The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1955-01-21
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or lneonsiderste

Someone has provided an elegant blank book
by way of Christmas gft-with the admonitiOn
patia dies sine Inca mo day without its line"
Thus came Christmas with suggestion for New
Years resolution
sufficiently difficult and an invitingy fragile
resolution is this purpose to write few careful
words each day Of the year. II is good thing, Of
course, if il be faithfully followed good for clear
expression, good for style and therefore good for
he mind.
The person who undertakes this business, and
determines to mark each dated page with some
thing we'll and carefully expressed however trivial
in content is taking upon himself small but ir-
ritating obligation. Even if his determination be
sustained, he is apt to be like Edwin the Boy
Scout who-according to Wodehouse and BERTHE
W0oster-was always behind with his daily good
deed, and kept things in constant turmoil by his
GeveriSh efforts to catch UP with himself.
1855 carries us a step farther from that tiresome
reference ''the turn of the century" We now
we'll over the hump and nearer to the coming
turn" than to the last one, which occurred in the
general vicinity of 1900 Slow things these turns
of the century" A POSTMASTER once introduced a
speaker as born "about the turn of the cen
tury" Actual birthday was in 1890,
Good phrases to avoid IN 1865; turn of the cen
tufy quite some time; wonderful job; terrific
effect; intriguing circumstances some for about Tin
using numbersC on the basis of. Also the words: i'm
pact reaction, contact Gas verb
In its first presentation of the story of the Ad-
lms family, Omnibus quoted from letters diaries,
and official papers in giving samples of colonial
dialogue. And 1t is thing TO make us ashamed,
and to stir wonder whether progress has really
raI. faa 10 hnar aofaa and
full expression of our national ancestors Even the
ten-year-old John Quincy Adams doing short let.
ter to his father, absent from home political
business furnishes wholly suitable model for
university students-and professors.
Whatever technical and specialist training has
done for in a physical way il has certainly rob
bed us of the mastery Of adequate and facile
preston And business with its brisk yet wordy
communications continues to do ITS best TO shake
everything literary out of the language The class
cal tongues which hold many of the roots of
speech arc longer studied in school or college,
Solid reading which supplies vocabulary is largely
neglected Even learned man has difficulty i'm
parting his learning his utterance is filled with
"ers' and "ahs" and irritating inadequacy.
And the structure of our language changes Con
slider what has happened to the word like which is
an adjective and sometimes a noun This word is
made to serve both as adverb and conjunction, A
TV advertiser, speaking from prepared copy, is not
ashamed to say, "No cigarette satisfies like Chester
field" AS for pronunciation see what has happened
(even with the approval of late dictionares to the
words: inquiry, abdomen, address. ally
We must go to New York, il seems, and out to
Bedloes Island, if we are to know just what pre-
cisely, is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty We
know, to be sure that the inscription is poem by
Emma Lazarus called THE New Colossus But we
find this poem varousy quoted, In Bartlett,-and
money goes this authority,--we find the
following version:
Give your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning TO breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempesttossed TO me:
lift my lamp beside the golden door.
In A. Wooeott's "As You Were" the poem ap-
pears as follows,
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning 10 be free
The Wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these the homeless. tempest-t tossed TO me.
l lift the lamp beside the golden door
Notice the differences the second version has
be for breathe, and The lamp FOR apg lamp. The sec
ond version tunconsconaby) puts period at the
end of the third line 1t puts Semcolon, instead
of a comma, after the words send these II omitS
the comma after teRpeSttoSsed II uses a period
instead OF colon at the END OF the toufth llne.
Here is a poem of five short lines yet II seems
to offer great difficulty TO the person who would
quote or transeribe IT, We cannot inquire of the
author for a true version, for she has been dead
since 1887 Best We can manage is TO start for New
York harbor with pad and pencil or, better STILL
with good camera.
Words orally quoted are seldom TO be trusted
for complete accuracy But surely only little care
is needed to copy what Is written or printed Appar-
entity. that care is not bestowed And here is an
other bit Of versa jingle with thought in it.
II was written by Frederick Langbridge Q84s-1923
and is cited follows in the Aue Maria Of January
g. 1855:
Two men look out through the same bars
One sees the mud the other the stars
There is another version mot TO be verified here for
the copy is losD which runs tlus:
Two men looked OUT through prison bars;