Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1915 — TITLE MUCH MISUSED [ARTICLE]

TITLE MUCH MISUSED

TERM SOME ABUSE. Fact to Be Remembered Is That It la Never a Family Name But Is Al ways Applied to the Individual. At time in the middle ages the custom grew up of applying to clergymen the term “reverendus.” This word was a part of a speech known in Latin as a gerund, and meant “one Who ought to be revered.” Gerunds could be compared like adjectives, and it seemed natural to the people of those days that, if all clergymen were reverend, a bishop should be designated by the comparative degree, "reverendior,” more reverend, or right reverend, while the superlative degree, reverendissimus, most reverend, was reserved for archbishops. As these terms referred to individuals, they were never used in connection with the family name alone, but with the Christian name, which indicated the individual.

A great many people in our day are committing the unfortunate blunder of using the term “reverend” in connection with a family name. Mr. Smith is a clergyman. He is frequently spoken to as “Reverend Smith.” This is wrong. Smith is a family name, and does not refer to an individual. The only proper way of speaking of him is as Rev. Mr. Smith, or Rev. John Smith, or plain Mr. Smith, but never Rev. Smith. Never Rev. and Mrs. Smith, but? Rev. and Mrs. John Smith. Strictly speaking, the only possible way of speaking to him is “Mr. Smith,” for the old English “Your Reverence,” has died out. One does not speak of or to a judge as Honorable Jones, but one speaks or writes of him as the Hon. Henry T. : Jones, and addresses him as “Youri Honor.” As concerns the use of the word “reverend,” no one applies it to himself or signs his name with it -prefixed.

Scholars urge us to try to preserve the use of the English language, and not be attacked by the mtadern disease which impels so many people to use nearly all the nouns and many of the adjectives as if they were titles. You may find in the papers any day such expressions as Motorman Brown, Witness Green, Suspect Robinson, Optician White, Pitcher Jones. It ought to be stopped; but who will Stop it? Scholars tell us that this is one of the signs that the English language is degenerating very rapidly.