the Hearth. Prescott: Conquest of Mexico; Conquest of Peru. Ruskin: King of the Golden River; Sesame and Lilies; Selections. Scott: Abbot; Ivanhoe; Kenilworth: Lady of the Lake; Lay of the Last Minstrel; Marmion; Old Mortality; Quentin Durward; Talisman; Woodstock. Shakespeare: As You Like It; Hamlet; Julius Cæsar; King Lear; Macbeth; Merchant of Venice; Midsummer Night's Dream; Tempest; Twelfth Night; the plays concerned with English history. Shelley: Selections. Sophocles: Antigone; Edipus King (Jebb's or Plumptre's translation). Spenser Faerie Queene. Stevenson: David Balfour; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Kidnapped; Poems; Treasure Island. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin. Swift: Gulliver's Travels. Tacitus: Agricola; Germania. Taylor, Bayard: Views Afoot. Tennyson: Poems. Thackeray: English Humorists; Henry Esmond; Pendennis; Four Georges; Newcomes; Vanity Fair. Thoreau: Walden. Thucydides (Jowett's translation). Trevelyan: Life of Macaulay. Tyndall Hours of Exercise in the Alps. Webster: First Bunker Hill Oration; Plymouth Oration. White: Natural History of Selborne. Whittier : Snow-Bound; Tent on the Beach. Wordsworth: Selections. II WORDS FREQUENTLY MISUSED [This list contains words which young students frequently misuse. The writer suggests that pupils learn to distinguish between literary usage and colloquial usage, and to understand that many words are appropriately used in familiar conversation that would be inappropriate in serious writing intended for the general public. He suggests also that pupils recognize that there is such a thing as "divided usage." That is, that many men of scholarship and education approve words and uses of words which are not approved of by men of equal scholarship and education.] Accept. Sometimes confused with except. We accept a present; we except some one from a general statement. Admire. Used for "like": "I should admire to go." [Vulgar.] Affect. Sometimes confused with effect. Pain affects us unpleasantly. We effect a result when we bring it about. Aggravate. See page 32. Ain't, as in "I ain't going." [Vulgar.] Allow. "I allowed (declared) that I wouldn't go." Used only in certain parts of the country. Allude does not mean "to mention," but "to touch on in passing." Among. We go among the trees; between two trees. Animalculæ. The singular is animalcule or animalculum; the plural, animalcula. Anybody else's. The possessive of anybody else is either anybody else's or anybody's else. The former has been much objected to by some critics, but is perfectly correct. Any place. A vulgarism for anywhere. The same mistake occurs with regard to every place and same place. Anywheres. A vulgarism for anywhere. The same mistake occurs with regard to everywhere and somewhere. As. As is a relative pronoun in "such as I saw I liked"; that is, "I liked those which I saw." It is now used in this sense only after such. "If I do say so as shouldn't " is incorrect. Assist at. "Many guests assisted at the ceremony." An incorrect expression, taken from the French, for "were present at." Automobile, autotruck. Words just coming into use, and violently objected to. No substitutes likely to be accepted have yet appeared, however. Cf. electrocute, telegram, and cablegram. Avocation. Vocation means a man's calling or profession; avocation is what he takes up as an amusement or side issue. "His vocation was law; his avocation, gardening." Badly. See page 47. Balance. "Balance of the day or the party," a harmless figure of speech, derived from commercial language. Not in literary usage. Cf. posted. Behave. "Why doesn't he behave?" A colloquial, or perhaps vulgar, expression for "why doesn't he behave. well?" Being built. A long warfare has been waged over this and similar expressions, but they are perfectly correct. Such expressions as "the house is building," common in eighteenth century literature and not yet obsolete, are equivalent to the progressive form of the passive, e.g. "the house is being built," and were the regular forms before the participle being and the resulting form of the progressive passive came into use. The form in ing, in "the house is building," is historically, however, not the participle, but the participial infinitive; for the expression originally was "the house is in building," which was weakened to a-building and then to building. Between. See Among. Both. Used only with reference to two persons or objects Cablegram. Formed on the basis of telegram, and condemned by purists, who hold that the word is unnecessary. They would have us telegraph to London, and not cable or send a cablegram. Both cable and cablegram are likely to survive, however, because they are more specific; and, though now chiefly colloquial, they will probably be admitted into full literary usage. Calculate. Sometimes used loosely, outside of its strictly mathematical meaning, as equivalent to think or guess, or to purpose, intend, or design. "You are wrong there, I calculate." To be avoided. Can. See page 46. Claim. Best used when a real claim is involved, as in "I claim that land," or "I claim that you have broken the rules," and not when merely equivalent to "assert," as in "I claim that it is going to rain." Combine, for "combination," as in "a great combine." [Vulgar.] Commence. Exactly synonymous in all ordinary uses with begin; the latter, however, is a simpler word. Complected. "A light complected man." [Vulgar.] Complement. Sometimes confused with compliment. Deadly. Sometimes confused with deathly. Definite. Sometimes confused with definitive, which means "final." Definite action on a question is not necessarily definitive action, though it may usually be so. Demean. Strictly, "to demean oneself" means "to carry oneself," "to behave oneself." Demeanor is practically the same as "behavior." But by association with the adjective "mean" the word has acquired in popular usage the sense of "debase." This meaning is avoided by scrupulous writers. Depot. The French word means a "storehouse and is inappropriate in its popular use. Station is rapidly taking Directly. "I will come directly I hear from you," for "as soon as I hear from you," is an incorrect expression common in Great Britain. Discover. Sometimes confused with invent. Don't. A common colloquial contraction of "do not." Sometimes used colloquially, even by educated people, for "does not." Drive. In England the somewhat artificial distinction is made between driving (in a carriage) and riding (on horseback). In the United States we sometimes make the same distinction, though we are more inclined to use drive of a carriage when we actually hold the reins, and ride of a carriage when we are carried passively, e.g. "I rode over the mountains in a stage coach"; but we use ride rather than drive of saddle-horses. Each other. It used to be said that each other was used of two people and one another of more than two. The distinction does not hold good, but it is true that each other is more naturally used of small bodies. "Love one another" refers to people in general. "They loved each other" would naturally refer to a pair or small group. Eat (pronounced et). An old preterite of eat, now supplanted by ate, but still sometimes heard. Cf. a similar preterite of heat, which must be classed as vulgar English. Editorial. The American equivalent of the British leader. Cf. elevator and lift. Elective. Colloquial, in some colleges, for "elective course." Electric. Colloquial or vulgar for "electric car." |