Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20360, 18 July 1934, Page 6

Words and Phrases.

AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER that ought to know better spelt the word autarchy “ autarky ” all through the report of an address. Possibly the writer thought it was a new word Actually it is a very old one, from the Greek autarchia, or selfrule. Webster says it means national selfsufficiency. Some dictionaries define it as autocracy. Another authority says: I call autarchy that state in which public power, whole and entire, unmitigated and unmodified, rests somewhere, be this in the hands of a monarch, or the people, or in aristocracy. A journalistic friend asks for a note on the word lengthy, indicating, quite justly, that very often it is used where long would be preferable. Yet lengthy has taken to itself a useful shade of meaning. Lowell, in the Biglow Papers, says:— We have given back to England the excellent adjective lengthy . . . thus enabling their journalists to characterise our President’s messages by a word civilly compromising between long and tedious. TOUCHSTONE.