The log cabin Democrat., 1914-03-12

seeks to record what is language, while the purist undertakes to say what, in his opinion, it should be. A slave to excessive niceties, the purist would fix as the standard for the whole people the diction of compara- lively few super-educated men and women. To dine in any but evening dress is in certain circles a gaucherie, vet men cannot be forbidden to eat an evening meal because they do not possess this kind of attire. The great men and women who have written the books that are called literature have disregarded the purist's restrictions with an abandon that is the despair of the critics.
 This brings us to inquire, who makes a language? Is it the people who write and speak it or the purists who seek to set limitations upon 1t? How do we know what is correct and what is incorrect usage? The English of Beowulf is as different from that of Chaucer as the English of Chaucer is from that of the Gazette. Did the purists or the people make these changes?
 The truth is that just as the human body sheds and discards it's tissues and creates new tissues, forming in the course of a given number of years an entirely new body, so do the words composing a living language shed and discard certain of their meanings and take on new meanings. Words them- selves become obsolete and other words gradually insinuate them selves into places of repute in the lan- guage, usually being recognized first as vulgarisms, later as colloqulalisms and finally as correct diction. In the very quotation which the Gazette takes from him, Dr. White illustrates this point, when he says: "Observe- This word, the primary meaning of which is to keep carefully, and hence to heed, has by an orderly and consist ent Reflection come to mean also to keep in view, to follow" etc. An early purist might have said, and probably did say that any but the primary defi- hilton of observe was not in accord ance with good usage. But the word did not take on this additional mean ing. just as thousands of other words have done.
 Dr. White wrote his Words and Their Uses'' in 1870. In the A years since that time the English language has undergone many transitions. The Photographer is kept busy recording these changes. New words are con- stantly being introduced. Take, for example, the word graft, brought to light only few years ago by Josiah Flynt after one of his journeys to the underworld. In common usage the primary meaning of this word has al most been lost sight of, but the pur- ists do not even yet concede that IL had any right to intrude itself into the language. Yet graft is useful worl. "Electrocute" is an etymolog- ical monstrosity, invented by the newspapers to define a new mode of putting persons to death. Yet we had to have a word to describe that act, and why not ''electrocute
 And so it is with observe and par tially and depot and the other words which the Gazette purist would make us believe we are misusing. They are words which in their common accepta- ton have come to imply certain things not within the scope of their original meaning. In the domain of language the people, after all, are sovereign. The purists try to hold us back and prevent us from making words perform queer offices, but usage which shocks the purist of the one generation is defended by the purist of the next.