The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-02-27

graphs about the big goosebesFy, the me teoEic stone, the great sea-seFpent, or shs calf witb five legs. until at last to the pop
 ular intelligence the ssrangssess and tho phenomenon became indissolubty hAked
 together by association in . single idea
 Very well thea nowadays, whether we
 approve ot t or whether re don't, the word phenomenon means in plain Eng-
 lish remarkable event or appearanco- in xhert, a regular and the adjective !" phsnomsnal," derived from 1t in this sense, means passing strange os out of the ordinary course of nature. The Infant Phenomamon has made its maIk on the literature of the country. lf you don't like the word yos have always the usual alternative of Jumping 1t but tAat, as a matter of fact, is the sense that pho- nsmenon actually bears In our modern language
 Of course, the word in question didn't originally mean anything of the sort. No, but all words In time change their mean inGs by just such slight gradadoaS oi usage, and ono has enly got to lock in any dictionary to find tor! Thousand words nc@ in use whose present sense Is quite as remote from their genealogical sigaih- cation. And when certain point of currency has once been attained by
 any word in any sense, 1t be-
 comes rank pedantTy to protest any longer against the common usage.
 Did not our good friend Horace long ago tell us that euS om is the sole guide to
 correct speakingi For an excellent exam
 pie Of such pedantry pushed to an sx- trene, look at the dogmatic objection
 which some people fsSi ,o=ards speak
 ing of London as the metropolis, or even
 towards using the ordinary phrases
 Metropolitan Police," Metropolitan
 Board of Works" and so forth. Accord.
 ing to these double extra. hesd purista
 CaAtarbury is really the menopolis oi
 Southern England. And why2 Because
 in latter eclosiastical Latin the GreeA
 word metropolis meant the msthsr-city
 from whose bishopric other bishoprics ds
 rivsd their origin. But if we are going tc
 ee 90 very classical and Hellenic as this
 we might respond that by A still older
 Groek usage metropolis means the moth.
 er- state of a colony, and SO that neithei Cantcsbury nor London but Sleswick
 Hoistsin Is the original and only genuine
 metropolis ot England. Is no, this the
 very midsummex madness of purist sffsc.
 tation The English language Is the English language; and in that language
 metropolis by long prescription mean. the cAiet city or capital of country
 Metropolitan, by act of parliament, has (
 certain ds6nite relation to the London
 district; and as Pym we'll said, Thers
 have none gone about to break parGa ments, but m the end parliaments have broken them" Even so, the people are
 stronger than any person.
 ; For the truth is 1t is quite useless fol
 any one man to set himself up single
 handed against the irresistible march O } nations. Languages grow and are mol made. they are the outcome of deep seated popular forces, and the meaning which tho people impose upon words arc the meanings they have got to bear in tho
 long run, whether tho pedants Ike It oI no. Tho microscopic critic corrects, 70, not" He hasn't the soul of grammar within him to tell him that tho other |, far the more graphic and vivid expres- sion of the two Prof. This and Prof
 That may protest as long as they hks
 against the phrases which all the well educated people of their time habitually
 use; but tho protest will surely die with them. and in the next gensE alton the . abomlnadon against which they raisec their hands In horror will be Included by Prof. Epigonus, their accredited sue. cessor, in his new great genealogical dic
 doaary of the Eaglish language. Dld
 not S~iA consider mob slasgy and vulgar and did not Samuel Rogers stoutly dc
 clare that while contsm plate was hac enough, balcony" fairly made him aick The poor gentleman was himself accus ) tomod 10 contemplate nature with the ac cent on the second syllable, and to em
 ploy balcony as rhyme to pony In hi.
 familiar vesse. And that was oHly thirtJ years ago Abdil sf correct" pronus. ciatioa, if he had lived to the prescn. daj
 he might have been stared at for talking still Of his balcony. as people arc nos , Sor being greatly obleeged or for possess ing vosy remarkable trays sf charactex. . . But there arc some popular misuse, Of words which arc really and truly dc } peadeat ep pure blund dering." Yss o coarse, and If possible 1t may perhaps h< worth while to nip tAese in the bud be. fore they have expanded into full-blowz , flowers of Eaglish rhetoric. For exam
 pie, there Is poor much abused verb tc ) predicate. h its logical use. to predi- cate bears . vsry distinct and de6aite ) meaning. to which 1t would Dc highly do. sirable universally to cos6ne it-n l, , were feasible. But, uHfortuna ately, these . matters lie outside the power sf eitAes . pedast O. schoiax; they fall within the
 province of the people alone. Nov the , people, as represented by the newspaper leader writer Ia nine cases out Of ten a university man have decided that tc
 predicate and to predict mean pretty much the same thing, and have deter mined accordingly, wi,h utter reckless
 of genealogical correctness, to predicate
 British victory in Africa, or a fine day ! for the races on WedsesdAy. won'l deny that to the classical and logical ear this Is trying and for my own part, al } as long as there is anybody ief who cares to fight for the old sesss in this mater III A. IL l.