Society for Pure English, Tract 11 - Three Articles on Metaphor by Society for Pure English
page 22 of 29 (75%)
page 22 of 29 (75%)
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_Many of the celebrities who in that most frivolous of watering-places_ do congregate. _When about to quote Sir Oliver Lodge's tribute to the late leader, Mr. Law_ drew, not a dial, _but what was obviously a penny memorandum book_ from his pocket (You want to mention that Mr. Bonar Law took a notebook out of his pocket. But pockets are humdrum things. How give a literary touch? Call it a poke? No, we can better that; who was it drew what from his poke? Why, Touchstone, a dial, to be sure! and there you are).--H.W.F. CORRESPONDENCE We have a constant flow of correspondence, and we are afraid the writers must think us unpractical, incompetent, or neglectful, because we give their inquiries no place in our tracts; they may naturally think that it is our business to pass judgement on any linguistic question that troubles them; but most of these queries would be satisfactorily answered by reference to the _O. E. D._, which we do not undertake to reprint; in other cases, where we are urged to protest against the common abuse of some word or phrase, we do not think (as we have before explained) that it is worth while to treat any such detail without full illustration, and this our correspondents do not supply. We propose now to demonstrate the situation by dealing with a small selection of these abused words, which may serve as examples. |
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