Pur. Never!
Ly. The fact is, your too much learning renders you unconscious to solecisms; whatever case I take, it is always the same.
Pur. What you mean by that I am sure I don't know; but I have often caught people out in blunders.
Ly. Well, you will catch me about the time that you are a sucking child again. By the way, a babe laying in his cradle would hardly jar on your notions of grammar, if you have not yet got me.
Pur. Well, I am convinced.
Ly. Now, if we cannot detect blunders like these, we are not likely to know much about our own; you see, you have just missed another. Very well now, never again call yourself competent either to detect blunders or to avoid them.
This is my blunt way, you see. Socrates of Mopsus, with whom I was acquainted in Egypt, used to put his corrections more delicately, so as not to humiliate the offender. Here are some specimens:
What time do you set out on your travels?—What time? Oh, I see, you thought I started to-day.
The patrimonial income supplies me well enough.—Patrimonial? But your father is not dead?
So-and-so is a tribes-man of mine.—Oh, you are a savage, are you?