SIGNIFICANCK OF ERRORS IN SPEECH. 45 



We began by considering the unstable mental and physical 

 conditions under which language operates, whereby change in 

 meaning and sound seemed a priori necessitated. The various 

 motives which direct these changes toward decreasing the effort 

 of speech and increasing its significance have been briefly 

 illustrated by both correct and incorrect forms of English 

 speech. Among them we find no error of speech without its 

 analogue in a correct form, and it is suggested that further 

 illustration would but confirm this result. All forms, correct 

 and incon-ect, seem to be the product of the same processes 

 modifying the imitation of the language that comes to us. 

 Such a modification is at first an error of meaning or pronun- 

 ciation — an anticipant of future legitimate forms. In time, 

 it supplants the old meaning or pronunciation — and becomes 

 a standard form. Later still, another modification sets in and 

 the former again becomes an error — a survival of what was 

 once conect. Every correct form of language was or will be 

 an error some time, and every error was once correct or repre- 

 sents forms that will some time be correct. The en-or is only 

 an error in time. It is the sign of life. By it the living lan- 

 ouaoe is distinguished from the dead. 



MINUTES OF MEETINGS. 



September 7, 1905. — Regular monthly meeting. The 

 Committee on Programme was announced by the President. 

 The work of John B. Burk, of Cambridge, England, on the 

 origin of life, was discussed. Charles Potts described a curi- 

 ous synchronism of motion in the numerous individuals of a 

 colony of the Tent Caterpillar. Additions to the Librar\' : 

 Statistical Atlas of the Census Bureau, Abstract of the Tenth 

 Census. 



October 5, 1905 — Regular monthly meeting. Dr. L. M. 

 Underbill, of Media, was elected to membership. A report 

 was received from the Publication Committee. The subject of 



