A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21716, 31 May 1932, Page 6

A WORD A DAY.

ELIMINATE. This word originally had to do with nutting out or casting out of doors, for the Latins considered that one who was “put forth from the threshold” (e, “out” and limen “threshold”) was a good riddance. Such origin likewise shows that whatever was eliminated claimed to be a constituent part of the whole before removal—not something external. But it belonged outside, having slipped in, perhaps unobserved, into a purer environment. Literally, its meaning is to expel, throw out, get rid of, with reference to both material and nonmaterial objects, as “to eliminate errors.” Figuratively, it is used to ignore or set aside as irrelevant, as "to eliminate certain _ questions.” In mathematics we find elimination to be the process of removing a quantity from certain equations by forming a new equation ' Lout that or entity. One is not justified in using eliminate as a synonym for “separate” or “exclude”; each of these words has a distinct meaning. To eliminate is sim"ly to thrust out . injurious or superfluous or unnecessary We eliminate selfishness, pettishness, unkindners and like characteristics which seem to have become a part of us and which, we are unwilling to harbour further. We should accent the second syllable of e-lim-i-nate. Sound eas in event, both i’s as in it, a as in late. “We are eliminating the false from the true.”