Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/352

Rh in the literature of the day; from the other all that is mean and tawdry.

Our middle class (we beheld something of this kind in the Thirteenth Century) has an amazing love of cumbrous Latin words, which have not long been in vogue. This is seen in their early life. Winchester and Eton may call themselves colleges, Harrow and Rugby may call themselves schools; but the place, where the offspring of our shopkeepers are taught bad French and worse Latin, is an educational establishment or a polite seminary. The books used in our National schools show a lofty disdain for homespun English. As the pupils grow older, they do not care to read about a fair lady, but they are at once drawn to a female possessing considerable personal attractions. A brawl is a word good enough for a scuffle between peasants; but when one half-tipsy alderman mauls another, the brawl be&shy;comes a fracas. An émeute is a far genteeler word than a riot. A farmer, when he grows rich, prides himself on being an eminent agriculturist. The corruption is now spreading downward to the lower class; they are be&shy;ginning to think that an operative is something nobler than a workman. We may call King David a singer; but a triller of Italian trills must be known as a vocalist. Our fathers talked of healing waters; our new guide-books scorn even the term medicinal; therapeutic is the word beloved by all professors of the high polite style. Pope's well-known divine is being outdone; our ears are now become so polite, that sins must be called by new names, at which Wickliffe and Tyndale would have stared. I