Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/374

Rh progenitors (audacious individuals!) approximated to their reliable auxiliaries, and were ovated with empresse&shy;ment; indoctrinated by a preliminary contretemps, they inaugurated hostilities in that locality, and demonstrated themselves as unintimidated by minatory vaticinations of catastrophe.

These three sentences at once carry the mind to Hengist, to William the Conqueror, and to the Victorian penny-a-liner. Of the three, the first is made up of good Teutonic words that are among our choicest heirlooms; some of them have been in our mouths for thousands of years, ever since we dwelt on the Oxus. The second sentence is made up of French words, many of which, so far back as the Thirteenth Century, had the right of citizenship in England; they are not indeed to be ranked with the Teutonic words already given, yet are often most helpful. The third sentence is made up of Latin words, mostly not brought in until after 1740; wholly unneeded in England, they are at once the laughing-stock of scholars and the idols of penny-a-liners. The first sentence is like a Highland burn; the second is like the Thames at Hampton Court; the third is like London