Preface
challenge attention and they court inspection; their nakedness is their shield. We can say all we have to say with the very best of words, and we can get along admirably without any of the worse. Outside a few technical subjects, we have no occasion to invent words. It is very dangerous business in polite society. We should be able to express ourselves without the help of tireless and tiresome intensives. We have no use for nine-tenths of our synonyms. And while a man may be known by his expletives and a woman by her giggles, we should be as well off, all round, if they were not.
Now the question arises, how may the desire to use good language be stimulated, and how may it be gratified? Partly at least in education and in emulation discreetly practiced. Some knowledge of linguistics of course would be suggested; but we should not make the mistake of overloading linguistics with dusty science. An interest in the mysteries and the meanings of words stimulates one to
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