2. It removes the one serious technical defect of the poem.
3. It accounts in a natural way for the oblivion which has settled like a pall over the career of Dr. Foster after his visit to Gloucester.
4. It enables us to connect Foster with the great heroes of epic song.
Some Deserving "Climbers"
Language, like society, has to recruit its upper strata from the lower. Here are some recent candidates.
I. The very eminent author of The Baby and the Bee in this number puts into the mouth of one of the characters the word "humans" as an equivalent for human beings. The same use of it has been met elsewhere in quarters of less dignity. Many of our readers must have regretted the absence from the language of a single word equivalent to homo. Is not "human" as a noun worthy of being raised to that dignity?
II. Another new labor-saving locution has already found its way into the Standard Dictionary, and seems worthy of general recognition. The dictionary treats it thus:
thon, 1 thon; 2 thon, pron. sing. pl. [thon's, poss.; thon, obj.] that one; he, she, or it; a pronoun of the 3rd person, common gender; a contracted and solidified form of that one, proposed in 1858 by Charles Crozat Converse, of Erie, Pennsylvania, as a substitute in cases where the use of a restrictive pronoun involves either inaccuracy or obscurity, or its non-employment necessitates awkward repetition. The following examples, first as ordinarily written, and afterward with the substitution of the genderless pronoun, illustrate the grammatical deficiencies of the English language in this particular and the proposed method of removal: "If Harry or his wife comes, I will be on hand to meet him or her (or whichever appears)." "Each pupil must learn his or her own lesson." With the substitution of thon; "If Harry or his wife comes, I will be on hand to meet thon (i.e., that one who comes)." "Each pupil must learn thon's lesson (i.e., his or her own)." Compare he'er, him'er, his'er.
III. A third applicant for the cachet is "near," not as a preposition, but as an adjective signifying imitation or ineffective approximation, as, near pearls, near lover, near artist, etc., etc. It would at least often save several syllables, and sometimes save a circumlocution. It seems to have begun rather low down. We don't half like it, and we were surprised to find it as far up as in an article by an eminent professor in our present number. But there it was, and it seems well on the way to full habilitation.