The Purist Purized (6-10)

He would apply the same delicate treatment to people unsound in their Attic.

‘That’s the truth of it,’ said some one, ‘between you and I.'

‘Ah no, you will have to admit that you and me are wrong there.’

Another person giving a circumstantial account of a local legend said: ‘So when she mingled with Heracles—’ ‘Without Heracles’s mingling with her?’

He asked a man who told him that he must have a close crop, what his particular felony had been.

‘There I quarrel,’ said his opponent in an argument. ‘It takes two to make a quarrel.’

When some one described his sick servant as undergomg torture, he asked, ‘What for? what do they suppose they are going to get out of him?’

Some one was said to be going ahead in his studies. ‘Let me see,’ he said; ‘it is Plato, I think, who calls that making progress.’

'Will we have a fine day?'' ‘If God shall.’

‘Archaist, curse not thy friend!’ he retorted, to a man who called him curst instead of crusty.

A man once used the phrase, ‘I was trying to save his face.

‘But is he in any danger of losing it?’ asked Socrates.

'Chided,’ said one man, ‘chode,’ another. He disclaimed all acquaintance with either form.

A person who volunteered ‘but and if’ was commended for his generosity.

Some one tried him with ‘y-pleased’; ‘no, no,’ said he; 'that is too much of a good thing.’

‘I expect him momently,’ some one announced. ‘A good phrase,’ he said; ‘so is “minutely”; we have excellent authority for “daily.” ’

'Look you!’ said a man, meaning ‘look.’ ‘Yes, what am I to look you at?’

He took up a man who said, ‘Yes, I can grapple with that,’ meaning that he understood, with ‘Oh, you are going to throw me, are you? how?’

‘How shrill those fives are!’ said some one. ‘Oh, come now,’ said Socrates; ‘seditions and strives, but not drums and fives.’

‘That man is heavily weighed,” one man observed. ‘You are quite right; there is no such word as weighted.’

‘He has thrived on it,’ some one assured him. ‘The people among whom he has thrived cannot be very particular.’

People were very fond of calling it at-one-ment. ‘Yes, all right,’ he would say; ‘I know what it means.’

Mention being made of a black-hen, he supposed that would be the female of the grey-cock.

Some one said he had been eating sparrowgrass. ‘You'll be trying groundsel next,’ was his comment.

But enough of Socrates. Shall we have another match on the old lines? I will give you nothing but first-rate ones. Have your eyes open. You will surely be able to do it now, after hearing such a list of them.

Purist I am by no means so sure of that. Proceed, however.

Lycinus Not sure? well, but here you have the door broad open.

Purist Say on.

Lycinus I have said.

Purist Nothing that I observed.

Lycinus What, not observed ‘broad open’?

Purist No.

Lycinus Well, what is to happen, if you cannot follow now? Every man can crow on his own hay-cock, and I thought this was yours. Did you get that hay-cock? You don’t seem to attend; look at the mutual help Socrates and I have just given you.

Purist I am attending; but you are so sly with them.

Lycinus Monstrous sly, is it not, to say ‘mutual’ instead of ‘joint'? Well, that is settled up; but for your general ignorance, I defy any God short of Apollo to cure it. He gives council to all who ask it; but on you that council is thrown away.

Purist Yes, I declare, so it was!

Lycinus Perhaps one at a time are too few?

Purist I think that must be it.

Lycinus How did ‘one are’ get past you?

Purist Ah, I didn’t see it, again.

Lycinus By the way, do you know of any one who is on the look in for a wife?

Purist What are you talking about?

Lycinus Show me the man who is on the look in, and I will show you a solecist.

Purist But what have I to do with solecists on the look in for wives?

Lycinus Ah, if you knew that, you would be the man you pretend to be. So much for that. Now, if a man came to you and said that he had left his wife’s home, would you stand that?

Purist Of course I should, if he had provocation.

Lycinus And if you caught him committing a solecism, would 5 you stand it?

Purist Certainly not.

Lycinus Quite right too. We should never permit solecisms in a friend, but teach him better. Now, what are your feelings when you hear a man deprecating his own merits, and depreciating his friend’s excessive gratitude?

Purist Feelings? only that he shows a very proper feeling.

Lycinus Then, as you cannot feel the difference between ‘deprecate’ and ‘depreciate,’ shall we conclude that you are an ignoramus?

Purist Outrageous insolence!

Lycinus Outrageous? I shall be, ere much, if I go on talking to you.—Now I should have said that ‘ere much’ was a blunder, but it does not strike you so.

Purist Oh, stop, for goodness’ sake! Look here, try this way; I want to get my profit out of it too.

Lycinus Well?

Purist Suppose you were to go through all the blunders you say I have missed, and tell me what is the right thing for each.

Lycinus Good gracious, no; it would take us till midnight. No; you can look those out for yourself. Meanwhile, we had better take fresh ones, as we have only a quarter of an hour (by the way, never pronounce the ‘h’ in hour; that sounds dreadful). Then as to that outrage which you say I have committed upon you; if I were to speak of an outrage committed against you, that would be another thing.

Purist Would it?

Lycinus Yes; an outrage upon you must be committed upon you personally, in the shape of blows, interference with your liberty, or the like. An outrage agaiust you is upon something that belongs to you; he who does an outrage upon your wife, child, friend, or slave, does it against you. This distinction, however, does not apply to inanimate things. An ‘outrage against’

a legitimate phrase with them, as when Plato talks in the Symposium of an outrage against a proverb.

Purist Ah, I see now.

Lycinus Do you also see that the exchange of one for the other is a solecism?

Purist Yes, I shall know that for the future.

Lycinus And if a person were to use ‘interchange’ there instead of ‘exchange,’ what would you take him to mean?

Purist Just the same.

Lycinus Why, how can they be equivalent? Exchange is merely the substitution of one expression for another, the improper for the proper; whereas interchange involves a false statement[*].

Purist I see now; exchange is the use of a loose instead of a precise expression, while interchange is the use of both expressions, each in the other’s place.

Lycinus These subtleties are not unpleasing. Similarly, when we are concerned with a person, it is in our own interest; but when we are concerned for him, it is in his. It is true the phrases are sometimes confused, but there are those who observe the distinction; and it is as well to be on the safe side.

Purist Quite true.