Five Hundred Mistakes of Daily Occurrence in Speaking, Pronouncing, and Writing the English Language, Corrected
“It is highly important, that whatever we learn or know, we should know correctly; for unless our knowledge be correct, we lose half its value and usefulness.”— Conversations on Botany.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by WALTON BURGESS, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
This book is offered to the public, not to be classed with elaborate or learned works, nor expected, like some of its more pretending companions among the offspring of the press, to run the gauntlet of literary criticism. It was prepared to meet the wants of persons—numbered by multitudes in even the most intelligent and refined communities—who from deficiency of education, or from carelessness of manner, are in the habit of misusing many of the most common words of the English language, distorting its grammatical forms, destroying its beauty, and corrupting its purity. The most thorough mode that could be adopted to correct such errors, would doubtless be to impart to the ignorant a practical knowledge of the principles of language, as embodied in treatises on grammar; but such a good work, however desirable its results, has, in time past, been too difficult for the promoters of education to complete, and is still too great to give promise of speedy accomplishment. A better expedient, bearing immediate fruits, has been adopted in the present volume, which, while it does not aim to produce a radical reform, cannot fail to render great service to those who need to improve their usual modes of expression, and to be more discriminating in their choice of words.
The more frequent and less excusable mistakes that may be noticed in ordinary conversation or correspondence, are here taken up, one by one—exposed, explained, and corrected. They consist variously of abuses of grammar, misapplications of words and phrases, improprieties of metaphor and comparison, misstatements of meaning, and faults of pronunciation. They are grouped miscellaneously, without classification , not so much because of the difficulty of devising an arrangement that would be systematic and intelligible, as from the evident fact that a division of subjects would render no assistance to those for whom the book is specially designed; for an appropriate classification would necessarily derive its features from the forms of grammar, and with these the readers of this book are supposed to be to a great extent unfamiliar.
Walton Burgess
“NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN!”
FIVE HUNDRED MISTAKES
OF DAILY OCCURRENCE
CORRECTED.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
FIVE HUNDRED MISTAKES CORRECTED.
THE
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