FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   >>  
rength and vitality. The literary language, to be sure, rejects a great deal more than it absorbs; and even in the vernacular, words and expressions are always dying out and being replaced by others which are somehow better adapted to the changing conditions. But though an expression has not, in the long run, proved itself fitted to survive, it does not follow that it has not done good service in its time. Certain it is that the common speech of the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world is exceedingly supple, well nourished, and rich in forcible and graphic idioms; and a great part of this wealth it owes to America. Let the purists who sneer at "Americanisms" think for one moment how much poorer the English language would be to-day if North America had become a French or Spanish instead of an English continent. I am far from advocating a breaking down of the barrier between literary and vernacular speech. It should be a porous, a permeable bulwark, allowing of free filtration; but it should be none the less distinct and clearly recognised. Nor do I recommend an indiscriminate hospitality to all the linguistic inspirations of the American fancy. All I say is that neologisms should be judged on their merits, and not rejected with contumely for no better reason than that they are new and (presumably) American. Take, for instance, the word "scientist." It was originally suggested by Whewell in 1840; but it first came into common use in America, and was received in England at the point of the bayonet. Huxley and other "scientists" disowned it, and only a few years ago the _Daily News_ denounced it as "an ignoble Americanism," a "cheap and vulgar product of transatlantic slang." But "scientist" is undoubtedly holding its own, and will soon be as generally accepted as "retrograde," "reciprocal," "spurious," and "strenuous," against which Ben Jonson, in his day, so--strenuously protested. It holds its own because it is felt to be a necessity. No one who is in the habit of writing will pretend that it is always possible to fall back upon the cumbrous phrase "man of science."[U] On the other hand, the purist objection to "scientist"--that it is a Latin word with a Greek termination, and that it implies the existence of a non-existent verb--may be urged with equal force against such harmless necessary words as deist, aurist, dentist, florist, jurist, oculist, somnambulist, ventriloquist, and--purist. Much more valid objection migh
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   >>  



Top keywords:
America
 

scientist

 

speech

 

common

 

purist

 
objection
 
English
 

literary

 
language
 

vernacular


American

 

undoubtedly

 
holding
 

denounced

 
generally
 

product

 
transatlantic
 
ignoble
 

Americanism

 

vulgar


suggested

 

originally

 

Whewell

 

instance

 

reason

 

disowned

 

scientists

 

Huxley

 

bayonet

 

received


England

 
accepted
 

necessity

 

existent

 

termination

 
implies
 

existence

 
harmless
 

ventriloquist

 
somnambulist

oculist
 

jurist

 
aurist
 
dentist
 

florist

 

protested

 
strenuously
 

spurious

 
reciprocal
 

strenuous