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46 That the gravity of the situation is partially appreciated by the bureaucracy may be inferred from...—Times.

Excepting, instead of except, is to be condemned when there is no need for it. We say not excepting, or not even excepting, or without excepting; but where the exception is allowed, not rejected, the short form is the right one, as a comparison of the following examples will show:

Of all societies...not even excepting the Roman Republic, England has been the most emphatically...political.—.

The Minister was obliged to present the Budget before May each year, excepting in the event of the Cortes having been dissolved.—Times.

The sojourn of belligerent ships in French waters has never been limited excepting by certain clearly defined rules.—Times.

Excepting the English, French, and Austrian journalists present, no one had been admitted.—Times.

Innumerable other needless lengthenings might be produced, from which we choose only preventative for preventive, and to experimentalize for to experiment.

On the other hand, when usage has differentiated a long and a short form either of which might originally have served, the distinction must be kept. Immovable and irremovable judges are different things; the shorter word has been wrongly chosen in:

By suspending conscription and restoring the immovability of the Judges.—Times.

6. Merely ugly formations.

Bureaucracy.

The termination -cracy is now so freely applied that it is too late to complain of this except on the ground of ugliness. It may be pointed out, however, that the very special ugliness of bureaucracy is due to the way its mongrel origin is flaunted in our faces by the telltale syllable -eau-; it is to be hoped that formations similar in this respect may be avoided.

An ordinary reader, if asked what was the main impression given by the Short History of the English People, would answer that it was the impression of picturesqueness and vividity.—.

In sound, there can be no question between vividity with its