"high-sounding" words to express his ideas. All young writers
should avoid what have been called "flowery flourishes."

Again, young writers should be very careful not to use really foreign
words to express an idea for which we have already a good word in
English. Sometimes the foreign word comes first to our pen, but this
may be because of the bad habit which has grown up of using these
words in place of the English words which are quite as correct and
expressive. Sometimes, on the other hand, the foreign word expresses
a shade of meaning which the English word misses, and then, of course,
it is quite right to use it. For instance, _amour propre_ is not in
any way better than "self-love," _betise_ than "stupid action,"
_camaraderie_ than "comradeship," _savoir faire_ than "knowledge of
the world," _chef d'oeuvre_ than "masterpiece," and so on.

One disadvantage of borrowing such words is that they often come to be
used in a different sense from their use in their native language; and
people with an imperfect knowledge of these languages will say rather
vulgar or shocking things when using them in the English manner in
those languages. Thus, to speak of a person of a certain "calibre" in
French is exceedingly vulgar; and refined people do not use the word
_chic_ as freely as the English use of it would suggest. Examples of
foreign words which we could hardly replace by English expressions are
_blase_, _tete-a-tete_, _brusque_, _bourgeois_, _deshabille_. These
have been borrowed, just as words have been borrowed all through its
history, by the English language to fill gaps. They have really become
English words. But there are many foreign expressions now scattered
freely through newspapers the sense of which can only be plain to
those who have had a classical education. Unfortunately it is only the
minority of readers who have had this. The effect is to make whole
passages unintelligible or only half intelligible to the majority of
readers. This is not writing good English. Thus people will write _le
tout Paris_ instead of "all Paris," _memoires pour servir_ instead of
"documents," _ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores_ for "more Irish than the
Irish." Such phrases are quite unsuitable to the general reader, and
as perfect equivalents can be found in English, there would be no
point in using them, even if writing for a learned society.

Modern English, and especially colloquial English, has borrowed a
great deal from the Americ