Society for Pure English

“ IV. Although men of letters may occasionally add to the resources of the language by word-coinage, their main activity is and must be one of selection. They are forced, for the most part, to choose their vocabulary from the supplies at hand, and by their choice they do much to give prevalence to the words which meet with their approval. Now, believing that language is or should be democratic both in character and origin, and that its best word-makers are the uneducated, and not the educated classes, we would prefer vivid popular terms to the artificial creations of scientists. ”

“ Why should we call a nondescript medley of dialogue and dance and song a revue, when revue in French is the exact equivalent of 'review' in English? Why should we call an actress of comic characters a comédienne and an actress of tragic characters a tragédienne, when we do not call a comic actor a comédien or a tragic actor a tragédien? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seem to be too exclusively masculine—so that a want is felt for words to indicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. ”

“ Writers fall into habitual metaphor when they fear that their thought will seem too commonplace without ornament; and, because the motive is unconscious, they choose metaphors familiar to themselves and their readers. ”

“ As the French are noted rather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are the acknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is more disputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their language exhibits the varied refinements of a cultivated society where conversation is held in honour as one of the arts. The English speech, like the English-speaking peoples, is bolder, more energetic, more suggestive, and perhaps less precise. From no language could English borrow with more profit to itself than from French ”

“ It is impossible to crush the Government's aim to restore the means of living and working freely. 'Crush' for baffle, 'aim' for purpose, are both dead metaphors so long as they are kept apart, but the juxtaposition forces on us the thought that you cannot crush an aim. ”

“ The ideal of the Society is that our language in its future development should be controlled by the forces and processes which have formed it in the past; that it should keep its English character, and that the new elements added to it should be in harmony with the old ”

“ National military training is the bedrock on which alone we can hope to carry through the great struggles which the future may have in store for us. 'Bedrock' and 'carry through' are both moribund or dormant, but not stone-dead. ”

“ Perhaps it would be simpler to say that until comparatively recently a foreign word taken over into English was made over into an English word, whereas in the past two or three centuries there has been an evident tendency to keep it French and to use it freely while retaining its French pronunciation, its French accents, its French spelling, and its French plural. This tendency is contrary to the former habits of our language. It is dangerous to the purity of English. It forces itself on our attention and it demands serious consideration. ”

“ We may, on the one hand, receive into our gill its precise content of the complex mixture that fills the puncheon of the whole world's literature, on the other—to change the metaphor—our few small strings may thrill in sympathetic harmony to some lyrical zephyrs and remain practically unresponsive to the deep-sea gale of Aeschylus or Dante. ”

“ In most European countries men of letters, and the better class of journalists, are trained to observe the changes of the language, and to assist consciously in its development, being guided by acknowledged principles of tradition and taste. But the English language, which is now rapidly spreading over the world, is subject to no such guidance, and to very little intelligent criticism. ”

“ A man of culture is likely to be familiar with one or more foreign languages; and perhaps he may be a little vain of his intimacy with them. He prefers to give the proper French pronunciation to the words which he recognizes as French; and moreover as the possession of culture, or even of education, does not imply any knowledge of the history of English or of the principles which govern its growth, the men of culture are often inclined to pride themselves on this pedantic procedure. ”

“ Thus, in The men were sifting meal we have a literal use of sift; in Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, 'sift' is a live metaphor; in the sifting of evidence, the metaphor is so familiar that it is about equal chances whether sifting or examination will be used, and a sieve is not present to the thought—unless, indeed, some one conjures it up by saying All the evidence must first be sifted with acid tests, or with the microscope; under such a stimulus our metaphor turns out to have been not dead, but dormant. ”

“ We have no present intention of engaging in the vexed question of the illogical and often absurd orthography of English. Members of the Society would perhaps desire some relaxation of these bonds, but we think it better to concentrate on other profounder modifications of the language which, though of first importance, are receiving no special attention. We are aware that proposals for violent change often defeat their own end, and make all reform impossible. ”

“ The principle which ought to govern can be stated simply. English should be at liberty to help itself freely to every foreign word which seems to fill a want in our own language. It ought to take these words on probation, so to speak, keeping those which prove themselves useful, and casting out those which are idle or rebellious. And then those which are retained ought to become completely English, in pronunciation, in accent, in spelling, and in the formation of their plurals. ”

“ III. DEAD METAPHORS Metaphor becomes a habit with writers who wish to express more emotion than they feel, and who employ it as an ornament to statements that should be made plainly or not at all. Used thus, it is a false emphasis, like architectural ornaments in the wrong place. It demands of the reader an imaginative effort where there has been no such effort in the writer, an answering emotion where there is none to be answered. And the reader gets the habit of refusing such effort and such emotion; he ceases even to be aware of metaphors that are used habitually. ”

“ The Society, therefore, will place itself in opposition to certain tendencies of modern taste; which taste it hopes gradually to modify and improve. Its object will be best exhibited by stating a few definite proposals which may be regarded as typical.
I. Literary taste at the present time, with regard to foreign words recently borrowed from abroad, is on wrong lines, the notions which govern it being scientifically incorrect, tending to impair the national character of our standard speech, and to adapt it to the habits of classical scholars. ”

“ To balance 'employer' there is 'employee', better by far than employé, which insists on a French pronunciation. Matthew Arnold and Lowell, always apt and exact in their use of their own tongue, were careful to prefer the English 'technic' to the French technique, which is not in harmony with the adjectives 'technical' and polytechnic. So 'clinic' seems at last to have vanquished its French father clinique, as 'fillet' has superseded filet; and now that 'valet' has become a verb it has taken on an English pronunciation. ”

“ Indeed one of their evils is that they make a writer and his readers believe that he is exercising his reason when he is only moving from trite image to image. If eloquence is reason fused with emotion, writing, or speaking, full of dead metaphors is unreason fused with sham emotion. ”

“ The fact that there will be a body of united opinion seems to us all that is needed: it is only required to marshal the forces.
Should the Society find sufficient support, it would be proposed that a small journal or occasional fly-leaves should be printed, in which questions of literary usage could be discussed in detail. The printing and distribution of useful papers by members able to help in this way could be easily arranged for by a small committee, which would be formed for dealing with this and other activities of the Society. ”

“ When we turn from the gas-engine on wings to the gas-engine on wheels, we find a heterogeny of words in use which bear witness to the fact that the French were the first to develop the motor-car, and also to the earlier fact that they had long been renowned for their taste and their skill as coach-builders. ”

“ We are none of us surprised when we find in our newspaper criticisms artiste, ballet, conservatoire, comédienne, costumier, danseuse, début, dénoûment, diseuse, encore, ingénue, mise-en-scène, perruquier, pianiste, première, répertoire, revue, rôle, tragédienne—the catalogue stretches out to the crack of doom. ”

“ In the more forward nations, the new republics, men have indeed risen from humble beginnings to high station, but not generally by constitutional means and usually only (as now in Russia) by wading to their places through blood. The dizzy height to which Lloyd George has attained, not as a British statesman only but also as a world celebrity, seems to leave the foreign nations breathless. It is a spectacle that has of itself some of the thrill and fascination of romance.
Here are metaphors that might be used, or have been used, so as to surprise the reader ”

“ Not only is some knowledge of dialects needful for any true understanding of the history and character of our language, but the standard speech has in the past derived much enrichment and what is called 'regeneration' from the picturesque vocabularies of local vernaculars. ”