7 



"two trains collided^'' instead of, as formerly, "came into collision.'^ 

 Another word which has lately come into general use is lengthy, in 

 the place of long, applied more specially to a speech or article. 

 The word lengthy, as it used formerly to be used, always involved 

 more or less of the sense of tediousness. And if, ten years ago, 

 any one had happened to make the remark (which I noted in a 

 paper a day or two ago) "that Gladstone had made a lengthy 

 speech," he might probably have met with the retort, " Not a bit 

 too long ; '' whereas now the word is accepted as simply doing 

 duty in place of long. This substitution, then, I take to be by no 

 means a gain to the language. Instead of our word big, as applied 

 to a man, woman, or child, the Americans have for some time 

 used the word large, and I perceive that in this also we are now 

 beginning to follow suit. Looking at the origin and the etymo- 

 logical connections of the respective words, I cannot think that 

 this is a change for the better. Then again, the word woman 

 seems, at least in common speech, to be in a fair way of becoming 

 extinct in America, where it is superseded by the word lady. The 

 same seems to be to a great extent the case in England ; and if 

 you should happen to cast your eye over a list of public-houses to 

 let in the columns of a newspaper, you will find in not a few cases, 

 after a recapitulation of various attractions, such as "good drinking 

 neighbourhood," &c., the concluding remark, "would suit a lady." 

 But of all the words they have made us a present of, there is none 

 to my mind more objectionable than the word mammoth, as 

 applied to something very big. In America everything on a great 

 scale is a mainmoth thing, from the great cave of that name in 

 Kentucky, to the last large grain elevator ; and the word, I am 

 sorry to say, is becoming completely naturalised in England. I go 

 along the railway, and I see on the station walls an advertisement 

 of a '■'■mavimoth turnip;" in one of the very first of provincial 

 papers, I read of the " mammoth yacht built for the Emperor of 

 Russia ; " and even as I am writing this I take up one of the 

 London evening papers and am informed that Cook made a 

 ^^mafnmoth break" at billiards. Fancy a word taken from a 



