Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/324

314 words; for example, instead of "Untersuchung" is written "Untersuch;" nay, even instead of "allmälig," "mälig;" instead of "beinahe," "nahe;" instead of "beständig," "ständig." If a Frenchman took upon himself to write "près" instead of "presque," or if an Englishman wrote "most" instead of "almost," they would be laughed at by every one as fools; but in Germany whoever does this sort of thing passes for a man of originality. Chemists already write "löslich" and "unlöslich" instead of "unauflöslich," and if the grammarians do not rap them over the knuckles they will rob the language of a valuable word. Knots, shoe-strings, and also conglomerates of which the cement is softened, and all analogous things are "löslich" (can be loosed); but what is "auflöslich" (soluble), on the other hand, is whatever vanishes in a liquid, like salt in water. "Auflösen" (to dissolve) is the terminus ad hoc, which says this and nothing else, marking out a definite conception; but our acute improvers of the language wish to empty it into the general rinsing-pan "lösen" (to loosen); they would therefore in consistency be obliged to make "lösen" also take the place everywhere of "ablösen" (to relieve, used of guards), "auslösen" (to release), "einlösen" (to redeem), &c., and in these, as in the former case, deprive the language of definiteness of expression. But to make the language poorer by a word means to make the thought of the nation poorer by a conception. Yet this is the tendency of the united efforts of almost all our writers of books for the last ten or twenty years. For what I have shown here by one example can be supported by a hundred others, and the meanest stinting of syllables prevails like a disease. The miserable wretches actually count the letters, and do not hesitate to mutilate a word, or to use one in a false sense, whenever by doing so they can gain two letters. He who is capable of no new thoughts will at least bring new words to market, and every ink-slinger regards it as his vocation to improve the language. Journalists practise