Misused Words.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 939, 8 December 1933, Page 6

Misused Words.

MISAPPLIED QUOTATIONS are constantly cropping up. Sir Charles Statham, Speaker of the House of Representatives, used one when he said that the rule calling upon a member to give reasons for claiming urgency to a motion was more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

This quotation, from “ Hamlet,” means not that the rule is generally broken, but that it is better broken. That, obviously, was not what the Speaker intended to say. In slang we would say that the rule was a washout, but in more elegant English it would be proper to say that it had become a dead letter, or, better still, that the rule was not enforced or unenforceable. Fowler and Fowler in a list of common misquotations submit the following pieces correctly with the usual wrong words in brackets: An ill-favoured (poor) thing, sir, but mine

Fine (small) by degrees and beautifully less.

To-morrow to fresh woods (fields) and pastures new.

The devil can cite (quote) scripture for his purpose. Chewing the food (cud) of sweet and bitter fancy. A goodly apple rotten at the heart (core). TOUCHSTONE.