Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere : The abstract humanity is equally adapted to both senses. By an error of the same kind with the former, the adjectives ceremonious and ceremonial are sometimes used promiscuously, though by the best and most general use they are distinguished. They come from the same noun ceremony, which signifies both a form of civility, and a religious rite. The epithet expressive of the first signification is ceremonious, of the second ceremonial. The word construction serves as the verbal noun of two different verbs, to construe and to construct. The first is a grammatical term, relating solely to the dispo sition of words in a sentence; the second signifies to fabricate or build. The common relation in which the two verbs stand to the same appellative, hath misled some writers to confound them; so far at least as to use improperly the word construct, and speak of constructing, instead of construing a sentence; for I have not observed the like misapplication of the other verb. We never hear of construing a fabric or machine. Academician is frequently to be found in Bolingbroke's works for academic. The former denotes solely with us a member of a French academy, or of one established on a similar footing; the latter a Platonic philosopher, one of that sect which took its denomination from the Grecian academy; or more properly from the grove of Academus, where the principles of that philosophy were first inculcated. By a like error, the words sophist and sophister are sometimes confounded; the proper sense of the former being a teacher of philosophy in ancient Greece; of the latter, a specious, but false reasoner. "To demean one's self" has been improperly used by some writers, misled by the sound of the second syllable, for "to debase one's self," or "to behave meanly;" + Essay on Criticism. whereas the verb to demean implies no more than the verb to behave. Both require an adverb, or something equivalent, to enable them to express whether the demeanour or behaviour is good or bad, noble or mean. E'er, a contraction of the adverb ever, hath, from a resemblance, or rather an identity in sound, been mistaken for the conjunction ere, before; and in like manner it's, the genitive of the pronoun it, for 'tis, a contraction of it is. In the same way bad is sometimes very improperly used for bade, the preterite of the verb bid, and sate for sat, the preterite of sit. The only proper use of the word bad is as a synonyma for ill; and to sate is the same in signification as to glut. The word genii hath by some writers been erroneously adopted for geniuses. Each is a plural of the same word genius, but in different senses. When genius in the singular means a separate spirit or demon good or bad, the plural is genii; when it denotes mental abili ties, or a person eminently possessed of these, the plural is geniuses. There are some similar instances in our tongue of different plurals belonging to the same singular in different significations. The word brother is one. The plural in modern language, when used literally for male children of the same parent or parents, is brothers; when used figuratively for people of the same profession, nation, religion, or people considered as related by sharing jointly in the same human nature is brethren. Anciently this last term was the only plural. I shall next specify improprieties arising from a similitude in sense, into which writers of considerable reputation have sometimes fallen. Veracity you will find, even among such, applied to things, and used for reality; whereas in strict propriety, the word is only applicable to persons, and signifies not physical, but moral truth. 66 "There is no sort of joy," says Dr Burnet,* " more grateful to the mind of man, than that which ariseth • Theory of the Earth, B. i. Ch. I. L L "from the invention of truth." For invention he ought to have said discovery. Epithet hath been used corruptly to denote title or appellation; whereas it only signifies some attribute expressed by an adjective. In the same way, verdict hath been made to usurp the place of testimony; and the word risible hath of late been perverted from its original sense, which is capable of laughing, to denote ridiculous, laughable, or fit to be laughed at. Hence these newfangled phrases risible jests, and risible absurdities. The proper discrimination between risible and ridiculous, is that the former hath an active, the latter a passive signification. Thus we say, "Man is a risible animal."-A fop is a ridiculous character." To substitute the former instead of the latter, and say, "A fop is a risible "character," is, I suspect, no better English, than to substitute the latter, instead of the former, and say, "Man is a ridiculous ani"mal." In confirmation of this distinction, it may be further remarked, that the abstract risibility, which analogically ought to determine the import of the concrete, is still limited to its original and active sense the faculty of laughter. Where our language hath provided us with distinct names for the active verbal and the passive, as no distinction is more useful for preventing ambiguity, so no distinction ought to be more sacredly observed. 66 But to proceed; the word together often supplies the place of successively, sometimes awkwardly enough, as in the following sentence. "I do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life.*” The resemblance which continuity in time bears to continuity in place, is the source of this impropriety, which, by the way, is become so frequent, that I am doubtful whether it ought to be included in the number. Yet, should this application generally obtain, it would, by confounding things different, often occasion ambiguity. If, for example, one should say, "Charles, William, and "David, lived together in the same house," in order to denote that William immediately succeeded Charles, and David succeeded William, every one would be sen . Spect. No. 1. sible of the impropriety. But if such a use of the word be improper in one case, it is so in every case. By an error not unlike, the word everlasting hath been employed to denote time without beginning, though the only proper sense of it be time without end; as in these words, "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.t" It may further be remarked of this term, that the true meaning is so strongly marked in its composition, that very frequent use will not be sufficient to prevent the misapplication from appearing awkward. I think, besides, that there is a want of correctness in using the word substantively. The proper expression is, "From eternity to eternity thou art God.' 66 Apparent for certain, manifest, (as it has been sometimes employed by a very eminent author, the late Lord Littleton) is often equivocal, and can hardly ever be accounted entirely proper. Both etymology and the most frequent use lead us so directly to the signification seeming as opposed to real, or visible as opposed to concealed, that at first we are always in hazard of mistaking it. For the same reason I do not like the phrase to make appear (though a very common one) for to prove, to evince, to show. By the aid of sophistry a man may make a thing appear to be what it is not. This is very different from what it is. Abundance, in the following quotation, is, I imagine, improperly used for a great deal. "I will only mention that passage of the buskins, which after abundance of persuasion, you would hardly suffer to be cut from your legs."* The word due, in the citation subjoined, is not only improperly, but preposterously employed. "What right "the first observers of nature, and instructors of mankind, had to the title of sages we cannot say. It was "due perhaps more to the ignorance of the scholars, than "to the knowledge of the masters." The author hath doubtless adopted the word due in this place, as pre • Ps. xc. 2. + Swift's Examiner. No. 27. Bolingb. Phil. Ess. ii. Sect. 1. ferable at least to the word owing, which, though an active participle, is frequently, and as some think inaccurately, employed in a passive sense. Thus, in order to avoid a latent error, if it be an error, he hath run into a palpable absurdity; for what can be more absurd than to say, that the title of sages is due more to ignorance than to knowledge? It had been better to give the sentence another turn, and to say, " It took its "rise perhaps more from the ignorance of the schol"ars, than from the knowledge of the masters." I shall add the improper use of the word surfeit, in the following quotation from Anson's Voyage round the World: "We thought it prudent totally to abstain "from fish, the few we caught at our first arrival, hav"ing surfeited those who eat of them." I should not have mentioned, indeed I should not have discovered this impropriety in that excellent performance, which would have passed with me for an expression somewhat indefinite, had it not been for the following passage in a late publication. "Several of our people were so much "disordered by eating of a very fine-looking fish, which "we caught here, that their recovery was for a long "time doubtful. The author of the account of Lord "Anson's Voyage says, that the people on board of the "Centurion, thought it prudent to abstain from fish, as "the few which they caught at their first arrival, sur"feited those who eat of them. But not attending sufficiently to this caution, and too hastily taking the "word surfeit in its literal and common acceptation, "we imagined that those who tasted the fish, when Lord "Anson first came hither, were made sick merely by eat"ing too much; whereas, if that had been the case, "there would have been no reason for totally abstaining, "but only eating temperately. We, however, bought "our knowledge by experience, which we might have "had cheaper; for though all our people who tasted "this fish, eat sparingly, they were all soon afterwards Anson's Voyage, B. iii. c. 2. |
