The age-herald., 1900-11-03

nal significance These words are being used more often than they should be, and consequently arc being oheapened-a fact ing in their original senses and power That they seem to be fast losing these the following examples will indicate:
 "Horrid," to take a striking instance means originally "bristling," from the Lat in "horridus" Tn Virgil it is used literally of the porcupine and fguratively of the battle front. By association 1t came to charaoterize not the thing that bristled literally or fguratively, but the thing so terrible that 1t made one bristle. Its cor rect use is still limited to these three senses. How few things bristle in fact or fancy, and how few really make us bristle! How rarely then should we hear the words 'horrid" and "horror''i If the sun is un- der cloud, however, we call the day Thor rid" If we have an unpleasant time, 1t is 'horrid." If our hair eomes out of curl we look like a horror" and generally, by the way, like perfect horror" whatever that monster may be. And then when the gen uine hair-raisng, awe-inspirins event or thing makes Its appearance, how are we to describe it if we wish to describe it? It Is true that we have the words, but they have been used every day, and are worn out and useless. They have taken the places of smaller words so often that they can no longer fill their own. Holiday raiment sported daily Is not festive enough for feast, and the strong word too often made the equal of little ones loses it's flavor of superiority and aloofness.
 A college professor once went so far as to advise the members of her theme class never to use the word grand" In their writing. It was once powerful and dig nifed word, conveying the notion of grandeur in thought style, man or view, hI1 haS up a host of common and petty associa- tions. Who Is safe in using 1t to voice his impression of great man or mountain or other high thing of nature, when it has so often been used to describe a box of candy a dancing party, a new way of dressing the hair, the fit of a gown and so forth?
 "Horrid" and "grand", then, are practi- cally useless and will be so probably for years to come, if they are not permanently weakened.
 Another linguistic disaster that seems to threaten is the breaking down of the bars among a number of words of widely varied significance-gorgeous elegant, beautiful, exquisite, magnificent, fine and lovely. These words 1t appears each of which has a different Individuality of its own, are coming to be used interchangeably for any thing that Is attractive or agreeable.
 We know that gorgeous means brilliant with color and that 1t applies rightly to d rainbow or sunset, or a garden bright with flowers, but on the street cars we oVerhear it used with simply" before it to describe the fried oysters at a popular restaurant
 Elegant means literally something that is picked out or selected-something that the taste of man has pronounced good An elegant thing can be made, and thing can be made elegant. There is the idea of polish, cultivation, artificial excellence in the word It cannot be used of things of nature. It Is properly used in manners, dress or furniture. Yet in careless speech we call these grand" or lovely" and apply elegant to soda water and scenery
 'BeautifuP' is misused principally in be- ing too much used. It Is both a broader and deeper word than pretty" Closely related to 1t, with still a difference, are exquisite" and magnificent" That which is small and dainty, tasteful and attractive and perfect in detail is exquisite. That which is large and impressve-made on a grand scale-usng grand in the original sense-is magnificent. One cannot go far wrong in the use of the last-named word if he remembers Byron's famous line in "Childe Harold"