CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

ON CORRECTNESS IN CHOICE OF WORDS

=Authority.=—If the art of writing is the art of saying what we mean, we must use words that the reader will understand. Of course the word _reader_ is rather general: there are readers and readers. An article written for adults would show different words from one written for children. For the purposes of this chapter, our typical reader is the American or the Englishman who has a good public school training. This “average man” may in theory happen to live in London, or in Maine, or, again, in Texas. Now, there are certain words used in Texas that are not used in London or in Maine. In parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania a small pail is called a “blickey.” Most natives of Chicago never heard the word. Such words as “blickey” are called _provincialisms_ or _localisms_, and are ruled out. Our words must be _national_. This need not mean international; many words are used in England that need not be used in America, and _vice versâ_. The American speaks of _switching_ a train; the Englishman speaks of _shunting_ it. With the former the train goes up a steep _grade_; with the latter it goes up a _gradient_. The Englishman calls _baggage_, _luggage_, a word that Americans are more likely to use of those pieces only that can be carried in the hand. It is to be presumed that national differences of this sort are known to American and Englishman alike; therefore there is no reason why either should change from the usage of his country. Good English is essentially the same in all English-speaking countries.

One other matter is suggested by the words _national usage_. A nation is composed of all sorts and conditions of men. Each class, each trade and profession, has its own pet expressions and contractions. Good usage does not recognize these. The dialect of the college, or the ball-ground, or the counting-room, or the law-courts, is racy enough and proper enough in its place; but it has no place in standard English. A student may _flunk_, but only in school. A book of accounts can be _posted_, but not a man.

Again, our words must not be so old-fashioned or obsolete that they are unintelligible. They must be _present_. _Let_ once meant “to hinder.” Naturally no one would use it in this sense to-day.

Many words that are both national and present are not permitted, since they are not _reputable_. They are used, but wrongly so; used by the careless and the uneducated. A great number of such expressions are perfectly well understood wherever English is spoken, but if one employs them one will be set down as careless or ignorant; for example, _ain’t_ is intelligible to all, but its use is known to be a mark of vulgarity; such a word is called a _vulgarism_. Most slang consists of vulgarisms, though some slang finally becomes reputable English. Reputable words are those employed by the best writers. By _best_ is meant writers who have literary distinction, and who know and regard the structure and history of English literary words. In this day, when everybody scribbles and prints, there are countless writers whose usage is not really reputable. The newspapers, though they have done much to free modern English from pedantry, are not usually reputable in usage. The English of very many novelists is in bad repute. Even certain writers of eminence, such as Dickens and Thomas Hughes, are guilty of using unreputable words and senses of words. Such essayists as Matthew Arnold and John Fiske; such writers of fiction as Thackeray, Hawthorne, Stevenson, and Henry James; such historians as Green and Parkman—these men are in general safe models in matters of usage.

To sum up, then; if we would be understood, and would be reckoned as educated persons, we must use words that are reputable, national, and present. _Good usage is the employment of such words and, senses of words as the body of reputable writers sanction by their own practice to-day._ Notice that _the body_ of reputable writers is specified. No one author makes good use, any more than one swallow makes a summer. When a critic wishes to prove by authority that a given expression is English, he must be able to quote it from many authors.

=The Dictionary.=—A dictionary is a codification of good usage. Indeed, a large dictionary codifies also much bad usage, explaining in the case of the latter the particular form of badness, whether local usage, or colloquial usage, or vulgar usage. Such a dictionary also outlines the history of each word, so far as this is known; it can here be learned what was standard English yesterday, what three centuries ago. A dictionary habit is indispensable to every one. When in doubt about the present meaning or pronunciation of a word, or curious as to its history, look it up. Have an abridged dictionary of your own,—the less abridged the better,—but consult also the unabridged books frequently. Every author rediscovers the charm that lies in the dictionary. To find that charm, every word of the given explanations should be read, and the system of _diacritical marks_, which show syllabification, accent, vowel, and consonant sounds, should be studied.

=Barbarisms.=—Lord Chesterfield writes to his son: “The first thing you should attend to is, to speak whatever language you do speak, in its greatest purity, and according to the rules of grammar; for we must never offend against grammar, nor make use of words which are not really words.”

A word that is not in a good dictionary, or is there branded as provincial or as vulgar, is not really a word, and should not be used. An expression that has not been recognized by good use is called a _barbarism_. Often such terms are incorrectly formed, as when they are coined by ignorant persons; often they are corruptions of words. _Motorneer_ is wrongly coined; _slick_ is corrupted from _sleek_. _Motorneer_ is made up of _motor_ plus the ending _er_. The _ne_ is left over from the discarded steam engine, for _motorneer_ is made by false analogy from _engineer_. The proper word is _motorman_. If there is need for a new word in the language,—and the need often arises in these days of invention,—its component parts should be from the same tongue, and it should be formed by strict analogy, on the model of some correct, accepted word. Examine such a word as _shadowgraph_, which the more careless newspapers began to use as soon as the “Roentgen rays” were discovered. _Shadow_ is English; _graph_ is Greek,—a termination that should be added only to a Greek word.

Various correct formations have been proposed for the ray-picture—_scotograph_, _radiograph_, _skiagraph_, etc. It remains to be seen which one of these words will become established. Examine the word _electrocution_. It is formed on the false analogy of _execution_. _Execution_ is from the Latin _ex_ + _sequor_, meaning “to follow up,” or, so to speak, “to chase down.” The man who invented _electrocution_ could not have known that _sequor_ was a part of _execution_. He merely tied together _electro_ and _cution_, thinking perhaps that _cution_ meant cutting or killing. _Electro_ is from the Greek (meaning “amber,” the substance by rubbing which some one discovered electricity), and in strictness should not be joined to a Latin termination, even if that be correct. We might easily have had a good English word for death in the electrical chair; but as matters stand, there is no one recognized word for this idea.

Other barbarisms are: _burglarize_, _to enthuse_ (a bad coinage from _enthusiasm_), _an invite_, _double entendre_ and _nom de plume_ (two expressions which are neither accepted French nor accepted English), _walkist_, _a combine_, _preventative_ (for _preventive_), _reportorial_, _managerial_, _to suicide_, _gent_, _pants_ (the trade name, but not the literary), _photo_, _prof._, _spoonsful_. Words brought into the English from other languages, and not yet recognized by good use, are also barbarisms. Such words are said to be not yet _Anglicized_. They are referred to as _alienisms_, and most may be classified as Latinisms, Hellenisms (or Greek words), Teutonisms (chiefly German words), Gallicisms (French words). A word peculiar to America is an _Americanism_; one peculiar to England is a _Briticism_. Some Americanisms and Briticisms are not really barbarisms, but are warranted by the canon of national use.

The following words are as yet alienisms: _artiste_, _sobriquet_, _beau monde_, _faux pas_, _entre nous_, etc. Certain other words are Anglicized: _amateur_, _omelette_, _etiquette_, _litterateur_, etc. The temptation to sprinkle foreign words unnecessarily into one’s English reaches most persons sooner or later. It should be withstood. The English language is rich enough to furnish forth any man’s vocabulary.

Many words that may finally become good English are not yet accepted. To be on the safe side one should say: _point of view_, not _standpoint_; _upon_, not _onto_; _written permission_, not _a permit_; _he doesn’t_, not _he don’t_.[30]

In the list given above it is remarked of _pants_ that it is a trade name (for what are ordinarily known as trousers or pantaloons). Commercial English and literary English are two different things; and while a careful novelist would hardly write about _wheatena_, or _flexibone_, or _autoharp_, he might talk about them in the shops. Yet these words are not correctly formed; and the same thing is unhappily true of other trade names.

=Improprieties.=—Suppose, now, that a writer uses a good English word, but uses it in a sense not found in the best authors. In this case he uses the word improperly; he commits an _impropriety_. Sometimes two words sound so much alike that they are mistaken one for the other; for instance, _accept_ and _except_. Sometimes the two words mean nearly the same thing, and so come to be confused; for example, _continual_ and _continuous_. The following list gives the words that are most frequently mistaken for each other. In the illustrative sentences each such word is correctly used, and in all cases the other word would be incorrect or at least less desirable if substituted for it.

NOUNS

Ability, capacity.