But where the same foreused word would give a very clear—if not the clearest—meaning, there seems to be little ground against the use of it.
‘I bought a horse on Monday and a donkey on Tuesday, and sold the horse again at a gain on Thursday.’ Why should not the word horse take the latter place as well as the word steed, or equine animal, or ‘more worthy beast’—or why should I not as well say, ‘An ass I want, and an ass I will buy,’ as ‘An ass I want, and a donkey, or it or him, I will buy’?
It seems that much wrong is done to the Greek of the Gospel by the putting, for the same Greek word, sundry English ones at sundry passages; and by what right do we try an Evangelist’s or an Apostle’s wisdom in the use of the same word, by which he must have meant to give the same meaning? or why should we make him to mean by κρίσις, at one time, a trying of a soul, and at another time a fordooming of him?
It is not any tautology to use near to each other a thing-name and a mark-word which are only fellow stem-words, as ‘As free, and not using your freedom for a cloke of wickedness.’
2. Another care in speech-trimming is the choice of words for their sound-sweetness (Gr. euphony) or well-soundingness, or for speech-readiness.
Past, with the hissing s with t, is less sound-good than after; and aqueduct, with ct, is less well-sounding than waterlode; nor is cataract softer than waterfall.
The hereunder given wordings were lately heard in a law court:—
‘I can give you one or two instances of remarkable intelligence in the cases of fat men’; and
A Juror—‘There are one or two fat men on the jury (laughter).’
Dr. K.—‘I don’t think there are.’