Slips of Speech : a Helpful Book for Everyone Who Aspires to Correct the Everyday Errors of Speaking by Bechtel, John Hendricks, 1841-

18

STILTS

Avoid bombastic language. Work for plain expressions rather than for the unusual. Use the simplest words that the subject will bear.

The following clipping, giving an account of the commencement exercises of a noted female college, strikingly illustrates what to avoid:

"Like some beacon-light upon a rock-bound coast against which the surges of the ocean unceasingly roll, and casting its beams far across the waters warning the mariner from the danger near, the college, like a Gibraltar, stands upon the high plains of learning, shedding its rays of knowledge, from the murmurings of the Atlantic to the whirlwinds of the Pacific, guiding womankind from the dark valley of ignorance, and wooing her with wisdom's lore, leads creation's fairest, purest, best into flowery dells where she can pluck the richest food of knowledge, and crowns her brow with a coronet of gems whose brilliancy can never grow dim: for they glisten with the purest thought, that seems as a spark struck from the mind of Deity. There is no need for the daughters of this community to seek colleges of distant climes whereat to be educated, for right here in their own city, God's paradise on earth, is situated a noble college, the bright diadem of that paradise, that has done more for the higher education of woman than any institution in our land." _________________________________________________________________

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PURITY

An author's diction is pure when he uses such words only as belong to the idiom of the language. The only standard of purity is the practice of the best writers and speakers. A violation of purity is called a barbarism.

Unlike the Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, the English is a living language, and, like all living organisms, manifests its life by taking in new material and casting off old waste continually. Science, art, and philosophy give rise to new ideas which, in turn, demand new words for their expression. Of these, some gain a permanent foothold, while others float awhile upon the currents of conversation and newspaper literature and then disappear.

Good usage is the only real authority in the choice of reputable words; and to determine, in every case, what good usage dictates, is not an easy matter. Authors, like words, must be tested by time before their forms of expression may become a law for others. Pope, in his Essay on Criticism, laid down a rule which, for point and brevity, has never been excelled:

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BARBARISMS

Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, says that a word to be legitimate must have these three signs of authority: 1. It must be reputable, or that of educated people, as opposed to that of the ignorant or vulgar. 2. It must be national, as opposed to what is either local or technical. 3. It must be present, as opposed to what is obsolete.

Any word that does not have these three qualities may, in general, be styled a barbarism.

ANGLICIZED WORDS