Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-07-12

not. Max Muller says: "No brute has
ever uttered word, and no process Of
natural selection will ever detail signif-
cant words out of the notes of bird
or the cry of a beast" Language"
says he, sis our Rubicon, and
no brute will dare to cross it, for there is
no theory of development which can
change monkey into man." If words,
then, are the peculiar heritage of man
so far as the product of his faculties is
concerned, they are his highest glory,
and demand his most careful study and
consideration. Everybody is busy with
words and about them from in
fancy to old age. Great conqueets
in life are great conquests of ideas.
Whatever a man conscientiously makes
has always an idea before it becomes
definite entity. Idea always comes first,
the words after. Thus thing is the out
side of thought. A cathedral is the
thought OF the architect expressed in
stone. The steam engine is only good
| idea dressed up in iron. 1t ran in the
| thinkers brain before it flashed to and
fro on the rails. The stars of heaven
Words constitute the intellectual
tionaries of language are the
repositories of it's thought. Some lam
guages are much richer than others in
expressiveness for instance the word
stool, )" according to the German means
a seat and has several uses. The child
sits on stool, the man sits on stool,
the King sits on stool whereas we say,
1.-The child sits on a stool, the man sits on
a chair, the King eits on a throne" A
little girl looking at number of ships
exclaimed, "see what flock of shipsi "
We corrected her by saying, "a flock of
ships is called fleet; feet
of girls is called bevy; bevy
Of wolves is called pack;
pack OF thieves gang; a gang of
angels, "a host host of porpoises, a shoal;
shoal of buffaloes, herd; herd of
children. troop; troop of partridges,
covey covey of beauties, galaxy; q
galaxy of ruffians, horde; horde of
rubbish, heap; heap of oxen,a drove;
drove of blackguards, mob; mob of
whales,a school; school of worshippers,
a congregation; congregation of en-
glneers, corps corps of robbers, q
band; a band of loousts, a swarm;
swarm of people is called crowd. The
English language is probably the most
difficult in the world to mas
ter. Our great number of nouns
bothers the foreigner. A German
trying to condole friend who had re-
Gently been bereaved, used the passage
of Scripture SO often quoted, che has
gone the way of all fesh," which he put
in his letter, "He has gone the way Of
all meat" A whole generation can be
led off the track by mis.spelled word.
Tol la Al
takes nine tailors to make man." Be-
upon the worthy profession of the cloth.
In olden times when a person died the
church bell tolled once for every year the
departed had lived. Bot from the toll
ing no one could tell the sex of the de-
ceased. Hence to satisfy public curiosity,
the sexton, after tolling the age, gave
eight quick strokes for woman
and nine for man. These were
called tailers because coming in at
the end, and thus Mine tailers
made man." Words are the KEYS
which unlock the treasure houses of
knowledge. Much confusion is brought
about by the use of obsolete words. The
heart and soul of our language is the
Anglo Saxon words, expressive of every
day life, as sun, water, mother etc. A
candidate for admission to the public
school at Cleveland was questioned thus:
"What is your fathers name?" "Don't
know" Don't know what your fathers
name isl Why, what do the neighbors
call him? "Don't call him nothing.
They don't see him. He's never at
home except nights" "Well, what does
your mother call him ?" 80, she calls
him an old fool" Ideas are mixed from
improper punctuation. A young wife
was travelling with her infant son and
wrote to her husband as follows: "We
are doing first rate. We are in fine
health. The boy can crawl on all fours.
Hoping the same can be said of you,
Your loving wife, Fanny" "My dear
Julia" said loving husband, "when 1
am tempted to do wrong always think
of you and say, SECT thee behind me
Satan"
A Cleveland newspaper said: "The
procession was very fine and two miles
long, as was also the prayer of Dr. Perry,
society of today is 80 prevalent that the
American language should be called
American Slanguage.
Exaggeration is to be condemned. An
artist painted picture of Mt. Shasta SO
perfectly that when he sat by the picture
with his coat off he took severe cold.
man in the East was 80 strong that
when he sneezed he killed buffalo
across the Mississippi River. These are
instances OF exaggeration.
Speaking of the misuse of words, he
said it was moral crime not to use the
right word in the right place. We
ought not to gloss over the folly of the
reckless spendthrift by speaking of his
generosity and large -heartedness. Words
fitly spoken are like "apples of gold in
pictures of silver" The air itself is one
vast library on whose pages is written in
imperishable characters all that man
has spoken, or even whispered. Not a
word that goes from the lips into the air
can ever die until the atmosphere which
wraps our huge globe in it's embrace has
passed away forever. There will still
live the jests of the profane, the curses
of the ungodly, the SCOTS of the atheist,
keeping company with the hours and
circling the earth with the song of Miri-
am, the wailing of jeremiah, the low
prayer of Stephen, the thunder OF Demos
themes and the denunciations of Burke.
'words are mighty, words are living
Serpents, with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With hpavanie lfe ht their WiuQR.