Page:A Desk-Book of Errors in English.djvu/123

Rh piled up so as to form an elevation"; any other application of the word is colloquial.

hearty: As applied to the appetite is so common at this day that it seems perhaps hypercritical to object to it; and the dictionaries of course give the sense, for it is the lexicographer's duty to record the language as it exists not as it ought to exist. That is hearty which proceeds from the heart; to extend the sentiment to the appetite, or to a meal, or to its eater, as is done by common usage, seems taking a liberty with the word, and applying a fine and expressive term to a comparatively unworthy object.

heir: Pronounce without aspirating the h. Distinguish between heir apparent and heir presumptive. The former is "one who must by course of law become the heir if he survive his ancestor"; the latter, "one whose present legal expectation of becoming heir may be defeated by the birth of a person in near degree of relationship." Thus, a man may to-day be heir persumptive to his bachelor brother who by marriage may in a year's time become the father of a son, who will then become heir apparent; and by this circumstance the claims of the former heir presumptive are quashed.

The says: "Heir is often colloquially applied to one who receives or is to receive a property by will. In legal terminology such a person is a devisee or legatee, not an heir." As