Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/11

 9 th S. I. JAN. 1,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

3

This theory fits in with the ordinary rules of Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, and, so far as I am aware, is not open to any grammatical or historical objection. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

Kingsland, Shrewsbury.

" DIFFERENT ": " THAN." THE present note relates to the improper use of than for other particles, especially to its association with different, by which it was suggested. We may regard it as a strict grammatical precept that the adjective differ- ent should have the same syntax as the verb differ; I mean that as we write " My policy differs from yours," so we ought to write " is different from yours." This precept, however, is disregarded by writers, regularly rather than exceptionally, who generally use the combination "different to," and at times startle us with a far worse cacology. Thus a critique of Mr. Forbes Robertson's repro- duction of ' Hamlet ' at the Lyceum Theatre, which appeared in Reynolds's Newspaper for 12 Sept. last, contains the following : " Some of her [Mrs. Patrick Campbell's] little graces are of a different order than those to which Miss Ellen Terry has accustomed us." Again, in the Star of 25 Nov. (p. 3) the coroner, inquiring into a death in Stamford Street, is reported to have said that a certain girl, if brought before the jury, "would tell them something different than the witness did."

The literary status of these papers is too low to give importance to any grammatical irre- gularity found in their columns ; and if the two examples just cited stood alone I should not have thought it worth while to submit them to your readers. Unfortunately such is not the case. How extensively the irregularity has prevailed may be learned from the 'His- torical English Dictionary,' and beyond the dates there given I can cite two other ex- amples from writers of some repute. The first, the more recent, is in the October num- ber of the Nineteenth Century in an article on our Indian frontier policy by Sir Lepel Griffin, who writes (p. 515):

"I have only incidentally touched on the question of Chitral, as the policy of that occupation rests on different grounds than that of worrying the tribes on our immediate borders into hostility.

The other example occurs in one of the earlier volumes of Phillimore's 'International Law.' I cannot give a more exact reference or even quote the passage, as it came under my notice before I thought of keeping a black book for offenders against "Queen's English."

The circumstances connected with this last- mentioned example are curious. If I was

surprised at finding an author of academic education committing to paper such wretched English, I was astounded when I saw the reply which Mr. (now Sir) Walter Phillimpre, assisting his father with the third edition, made to the press reader who directed atten- tion to the solecism : "We find it correct" ! The obvious rejoinder would have been, after Sir Walter's phrase, "I find you obtuse." It is a pity he did not give his reasons for "finding" different than "correct," for if any- body can defend a bad cause it should be a lawyer ; though grammar, not being essential to forensic success, is little in a oarrister's line. If it be suggested that " different to " is defensible by an appeal to Latin, on the ground that differ ens is found sometimes with a dative instead of the preposition ab, I reply that an imitation of the syntax of differre, which was sometimes constructed with a dative, would equally warrant such a con- struction as "My policy differs to yours." But, at all events, Latin analogy cannot be alleged for "different than," because "differens quam" is not Latin, as Sir Walter Phillimore must know ; for if he learned nothing of Eng- lish at Westminster or Oxford, he was cer- tainly instructed in Latin. As may be seen on reference to the ' H. E. D.,' many eminent writers have constructed different with than, examples being presented from Oliver Gold- smith and the late Dr. Newman. The more is the shame ; the expression is simply a vul- garism repeated parrot-like by those whose education should have enabled them to dis- tinguish bad from good speech.

This cacology arises from confusion of different^ with other in regard to grammar, the fact being forgotten or ignored that each word has its own syntax. And here note the perversity of writers in not only using than where it is improper, as I have shown, but not using it where it is proper. After other our grammars direct us to use than, but in practice this particle is mostly replaced in affirmative propositions by besides, and in negative or interrogative by besides, except, or but, the use of the last particle in this way dating from Anglo-Saxon times: "Mseg ic 6Sre sprecan biiton ]>set Drihten het ? " which is the rendering of " Num aliud possum loqui, nisi quod jusserit Dominus?" (Numbers xxiii. 12.) Modern examples are after these patterns "I have another book besides this," "I have no other book besides [except, but] this " which are tautological or pleonastic. And, as if this were not enough, some authors use from in place of than. Coleridge, for instance, in the ' Piccolomini' (I. xii. 106), puts into the mouth of Questenberg :