rench'. As the French are noted
rather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are the
acknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is more
disputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their language
exhibits the varied refinements of a cultivated society where
conversation is held in honour as one of the arts. The English speech,
like the English-speaking peoples, is bolder, more energetic, more
suggestive, and perhaps less precise. From no language could English
borrow with more profit to itself than from French; and from no language
has it borrowed more abundantly and more persistently. Many of the
English words which we can trace to Latin and through Latin to Greek,
came to us, not direct from Rome and Athens, but indirectly from Paris.
And native French words attain international acceptance almost as easily
as do scientific compounds from Greek and Latin. _Phonograph_ and
_telephone_ were not more swiftly taken up than _chassis_ and _garage_.

But _chassis_ and _garage_ still retain their French pronunciation, or
perhaps it would be better to say they still receive a pronunciation
which is as close an approximation to that of the French as our
unpractised tongues can compass. And in thus taking over these French
words while striving to preserve their Frenchiness, we are neglectful
of our duty, we are imperilling the purity of our own language, and we
are deserting the wholesome tradition of English--the tradition which
empowered us to take at our convenience but to refashion what we had
taken to suit our own linguistic habits.

'Speaking in general terms,' Mr. Pearsall Smith writes, in his outline
history of the English language, 'we may say that down to about 1650 the
French words that were borrowed were thoroughly naturalized in English,
and were made sooner or later to conform to the rules of English
pronunciation and accent; while in the later borrowings (unless they
have become very popular) an attempt is made to pronounce them in the
French fashion.' From Mr. Smith's pages it would be easy to select
examples of the complete assimilation which was attained centuries ago.
_Caitiff, canker_, and _carrion_ came to us from the Norman dialect of
French; and from their present appearance no one but a linguistic expert
would suspect their exotic ancestry, _Jury, larceny, lease, embezzle,
distress,_ and _improve_ have descended from the jargon of the lawyers
who went on t