Some Misused Words.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 233, 1 October 1931, Page 8

Some Misused Words.

44 verb, although as a correspondent, “ Fiat Lux,” points out to-day, it often creeps into newspapers, usually in correspondents’ letters, or even in reports in which the speakers’ actual words are reproduced. The word is essentially a noun, meaning something lent, especially a sum of money lent at interest; the act of lending, or a lending. You can speak of “ raising a loan,” or the “ loan of capital,” or a “ loan of credit,” but “it was loaned to ” is an American barbarism. You never* read such words in the Bible. Instead you read: “If ye lend to them who lend to you what thank have ye?” Shakespeare never used the word as a verb. Let us read a passage in which he used the proper English word:— Heaven doth with us as we with torches do. Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor, Both thanks and use. TOUCHSTONE.