“In words, as fashions, the same
rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new or old;
Be not the first by whom the new
are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old
aside.”
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Barbarisms
Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, says that
a word to be
legitimate must have these three signs of authority:
1. It must be reputable, or that of educated
people, as opposed to
that of the ignorant or vulgar.
2. It must be national, as opposed to what is
either local or
technical. 3. It must
be present, as opposed to what is obsolete.
Any word that does not have these three qualities may, in general, be styled a barbarism.
Anglicizedwords
Many foreign words, in process of time, become so thoroughly domesticated that their translation, or the use of an awkward equivalent, would be a greater mark of pedantry than the use of the foreign words. The proper use of such terms as fiat, palladium, cabal, quorum, omnibus, antique, artiste, coquette, ennui, physique, regime, tableau, amateur, cannot be censured on the ground of their foreign character.
Obsoletewords
Some writers affect an antiquated style by the introduction
of such words as peradventure, perchance,
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anon, behest, quoth, erewhile. The use of such words gives a strange sound to the sentence, and generally indicates that the writer is not thoroughly in earnest. The expression is lowered in tone and is made to sound fantastic.
Newwords
A word should not be condemned because it is new. If it is really needed it will be welcomed, and soon find a permanent place. Shakespeare, Addison, and Johnson introduced many new words, to which their names afterward gave a sanction. Carlyle, Coleridge, Tennyson, and Browning have introduced or given currency to new words, and made strange ones familiar.
New words are objectionable when they are employed
without proper authority. The chief sources of
supply of the objectionable kind are the current slang
of the street and the sensational newspaper. They
are often the result of a desire to say things in such
a manner as to reflect smartness upon the speaker,
or to present things in a humorous or picturesque
way. That they are frequently very effective cannot
be gainsaid. Sometimes they are coined in the
heat of political or social discussion, and, for a
time, express what everybody is talking about; but
it is impossible to tell whether they will live beyond
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the occasion that produced them. So long as their usage is doubtful it is safer not to employ them.
Slang
Slang is somewhat like chicken-pox or measles, very


