The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-07
COMMON ERRORS OF SPEECH.
Ill Selected Words and Expressions
 Used by Persons of Education

l am sometimes surprised When a man or woman-usua4y woman, though why cannot say-of quite excellent education Ialrly hounders In a sea of i'll selected words, says writer in the Queen.
 her worst faults are often due to redun- dancy; she will not give utterance to a slnlple' straightforward statement
 IT she expresses an opinion 1t Is to saw
 think 1t is very unwse to do that that is what l think" If she reads a let- ter aloud, 1t is studded with ..she savsv from start to finish. She says we in- tehd gong to town soon for a week. and then abroad for July she says" and so on From a person of wide culture and eaucatlon have been struck dumb by an assurance that she never would ba any different,' with the added comment , that after all. ''it makes no matter" How anyone with the merest yestige of an ear can ,, com such a verb as to make no mat ter It is difficult to understand.
 But it is not only in conversation th,4 these and similar expressions find place It becomes harder each year to discover novel in which the characters. intended to be those of cultured people, discourse as such note with distressing frequen- cy that some one has 'saved''-not her money when the expression is perfect1v correct nor her household goods from the Hames-but yard of ribbon or her grand
 mothers letters
 What is the matter?' is surely explicit enough. Why. therefore, say Whatever IS the matter?' But worse than this is
 the slipshod You will never do that e,, rather than You don't intend doinn thatY or Nothing would surely persuade you to do that?" perhaps followed. on inc unexpected arrival of friend by That is never you!" or, You are quite stran- ger,"
 have on one occasion heard a woman Of outward refinement and amazingly careful manner observe, You must tal<a
 those gloves off Edith; they will fit you
 better than they do her"
 My gardener having informed me a fe1v days previously that he had had soma plants 3of' another gardener, I was able to understand the meaning the expression
 was intended to convey
 My plea is first of all, for greater care Tn avoiding the use of seeond-rate express sions, q care specially needed among ,bosa whose circle of acquaintanees Is small In addition, 1t Is always worth while to know the meaning of the words we use.
 A famous novelist, whose books are inst now widely read, has literally stsswn the pages Of one of them with a word which a glance at the dictionary would have told her has very unpleasant meaninq o,,ita other than that she attributes to it
 It Is even desirable to avoid such very common errors IS fit appeared to be A paradox mutual friends "a limited d meSSaRa'' sranIo al by another" entirely decimated {" atc paradox is "a seeming absurdity.n there- lore a thing either is or is not a paradox Ut cannot seem to be seeming absur,i- ity. Friendship may be mutual. but if two people know another person they
 nave common and not mutual friend limited income" may be very large one. for limited is the contrary to unlini- tied, and Is not SYNONYMOUS with small "A verbal message means a message in words, and may be either written or spo-
 Ken If spoken. it is an oral message Ihe daily papers in their parliamentary reports are correct In referring to "ques- tlons not orally answered" and their re- porters are among the few who use the word in its true sense. To replace a
 thing Is to put it back where 1t was prime minister resigns. but he is after ward replaced in office. Thus replace is not synonymous with substitute. To decimate Is to take one-tenth, so an army if declmated has lost tenth of it's men.
 l have too many weak spots in my owr, English to do more than draw attention to common mistakes into many of wbIc, I have myself fallen. sometimes te ba dragged out again by mark of exclama- tion and comment in the margin of a much tried editor, and to this salutarv treatment owe, at any rate a diminu- tion in my verbal errors
 There are certain expressions which a one time were used exclusively by sir gle class They were copied by one lower in the social scale. and have consequently been abandoned by the other. Of these mama" is a notable instance and possi- ply ''aunte." though I think the latter was never used except among somewhat homely people. Still more striking exam f pies are lady and gentleman" for which woman" and man. are now aI- nhcff fa1