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OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



briefly and compactly an unambiguous 

 meaning. It would hardly be believed 

 how often a writer is compelled to a 

 circumlocution by the single vulgar- 

 ism, introduced during the last few 

 years, of using the word alone as an 

 adverb, only not being fine enough for 

 the rhetoric of ambitious ignorance. 

 A man will say, "To which I am not 

 alone bound by honour, but also by 

 law," unaware that what he has un- 

 intentionally said is, that he is not 

 alone bound, some other person being 

 bound with him. Formerly, if any 

 one said, " I am not alone responsible 

 for this," he was understood to mean 

 (what alone his words mean in correct 

 English) that he is not the sole per- 

 son responsible ; but if he now used 

 such an expression, the reader would 

 be confused between that and two 

 other meanings — that he is not only 

 responsible but something more, or 

 that he is responsible not only for this 

 but for something besides. The time 

 is coming when Tennyson's CEnone 

 could not say, *' I will not die alone," 

 lest she should be supposed to mean 

 that she would not only die but do 

 something else. 



The blunder of writing predicate 

 for predict has become so widely dif- 

 fused that it bids fair to render one 

 of the most useful terms in the scien- 

 tific vocabulary of Logic unintelli- 

 gible. The mathematical and logical 

 term "to eliminate" is undergoing 

 a similar destruction. All who are 

 acquainted either with the proper use 

 of the word or with its etjnoiology, 

 know that to eliminate a thing is to 

 thrust it out ; but those who know 

 nothing about it, except that it is a 

 fine-looking phrase, use it in a sense 

 precisely the reverse, to denote, not 

 turning anything out, but bringing it 

 in. They talk of eliminating some 

 truth, or other useful result, from a 

 mass of details.* A similar permanent 



* Though no such evil consequences as 

 take place in these instances are likely to 

 arise from the modern freak of writing 

 tanatory instead of sanitary, it deserves 

 notice as a charming specimen of pedantry 

 engrafted upon ignorance. Those who thus 



deterioration in the language is in 

 danger of being produced by the 

 blunders of translators. The writers 

 of telegrams and the foreign corre- 

 spondents of newspapers have gone 

 on so long translating demander by 

 " to demand," without a suspicion that 

 it means only to ask, that (the context 

 generally showing that nothing else is 

 meant) English readers are gradually 

 associating the English word demand 

 with simple asking, thus leaving the 

 language without a term to express a 

 demand in its proper sense. In like 

 manner, "transaction," the French 

 word for a compromise, is translated 

 into the English word transaction ; 

 while, curiously enough, the inverse 

 change is taking place in France, 

 where the word '* compromis " has 

 lately begun to be used for expressing 

 the same idea. If this continues, the 

 two countries will have exchanged 

 phrases. 



Independently, however, of the gene- 

 ralisation of names through their igno- 

 rant misuse, there is a tendency in 

 the same direction consistently with 

 a perfect knowledge of their meaning, 

 arising from the fact that the number 

 of things known tc us, and of which 

 we feel a desire to speak, multiply 

 faster than the names for them. Ex- 

 cept on subjects for which there has 

 been constructed a scientific termino- 

 logy, with which unscientific persons 

 do not meddle, great difficulty is gene- 

 rally found in bringing a new name 

 into use ; and independently of that 

 difficulty, it is natural to prefer giving 

 to a new object a name which at least 

 expresses its resemblance to something 

 already known, since by predicating 

 of it a name entirely new we at first 

 convey no information. In this man- 

 ner the name of a species often be- 

 comes the name of a genus ; as salt, 

 for example, or oil; the former of 

 which words originally denoted only 



undertake to correct the spelling of the 

 classical English writers are not aware 

 that the meaning of sanatory, if there were 

 such a word in the language, would have 

 reference not to the preservation of health, 

 but to the cure of disease. 



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