English is not only
the language of a nation or of a race, not even of an empire; and the
inflowing elements affirm this. We have kindred beyond the empire, and
their speech is more and more impressing ours, forging from the common
stock, which they had from us, whole armouries full of expressive words,
words with edge and point and keen directness which never miss the mark.
Some are unquestionably an acquisition, those which come from States
where the language is honoured and studied with a carefulness that puts
to shame all except our very best. They have kept some gracious and rare
expressions, now quaint to our ear, preserved out of Elizabethan English
in the current speech of to-day. These have a fragrance of the olden
time, but we cannot absorb them again into our own spoken language. Then
they have their incisive modern expressions so perfectly adapted for
their end that they are irresistible even to those who cling by
tradition to the more stable element in English. These also come from
States in which language is conscious of itself and looks carefully to
literary use, and they do us good rather than harm. Other importations
from younger States are too evidently unauthorized to be in any way
beautiful, and are blamed on both sides of the ocean as debasing the
coinage.
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