CORRECT ENGLISH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

CORRECT ENGLISH

The Use Of Words _ At a session of a London court an attorney read from a brief: “An agreement was reached,” etc. Justice Humphreys objected to the expression as a ‘'horrible Americanism.” I am inclined to agree with him to the extent that the statement was neither clear nor correct, says Jacques W. Redway. To “reach” is to “stretch out.” The agreement was not stretched out. The contending parties may have arrived step by step to an agreement, they may have concluded it without, discussion. The , statement in the brief is an example i of slovenly English. , In a communication to a newspaper ! a correspondent writes: “An invitation : was extended to Mr. X.” Is such a i statement clearer or more precise than to say that Mr. X. was invited? To “extend” is to thrust forward or to ' reach in a given direction; but the ’ invitation was conveyed in the usual 3 formal manner. In another column of the same news- : paper is the statement: “The bank loaned the money.” “Loan” is a noun, not a verb, and nothing is gained by its use as a substitute for “lend.” Its use is just as incorrect as to say that the borrower obtained a “lend” at the bank. There are occasions when a nouii may be used as a verb, but the foregoing instance is not an example “The mayor was affable to the project,” a reporter declares. “Affable” is literally ready or pleasing of speech. The reporter had intended to say that the mayor favoured the project. The attacking Japanese troops, it was said, were “fearfully decimated.' To “decimate”—Latin, decimus—is t< take a one-tenth part, not to slaughter. In Roman military affairs when a body of troops revolted every tenth man drawn by lot, suffered death as a punishment. A friend criticises Justice Hum phreys’s use of the word “horrible” as applied to “American” English, con tending that our sloppy publication: do not incite horror. Wrong. Th( word is derived from the Lath horrere, to “bristle.” In his flerct denunciation the justice certain!! I /‘bristled,’ B