cases, looking at them from the mechanical point of view, is, have we 

 need of this tool, and is it the best we can readily procure ? If so, 

 we shall be just so much the poorer for rejecting it on account of its 

 uncouth appearance. 



It ought to be remembered indeed that our list of words, numerous 

 as it is, is yet not comprehensive enough to fulfill the highest ideal of 

 a perfect tongue. We need more tools, a good many of them, and it 

 sometimes seems a pity rather that we cannot manufacture and intro- 

 duce them when the need is perceived than that some of those we have, 

 offend in their composition the strict requirements of congruity. We 

 badly need, for instance, epicene pronouns in the singular answering to 

 they, them and their in the plural. True it is, one can often use he, 

 him and his, expecting hearers or readers to remember that k 'the 

 brethren embrace the sistern." True it also is, one can often get 

 around the difficulty by rearranging a sentence; but there is a diffi- 

 culty, for all that. A man wishes to say that each of his two children, 

 a boy and a girl, has the exclusive use of a bedroom. He naturally 

 begins : " Each of my children has a room to " — how shall he finish ? 

 It is not quite right to say that each has a room to himself, or to 

 herself, and it is certainly far from grammatical or pleasing to say 

 themselves. What shall he do? The problem is of daily occurrence, 

 as any one will find who will take pains to watch for it. 



We need, too, a preteri te for the verb ought. We are compelled to say, 

 "you ought to have done such and such things" — which is by no 

 means what we really mean. One cannot possibly be under obligation 

 to have done anything — the phrase is absurd ; all obligation is to do, 

 and it would be an important gain in the direction of clearness and 

 conciseness if we might say, when speaking of past time, " you 

 oughted." 



We need, again, a word almost synonymous with many, but having 

 a slightly different shade of meaning — a lack which is often supplied, 

 awkwardly and incorrectly, by the use of numerous with a plural noun. 

 People say, "there are numerous books on that subject "— which is 

 clearly ungiammatical ; there may be a numerous list of book, but 

 that expression, correct in syntax, does not seem quite to express the 

 idea ; and to say there are many books may be rather too strong a 



We need, once more, a verb for which replace is commonly substi- 

 tuted, there being nothing better at hand. One removes a painting 

 from his wall and hangs up an engraving in its stead. For a brief 

 statement of this action, we have at present nothing better than to 

 say that the painting was replaced by the engraving. Yet this is really 

 nonsense. To replace a thing is to put it back where it was before. 



