FOUND ONLY IN OLD MSS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12210, 4 March 1903, Page 6

FOUND ONLY IN OLD MSS.

There can certainly be no better guide to " minute accuracy of language" than " The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia and Atlas." It gives the history of every word, tracing its etymology _ to its original source, explaining its successive modifications, and comparing it with equivalent words which other modern: languages have formed : from the same root. In order still more clearly to show the relation of the word to other words, it gives cross-references to • other' headings in " The Century," and explains the precise shades of - meaning which 'are indicated by the various synonyms. The first few pages of the ' work ' show instance after instance of distinctions which it would be difficult: to commit to memory, and yet if one uses the book, from time to time, one learns / unconsciously to pick and choose. The participial adjective " abandoned" is, for example, distinguished from "profligate" and " reprobate"; the verb "to abase" from debase," "degrade," " humiliate," ; and- " humble" ; "to abash" from. " confuse" and "confound"; "-to abhor" from "hate." "detest,'' "abominate," and "loathe"; "to abide" from "sojourn," "continue," "dwell," . "reside," and "live." "The Century" not only indicates the difference between similar words, but these differences in themselves, dry and hard to remember, are rendered vivid and beautiful by the quotations which illustrate the various usages. "The Century" 'concerns ; itself with all English words that have ever been used. Some of these words, used five hundred years ago, are now encountered only in old manu-. scripts or in forms of ■ literary composition 1 which reproduce the speech of the past, but every one of them forms a part of the history of the language, and there is' no one of them which may not be of use to the writer and of interest to the reader. ' • ;.

/ • The 'Times offer . is, to remain, open but - a short ' time. ;0; Early applicants will ' secure their books'sit once with ; free delivery from Wellington. , '/■ " < -' ,J ' i /:■/-