i86 WILD BIRDS 



wild is often the finch in the flock, and the only 

 flocked birds I hear singing are linnets at the close 

 of summer, and the starlings. 



VILLAGE TONGUES 



Trench says in one of his books that if Anglo- 

 Saxon is the woof of our language Latin is the weft. 

 Of course this is true, but who with a taste for words 

 does not choose where he can the woof ? The real 

 English word is not only so much sweeter in poetry 

 it is so much stronger in prose. 



The short, easy to speak, easy to write Anglo- 

 Saxon word strikes straight and simply home. It 

 is so clear and simple, so finely direct ! The Latin 

 words I mean the words that come from the Latin 

 or many thousands of them at least, may be well 

 enough naturalised, and we should be woefully halt 

 of speech without them ; but the Anglo-Saxon words 

 are felt to be our real national words, the absolute 

 English part of the English tongue. It is this 

 which makes the lingering dialect of our country 

 folk valuable and worth keeping. 



I do not know whether free education teaches 

 Latin I am sure it does not like Anglo-Saxon. 

 Probably within fifty years most of the fine old 

 English words that linger in outlying villages and 

 hamlets in the South of England will be dead 

 words ; and with them will go most of the local 

 sayings. A good many of these sayings touch on 

 woodland matters. Woodworkers in the South 

 are very old-fashioned. Cutting underwood and 



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