The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-12-24

We often hear men Of good sound sense-intel-
ligent men-complain of the affectation Of s'hard
Words by journalists, and we must confess that
good old vigorous Saxon is getting to be sadly
neglected in some quarters, though not more per-
haps by newspaper writer's than by Others who
provide ALI for the public mind. The pres
ent is said To- Be q practical age, and SO it would
seem, in everything but writing and talking.
Babies, we know, are natural productions; but it
is astonishing how altogether artificial the adults
become, particularly in the matter of words.
Quite often we hear little men laboring under a
load of words bigger than misunderstanding
to up end nouns and adverbs, huge So sesquipeda-
lians, - eighteen inches to the foot.
Nowadays nobody is :. woman that doesn't
work for a living sick folks do not get well, they
only :" convalesce;' - ladies make their toilette.
though they never comb their hair; none but
common people go to bed, or bid one good night;
they invariably "%retire, " or give you g good eve
ming" Whenever gentlemen eat cold beans, it
is dignifed into taking a " slight repast." Such
a thing as a naked Cupid has not been known for
a number of years-it is only .. nude - what our
simple old g~randmothers called gowns are now
.' dresses, /" and posies are all =" boquets." Our
SOO0 OiN luOiOA Aishiucc toOs istiucu uOWht hIOaSu
succeeding generations from the days of Egbert
and Ethelwolf. but now attacked by the ruthless
tooth of time, are fast losing their fair proper
tions. The fair-haired Martha of our boyhood is
now the MISUNDERSTANDING, sMattie -
Harriette is g Hattie - Caroline is Carrie -
Matilda is I" Tillie, and so on, nd absurdam.
Plain, simple Saxon is fg-leaved, and house.
hold words rugged out in foreign aprons, as if
.In Adams fall, they sin-ned ALL"
Let a man put on a coat-price five dollars
and no one would ever suspect him of doing SO
grand a thing as making his toilette. We were
once greatly impressed with the refinement of a
lady who fairly startled us with the inquiry if we
wop1 have some &c asparrowgrass - giving us to
und Ind that she used no such plebeian term
as .fsparrergrass.'' We shouldn't wonder if she
porto-rico in front and a pizarro in the rear of
the house, while the lawn was to be degraded.
1t is a curious circumstance, to say the least,
that when a man is really angry or thoroughly in
earnest, he at once proceeds to use words without
aprons, or as we have heard the expression,
IS words with the bark off, and talks the plain
est kind of English. The oxen and dray horses
hear better Saxon-though possibly worse moral
i.y-than some audiences that wait on public
speakers, and many readers that wait on the pub
lie press good strong Saxon, as direct as one of
Soils MONDAY beams. To rise at once from dray
horses to poets, what can be more homespun
than the following familiar lines
"The curfew tolls the kneIl Of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly DER the lea,
The plowman homewari plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.o
When a man grows eloquent, it is the Saxon
element that lends wings to his soaring thought;
SO we find whole paragraphs from Chatham and
Junius, and Webster and Everett are all English,
and whole columns from Sophomore and news
paper writer's are full of Latin roots and Greek
particles. With Churchill, we conclude:
"where do the words Of Greece and Rome excel,
That England may not please the ear as well!
What mighty magics in the place or air,
That all perfection needs must center there %