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Show Some Niceties of Speech. An interesting development of international inter-national philologies is to be perceived in the widespread curiosity which is reported, to prevail in Great Britain, both popularly and academically, con-corning con-corning the etymology and precise significance sig-nificance of the word "lallapaloosa." which has long formed so indispensable a member of the American vocabulary. Letters are written to critical journals and the demand for etymological dictionaries dic-tionaries has perceptibly increased without securing entire satisfaction for the public mind. Parliament is not now In session. o that no question on the subject can be propounded to the Treasury Bench, and for the same reason rea-son the appointment of a royal commission com-mission on the subject is impracticable. impractica-ble. Xevertheless, it seems desirable that some authentic pronouncement shall be made, and we must regret that the existing dictionaries which are considered standard in the United Kingdom .do not adequately meet this widely felt want. Mr. Murray's great lexicon has not yet. we believe, reached "Lai" in its alphabetical progress. prog-ress. It is not surprising that our British kinsmen are at a loss to appreciate the precise significance of the word, although al-though they are, of course, familiar enough with Jts general meaning. There are subtle niceties of speech, such as distinctions between words which we might technically term near-synonyms, near-synonyms, which are to be perfectly understood without effort by only those who are, as it were, to the manner born. An Englishman or an American, for example, could not make the mistake which a Tibetan or a Congolese might make of calling Xiagara "just too running run-ning for anything" or of describing a humming bird as "sublime." He would almost instinctively know that while the words in question are all in a sense synonyms, a crowd of sheep is better called' a flock, and a flock of fishes a school, and a school of bees a swarm, and a swarm of swallows a flight, and a flight of ruffians a mob. Xow it is precisely thus that "lallapaloosa" "lalla-paloosa" needs to be distinguished from the various other words of similar, and, indeed, almost identical meaning. The, difference is not so much in the intrinsic intrin-sic significance of the words as in their application. Thus, an "umpalalla" approximates ap-proximates very closely to a "lallapaloosa," "lallapa-loosa," but the result of attempting actually to identify one with the other would be incongruous. A similar sub tle but none the less essential distinction distinc-tion in application is to be observed between each of these words and "lah-dedah," "lah-dedah," "socdologer," "corker." "sog-woggler" "sog-woggler" and various others. Each has its own delicate but distinct and indispensable indis-pensable characteristics of significance, and it is upon the felicitous selection of precisely the right one of them that che perfection of literary style depends. A copious vocabulary, rich in verbal shadings, is the pride of our language and literature, but that very opulence may be a source of weakness and of error er-ror unless its .resources are employed with discrimination. That is why it is so gratifying to find our transatlantic kinsmen devoting themselves with scholarly assiduity to the task of comprehending com-prehending the exact shade of difference differ-ence between a "lallapaloosa" and an "umpalalla." Xew York Tribune. |
