Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/183

 elder day it should mean nothing more nor less in a later. An added meaning, a variation in shade, an increase of capacity—these have been accounted linguistic offenses;—and we have not been able to escape the conviction that the enthusiasts were unduly carried away from a rational course by false perspective, albeit with good intents.

We always have had over-zealous defenders of our tongue, ever ready to kill words and phrases “smelling of the plow-tail,” as Boccaccio says, or coming from the “vulgar lower classes,” as the snob would say. Despite the strictures, however, of these purist knights, such phrases as “let the mind lie fallow,” “harrow up the soul,” “sow sedition broadcast,” “winnow a mass of testimony,” and others of a like kind, have crept into English, and they show no signs of leaving it. Slang passing into dialect and dialect into idiom vitalizes and enriches language. For example, “to keep posted” has taken on a wider meaning than “to keep informed.” To be