perfectly distinct meaning, and is not a mere redundancy. If Mr. Tucker
supposes that "She was by way of painting the shrimp girl" means exactly
the same as "She was painting the shrimp girl," he misses one of the
fine shades of the English language. Similarly, his remark on the
"peculiar misuse of the affix _ever_, as in saying 'What_ever_ are you
doing?'" stands in need of reconsideration. It is wrong, certainly, to
treat _ever_ as an affix, and to mistake the first two words of "What
ever are you doing?" for the one word "whatever;" but to suppose the
"ever" meaningless and inert, is to overlook a clearly marked and very
useful gradation of emphasis. "What are you doing?" expresses simple
curiosity; "What ever are you doing?" expresses surprise; "What the
devil are you doing?" expresses anger--we need not run farther up the
scale. Nor is this use of "ever" an innovation, licentious or otherwise.
"Ever" has for centuries been employed as an intensive particle after
the interrogative pronouns and adverbs how, who, what, where, why. For
instance, in _The World of Wonders_ (1607), "I shall desire him to
consider how ever it was possible to get an answer from these priests."

One of the most remarkable paragraphs in Mr. Tucker's book is that in
which he proves "the greater permanence and steadiness of our American
speech as compared with that of the mother country" by going through
Halliwell's _Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms_, and picking
out 76 words which Halliwell regards as obsolete, but which in America
are all alive and kicking. (The vulgarism is mine, not Mr. Tucker's.)
Now as a matter of fact not one of these words is really obsolete in
England, and most of them are in everyday use; for instance, adze,
affectation, agape, to age, air (appearance), appellant, apple-pie
order, baker's dozen, bamboozle, bay window, between whiles, bicker,
blanch, to brain, burly, catcall, clodhopper, clutch, coddle, copious,
cosy, counterfeit money, crazy (dilapidated), crone, crook, croon,