The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-09-03


There are only three ordinary words in the
English language which end in -dous; these are
tremendous stupendouS, and hazardous (There
are some other words of this ending, such as hor-
rendous, but not words that really in ordinary
usel. The only ordinary words in -cion are SCION,
coercion, and suspicion.
Solecism in English speech or writing is a
faulty construction, such Between you and J."
A bdrbariSn is an ill-coined word or phrase such
as "enthuse" or "knoW-how," or "electrocute." An
improprtety is right word in wrong place, as
"tranSpre" in the general meaning of happen"
Summing up: solecism is faulty construction
barbarsm is faulty expression; an improperly
is faulty use.
Rule for spelling words that have an "ei" or an
'ie" combination such recelUe, GchieUe, deceiUe,
reprieUe: I before f except after C, or when
sounded as a, as in neighbor or neigh" practical
rule mot recommended) is to make your and /
exactly alike and put the dot between them
The standard gauge width of space between
ras) for railroads in America is 5612 inches. Less
than this--oftenest AZ inches,--is called marrow
gauge" Yet this marrow gauge" of AZ inches is
standard in New Zealand, Tasmania, the Malay
States parts of Africa and Australia. In Russia and
in some parts of Europe, five feet is standard. As
late as 1912 there was six mile stretch of track
IN use IN Maine WIN gauge Vi oHiy q HtHcs'
There are two words in English (and perhaps
more) which have all the five vowels,--a, 2, j. o,
u-in proper order: fucetious and nbstemious The
vowes appear in reverse order in two other words:
duohterdL and quodl1betaL Of you look up duo
literal in Webster you will be referred to btttterdt
and so YOU win discover that either word means
"a word or root of two letters" Qnodlibetdt You
will find is an odd form of quodLtbettc which means
Having reference to discussion debate; purely
academic')
When typing came into common use, there
much effort expended in finding the shortest pos
sible sentence containing all 26 letters Of the al
phabet The shortest has only 81 letters ut uses
three o'S, three is, two es and two uS): Pack my
box with five dozen liquor Jugs. Another short sen
tence has only 33 letters "A quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog" The familiar practice line for
typists Nov is the time for all good men to come
to the aid of the COR their) party" is neither the
shortest sentence does il contain all the letters;
it is succession of short words and spaces which
gives fairly even exercise to the fingers OF both
hands in typing.
FDR brought in the "eye-ther" and "nyether"
style of pronunciation, at all events made it
popular and it likely to stay. But 1t is inter
esting to read the following structures on this usage
by Richard Grant White: For the pronunciation
i.ther and nither, with the long, there is
II is an affectaton. and in this country, copy of
secondrate British affecation. Persons of the best
education and the highest social position in Eng
land generally say eethtr and neether."
There are some who hold the opinion that the
long sound in either and neither is ccht Deutsch.
The royal House of Hanover spoke German much
better than it spoke English when il spoke English
at all And the ei combination is always pronounced
EYE" in German
The highest order OF knighthood in England
after that of the King, who tops allis the Knights
Commanders of ST. Michael and st. George. When
you have joined this choice company you are en-
titled to write the letters KCMG. after your
This modern tetraTammaton has been dsrespect-
fully interpreted to mean, Kindly Call Me God"
Two words which, in their main root, derive
from one Greek verb, are a whole universe apart in
their meaning Pondering this fact, we may realize
how silly Gibbon was in poking fun at theologians
who debated and hotly disagreed about doctrines ex
pressed by two long words that differ In only one
letter. The words differ as day and night in their
meaning. Tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee do not diff
fer essentially il you only want sounds to mutter
humble But the two words might conceivably be
attached to two essentially different things, and
then there would be no juice left in the old joke
But were speaking of two other words: dndgooe
and pdrdgoge-each pronounced in four SyllableS,
with the o long. Andgoge means elevation of
the mind to things heavenly. Pdraoo9e means
merely adding unneeded letters TO word, such
the 81 which is sometimes added to "once" or
twice"
When We express anything with enthusiasm
and exageeration use the figure or rhetorical
device called hgperbole Thus when we say. well,
thought I'd die" 1T raining cats and dogs"
or i've told you a million times not to do that "
we do not expect to be understood IN the literal
of the words we use; we employ hgperbole.
Now, we can make thing emphatic, not only by eX-
aggeratng, but by saying less than we mean Thus
man will say, Il didn't do so badly" when he
means he has done very we'll. Thus ST. Paul meant
to give high praise to his old home town when he
said that he came from mean city" This trick of
emphasizing by saying less than we mean is