Selective Tendencies, etc.
transitive and the intransitive verbs, he yet produces an effect upon the average mind of the doubling of many verbs.
Moreover, the disagreement of grammarians—their uncertainty in regard to the parts of speech—adds further confusion. “Every compared adjective,” says Alfred D. Sheffield, “gives three words; every verb, from three to five.” If we add to this human frailty of the lexicographer, the commercial rivalry of the publisher in his efforts to surpass his competitor in “numerical totals,” it will not be hard to see how the dictionary has grown to embody several hundred thousand useless words. That is not all. By the use of prefixes and suffixes, any amount of dead wood has been added to the dictionary. Given the words, existence and conscious, for example: Is it necessary to lumber the dictionary with such words as nonexistence, subconscious, unconscious, semiconscious, consciously, and so forward?
Were the dictionary to contain all the im-
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