SCOTCH PROVERB EXEMPLIFIED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4445, 18 May 1876, Page 3

SCOTCH PROVERB EXEMPLIFIED.

TO THE EDITOK. gi R —A Scottish saw advises the rash not to burn their mouths with other folks' broth ; and this proverb I would at the present juncture earnestly recommend to the attention of your correspondent, Mr '&. Stout. If, however, the spirit has come upon him, and he must speak, let him at least use all caution in order to avoid a wholesale murder of the Queen's English. Uncalled for interference is bid enough at any time, but it is intolerable when done ungrammatically. It is is as if one, not content with simply cutting a man's tbroat, should perform the interesting operation with a cro;s-cutsiw. What, for example, does this elegant sentence mean ? —"1 might therefore suggest to Captain Hutton that in his future letters he may," &c. Indeed! Pray, did Captain Hutton not know that he was at liberty to do so and so without your correspondent's liberty asked or given ? The whole structure of the sentence shows that it is original, and not the " fraakenstein" of any "printer's devil." Surely Mr Stout's early education must have been terribly neglected.—l am, &c, An I bate Caversiiam Ratepayer. 17th May.