It is significant that the only authorities for banality in the Oxford Dictionary are Sala, Saintsbury, Dowden, and Browning; but the volume is dated 1888; and though the word is still used in the same overpowering proportion by literary critics as opposed to other writers, its total use has multiplied a hundredfold since then. Our hope is that the critics may before long feel that it is as banal to talk about banality as it is now felt by most wellbred people to be vulgar to talk about vulgarity.
His style, which is pleasant and diffuse without being distinguished, is more suited to the farm and the simple country life than to the complexities of the human character.—Times.
His character and that of his wife are sketched with a certain distinction.—Times.
And yet to look back over the whole is to feel that in one case only has she really achieved that perfection of intimism which is her proper goal.—Times.
The reference to the English nonconformists was a graceful amend to them for being so passionate an Oxonian and churchman.—Morley.
And in her presentation of the mode of life of the respectable middle classes, the most meticulous critic will not easily catch her tripping.—Times.
2. Formations involving grammatical blunders. Of these the possibilities are of course infinite; we must assume that our readers know the ordinary rules of grammar, and merely, not to pass over the point altogether, give one or two typical and not too trite instances:
My landlady entered bearing what she called 'her best lamp' alit.—Corelli.
This seems to be formed as a past participle from to alight, in the sense of to kindle. It will surprise most people to learn that there is, or was, such a verb; not only was there, but the form that should have been used in our sentence, alight, is probably by origin the participle of it. The Oxford Dictionary, however, after saying this, observes that it has now been assimilated to words like afire, formed from the preposition a- and a noun. Whether those two facts are true or not, it is quite certain that there is no such word as alit in the sense of
