THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8963, 4 May 1891, Page 2

THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

SlK.—Press ol business prevented me fain unowcriug " Ausner'a letter yostorday, ijßgrefc il the lene as "W.D.'s"

letter has saved me the trouble of answe»'U'''X>jS ing some of "AusperV' objections^ ~ 1 ; ; £Z&m welcome Loth" Ausper "and l ?^D."\. ;v^;?| as fellow workers in the. task of strivmg, to maintain a high 'standard of English.;: . ■■- ,^.m If (with the kind permission of ,n»y f^p editor — some editors are unreason- ,v;;g£ able, but this one is not) we go on 'w£s| for a tew years correcting one another's T^a-ijj mistakes in grammar we may hope to mateiially promote the end whioh we nave „ /„^ in view.- ■ !,'.»" -"■-'v^i l uow proceed to answer " Ausper s . . .^; letter ad seriatim, premising that; the , ■:% English language to which Ireter is not • .%c---that of a medical pattern, butEDglwh as ._,; i;j it should be written and spoken in the - ■ ,j present day, and that ia determining ...[■--$ points in dispute I object to references to , , American works, such as Noah Webstera - „.; Dictionary or Lindley Murray's •£>• -; called "Grammar" In the following remarks I shall take my derivations from .y; Collins's Globe Dictionary : — (1.) As . ;•■-;. pointed out by " W.D.", the word ■ ' -„ '< might ''in the first Hue of "Ausper's" - letter should have been "may." 1 may 7fV f * add that the word spelt by him " enquire, shonld have been inquire. (2.) As to ; "The Queen's English," Dean. Alford -; says ! " I must begin by explaining what I mean by the term. The Queen is of course no more the proprietor of Ibfl English language than any one of us. Bud we use the phrase ' the Queen* . English ' in another sense, one not without) example in some similar phrases. Wo .; speak of 'the Qaeen's highway,' nob . .•■■_ meaning that Her Majesty is possessed of . . that road, bub that it is a high road of the land as distinguished from by-roads and private roads, &c." (3.) Net is defined as ; "clear of all charges and deductions,' and in this sense is derived, not from the Anglo-Saxon, but from the Latin, "mti« dus." f (4.) It is no justification of the error " good value " to say that shop- ; keepers several hundred years ago were ] guilty of a similar error in speaking of "good chepe." (5.) I deny. that "of" , and "off" are "identically the same . -■. thing." They are different words and have different meanings. (6.) I agree with "Ausper" that strictly Speaking . . "he began to fight," is better than "ho began fighting." (7.)" Purchase," accord-, ■ . ins to English dictionaries, means exactly the same thing as "buy," but the latter , . has the advantage of being a short word , . ot Anglo-Saxon derivation, whareas "pur- , chase™ is a fine word derived from the French "poureftawr"— (l) *> pnnme,(2) ; to seek eagerly, with avidity— neither of ~: which definitions indicates the act of buy-' ing. (8.) Ido not agree with "Ausper • that "the critic may well be satisfied v with alluding to an entertainment as j 'commencing.'" To allude ia "to refer > to something not directly mentioned;"' :{ "to hint by suggestion." If I were to .% write " The hyper-critical gentleman who .. .:.; :-, is fond of Latinised words," my readers - ; might infer that I alluded to " Ausper." ' ; , But if I write '"Ausper/ who is : , so kind as to correct mistakes which _;...'£ bis genius only can detect," thafr'V /& is a direcb reference and not an '^% allusion. Now a diroct reference, to an -yfi advertised entertainment was supposed '.£{•- in my letter, and therefore Ausper should^: -| have written refem'nv. (0.) It is true^l that "begin" is defined as, *!to have,;/;: origin or existence," but it is also defined 7- '■-•£ as, "to take the first, step," '!to com. i\§ mene'e," so that the fine' word "com* % ; mence" means neither more nor less than £f the homely word "begin." (10.) Aa to -«,? "Ausper's "contention that '^the paper t which prints « Mr Williams' book, 1 need, y not leave us in doubt as 'to tfie gentle- .^ man's name. if we*haye- any elementary £\i knowledge ot grammar," Twonld observe that a very "elementary" knowledge of .",; grammar," ought to -have "made "Aua« : . ! r ;* per" awaro that the possessive case of l nouna ending in "c," is, with a few :Zy exceptions, to bo denoted by adding on .;,;,- --s with an intervening apostrophe. : "Thus," says Dean Alford, "we say :. and write, Bass's ale, not Bass' ale; Chambera's Journal, not Chambers* Journal." There may be" grammars, the foolish authors ot which sacrifice sense to sound by leaving ont the " s," but to them applies Cowper's satire: " The sound is all these tuneful fools - ' admire." If "Ausper" would like the authority* of Macaulay, who is supposed to have had "some elementary Know- . ledge of grammar," here it is : " King James's declaration." "Jones's Persian Grammar." (Vide Essays). (11.) As to the "v" in favour, &c; I extract the following from Dean Alford'a book : "It is true that honor and favor are derived . originally from Latin words spelt exactly the same, but it is also true tbat we did not got them direct bom the Latin, bub through the French forms which ended in " cur." The late Archdeacon Hare, in an article on English Orthography in tho Philological Museum some years ago, expressed a hope that " such abominations aa " honor" and "favor," would henceforth - be confined to the cards of the great vulgar. " There we still see them, aid in books printed in America, and while we are quite contented to leave our fashionable friends in such company, I hope wa may none of as be tempted to join it." (12) The word " misuse" to whioli "Ausper" objects is defined as "to nsa improperly ,'' to "mis-employ," to "mis- , apply," and wbs therefore correctly used/ by me. (13.) He would substituter I '-. "should," for "shall," in my question of " what shall we say of such expressions as 'blooming' &o." As the words " bloom- t ing &c." were then under consideration, I / w&s right in writing " shall," although if the word shonld were used in tbe sense of ought it would be admissible. I was also right in contending tbat tbe words " blosming &c." were disgusting in the sense in which the context showed lhat they were supposed to be used. But " any elementary knowledge of grammar." should have prevented "Ausper" from committing so palpable a blunder as " I had tather," instead of " I would rather." " Would " denotes inclination, which ia what " Ansper" meant j whereas " bad," is a verb denoting possession. (14.) I ory " Peccavi I " as to Dan Phcebus, and I agree with "Ausper" that " descended" would have been a better expression, as applied to the transmission of the English language, than " bequeathed." (IS.) " Ausper's " hyper-criticism in contending for tho substituiion "scant ability," for "small ability," will be evident to any one who will compare tbe two words in the dictionary. So much for "Ausper." Now for a funny slip from the account of the Gorge accident given in the WoodvUU E& y aminer. " A passenger who had noticed that the ongine was going badly, and was standing on the stop of a fiist-class enrrmee, describes the incident as a most miraculous escape front a frightful catastrophe," If the engine really did "stand npon the step of a first-class carriage" the escape was miraculous. Tint perhaps it was the passenger who was standing on the step, in which case the word "who" should have' been inserted between the words "and" and • "was." In my protest against colonial slang I omitted to dehort from the use of the word "tucker," instead of the word "iood." Also-but it stiikes me thatl have written enough for one bout, and that I had better end this letter, or aa "Ausper" would probably prefer it, "conclude this epistolary communication. —I am, &c. < H. H. Murdoch. Hastings, May 2, 1801. VT