Linguistics in General
ing even if now and then dazzling to the layman.
It is plain, therefore, that simpler conceptions must be sought if popular interest in the study of linguistics is to be awakened and sustained. For as I have said, popular interest is the only practical means of attaining the broad, permanent, and beneficial results desired of this science.
What then are these simpler conceptions so much needed by the masses? I should say they were two: (1) A conception of a provisional order which for practical purposes disregards the special subtleties of the phenomena of language as a whole. For these things and their intricate relations may very well be left in the philosophic domain of linguistics—problems for specialists. (2) A conception, also provisional, which permits the consideration of one of the great parts of language—preferably one’s mother-tongue—as a social, moral, and intellectual medium capable of circulating the necessary conven-
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