CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 15 April 1907, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

WORDS' AND THEIR USES. * To the Editor. • Sir,— Mob-led (sic) queen" is good, exceedingly good; but unluckily it is not Elizabethan, either in sentiment or in diction. "Mob" is a 17th centuiy contraction of the resonant " mobile vulsrus," and came into use towards the end"ef the reign of Charles 11. Dean Swift, that famous champion of pure English, did his best to 'd-ivo it out ; but in No. ccxxx of the " Tatler " avows himself fairly beaten. '■ Mobled queon" is usually plowed as queen wearing a cap (-nob-dp) or n ; ght-cap. The word was obviously unfamiliar in Shakespeare's dav. A3 Hainlet challenges it when it falls 'from the player's lips. It is Polonius who endorses it with his I approval, as he no doubt would havo 1 endorsed •' cosmic purpose," or " progressive," or any other trumpery catchword concealing an absence of meaning under a resonant sound. I am tempted, in conclusion, to discourse upon the history of ''church" an-i " ekklesia J* and the curious fact that while the Teutonic languages adopted the fonder term under various modiScitions, the Keltic and Roman languages adhered to the latter: but I know what a hardmouthed brute a hobby-horse is when it gets fairly away with its rider, and I realise, Mr Editor, that with the war cries of militant Councillor ringing in your ears, you have scant leisure to sp.re 01 AN OL£) p HILOLO GUE.