14 THE ACORN CHOICE OF WORDS. It is natural for man to communicate with his fellow-being. If we had no words to express our thoughts, we would necessarily have to supply a sign language to take the place of the words. Those who are deprived of the blessings of hearing and speaking, have agreed to let certain signs stand for certain ideas. Their signs mean nothing to us, yet to those who use them, they bring up some definite mental picture. Just as these signs call up in their minds the idea denoted by the action, so every word in our language calls up its corresponding image. The mention of the proper name "John Jones" brings a picture of a man before us; like wise "window" suggests a piece of glass in the wall through which light may enter a room. The only reason that these words stand for these ideas, is that the people for many years have used them in exactly the same sense. In general, for good use, we might say choose words that are reputable in regard to their proper shade of meaning; words that are national, excluding all foreign phrases; and words that are used at the time in which we write. It is possible, however, to use a word not in good use, such as in the following: "A house on Washington avenue was burglarized last night, and the thief was this morning jailed-" also "phone," "walkist," etc., and still be understood. What did Hamlet mean when he was attempting to follow his father's ghost, and exclaimed, "By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me?" To us this sounds almost ridiculous, but we find that the word let in Shakespeare's time was used in the sense of prevent or hinder; a meaning just opposite to the meaning now. We also find the expression miching mellecho recorded in Hamlet. This phrase has lost itself entirely to English speaking people, and to use it now would be an offense of barbarism, or the use of a word not in the language. The misuse of words still sanctioned by good usage (such as let) is called impropriety. And under these two headings, Barbarism and Improprieties, will come all the errors in the choice of words. Since barbarisms are the use of words not in the language, the most common offense in this would be the use of foreign words. We have a language of many thousands of words, and it is not at all necessary that we should go to other countries to get words to express our thoughts. The only reason for using a new word would be a new idea. One other illustration of barbarism, however, would be the habit of spelling old names in new ways, e. g., Edythe for Edith; Grayce for Grace, etc. The main objection to this is that we cannot do it without extra effort on our part, and then people reading them do not recognize the words, and must put forth extra effort to get the idea. Other ex- THE ACORN 15 amples are, tho for though, thru for through, and tho' for thought. The ratio of barbarisms committed to that of improprieties is about three to one hundred, hence it would be advisable to turn our attention to this second class. Improprieties The misuse of words already in the language in its crude form is a source of humor; it is what makes us laugh at the speeches of Dogberry, the master constable in "Much Ado About Nothing," when he says: "You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch;" and again "For the watch to babble and talk is most tolerable and not to be endured." In these cases the errors were put in purposely by the author to make it sound ridiculous, and he accomplished his purpose; yet how many there are who make the same errors unintentionally. The unintentional errors are just as ridiculous as the intentional-One of the most common forms of impropriety, is the use of slang. What refinement is there in the expressions: "Not by a long shot," "He was on his ear," "He's bent on going it;" and "Ah, that's too thin?" This is a habit that seems to be growing, and we, as students, should do all in our power to check it. Passing now to the choice of words that are all admissable, as they come under neither of the foregoing heads, we must consider the effect we wish to produce, and govern their choice accordingly. We cannot say use small words instead of large ones, Saxon instead of Latin, literal instead of figurative, or specific instead of general; but we must use whichever kind will express our meaning better. As an example of specific and general, let us take the sentence, "The shepherd was watching his flocks." This calls up a picture of the flocks, and of a man; but our minds are not centered on any man in particular, and perhaps many different personal forms arise in our minds. On the other hand when we say "Dick, the shepherd, was watching his flocks," the general idea is changed for the particular; and although we know nothing of this particular Dick, there is a more fixed picture in our minds, which in this case is more pleasing. However, there are times that it would be preferable to use the general idea, and in this way we must use our own judgment, as in the case of the others. Again, in bringing up examples of different individuals, we should be careful to choose one which would call up the correct idea in the minds of the people whom we address, For example, take the name of "Jefferson Davis," which stands for or denotes a slender man with a short beard; but the thoughts called up, or counted, to us in connection with this are those of the song, "We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree," and a traitor to our government; while in the minds of the Southern people it would suggest a hero. If a