A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 77, 31 July 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

BY THE DEVN OF CANTERBURY. From an article under the above heading, which appeared in a recent number of "Good Words," we give the following extracts : — Another horrible word, which is fast getting into our language through, the provincial press, is to eventuate. If they want to say that a man spent his money till he was mined, they tell us that Ms unprecedented extravagance eventuated in the total dispersion of liis property. «' Avocation" is another monster patronized by these writers. Now, avocation, which of itself is an innocent wore), enough, means the being called away from something. We might say, "He could not do it, having avocations elsewhere." IJut in our newspapers, avocation means a man's calling in life. If a shoemaker at his work is struck by lightning, we read that " while pursuing his avocation, the electric fluid penetrated the unhappy man's pa son." " Persuasion" is another word very commonly and very curiously used by them. We all know that persuasion means the . fact of being persuaded, by argument or by example. But in the newspapers it means a sect or toay of belief. And strangly enough, it is most generally use-i of that very sect and way of belief whose characteristic is this, that they refuse to be persuaded We constantly read of the " Hebrew persuasio?i," or the " Jeioish persuasion" J expect soon to see the term widened still more, and a man of color described " an individual of the negro persuasion" Hut to be more serious. Not only our rights of conscience, but even our sorrows are invaded by this terribly diluted English. A man does not lose his mother now in the papers ; he " sustains (this I saw in a country paper) bereavement of his maternal relative." By the way, this verb to sustain is doing a great deal of work just now not its own. It means, yuu know, 10 endure, to bear up under ; to sustain a bereavement does not properly mean merely ( to undergo or suffer a loss, but to behave bravely under it [n the newspapers, however, " sustain" comes in for the happening to men of all the ills and accidents possible. Men never break their legs, but they always " sustain a fracture' 1 of them ; a phrase which suggests to one the idea of the poor man with both hands holding up the broken limb to keep it straight. Akin to sustain is the verb to experience, now so constantly found in our newspapers. No one feels, but experiences a sensation. Now, in good English, experience is a substantive, not a verb at all. J3ut even if it I is to be held that the modern slipshod dialect has naturalised it, let us have it at least confined to its proper meaning, which is not simply to feel, but to have personal hioivledge of by trial. Another such verb is to " accord," which is used for " azoard," or " adjudge." "Thcpris* was accorded?' we read, "so and so.'' If a lecturer is applauded at the end of his task, we are told that " a complete ovation was accorded him. 17 Entail is another poor injured verb Nothing ever leads to anything as a con sequence, or brings it about, but it always entails it. This smells strong of tlu> lawyer's clerk ; as does another word which we sometimes find in our newspapers, in its entirety instead of all or the xcholc. •' Open up," again, is a very favorite newspaper expression. What it mean c , more than open would mean, I never could discover. But whenever we are lo understand that a communication is to be opened between two places, it is invariably made use of: e.g. a new line of railway is to open up the communication between the garrisons of Chatham, Canterbury, and Dover. "Desirability'" is a terrible word. I found it the other day, I think, in a leading article in the Times. Reliable is hardly legitimate. We do not rely a man, we rely upon a man ; so that reliable does duty for refy-irpon-able. Allude to is used in a new sense by the Press, and not only by them, but also by the great Government offices for the procrastination of business If 1 have to complain to the Post-office that a letter legibly directed to me at Canterbury has been mis-t-cut lo Caerniarthen, I get a regular redtape reply, beginning, " The letter alluded to by you." New I did not allude to the the ietter at all ; I mentioned it as plainly as I could. There are hundreds of other words belonging to this turbid stream of muddy English which is threatening to destroy the clearness and wholesomeness of our native tongue. I cannot, however, instance any more of them, but will only give you one or two more examples of this kind of writing. I send a sentence to a paper to the following effect :— When I caino to the spot, I met a man running towards me with his hands held up." Next day I read, „ When the very rev. gentleman arrived in close proximity to the scene of action, he encountered an individual proceeding at a rapid pace in the opposite direction, having both his hands elevated in an exciting manner. This is fiction ; but the following are truth. In a Somersetshire paper 1 saw that a man had his legs burned by sitting for warmth, and falling asleep, on the top of a lime-kiln. The lime was called the " seething mass" to "seethe" means to boil. and " sad," or " sodden," is its passive participle; and it was said be would soon have been a calcined corpse, which, I lake it, would have been an unheard-of chemical phenomenon. In the same paper I read the following elegant sentence : — "Our prognostications as regards the spirit of the young men here to join the Stogursey rifle-corps proves correct." The same paper, in commenting on the Hopely case, speaks through a whole leading article of corporeal punishment. J may mention that, in this case, the accused person figures throughout, as so often in provincial papers, as a '• demon incarnate," and " a fiend in human shape." In travelling up from Somersetshire, I find the directors of the Great Western Railway thus posting up the want of a schoolmaster at their board : — " .£5 reward. Whereas, the windows of the carriages, &c Whoever will give information as shall lead to conviction, shall receive theabove reward ;" as being used for which : " the man as told me." The South-Eastern directors seem to want the schoolmaster also. On the back of the tickets for the fast trains, we read the following piece of English gram n:er : — " This ticket is not transferable, only avail able for the station named thereon." This implying, of course, that using it for the station named on it, is part of tho process of transfering it to some other person. On a certain railway the following intelligible notice appears: — Hereafter, when trains moving in an opposite direction are approaching each other on seperate lines, conductors and engineers will be required to bring their respective trains to fi dead halt before the point of meeting, ; >nd be very careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other."

fn the Morning Chronicle's account of Lord Maeaulay's funevnal occurred the following sentence:—" When placed upon the ropes over the grave, and while being gradually lowered- into the earth, the organ again pealed forth." Here, of course, on an any possible grammatical understanding of the words, it was the organ which was placed over the grave, and was being lowered into the earth. Akin to tliis was the following notice, sent to my house the other day by a jeweller : " The brooches would have been sent beforo, but have been unwell." In a leading article of the Times, not, long since, was this beautiful piece of slipshod English t — " The atrocities of the middle passage, which called into action the Wilberforces and Clarksons oflhe last generation, woe not so fully proved, and were certainly not more harrowing in their circumstances than are the iniquities perpetrated on the wretched Chinese." Here we see faults enough, besides the wretched violations of grammer. For instance, the Clarksons and 14 Hberforces. What in the world are these plurals? Were there two tribes, one of each of these names, wbo distinguished themselves for philanthropic zeal ? Why not say, Clarkson and Wilbeiforce I or, if more than two are, meant, why not say 7ncn like C. and W. I These \v liters are constantly doing something like this, when they speak of great men in the singular number. They can't content themselves with saying that the see of Canterbury has been held by an Anselni, Cranmcr, Laud, and Tillotson, but they must siy that it has been held by an Anselm, a Laud, a Craumcr, and a Tillotson ; that Cambridge has educated a Bacon, a Newton, a Milton. If gentlemen of certain significant names should ever attain eminence in one place or county, the sentence would read rather oddly : " it has enjoyed the honor of producing a Tailor, a Buttler, a (jlroom, a Gardner, a Smith ; and has attained celebrity in the persons of a Bull, a Fox, a Lamb, and a Cow." Sometimes the editors of our papers fall, from their ignorance, into absurd mistakes about the words which they mean to use. In a country journal, not long since, I read that a jury might be immersed in a heavy fine; the meaning being, of course, that they migqt be amerced. We were informed not long since, in the 1 Evening Star, London penny paper, that the Pope went to ihvbasulisk of St. Peter's; meaning basilica, the Roman name ibr seven of their largest churches. i ******* But I now come, frnm the by-rules and details of the use of the language, to a more important part of my essay ; to speak of an abuse far more serious than those hitherto spoken of ; even the tampering with and deteriorating the language itself. 1 believe it to have been in connexion with an abuse of this kind that the term the King's English was first devised. We know that it is a crime to clip the King's coin ; and the phrase in which we first find the term which forms the subject of our essay, is clipping the King's English So that it is not improbable that the analogy between debasing language and debasing coin first led to it. Now in this case the charge is twofold: that of clipping, and that of beating 'out and thinning down the Queen's English. And it is wonderful how far these, especially the latter, have proceeded in our days. It may be well to remind you, that our English comes mainly from two sources"; rather, perhaps, that its parent stock, the British has been cut down, and grafted with the new scions which form the present tree: — the Saxon, through our Saxon invaders ; and the Latin, through our NorMan invaders. Of these two, the Saxon was, of course, the earlier, and it forms the staple of the language. Almost all its older and simpler ideas, both for things and acts, are expressed by Saxon words. J>ut as time went on, new wants arose, new arts were introduced, new ideas needed words to express them ; and these were taken from the stores of the classic languages, either direct, or more often through the French. You remember that Gurth and Wamba complain, in Ivanhoe, that the farm animals, as long as they had the toil of tending them, were called by tho Saxon and British names, ox, sheep, calf, pig ; but when they wore cooked and brought to table, their invaders and lords enjoyed them under the Norman and Latin names of bzef, mutton, veal, and pork. This is characteristic enough ; but it lets us, iuti few words, into an important truth. Even so the language grew up ; its nerve, and vigor, and honesty and manliness, and toil, mainly brought down to us in native Saxon terms, while all its vehicles of abstract thought and science, and all its combinations of new requirements as the world went on, were clothed in a Latin garb. To this latter class belong all those larger words in -ation and -ations, its words compounded wither and in and super, and tho like. It would be mere folly in a man to attempt to confine himself to one or other of lhcse two main branches of thelaungage in his writing or his talk ; they are inseparable ; welded together, and overlapping each other, in almost every sentence which we use. But short ef exclusive use of one or the oilier, there is a very great difference] in respect of the amount of use between writers and speakers. Ho is ever the n>ost effective writer and speaker who knows how to build the great body of his discourse out of his native Saxon ; availing himself indeed of those other terms without stinf , as he needs them, but not letting them give the character and complexion to the whole But, unfortunately, all the tendency of the lower kind of writers of modern English is the other way. The language, as known and read by thousands of Englishmen and Englishwomen, is undergoing a sad and rapid process of deterioration. Its fine manly Saxon is getting diluted into long Latin words not carrying half the meaning. This is mainly owing to the vitiated and pretentious style which passes current in our newspapers. The writers in our : journals seem to think that a fact must never be related in print in the same terms in which it would be told by word of mouth. The greatest offenders in this point are the country journals, and, as might be expected, just in proportion to their want of real ability. Next to them comes the London penny press ; indeed, it is hardly a whit better; and highest scale, but still by no means free from this fault, the regular London press,— its articles being for the most part written by men of education and talent in the various political circles. Since I have been thinking of this essay, I have paid some attention to the newspapers, with a view to cull from them examples of the fault which lam blaming. Their main offence —the head and front of their offending— is the insisting on calling common things by uncommon names ; changing our ordinary short Saxon nouns and verbs for long words derived from the Latin.- And when it is stated that this is very generally dons

by men quite ignorant of the derivation and strict meaning of the words they use, we may imagine what delightful confusion is thus introduced into our language. A Latin word which really has a meaning of its own, and might be a very useful one if confined to that meaning, does duty for something which is far wider than its own meaning ; and thereby to common English hearers loses its own proper foice, besides utterly confusing their notions about the thing- which its new use intend ed to represent. Our journals seem indeed determined to banish our common Saxon words altogether. You never read in them of a man, or a woman, or a child. A man is an individual, or a person, or a party; a woman is a female, or if unmarried, a ; young person, which expression in the newspapers is always of the feminine ! gender; a child is juvenile, and children en masse are expressed by that most odious term, the rising generation. As to the former words, it is certainly curious enough that the same debssing of our language should schoose, in order to avoid the good honest Saxon man, two words, individual, and party, one of which expresses a man's unity, and the other belongs to man associated. And why should a woman be degraded from her position as a rational being, and be expressed by a word which might belong to any animal tribe, and which, our version of the Bible, is never used except of animals or of the abstract, the sex in general? Why not call a man a male, if a woman is to be a female ? The word party for man is especially offensive. Strange to say, the use is not altogether modern. It occurs in the English version of the apocryphal book of Tobit, vi. 7, " If an evil spirit trouble any, one must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman, ;ind the party shall be no more vexed." 1 once heard a venerable dignitary pointed out by a railway porter as "an old party in a shovel. 1 ' Curious is the idea rais d in one's mind by hearing of a short party going over the bridge. These writers never allow us to go anywhere, we always proceed. A man was going home, is set down " an individual was proceeding to his residence." We never cat, but always partake, even though we happen to cat up the whole of tho thing mentionr-d. In court, counsel asks a witness, " Did you have anything to eat there V I 'Yes." '• What was it ?" "A bun." Now go to tho report in the paper, and you'll be sure to find that "witness confessed to have partaken of a bun," as if some one else shared it with him. We never hear of aplacc ; it is always a locality. Nothing is ever placed, but always located. " Most of tho people of the place" would be a terrible vulgarism to these gentlemen ; it must be the majority of the residents in the locality. Then no one lives in roams, but always in apartments. Good lodgings would be far to meagie; so we have eligible apartments. No man ever shows any feeling, but always evinces it. This evince, by the way, is one of the most odious .words in all this catalogue of vulgarities, for such they real Ij' arc. Everybody evinces everything. No one asks, but evinces a desire. No one is hurt, but evinces a sense oj suffering. No one thanks another, but, evinces gratitude. I remember, when the French band of the " Guides" were in this country, reading in the Jllusirated Ncivs, that as they proceeded, of course, along the streets of the metropolis (we never read of London in polite journals), they were vehement// (everybody does everything vehemently) cheered by the assembled populace (that is the genteel name for the people). And what do you suppose the Frenchmen did in return \ Of course, something very different from what Englishmen would' have dono under similar circumstances. JJut did they toss up their caps, and cry, Vive V Anglclcrrel The Illustrated Ncwsdhi not condescend toentcr into such details ; all it told us was that they evinced a reciprocity ! Again, we never begin anything in the newspapers rtew, but always commence. 1 late!}' read in a Taunton paper, that a horse commenced kicking. And the printers seem to think it quite wrong to violate this rule. Repeatedly, in drawing up handbills for chanty sermons, I have written, as I always do, " Divine service will begin at so and so ;'' but almost always it has boon altered to commence ; and once I remember the bill being sent hack after proof, with a query coHiiihncel written against the word. But even commence is not so bad as take the initiative which is the newspaper phrase for the other more active meaning of the verb to begin. * »- * * * # While I am upon stops, a word is necessary concerning notes of admiration. A note of admiration consists, as we know of a point with an upright line suspended over it, strongly suggestive of a gentleman jumping off tho ground with amazement. These shrieks, as they have been called, arc scattered up and down the pagebycompositors, without any mercy. It one ha-s written the words " O sir," as they ought to be written, viz., with the plain capital "o'' and no stop, and then a comma after " Sir," our friend the compositor is sure to write "' Oh" with a shriek (!) and put another shriek after "Sir." Use, in writing, as few as possible of these nuisances. They always make ihc sense weaker, where \ou can possibly do without them. The only case I know of, where they aie really necessary, is where the language is pure exclamation, as in How beautiful is night ! or, O that I might find him I But it is lime that this essay drew to an end. And if 1 must conclude it with some advice to mv readers, it shall be that which may be inferred from these examples, and from the way in which 1 have dealing with them. Be simple, be unaffected, be honest in your speaking and writing. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Call a spade a spade, not a icell known oblong instrument of manicel husbandry ; let home be hmne, not a residence ; a place a place, not a locality ; and so of the rest. < Where a short word will do, you always lose by using a lonjs one. You lose iv clearness; you lose in honest expression of your meaning ; and, in the estimation of all men who are qualified to judge, you lose in reputation for ability. The only true way to shine, even in this false world, is to be modest and unassuming. Falsehood may be a very thick crust, but, in the course of time, tiutli will find a place to break through Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us ; but simplicity and straigh'forwardness are. Write j much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferiors, speak no coarser than usual ; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say ; and. within the rules of prudence, say what you are. Avoid all oddity of expression. No one ever was a gainer by singularity in words, or in pvonounoiation. The truly wise man will so speak that no man may observe how he speaks. A man may show great knowledge of chemistry by cat ry ing about bladders of strange gases to breathe ; but he will enjoy better health, and find more time ibr bu&iue.--s, who lives on the common air.

When I hear a person use a queer expression, or pronounce a name in reading differently from his neighbours, it always goes down, in my estimation of him, with a minus sign hefore it ;. stands on the side of deficit, .not of credit. . . Avoid, likewise, all slang words. There is no greater nuisance in society than a talker of slang. It is only fit (when innocent, which it seldom is), for raw schoolboys, and one-term freshmen, to astonish their sisters with. Talk as sensible men talk ; use the easiest words in their commonest moaning. Let the sense conveyed, not the vehicle in which it is conveyed, be your object of attention. Once norc, avoid in conversation all singularity of accuracy. One of the bores of society is the talker who is always setting you right; who, when you report from the paper that 10,000 men fell in some battle, tells you it was 9,970 ; who, when you describe your walk as two miles out and back, assures you it wanted half a furlong of it. Truth does not consist in minute accuray of detail, but in conveying a right impression ; and there are vague ways of speaking that. are truer than strict fact would be. When the Psalmist said, "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep not ihy law," he did not state the fact, but he stated a truth deeper than fact, and truer. Talk to please, not yourself, but your neighbor to his edification. What a real pleasure it Is to sit by a cheerful, unassuming, sensible talker; one who gives you 'an even share in the conversation and in his attention ; one who leaves on your memory his facts and his opinions, not himself who uttered them, but the words I in which they were uttered. All are not gentlemen by birth ; but all may be gentlemen in openness, in modesty of langauge, in attracting no man's attention by singularities, and giving no man offence by forwardness; but it is this, in matter of speech and style, which is the sure mark of good taste and good breeding.