"Emptyings" is not a good name for yeast. "Up chamber, up garret, down cellar," are all wrong. Why not say, "up in the chamber, up in the garret, down in the kitchen, down in the cellar" &c.? Why should a mirthful fit of laughter be called "a gale"? "Last evening we were all in such a gale!"
Snow and ice are not the same. Therefore a snowball should not be called an ice-ball, which latter might be a very dangerous missile.
Pincushions are pincushions, and not pin-balls, unless they are of a globular shape. If in the form of hearts, diamonds, &c., they are not balls.
When you are greatly fatigued, say so—and not that you are "almost beat out." When the Yankees are "beat out," the English are quite "knocked up." The English are "starved with cold"—Americans only starve with hunger. They may perish with cold; but unless hunger is added, they will not starve.
It is wrong to say that certain articles of food are healthy or unhealthy. Wholesome and unwholesome are the right words. A pig may be healthy or unhealthy while alive; but after he is killed and becomes pork, he can enjoy no health, and suffer no sickness.
If you have been accustomed to pronounce the word "does" as "doos," get rid of the custom as soon as you can. Also, give up saying "pint" for "point," "jint" for "joint," "anint" for "anoint," &c. Above all, cease saying "featur, creatur, natur, and raptur."
In New England it is not uncommon to hear the word "ugly" applied to a bad temper. We have heard, "He will never do for president, because he is so ugly." On our observing that we had always considered the gentleman in question, as rather a handsome man, it was explained that he was considered ugly in disposition.
A British traveller, walking one day in a suburb of Boston, saw a woman out on a door-step whipping a screaming child. "Good woman," said the stranger, "why do you whip that boy so severely?" She answered, "I will whip him, because he is so ugly." The Englishman walked on; but put down in his journal that "American mothers are so cruel as to beat their children, merely because they are not handsome."
No genteel Bostonian should call Faneuil Hall, "Old Funnel," or talk of the "Quinsey market," instead of Quincy, or speak of "Bacon street," or "Bacon Hill." That place was so called from a beacon, or signal-pole with a light at the top, and never was particularly celebrated for the pickling and smoking of pork.
The word "slump," or "slumped," has too coarse a sound to be used by a lady.