Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/205

V.] checked or altogether prevented. An element of consciousness, of reflectiveness, is introduced into the use of language; acknowledged imitation of certain models, deference to authority in matters of speaking, take the place of the former more spontaneous and careless employment of the common means of communication, governed only by the necessities of communication, which are always felt but not always reasoned upon. The best speakers, those who use words with most precision, with most fulness and force of meaning, with most grace and art, become the teachers of the rest. And however this influence be exerted, whether by simple recognition of authority in those who deserve it, or with the aid of a popular literature, handed down by tradition, or whether it rise to grammatical and lexical culture, to the possession of letters and learning, it is of the same nature; it produces its conserving and ennobling effects in the same way. It is the counsellor and guide, not the master, of national usage. It undertakes no wholesale reformation. It does not shear off from a language masses of unnecessary means of expression which untaught speakers would fain force upon it; it finds no such materials to deal with. Some write and speak as if the uncultivated employer of speech were impelled to launch out indefinitely into new words and forms, rioting in the profusion of his linguistic creations, until grammar comes to set bounds to his prodigality, and to reduce the common tongue within reasonable dimensions. But it is by no means so easy and seductive a thing to increase the resources of a language. We do not look to our dictionaries and grammars to know if we may use elements which come crowding to our lips and demanding utterance. Linguistic growth is a slow process, extorted, as it were, by necessity, by the exigencies of use, from the speakers of language. The obligation resting upon each one of making himself intelligible to his fellows, and understanding them in turn, is the check, and a sufficient one, upon individual license of production. Economy is a main element in linguistic development; that which is superfluous in a dialect, not needed for practical use, falls off and dies of itself, without waiting to be lopped away by the