CANADIAN ENGLISH. 345 



words which are neither English in character, nor needed to supply any 

 deficiency in the language ; and even where peculiar circumstances 

 may make such a coinage, or such perversion of words from their 

 primary significance pardonable, the circumstances are continually 

 disregarded, and they are applied in cases where no such need exists, 

 to the exclusion of the proper phrase, and to the injury of the language. 



Canada inevitably partakes of the same influences. Her language 

 is largely affected by such lawless and vulgar innovations. New 

 words are coined for ourselves by a process similar to that which 

 calls them into being in the neighbouring States ; still more, they are 

 imported by travellers, daily circulated by American newspapers, and 

 eagerly incorporated into the language of our Provincial press. The 

 result is that, with that alacrity at sinking which belong to human 

 nature, we are in a fair way of appropriating what is worthless in 

 the word coinage of our neighbours, in addition to all which our 

 peculiar position may generate among ourselves. 



It is not necessary to attempt any methodic classification of words 

 or phrases ; the purpose of this paper will be sufficiently accomplish- 

 ed by noticing a few of the most characteristic novelties as they 

 occur to me. Neither shall I make any distinction between obsolete 

 words and modern inventions. It is enough if it can be shown that 

 words, unrecognized by good authors, are daily used ; that words duly 

 recognized are used in improper ways ; or that extraordinary creations, 

 and combinations of letters and phrases, are extensively circulated 

 without supplying a recognized want, or contributing in any sense to 

 the enrichment of the language. To refer, then, to a few examples 

 of such transatlantic innovations on the English language : when Eng- 

 lishmen wish to mark their sense of the services of some public per- 

 sonage, by a suitable testimonial, they are said to give or present 

 something to him, and the thing so given or presented is called a gift 

 ov present. But with us it is becoming fashionable to speak of such 

 a gift as a donation, and still more of a thing donated. A. minister 

 is, with peculiar delicacy, dragged up before two or three hundred 

 people and a band of music, to receive & present from his congrega- 

 tion, of a horse, it may be, or a purse of money, — and this gift, dub- 

 bed a donation, is donated to him at what is called a donation-meeting. 

 Webster says, that donation is usually applied to things of more value 

 than presents • but while such may be true in the States, I have known 

 it applied here to a basket of musty cakes. I suppose that donation^ 

 has a certain meaning in law. Its most ordinary English application 

 is to a single gift in money, in contra-distinction to the periodical 



