Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-03-29

n
In praise and prayer.
fherc Ia Thy presence, there Thy Holy Hand,
Thou, Lord, art there.
--Bishcp r. d. Hantirotcn.
WORDS AND THEIR ABUSE.
How tho stream Of Engiish Undenlsd 4
Professor John d. Quachenbos.
For as words are the souls ambassadors,
lhe artillery Of reason, the spices that en-
palm and preserve knowledge, the COM
ffnonest things In the world, yet sometimes
he most precious caskets, heavy with the
|experience Of ages, the wisdom Of the
svisest, the dearest treasures Of thought,
truth, beauty, poetry and religion.
Even little words have great Significance,
And two or three letters are not TO be de-
spised. We are told that the simple "Ahv'
| pf the eloquent Whitfield embodied whole
volume Of pity for the impenitent. A ma
|licious "but," with an expressive shruR Of
Ihe shoulders, has damned mans repIta-
lion as effectively as the best devised calum-
|hy, and an ugly 'if" with its inevitable
EeOntingency, has interfered with enter
| Iprises of pith and moment. The lack Of .
decided mo- has started on the downhill
load q multitude of we'll meaning but weak
knse IL youths, and gentle EYES," breathed
hever 30 family from fair lips, has impara-
1ised many trembling soul that hung In
suspense between the heaven of hope and
he torturing fears of the mitten.
Language grows and will grow with
growing owledge, both in its copiousness
- whole and in the beauty and fitness of
ts par 3. New words ars constantly en-.
larging the vocabulary of every tongue,
and here, a. elsew here, the necessary sur
wives, the useless is forgotten. Our new
words are mostly compounds, which may
be framed ad libtum, and t ,nical words
pertaining to new discoveries IN art aud
science. not tn mention the abun liant coin
tge Of secOnd-rats writer's, gain wide cur
Erency. One OF the greatest abuses of words
fs the indiscriniinate and unrestrained
Froining of these new forms. The news
paper fiends who have for cd us to admit
10 the rights of citizenship the verb ito in
terview" We have to thank for "sororize'
the counterpart of fraternize) ''suicided,"
s'walkist," "speculatist," "stabbist," "via-
|tricide," death by railroad accident and
iozens of similar monstrOsities, while the
scientific expert has placed at our disposal
'uniformitarianism," "syggignocist," - she
tion is largely responsible for this abuse, as
well as for liberties taken with pronunci-
alton.
Some words that have been criticized in
|reviews rs new are merely revivals cf the
pld. Many an expression, characterized as
an Americanism, lies buried in Elizabethan
-'woods' of Spenser's "Shep.leard's Cal.
endar" and Marlowe's "dilkmaid's Song"
mad" in the sense Ofangry in the "Meyr.e
Tales Of Skelton," reign OF Henry Will,
and in Chapman's Homer" cultured"
styled product Of Boston by the author Of
the "Verbalist Tough hardly imported
from the Hub u goldsmith and Shenstone,
and "right h< designated as an Ameri
canism by the same would.b be instructor,
but occurring in Chaucer 100 years before
Columbus set out on his memorable voy-
age. To Sidney we owe the ordinary con-
cession ''my better half" $50 so" is Shake
spearean, and "A No. ~ is Chaucer's in
vention. Bishop Hall employs "fall' in
the sense of autumn. The Yankee ''thanks'
and ~ guess" meet us in many places
from 400 to 1900, and the "too too" Of the
modern testhete Is but the revival of q fire.
quent reduplication, meaning exceedingly,
and occurring as early as Henry vi.
tits interesting to note how the forms and
meanings of words change as the centuries
D oil on. This corruption is frequently an
Voltaire once made remark
to the effe It that the English gain two hours
q day by clipping their words Had he
this SI decade ecai he would % is have % given them
credit for four hours. In this fast age 1t
takes too long to say pantaloons, omnibus,
cabriolet, hackney coach, speculation,
wrappiugs; we prefer the monosyllables
pants, bus, cab, hack, spec, wraps. Gem
tlemen has dwindled into gents. Physi-
ognomy is metamorphosed into phiz.
Think of the artists in hair, in mantua
making, in pastry, in kalsomine, and Of
the professors of dancing and even of carpet
shaking. And the good Saxon word lady,
what has it become in the nineteenth GEN.
tury? It has ceased to imply the rank or
snobbish or servile tendency to apply it to
every figure in petticoats. In many of our
compounds 1t has usurped the place of the
good old Anglo-Saxon word woman, giving
US ''saleslady," "forelady," and this substi-
tuition has descended to our servants, who
speak ofthe waiting maid as the chamber,
lady," of the cook as the "kitchenlady;"
nay, designate the sable laundress as the
"washlady." The climax of this disgusting
abuse has been reached by an English cler
gyman who last year advertised:
Two fine strong Dandie Dinmont pup
pies, lady and gentleman; first class pedi-
grees; 42s. each; also very handsome lady
dog, nine months of age.
Not few, dissatisfied with the whole
some words Of our Saxon vocabulary, are
led astray by high sounding Latin deriya-
tiOns and corrupt the language OF the
nation with words of learned strength and
sound. With such ghost be-
Of departed spirit and net is some
thing reticulated or decussated with inter-
stitaI vacuities., Such big words are too
often shallow disguise for small thoughts.
Let our young people be taught pronun-
citation and grammar by correct models set
before them in their daily walks and con-
versation; let them be kept from the force
of bad example in these matters as care
fully as from what is vicious i'm morals.
Boys and girls in the great city are cram
med with words that to them are not the
signs of ideas. Icull a few exaniples:to show
the defects of the present education of
children in not teaching them primarily to
think, and they are bona fide answers to
questions at examinations held in this col
lege and elsewhere
In 1866 AlfIe ed the Great stemmed tho
tide of barbarism on the field of Hastings.
The literary language of England in 4i9
was that of Martin Luther.
Marlowe [died in l503l translated
Gethe's "Faust" into English, and Goethe
tl749-ls32l was so pleased with Marlowes
version that he thought of translating it in
to German.
Christianity was introduced into England
by Roman mercenaries [missionaries]
In answer to what was the first English
tragedy. The assassination of President
Lincoln.