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13. It is well to have a pail of water handy, in case of fire.

14. We went to a near by house.

15. I don't see them any more than I can help. 16. "

My comrades," said Ulysses, "thrust the stake in the Cyclop's eye."

17. Come in the house and we'll get a cup of tea.
18. Look at Jane, how she's fixed up!
19. In back of these statues is a spire.

20. I am unwilling to have her go.

21. I once had a curious accident happen to me.

22. Three hundred thousand workingmen have had their wages voluntarily increased since February 1. Western Reserve Democrat please copy.

23. Anyway, "I shall still be Vicar of Bray," as the poet says.

24. They both have wooden shoes on.

25. The whistle blew some in the course of the night.

26. The whistle blew twice during the night.

27. He is a great success as a salesman.

28. Put that board down sideways, not endways.

29. He has lots of money.

30. It makes me mad to see him abuse the animal so.

31. We were mighty glad to get home — father, brother, and myself.

32. Well, you can 'phone me, at all events.

33. She puts on a good many airs.

34. Is the dress pretty? Well, quite pretty. 35. There were quite a few visitors to-day. 36. There were quite a lot of boys present. 37. Wait till I fix my hair.

38. Fort Dearborn stood right there, where the street approaches the bridge.

39. The coat sets well.

40. Wait till the principal comes; he'll settle him.

41. Nothing about this desk seems to stay put. 42. You may go if you wish to.

43. It's quite a ways to town.

44. I can't go without I get my work done. [In German, ohne, "without," is a conjunction as well as a preposition, but the analogy does not extend to the English word. Most grammars class the conjunctive use of without as a grammatical blunder. The Standard Dictionary, however, recognizes it, though adding that it is "in disuse by careful writers."]

45. "Do you go bathing on this rocky shore?" "Yes, some."

46. Tom, put on your vest.

47. He's a stylish person. [Stylish, as applied to dress, is said to be admissible.]

48. Oh, what a cute, cunning little doll!

49. Where are you going to?

50. John is a strictly up-to-date young fellow.

51. I guess I must be going. Several of us and myself are going out this evening.

52. I just love pickled limes.

53. At what hotel are you stopping?1

54. The prisoner weakened when confronted with the witness. [The literary usage would not be "the prisoner grew weak," which would refer to a physical condition only, but "the prisoner's courage weakened," or some expression in which weakened, a most unpleasing verb when taken intransitively, would not appear at all.]

55. We had a nice time, though we had to put up with some noise.

1 The true meaning of the word stop was well understood by the man who did not invite his professed friend to visit him: "If you come, at any time, within ten miles of my house, just stop. MATTHEWS: Words, their Use and Abuse, p. 359.

We have already seen

§ 5. Technical Usage. that the expressions of commerce, especially in a commercial nation like America, tend to creep into general conversation, and thence find their way into newspapers, magazines, and books. There are people who never hold, maintain, declare, assert, or say that anything is so; they invariably claim that it is so.

Now, so far as the terms of a given trade, or profession, or science, are easily intelligible to all the people, and are more vigorous or picturesque than commoner words, they are welcome in books. But the ground is dangerous. Mr. Kipling, who has most freely drawn on special vocabularies for literary purposes, is unintelligible at times, save to the engineer or the soldier about whom he writes. There is an excuse for Mr. Kipling, for he tries to present the emotions of engineers or of soldiers, and so feels obliged to use their own language; "McAndrews' Hymn" is a noble poem, even though the reader gets but a faint notion of the make-up of the engine which McAndrews talks about. But when a theme is filled with unexplained technical terms, there seems to be no excuse. When a student says, without explaining his terms, that "McBride punted on

the first down," he is no more intelligible to the ordinary public than a botanist would be who should remark at the dinner table that he had discovered a beautiful example of Woronin's hypha, and when asked to define Woronin's hypha, should reply, "Why, that's simple. Woronin's hypha is a swollen, septate, curved, densely protoplasmic hypha in certain ascomycetous fungi, in the inner basal part of a perithecium. It always disappears, you know, after the development of asci."

Enough of technical usage for the present. Themes do not often reveal too much of it, and we may leave the subject until we come to certain tasks, in Part Second of this book, which require the exposition of technical topics.

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§ 6. Literary Usage. Up to this point we have been finding out what literary usage is not. It is not local, nor vulgar, nor technical, nor even colloquial. Literary usage more commonly called good usage is the use of such constructions, words, and senses of words as the body of reputable writers sanction by their own practice to-day.

Note that "the body" of reputable writers is

specified. To be sure that a word is in good use, the lexicographer must be able to quote it from many distinguished writers.

"Reputable writers" is perhaps not an easy term to define. A writer who has achieved distinction rather than passing notoriety, and whose work is practically free from all except quoted localisms, vulgarisms, technical and colloquial terms, is certainly a reputable writer, though the definition is chiefly negative. There is a constantly increasing number of such writers, just as there is, unfortunately, an increasing number of unreputable writers. An absolutely correct writer doubtless never lived; but such essayists as Landor, Arnold, Higginson, and Fiske, such novelists as Hawthorne and Stevenson, such historians as Green and Parkman, are in general safe models in matters of usage.

The definition implies that literary usage must be not merely national-free from

1 If it is international, so much the better, though it need not be international. In the few matters of usage in which the Englishman and the American differ, each does well to stick to the custom of his own nation. There are many differences between British vulgar use and American vulgar use, but very few between British good use and American good use.

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