“It had a prodigious quantity of windows.”—Spence’s Excursions. It should be number. This error frequently occurs in common conversation. We hear of “a quantity of people,” of “a quantity of troops,” “a quantity of boys and girls,” just as if they were to be measured by the bushel, or weighed in the balance.—“To-morrow will suit me equally well.” If we enquire here for a nominative to the verb, we find none, morrow being under the government of the preposition. This error is so common, that we fear its correction is hopeless. The translators of the Bible seem carefully to have avoided this inaccuracy:—“To-morrow (i.e. ‘on the morrow’) the Lord shall do this;” “And the Lord did that thing on the morrow.” Analogy requires, that we should say, “The morrow will suit me equally well.”
“I have the Dublin copy of Gibbon’s History.” This is a Scotticism for Dublin edition; and so palpable, that I should not have mentioned it, were it not found in authors of no contemptible merit. “I have no right to be forced,” said a citizen to a magistrate, “to serve as constable.” This perversion of the word right, originally, we believe, a cockneyism, is gradually gaining ground, and is found in compositions, into which nothing but extreme inattention can account for its introduction. A right implies a just claim, or title to some privilege, freedom, property, or distinction, supposed by the claimant to be conducive to his benefit. We should smile, if we heard a foreigner, in vindication of his innocence, say, “I have no right to be imprisoned;” “I have no right to be hanged.” The perversion here is too palpable to escape our notice. But we hear a similar, though not so ridiculous, an abuse of the word, in common conversation without surprise. “I have no right,” says one, “to be taxed with this indiscretion;” “I have no right,” says another, “to be subjected to this penalty.” These phraseologies are absurd. They involve a contradiction; they presume a benefit, while they imply an injury. The correlative term on one side is right, and on the other obligation; a creditor has a right to a just debt, and the debtor is under an obligation to pay it. Instead of these indefensible phraseologies we should say, “I am not bound,” or “I am under no obligation to submit to this penalty;” “I ought not to be taxed with this indiscretion,” or “you have no right to subject me,” “you have no right to tax me.”
Robertson, when speaking of the Mexican form of government (Book viith), says, “But the description of their policy and laws is so inaccurate and contradictory, that it is difficult to delineate the form of their constitution with any precision.” I should here prefer the appropriate and univocal term polity, which denotes merely the form of government; policy means rather wisdom or prudence, or the art of governing, which may exist where there is no settled polity.
“A letter relative to certain calumnies and misrepresentations which have appeared in the Edinburgh Review, with an exposition of the ignorance of the new critical junto.”—Here, agreeably to Canon I. (see [p. 229]), I should prefer exposure, as being a word strictly univocal. It would conduce to perspicuity were we to consider exposition as the verbal noun of expound, and confine it entirely to explanation, and exposure as the verbal noun of expose, signifying the act of setting out, or the state of being set out or exposed.
SECTION II.
THE ADJECTIVE.
BARBARISM.
“Instead of an able man, you desire to have him an insignificant wrangler, opiniatre in discourse, and priding himself on contradicting others.”—Locke. Opiniatre is a barbarism; it should be opinionative.
“And studied lines, and fictious circles draw.”—Prior.