The Washington times., 1916-01-15
Washington. Jan. 10 ~
The photographer" Defends Val
iantIy His Use of "PeOple."

To the Editor OF THE TIMES:
There are three kinds of people In
the world: l. the Wills 2, the Won'ts.
and 3, tho Can'ts. The frst succeed:
the second fail; the third YaVer, and
like the spider. lead life OF sus-
pense. In making use OF their native
tongue, the Wills follow the natural
laws OF speech. the won'ts follow
the artificial laws of the grammar
ians. while the Cau'ts, in the torment
of suspense-uncertain vacillating,
perplexed-waver between the other
two.
OF these three kinds OF people, that
kind which champions the science of
speaking and writing correctly is al
ways the most aggressive. 1t Is from
this kind that we get the ipse diXit:
Except in colloquial use IL IL never
allowable to use people in connec-
tion with a numeral adjective" But
we have reason to be thankful that
speech came first and the grammar
ian after and thus usage-the best
usage-governs, ana practice triumphs
over pTecept.
Judging from the contents OF recent
communicate to The Times, 1t
would seem that some OF your cor
respondents have quaint ideas of the
functions of the leNicographer. One
writes Not even the photographer of
the Literary Digest to whose atten-
tlon directed the error, has attempt
ed to defend it." Alas, poor leXicog-
rapher. If he were to undertake to
consider. discuss, and defend all the
questions submitted to him, his Easy
Chair" would become as comfortable
as Damiens' bed of steel Besides. il
IL very unwise to expect him to eN
press any opinion on English forms,
for his province is that of recorder.
- Ia -g.a, 4.
accepted usage of his time as he finds
II reflected by the speech and In the
literature OF the people.
Now, sir, as to the function OF the
Erammarian: hold his relation to the
, language to be similar to that OF the
surgeon. His science is purely ana
tOmical, and like his confrere OF the
scalpel, he must have corpus before
! he can get TO work. That corpus in
! his case Is speech; and his instrument
| is the pen 1t is not for him to die
| tate what men should say, but to
! state what they do say, and to try
/ to harmonic what Is said with the
! rules which he has formulated, or to
modify the rules so that they shall
! fit the case. In this case as in many
| another, the punishment must fit the
! crime.
| To one who strives to pursue the
| even tenor of his way. IL comes as a
! great surprise to learn that the orr.
l
IAN 'ad' of the Funk and Wagnalls
Company urging the reader to dc
what 100000 other people are doing
read the Literary Digest" To hin
IL is surprising that there should he
any discussion at all. The statement
is so clear. so definite, 80 incisive
| that he must be a poor linguist, in
deed. who would Rssail it, Here II
may not be inapropos to say that tho
writer OF the statement alone is the
best Judge of what he has said. If II
l express the thought he had in mind
he has every reason TO feltcitate him
! self on the happily turned PATasI
| that has attracted so much attention
! We. who speak and write English
| should all remember that the correct,
| ness OF r form or OF q construction
is not impaired because nothing anal
ogous to 1t exists in the language
any more than that the CORRECTNESS!
! OF a word Is to he challenged because
there H. no other in the language tina
resembles IL i'm sound or spelling.
Finally. sir, let me offer to those o.
your readers who agree with you. not
| withstanding the assertion made tina
Every Washington editorial stat
has condemned the sentence as inele
giant English" the consolation tina
comes from the knowledge that tn
minority is invariably in the right
Mr. Francis de Sales Ryan tells Il
that 1T Is never allowable to us
people in connection with a numera
adjective" II that be so, then wha
about the following:
And there returned OF the peopl
twenty and two thousand; and ther
remained ter thousand" Judges vii;:
"And the king food by the gat
side, and all the people came out b
hundreds and by thOusands."-II Sam
uel Xviii:4.
"I will not be afraid of ten thou
sands OF people. that have set them
: selves against me round about
1 ! Psalms $50
! John de yreNisa cornish divin
/ Bartholomaeus Anglicus's de Pro
> prietatibuS Rerum." wrote: "He fedd
| many thousandes of people wyth few
I looves OF brede.'
? THE LEXICOGRAPHER
1 New York, January IA.