内容简介：
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tinction is marked with precision in two such phrases as?" in a field " and " on a common ": the circumstances being in all respects alike save in the presence of inclosing fences in the one case and their absence in the other case. The disuse of this convenient distinction is a retrograde step, for development of language, as of thought, is a progress in establishing discriminations?a making of existing words more precise and introducing others to mark further differences. Men ought to regard their language as an inheritance to be conserved, and improved so far as that is possible, and ought not to degrade it by reversion to lower types. It should be a matter of conscience not to misuse words; it should also be a matter of conscience to resist misuse of them. Especially should our own language be thus guarded. If, as several unbiassed foreign judges hold, the English language will be, and ought to be, the universal language, it becomes the more a duty to mankind to check bad habits of speech. Perhaps a little might be done if in return for criticisms on Americanisms like those above passed, Americans were systematically to expose deteriorations in the language as spoken here. They might, for example, mercilessly ridicule that vulgar misuse of the word " awfully " which has now continued for more than a generation. There is plenty of scope for denouncing of kindred perversions. PKESENCE OF MIND. While most faculties admit of increase by education, there are some universally recognized as innate, and but little capable of change. We may include Presence of Mind among these. Still, by certain disciplines a great faculty of this kind may be made greater and a small one may be to some degree augmented. A generation ago the autobiography of a well- known conjurer or pres...