Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1884 — A Surfeit of Words. [ARTICLE]

A Surfeit of Words.

The task of preparing a new dictionary of the English language is, perhaps, about as grave, intricate and laas man could undertake. Of all tongues, ours is the most inexact and scattering to begin with. It was largely borrowed in the first instance from foreign sources; and we have been adding to it from the vocabularies bf other nations for centuries. More than this, we alone of all the people on the earth have a common habit of coining new words and giving old words new meanings to suit our whims or to emphasize a particular fact or object. By such means, our lexicon is mfide to undergo continual change, and be, as it were, in an unceasing hide-and-seek with its-4f. The words and expressions in general use 200 years ago are many of them absurdities and vulgarities now; even the prevailing English speech of the last century is not at all of to-day; and it would not be too much to say, probably, that every person who lives to exceed forty years must find it necessary to alter his “English as she is spoke” in a very considerable degree from the style in which it was taught to him at the start, if he would make sure of l»eing understood and of escaping correction and derision.— St Louis Globe-Democrat.