation which characterizes the c.o.c.kney, and is not unfrequently affected by Englishmen of a better cla.s.s."--George P. Marsh.

BRYANT'S PROHIBITED WORDS. See INDEX EXPURGATORIUS.

BUT. This word is misused in various ways. "I do not doubt _but_ he will be here": read, doubt _that_. "I should not wonder _but_": read, _if_.

"I have no doubt _but_ that he will go": suppress _but_. "I do not doubt _but_ that it is true": suppress _but_. "There can be no doubt _but_ that the burglary is the work of professional cracksmen."--"New York Herald." Doubt _that_, and not _but that_. "A careful canva.s.s leaves no doubt _but_ that the nomination," etc.: suppress _but_. "There is no reasonable doubt _but_ that it is all it professes to be": suppress _but_. "The mind no sooner entertains any proposition _but_ it presently hastens," etc.: read, _than_. "No other resource _but_ this was allowed him": read, _than_.

BY. See AT.

CALCULATE. This word means to ascertain by computation, to reckon, to estimate; and, say some of the purists, it never means anything else when properly used. _If this is true_, we can not say a thing is _calculated_ to do harm, but must, if we are ambitious to have our English irreproachable, choose some other form of expression, or at least some other word, _likely_ or _apt_, for example. Cobbett, however, says, "That, to Her, whose great example is so well _calculated_ to inspire," etc.; and, "The first two of the three sentences are well enough _calculated_ for ushering," etc. _Calculate_ is sometimes vulgarly used for _intend_, _purpose_, _expect_; as, "He _calculates_ to get off to-morrow."

CALIBER. This word is sometimes used very absurdly; as, "Brown's Essays are of a much higher _caliber_ than Smith's." It is plain that the proper word to use here is _order_.

CANT. _Cant_ is a kind of affectation; affectation is an effort to sail under false colors; an effort to sail under false colors is a kind of falsehood; and falsehood is a term of Latin origin which we often use instead of the stronger Saxon term LYING!

"Who is not familiar," writes Dr. William Matthews, "with scores of pet phrases and cant terms which are repeated at this day apparently without a thought of their meaning? Who ever attended a missionary meeting without hearing 'the Macedonian cry,' and an account of some 'little interest' and 'fields white for the harvest'? Who is not weary of the ding-dong of 'our Zion,' and the solecism of 'in our midst'; and who does not long for a verbal millennium when Christians shall no longer 'feel to take' and 'grant to give'?"

"How much I regret," says Coleridge, "that so many religious persons of the present day think it necessary to adopt a certain cant of manner and phraseology [and of tone of voice] as a token to each other [one another]! They _improve_ this and that text, and they must do so and so in a prayerful way; and so on."

CAPACITY. See ABILITY.

CAPTION. This word is often used for _heading_, but, thus used, it is condemned by careful writers. The true meaning of _caption_ is a seizure, an arrest. It does not come from a Latin word meaning _a head_, but from a Latin word meaning _to seize_.

CARET. Cobbett writes of the caret to his son: "The last thing I shall mention under this head is the _caret_ [^], which is used to point upward to a part which has been omitted, and which is inserted between the line where the caret is placed and the line above it. Things should be called by their right names, and this should be called the _blunder-mark_. I would have you, my dear James, scorn the use of the thing. _Think_ before you write; let it be your custom to _write correctly_ and in _a plain hand_. Be careful that neatness, grammar, and sense prevail when you write to a blacksmith about shoeing a horse as when you write on the most important subjects. Habit is powerful in all cases; but its power in this case is truly wonderful. When you write, bear constantly in mind that some one is to _read_ and to _understand_ what you write. This will make your handwriting and also your meaning _plain_. Far, I hope, from my dear James will be the ridiculous, the contemptible affectation of writing in a slovenly or illegible hand, or that of signing his name otherwise than in plain letters."