BAD LANGUAGE....
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sta,—There has-never been a time, I suppose, when the entrance of new words into our language has not been vehemently opposed. Addison devoted one of his Spectators to this subject, and Swift somewhere has a violent attack on certain words (I think "sham " was one of them) which are now in general use. Writing as I do away from books, I am sorry that I cannot give references. The lesson to be drawn is this: that you cannot prevent a continual change going on in a language—words becoming obsolete, words changing their meaning and fresh words coming in. Languages are not made but grow, and growth necesearily involves change. Words are made for the people, and not the people for the words. Even slang has its use; it may be described as the probationary period through which every now word which is coined by the people (as distinct from words deliberately invented or borrowed from other languages) has to pass.' It then becomes a case of the survival of the fittest. If a slang term really supplies a want, it will presently be used by some writer whose English is above suspicion, and thus it will pass permanently into the language
stamped with his imprimatur. •
But the question of grammar is a more difficult one. If grammar, as " H. C." boldly states, is " an inquiry how people do in fact speak," then it seems that grammar must be subject to change too. If, for example, the people insist on splitting their infinitives, the split infinitive must eventually be considered grammatical. In this case the only safeguards we have left against what " H. C." calls " tongue-sores" are the people's good sense and perception of the absurd—a flimsy bulwark indeed. May I give a very common instance of one of these absurdities? It is the phrase " centres round." A thing can circle round a point or centre in it, but no power on earth can make it centre round it. I suppose your correspondents know The King's English by the compilers of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. It is at once helpful, interesting, and
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