Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/265

1868.] Latin compound of four syllables to express that which is better expressed in an English one of two. The language is full of words compounded of two or more simple ones, and which are used without a thought of their being themselves other than simple words—chestnut, walnut, household, husbandman, manhood, shepherd, anon, alone, wheelwright, toward, forward, and the like. The power to form such words is an element of wealth and strength in a language; and every word got up for the occasion out of the Latin or the Greek lexicon, when a possible English compound would serve the same purpose, is a standing but unjust reproach to the language—a false confession both of its weakness and inflexibility.

—Two correspondents, one of them at the Hub of the Universe and the other at the Capitol, have laid before me the great need—which they have discovered—of a new pronoun in English, and both have suggested the same means of supplying the deficiency. One of these gentlemen begins his letter thus: "In a discussion with my friend Mr. (a magazine contributor as yourself), the question arose whether any word had ever been invented for a specific purpose and occasion." The writer then goes on to say that he maintained the affirmative of this proposition on an occasion when he "was advocating the use of en, or some more euphonious substitute, as a personal pronoun, common gender." "A deficiency exists there," he continues, "and we should fill it." Some of my readers may be surprised that a gentleman who could write "a magazine contributor as yourself," should propose the making of a pronoun. But I am not at all surprised. On the contrary, that passage of the letter, regarded in all its aspects, is just what I should expect from a man who would undertake to supply new parts of speech on the shortest notice, and to furnish a new and elegant article of pronoun, as per order. My other correspondent has a somewhat juster notion of the magnitude of his proposition, or, as I should rather say, of its enormity. But, still, he insists that a new pronoun is "universally needed," and as an example of the inconvenience caused by the want, he gives the following sentence:

"Of course," he goes on to say, "that is incorrect; yet almost every one would say they. [This I venture to doubt.] Few would say in common conversation, 'If a person wishes to sleep, he or she mustn't eat cheese for supper.' It is too much trouble. We must have a word to take the place of he or she, his or hers, him or her, etc. … As the French make the little word en answer a great many purposes, suppose we take the same word, give it an English pronunciation (or any other word), and make it answer for any and every case of that kind, and thus tend to simplify the language."

This is the essential part of my correspondent's letter, to which there are two sufficient replies. First, the thing can't be done; last, it is not at all necessary or desirable that it should be done. And to consider the last point first. There is no such dilemma as the one in question. A speaker of good common sense and of fair mastery of the mother tongue would say, "If a man wishes to sleep, he must not eat cheese for supper," where man, as in the word mankind, is used in a general sense for the species. Any objection to this use of man, and of the relative pronoun, is for the consideration of the next Woman's Rights Convention, at which I hope it may be discussed with all the gravity beseeming its momentous significance. But as a slight contribution to the amenities of the occasion, I venture to suggest that to free the language of the oppression of the