Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/354

Rh even trench and the bristling mound is indeed a high I and mighty Queen, when seated on her own throne; she has dictated the verse of Catullus and the prose of Tacitus; her laws, given to the world by the mouths of heathen Emperors and Christian Popes, have had won&shy;drous weight with mankind. But no rash or vulgar hand should drag her into English common life; her help, in eking out our store of words, should be sought by none but ripe scholars, and even then most sparingly.

I once heard a country doctor say, ‘Let me percute your chest.’ This too common love of Latinized taw&shy;driness is fostered by the cheap press; the penny-a-liner is the outcome of the middle class. As I shall bestow some notice upon these individuals, to use the word dearest to their hearts, I think it as well first to say what I mean by the scornful term. The leading articles in our daily papers of the highest rank are the