a kind of family wagon, right for "very," stoop for "porch," to allow, to calculate, or to reckon for "to assert" or "to suppose," to lope (of a horse), to tote or to pack for "to carry," to watch out for "to be careful."

A word that, either in itself or in the meaning given to it, is peculiar to one class or profession is not national: e.g. in painters' dialect, scumbling; in medical dialect, cadaver, prognosis; in sporting dialect, to break the record; in college dialect, campus, goody, grind, snap; in nautical dialect, box-hauling, douse the topsails, in stays, to luff; in dressmakers' dialect, to cut on the bias; in miners' dialect, to get down to bed-rock, to pan out, to peter out, to strike oil; in the dialect of the race-course, to handicap; in the dialect of photographers, to focus; in legal dialect, on the docket, to wit; in business dialect, above par, in our line, to pool, to take stock in. Such expressions, though they have no place in writings intended for the general reader, are appropriate in treatises written for those who are familiar with the subject in hand; for they are technically correct, and they express the precise meaning intended. In a book on consumption, for example, that is to be read by physicians, or in an account of a game of base-ball that is to be read by proficients in base-ball, words that are in professional, but not in national, use may properly be employed.

For Americans, a word that, however common in Great Britain, is very rarely used in the United States is not national. An American should say "coal" rather than coals, "corn" rather than maize, "faucet " rather than tap, "filling" rather than stopping (teeth), "mucilage" rather than gum, "pitcher" rather than jug, "rare" rather than underdone (beef), "canned" rather than tinned (food), "sidewalk” rather than pavement or footway, "spool" rather than reel, ticket-office" rather than booking-office. On general grounds, we may prefer lift to "elevator," or postcard to "postal card"; but as lift and post-card, though

universal in England, are rarely seen or heard in America, we should be slow to use them here. It is an affectation to differ ostentatiously from our neighbors.

Since, however, uniformity in the language of Englishspeaking persons is desirable, there is ground for preferring a word that is in universal use in England and is not unusual in America to one that is common here but unknown there: thus, "railway" is preferable to railroad, "station" to dépôt, "veranda" to piazza, "clever" in the sense of "quick-witted" or "adroit" to clever in the sense of "good-natured." In each of these cases, the English usage appears to be gradually gaining ground in America "railway," "station," and "veranda" are now used almost as frequently as railroad, dépôt, and piazza; clever in the sense of "good-natured," though still common in some of our rural districts, would be understood by few persons under twenty-five who were brought up in New York or in Boston. In England, on the other hand, the use of "baggage" for luggage, and of "trunk" for box, is more common than it was ten years ago.

By the occasional introduction of words that are not in national use, a writer may give local color or dramatic truth to a narrative; but if he uses such words freely he runs the risk of being unintelligible. Even great authors -Burns and Scott, for instance, are sometimes difficult to understand without the aid of a glossary.

Reputable Use. A word is in reputable use if it is supported by the authority of the great body of speakers and writers of established reputation.

Many words that are not in reputable use in the senses given to them creep, nevertheless, into print. Some of these come from business circles: e.g. "In that merciful ad valorem scale hereafter every one's character will be weighed," "The balance of the day was given to talk,” "Our pleasure in the play was discounted by our familiarity with the plot," " "Billy was always pretty well

posted," "This sizes up the man.' Some come from the pulpit: e.g. "It followed the advent of the American hog into France." Some come from the bar: e.g. "This accident entailed the loss of his dinner," "A party in a silk hat stood at the door." Some come from books on mathematics: e.g. "He has come home from the war minus an arm," "The future of the Philippine Islands seems to be an unknown quantity."

Some words that are not in reputable use for serious writing are excusable in familiar conversation: e.g. "greenhorn," "grouty," "gumption," "highfalutin," "hustler," "in tantrums," "out of kilter," "ramshackle," "rig" (for "vehicle"), "scallawag,' "wheel" (for "bicycle"), "to wobble."

A word that was once colloquial merely as "boycott," "buncombe," "shoddy," "mob" (condemned by Swift), "punch" (condemned by Dr. Johnson) may in time get from conversational and epistolary into literary use. Thus "mob," a contraction of mobile vulgus, is found in family letters long before it appears in books. Sometimes, as was the case with "boycott" and "telegram," the new word is so much needed that it speedily makes its way into the language; used at first by a reputable writer under protest, then put within marks of quotation as being a word of doubtful value, it may finally become good English for all purposes.

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Sometimes a word has two forms, one of which is in reputable use in one generation, the other in another. Thus, toward the end of the eighteenth century, “botanists still wrote asparagus, but according to Walker [“ Pronouncing Dictionary," 1791], Sparrow-grass is so general that asparagus has an air of stiffness and pedantry.' During the present century asparagus has returned into literary and polite use, leaving sparrow-grass to the illiterate; though 'grass' still occurs in cookery books."1

1 See the Oxford English Dictionary, where the history of the word is given in full.

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Good Use. A word that is in present, national, and reputable use is said to be in good use: it is good English for all purposes. The fact that a word is in a dictionary does not necessarily prove that it is in good use either in literature or in conversation. A dictionary must contain words that are not yet good English, and also words that have been, but are no longer, good English; it must include not only "all the Common Words' of literature and conversation," but also "such of the scientific, technical, slang, dialectal, and foreign words as are passing into common use, and approach the position or standing of common words.'” 1 A grammar may discuss questions as to which usage is unsettled, but its main business is to record and classify expressions that are in good use. When either a dictionary or a grammar assumes to determine not what is, but what should be, good English, it goes beyond its province.

Writers of established reputation may succeed, now and then, in calling back words from the grave; but even the greatest of them have failed in the attempt. Writers of established reputation may, by adopting provincial or vulgar words as their own, do much to make them good English; but great authors are slow to invent words themselves, or to use those which lack the stamp of authority. "The two most copious and fluent of our prose writers, Johnson and Macaulay, may be cited on this head," says a recent author; "for the first hardly ever coined a word; the second, never. They had not the temptation; their tenacious memories were ever ready with a supply of old and appropriate words, which were therefore the best, because their associations were established in them."2 If there were words enough in the language to supply the needs

1 A part of this sentence is quoted from the first paragraph of "General Explanations," at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary. The whole paragraph is an admirable statement of the scope of a dictionary, and is enriched by a diagram that serves as many diagrams do not ― to explain the writer's meaning.

2 John Earle: English Prose.

of Johnson and Macaulay, there are surely enough for ordinary writers. For most of us, the only safe rule is to use no word that is not accepted as good English by the best judges.

To writers of our day, obsolete or obsolescent words are less tempting than new-fangled expressions. For one devotee of old English who insists on writing admire for "wonder," agone for "ago" or "gone," conscience for "conscientiousness," holpen for "helped," inwit for "conscience," knoweth for "knows," prevent for "anticipate," or on publishing a foreword instead of a "preface,” there are hundreds of "ready writers" who try their hands at the manufacture of novelties. Those who know least of English as it is, are precisely those who are most ready to disfigure their sentences with English as it is not. On the other hand, there are persons so fastidious that they taboo as "vulgar" some expressions that have long been in good use: e.g. "carcass," "folderol," "gimcrack," "harum-scarum," "higgledy-piggledy," "hob-nob," "hocus-pocus," "hoity-toity," "pell-mell," "pot-luck," "tittle-tattle," "to curry favor," "to swap." There are others so matter-of-fact that they frown upon familiar phrases which contain words that survive in those phrases only: e.g. "beck and call," "by dint of," "by hook or by crook," "cheek by jowl," "ever and anon," "hue and cry," "in dudgeon or "in high dudgeon," "kith and kin," "to and fro," "to the top of his bent,' "with might and main."

Others still, under the influence of the hard and fast rules laid down in some grammars, condemn certain expressions that are embedded in the foundations of the language, expressions which, far from being bad English, are the best English, for they are so thoroughly English that they are not easily translatable, word for word, into other languages. "Had rather" and "had better," for example, forms that have been in good use for more than four