To allude. Among the improprieties of speech which even those sharp-eyed literary detectives, Alford, Moon, and Gould have failed to pounce upon and pillory, are the misuses of the word that heads this paragraph. Once the verb had a distinct, well defined meaning, but it is now rapidly losing its true signification. To allude to a thing,—what is it? Is it not to speak of it darkly,—to hint at it playfully (from ludo, ludere,—to play), without any direct mention? Yet the word is used in a sense directly opposite to this. Suppose you lose in the street some package, and advertise its loss in the newspapers. The person who finds the package is sure to reply to your advertisement by speaking of “the package you alluded to in your advertisement,” though you have alluded to nothing, but have told your story in the most distinct and straightforward manner possible, without an approximation to a hint or innuendo. Newspaper reporters, by their abuse of this unhappy word, will transform a bold and daring speech in Congress, in which a senator has taken some bull by the horns,—in other words, dealt openly and manfully with the subject discussed,—into a heap of dark and mysterious innuendoes. The honorable gentleman alluded to the currency—to the war—to Andrew Johnson—to the New Orleans massacre; he alluded to the sympathizers with the South, though he denounced them in the most caustic terms; he alluded to the tax-bill, and he alluded to fifty other things, about every one of which he spoke out his mind in emphatic and unequivocal terms. An English journal tells a ludicrous story of an M.P. who, his health having been drunk by name, rose on his legs, and spoke of “the flattering way in which he had been alluded to.” Another public speaker spoke of a book which had been alluded to by name. But the climax of absurdity in the use of this word was attained by an Irish M.P., who wrote a life of an Italian poet. Quoting Byron’s lines about “the fatal gift of beauty,” he then goes on to talk about “the fatal gift which has been already alluded to!”
Either alternative. E.g., “You may take either alternative.” “Two alternatives were presented to me.” Alternative evidently means a choice,—one choice,—between two things. If there be only one offered, we say there is no alternative. Two alternatives is, therefore, a palpable contradiction in terms; yet some speakers talk of “several alternatives” having been presented to them.
Whole, for all. The “Spectator” says: “The Red-Cross Knight runs through the whole steps of the Christian life.” Alison, who is one of the loosest writers in our literature, declares, in his “History of the French Revolution,” that “the whole Russians are inspired with the belief that their mission is to conquer the world.” This can only mean that those Russians who are entire,—who have not lost a leg, an arm, or some other part of the body,—are inspired with the belief of which he speaks. Whole refers to the component parts of a single body, and is therefore singular in meaning.
Jeopardize. There is considerable authority for this word, which is beginning to supplant the good old English word jeopard. But why is it more needed than perilize, hazardize?
Preventative, for preventive; conversationalist, for converser; underhanded, for underhand; casuality, for casualty; speciality, for specialty; leniency, for lenity; firstly, for first; are all base coinages, barbarisms which should be excommunicated by “bell, book, and candle.”
Dangerous, for in danger. A leading Boston paper says of a deceased minister: “His illness was only of a week’s duration, and was pleurisy and rheumatism. He was not supposed to be dangerous.”
Nice. One of the most offensive barbarisms now prevalent is the use of this as a pet word to express almost every kind of approbation, and almost every quality. Strictly, nice can be used only in a subjective, not in an objective, sense; though both of our leading lexicographers approve of such expressions as “a nice bit of cheese.” Of the vulgarity of such expressions as “a nice man” (meaning a good or pleasing man), “a nice day,” “a nice party,” etc., there cannot be a shadow of doubt. “A nice man” means a fastidious man; a “nice letter” is a letter very delicate in its language. Some persons are more nice than wise. Archdeacon Hare complains that “this characterless domino,” as he stigmatizes the word nice, is continually used by his countrymen, and that “a universal deluge of niaserie (for the word was originally niais) threatens to whelm the whole island.” The Latin word elegans seems to have had a similar history; being derived from elego, and meaning primarily nice or choice, and subsequently elegant.
Mutual, for common, or reciprocal. Dean Alford justly protests against the stereotyped vulgarism, “a mutual friend.” Mutual is applicable to sentiments and acts, but not to persons. Two friends may have a mutual love, but for either to speak of a third person as being “their mutual friend,” is sheer nonsense. Yet Dickens entitled one of his novels, “Our Mutual Friend.”
Stopping, for staying. “The Hon. John Jones is stopping at the Sherman House.” In reading such a statement as this, we are tempted to ask, When will Mr. Jones stop stopping? A man may stop a dozen times at a place, or on a journey, but he cannot continue stopping. One may stop at a hotel without becoming a guest. The true meaning of the word stop was well understood by the man who did not invite his professed friend to visit him: “If you come, at any time, within ten miles of my house, just stop.”
Trifling minutiæ. Archbishop Whately, in his “Rhetoric,” speaks of “trifling minutiæ of style.” In like manner, Henry Kirke White speaks of his poems as being “the juvenile efforts of a youth,” and Disraeli, the author of “The Curiosities of Literature,” speaks of “the battles of logomachy,” and of “the mysteries of the arcana of alchemy.” The first of these phrases may be less palpably tautological than the other three; yet as minutiæ means nearly the same things as trifles, a careful writer would be as adverse to using such an expression as Whately’s, as he would be to talking, like Sir Archibald Alison, of representative institutions as having been reëstablished in our time “by the influence of English Anglomania.”