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Timaru Herald, Volume CVIII, Issue 16883, 2 August 1919, Page 6

"Wake up, England!" was. the warning addressed to manufacturers and others by His Majesty the King when, as Prince of Wales, ho returned from a tour of his dominions. Xow, with • more need, another warning has been ! .sounded by him to the whole nation, ■ a call for the utmost private and public economy, the best use of all re- ': sources, and unremitting industry, to . meet times that are sure to try the • national fibre to the utmost. The " ! war is over, but it has left a large indebtedness, a dislocation of industries never known before, with scarcities of every kind. A nation does not spend five years in making shells to be exploded and ships to be sunk instead of the tiiousaud and one com modities that are required for domestic consumption and for trade without having great arrears to make up when its war is ended. All Europe suiTers now from an impoverishment which is not really lessened, but increased. by the extent to which demands have been met out of capital. Only two countries in the world have { beea made richer, more able to exploit the world industrially and commercially, by the Great War, and they are America and Japan. America made more wealth from the war while she was the biggest neutral than she spent 1 in the shorter time slie was a combatant, and Japan has practically been :at peace for the last four years. It ii with these nations that Great Britain must compete in future in tho industrial and commercial spheres, and "less work," which tends to be the motto of a people still unsettled by war, will not serve for that competition. The King's warnina had been sounaea earlier by statesmen and pub-licists-without! vance for New Zealand, whose population is diminished and wax debt increased, only less tJian for tlie older countries. Sounded ny His Majesty it has the best chance of being heeded, but sharp evils wilf compel observance . of it if bis. counsel is not followed before xney are felt; . ■ , ; The question whether "Drive Slow" • or "Drive Slowly" should be used as ■ a street sign has been discussed by ' more than one authority since this 1 paper expressed its preference :-r ' "Drive Slowly." The argument if Mr Palmer, which we publish in out Literary Cohunn, forms the only case made far the shorter form which i<jd quires to be considered seriously, aiM the true conclusion from his argumerS ; would be that "Drive Slowly" is iht preferable form to-day. ] Mr Palmer shows that "slow" is an old adverbial form, which was. used in Chaucer, one of the so-called "flaj adverbs," and he states that "untf the language has shown a tendency to reject the 'flat adverbs' it is pedanticto put them under a ban." Hut that is the very tendency which the lan- ■ guage has shown. The last court of appeal upon such points, the Oxford Dictionary, lias no doubt on the matter. It states (condensed edition) that "slow,'- adverb, is "being ousted hv 'slowly'," but is. "still common" j n those cases where the adverb, not the ■ ver-b, conveys the essential notion, as in "go slow, or slower." Most people : will agree that if the modern tendency ■ is for "slowly." which is "ousting" i.the old fe-rm. it would be the very , essence of pedantry to insist on "slow*' • i because Olwwp' 'v=°d it.

A few words on tho general prin- 1 'iples that are involved in the discus-, ion may not bo amiss. In the first I placo quotations from the poets, including' Chaucer, give no guidance 1 Ahatovcr for prose. The poets are allowed to bo a law unto themselves m such matters. Analogies, again, iiro of vory littlo us.c. Ualf of tho analogies quoted in this discussion aire talt>o ones, tho words chosen for comparison, being not adverbs Bit all but adjectives, and whero , that fault is itvoided tttio English language, revels in inconsistencies. Tho real test is usage, tho bcs.t modern usage, of tlio actual phrase- or word. Both tho Wellington and Chrvstchurcn, street < signs, tho only city notices in' New , Zealand which oinploy this -phrase, make it "Drive Slowly,"' and we should • lie surprised if tfiat is not' the general British form for such injunctions: ' Thoro is another* point. Spoken Janguago naturally is less precise than ' written, and 1 "go slow" is not a. per, feet parallel'to "drive slow'"'. (for a street sign).because t*he first statement is colloquial and' tho second formal. Tho official language of a Borough Council should be above suspicion. No one can ever challenge the correctness of "Drive Slowly," while we know that "Drivo Slow" has shocked the instincts of not a few people who are neither pedants nor unfit to be called authorities.