The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-10-23
Personal PrOn0uns.

Cicero, in his De Scncctute, remarks
that the finest orators of Rome learned
to speak their native tongue correctly
from their mothers, and that foreigners
never acquired the perfect fluency, cor
rectness, and ease in speaking that
characterized those to the Latin Ian
guage born. The same remark might
be made, perhaps, with regard to the
best speakers and writers of the Eng
lish tongue. However that may be, it
is certain that those children who are
brought up in families where correct
and grammatical English is spoken
habitually may be readily distinguish
ed by their unconscious freedom from
errors in construction and pronuncia.
ton. In no one particular is this dis.
tinction more noticeable than in the
use of the pronouns. 1t matters not
how carefully child is trained in the
rules of grammar by his teacher at
school, he will constantly fall into er
rors Of speaking unless ut home and at
school, in work or in play, he is made
to correct his errors as they occur, and
put his expressions in grammatical
form.
This involves necessarily a great
amount Of work Oh the part of both
teacher and parent, for children pick
up the forms of expression as quickly
as the words that compose them, and
they learn even more quickly from
their playfellows than they do from
their parents. 1t does seem, too, that
they catch bad grammar much more
easily than they do good grammar. Is
it because bad grammar is more pictur-
esque? Is it because they have too
much unconscious politeness to speak
correctly when their little playmates
speak incorrectly? This last question
might sometimes be answered in the
affirmative if asked of grown people,
for it does require some courage to re-
peat in correct form the phrasing of
ungrammatical but good folk with
whom one is talking. 1t seems only
polite to say, "Him and me are going
to do so and so," if ones interlocutor
talks that way too. We knew a man
once of rare culture who, in conversing
with the poor whites of the South,
would always speak Of potatoes, on
ions, and the like, as "eatin' roots :"
of maple sugar, as tree sugar. and
allow" instead Of guessing, or reck-
oning, or thinking that things We're
thus and so. He did this out of pure
courtesy, insisting that those he talked
to understood him better when he talk
ed in their own vernacular, as un
doubtedly they did.
But, to return, unless a child is cor
rected constantly, and constantly
trained in the use of his speech, he
will continually fall into errors. Ev-
cry day he is adding new ideas to his
stock, new words to his vocabulary,
and he must be taught how to use these
new acquisitions. The task of thus
standing guard over q child's lips is
net an easy one: it is often very un-
gracious and difficult one but the
habit of receiving and needing correc-
ton once formed in child, difficulties
in the way grow less, and if he is duly
impressed with the Importance and
elegance of correct speech, the task
will be rendered still less irksome.
We all need to pay attention day by
day to our language, if we would have
il pure, correct, forcible. elegant. Just
as we keep our persons clean, our
clothes clean, our rooms in order, by
daily attention thereto, so we need to
guard our utterances lest we slip into
loose and slouchy language or indulge
in careless or slang expressions. AS
v are careful that all the outward ap-
pearance and manner bespeak the Ia
dy, the gentleman, the Christian, so
should we be careful that the embodi
ment of our intellectual and spiritual
life in words be equally faultless and
beyond criticism.