Notices to Correspondents 95
Advertisements 96

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NOTES

FURTHER NOTES ON DERIVATION OF THE WORD "NEWS".

Without being what the Germans would call a _purist_, I cannot deem it
an object of secondary importance to defend the principles of the law
and constitution of the English language. For the adoption of words we
have no rule; and we act just as our convenience or necessity dictates:
but in their formation we must strictly conform to the laws we find
established. Your correspondents C.B. and A.E.B. (Vol. ii., p. 23.) seem
to me strangely to misconceive the real point at issue between us. To a
question by the latter, why I should attempt to derive "News" indirectly
from a German adjective, I answer, because in its transformation into a
German noun declined as an adjective, it gives the form which I contend
no English process will give. The rule your correspondents deduce from
this, neither of them, it appears, can understand. As I am not certain
that their deduction is a correct one, I beg to express it in my own
words as follows:--There is no such process known to the English
language as the formation of a noun-singular out of an adjective by the
addition of "_s_": neither is there any process known by which a
noun-plural can be formed from an adjective, without the previous
formation of the singular in the same sense; except in such cases as
"the rich, the poor, the noble," &c., where the singular form is used in
a plural sense. C.B. instances "goods, the shallows, blacks, for
mourning, greens." To the first of these I have already referred;