Predicate, for found. E.g., “His argument was predicated on the assumption,” etc.
Try, for make. E.g., “Try the experiment.”
Superior, for able, virtuous, etc. E.g., “He is a superior man.” Not less vulgar is the expression, “an inferior man,” for a man of small abilities.
Deceiving, for trying to deceive. E.g., a person says to another, “You are deceiving me,” when he means exactly the opposite, namely, “You are trying to deceive me, but you cannot succeed, for your trickery is transparent.”
The masses, for the people generally. “The masses must be educated.” The masses of what?
In our midst. This vulgarism is continually heard in prayer-meetings, and from the lips of Doctors of Divinity, though its incorrectness has been exposed again and again. The second chapter in Prof. Schele De Vere’s excellent “Studies in English” begins thus: “When a man rises to eminence in our midst,” etc.,—which is doubtless one of the few errors in his book quas incuria fudit. The possessive pronoun can properly be used only to indicate possession or appurtenance. “The midst” of a company or society is not a thing belonging or appurtenant to the company, or to the individuals composing it. It is a mere term of relation of an adverbial, not of a substantive character, and is an intensified form of expression for among. Would any one say, “In our middle”?
Excessively, for exceedingly. Ladies often complain that the weather is “excessively hot,” thereby implying that they do not object to the heat, but only to the excess of heat. They mean simply that the weather is very hot.
Either is applicable only to two objects; and the same remark is true of neither and both. “Either of the three” is wrong; so is this,—“Ten burglars broke into the house, but neither of them could be recognized.” Say, “none of them,” or “not one of them could be recognized.” Either is sometimes improperly used for each; e.g., “On either side of the river was the tree of life,”—Rev. xxi, 2. Here it is not meant that if you do not find that the tree of life was on this side, it was on that; but that the tree of life was on each side,—on this side, and on that. The proper use of either was vindicated some years ago in England, by the Court of Chancery. A certain testator left property, the disposition of which was affected by “the death of either” of two persons. One learned counsel contended that the word “either” meant both; in support of this view he quoted Richardson, Webster, Chaucer, Dryden, Southey, the history of the crucifixion, and a passage from the Revelation. The learned judge suggested that there was an old song in the “Beggar’s Opera,” known to all, which took the opposite view:
“How happy could I be with either,
Were t’other dear charmer away.”