Litchfield enquirer., 1863-08-20
WHOLE NO. 1see

been careless ano certalniY tnat s0ft oL usage of which carslessness is practicable, can never justify error. Innovations in language are of two kinds the manufacture of new words, and the new use of old ones. And each of these kinds has two kinds of paternity--sdu. cation and ignorance. An educated man originates word, improvises it from for: eign source, or by sound induction from . yer nacalar root; and, if the word satisfies a want, it is promptly adopted by other-writers, and recognized as a valuable acquisition to ths language. And, again, by referring to the an- | cedents of familiar, word, he may find Q meaning different. mora or less, from the pre- viously accepted meaning and, by using is in the new sense, he again snriches the language, But it is to be observed that'in each of these cases the burden of proof in support of his in- novation, is on Aim he must show that the word is properly formed and is sOantcd On the other hand, an ignorant man who catches g word by its sound, without knowing it's spell ing or it's signifcation-and who therefore off, en mistakes both-will reproduce the word in wrong shape or with wrong meaning. Then, as the tendency of things corrupt is to rise in a floating medium, partially educated man encounters this pathological novelty in the popular current, and adopts i: as novelty and a convenience: for your poor judge of cur rency takes everything that is offered-the genuine and the spurious alike, and pockets and passes them indiscriminately. Next, one after another of better educated men incon- siderately give the novelty their sanction carelessly receive and circulate the counterfeit coin--until finally, our best writers, with kin- dred unreaection, accept it from the last hold CT, and mix it up and pay it out with their own standard currency. And thus errors in crease and multiply. But here again the ori- ginal fabricator must be held responsible for his innovation. The burden of proof is on him. And if his sOord cannot be proved gem uine at it's inception, it's circulation must be prohibited. No future Endorsement can make it good.
 As specimen of this class of words. take first the verb, .jeopardise. To jcepard is le- gitimate English verb, as old as the language. It means to risk, to put in jeopardy, etc. But some aspiring wight, ambitious of long words, happened to hear it imperfectly and, fancying that euphony required for it another syllable, he improved it into jeopardise, and set it aAoat with the grave complaeency of man who has done good thing. He might just as we'll have made the same improvement on
 Aaxard. Aazardize is as legitimate English as ;eopardize: but he contented himself with doing one good thing at time. Conhouersiaziss is another instance of the base coinage. It probably began its career in conversation thence, it may have made its way into anniversary orations: thence, into newspapers of moderate literary pretensions 1: thence into bound bookss and thence into Macaulay, whose claim to rank as good wfi: ter is not likely to be questioned now. If, however, such writer as Maeaulay is to be impeached and word in such common use as s' controversialist" is to be repudiated.. the proceeding must be made and had in due course of law.
 By reveiting to first principles, we see that an act precedes tact. A verb precedss . noun A man erists; and thence ezistence; i; he speaks; and thence, spsaker. In short. whenever verb and . noun are cognate, the verb is the primitive word, and the noun b formed from it with some reference to mean l ing and analogy. Omitting the obsolete dsri- vations, we have then.
 Controvers, the verb, from contra and certo,
 whence 1t would seem that the true spelling is contrayert, ,s<st,a;. f,+.
 S,':::::::;, S:::.::s.:s, ss:ssss:..:s, Nouns, 7
 eSassoss,siss cSss,oss,sis1:, Adjss'ivs'' ,s
 esssysssg.;slk; es"s,sssys;sly, Ad'srb.. 1. l Now, whence Coptoversialistf It is formed
 by adding ist to the adjsctivs, and the question
 arises whether nom can properly heformsd
 from an adjective by the addition Of |sI when such formation is made in diAeeurd to ibc primitive verb? A noun may bs % formed II a a ..4|