Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-11

biography and pronunciation But the grammarian
had no warrant to set up lawgver and he has
no commission to do more than declare what he
has ascertained to the structure and the con-
dtion of the language at that special period of its
changing history which he has undertaken to ex-
plain. 1t is as a record of facts and of tendencies
that grammar is valuable; and its value is dimin-
1shed IN proportion as the grammarian mistakes
his Office and risks himself in dogmatic judgments
And a grammar has authority in itself SO
also dictionary has no authority of it's own Its
value lies in the accuracy with which it has re-
corded the facts AS president of the Modern
Language Association stated it plainly few years
ago. the trained scholars look upon dictionary
simply as "a more or less incomplete list of the
words and phrases used in language in some
period of its life, with definitions (often inexact
of these words and phrases"
The dictionary, however ample, however fire.
quent its supplements must always remain more
less incomplete" for the language keeps on
growing and expanding and responding to the
unexpected needs of those who use it, even while
the most recent supplement is getting itself into
print. And there is need also to emphasize the
fact that the language has grown and expanded so
abundantly that no dictionary-rn has ever
dared to attempt to include all the words within
his reach The special vocabularies of the several
arts and sciences enormously distended; and
only the more important words of these special
vocabuar1es can be included in the dictionaries
which planned to extend to several volumes
The special terms of the electrician-such as
live wire" and third rail- and separately ex-
cited booster are recorded only in part even in
the lexicons of that science The special terms of
the stage and the theater carefully collected
a score of years ago by couple of experts for one
of the foremost of American dictionaries and they
proved to be many that only the most significant
and the most likely to be sought for inserted.
These theatrical terms not evanescent slang;
they the technical. words used with absolute
exactness by the thousands of men and women
connected with the stage Some of them were
known also to the theater-gong public, such as
'box-office" and ''return-check ''act-drop" and
'stage-hands' but many more-such as "skv-
'star-trap, raong- piece" and billboard ticket"
would probably not convey any clear and definite
idea to the most of those who throng into the
theater.
1t is from these special vocabularies that the
language is constantly enlarged and enriched
From these special vocabuaries, familiar only to
the practitioner of the several arts certain words
and terms and phrases are snatched up and enter
into general use. For they may be looked
upon intruders, as little better than slang; and
not a few of them fail to establish themselves in
time, unable to make good right of domcile in
the select lexicon of literary usage. But some of
them persist and justify their claims to acceptance
even by scholars. Nothing clearly indicates
the taste and the tact of author than the way
in which he deals with these novel 1ocutions some
of them barbaric and to be rejected without