The Paragraph.—In writing for the press, the division of matter into paragraphs is often quite arbitrary; in letter-writing, on the contrary, the several topics treated of should, as a rule, be isolated by paragraphic divisions. These divisions give one's letters a shapely appearance that they otherwise never have.
Purchase. This word is much preferred to its synonym buy, by that class of people who prefer the word reside to live, procure to get, inaugurate to begin, and so on. They are generally of those who are great in pretense, and who would be greater still if they were to pretend to all they have to pretend to.
Purpose. See [Propose].
Quantity. This word is often improperly used for number. Quantity should be used in speaking of what is measured or weighed; number, of what is counted. Examples: "What quantity of apples have you, and what number of pineapples?" "Delaware produces a large quantity of peaches and a large number of melons."
Quit.—This word means, properly, to leave, to go away from, to forsake; as, "Avaunt! quit my sight." This is the only sense in which the English use it. In America, it is generally used in the sense of to leave off, to stop; as, "Quit your nonsense"; "Quit laughing"; "Quit your noise"; "He has quit smoking," and so on.
Quite. This word originally meant completely, perfectly, totally, entirely, fully; and this is the sense in which it was used by the early writers of English. It is now often used in the sense of rather; as, "It is quite warm"; "She is quite tall"; "He is quite proficient." Sometimes it is incorrectly used in the sense of considerable; as, quite an amount, quite a number, quite a fortune. Quite, according to good modern usage, may qualify an adjective, but not a noun. "She is quite the lady," is a vile phrase, meaning, "She is very or quite ladylike."
Railroad Depot. Few things are more offensive to fastidious ears than to hear a railway station called a depot. A depot is properly a place where goods or stores of any kind are kept; and the places at which the trains of a railroad—or, better, railway—stop for passengers, or the points from which they start and at which they arrive, are, properly, the stations.
Railway. The English prefer this word to railroad.
Raise the rent. An expression incorrectly used for increase the rent.
Rarely. It is no uncommon thing to see this adverb improperly used in such sentences as, "It is very rarely that the puppets of the romancer assume," etc.—"Appletons' Journal," February, 1881, p. 177. "But," says the defender of this phraseology, "rarely qualifies a verb—the verb to be." Not at all. The sentence, if written out in full, would be, "It is a very rare thing that," etc., or "The circumstance is a very rare one that," etc., or "It is a very rare occurrence that," etc. To those who contend for "It is very rarely that," etc., I would say, It is very sadly that persons of culture will write and then defend—or rather try to defend—such grammar.