A KIND OF SEMI-GENTILITY.

“There is again the constant habit of advertising in superlatives,” continued Sir Henry.

“‘Super-films of super-stars,’ for instance. I wish ‘super’ could be abolished by law for at least ten years. I was told the other day of a ‘lightning courtship.’ It lasted a fortnight, which is, no doubt, a short time in such a case; but what would you say about a flash of lightning which lasted a fortnight? (Laughter.) A folly which many advertisers are likely to fall into is that of talking so loudly that the people do not know what they mean. Then there is a kind of semi-gentility by which, instead of using the plain word, we try to use a more highly-coloured one which is not really appropriate at all.

For example, take the word ‘slogan.’ It means a war cry consisting of the name of a chief or tribe; yet we were told that the Conservative party went to the country with the slogan that ‘Protective tariffs should be put on manufactured goods with a special preference for the Colonies.’ (Laughter.)

We read sometimes of the tragic death, of Mr. Brown, who was run over by a ’bus. Tragedy means a conflict of wills on the highest plane of human endeavour, and has nothing whatever to do with a mere accident, even if it ends in death. (Cheers.)

“The word ‘crusade,’ which originally meant the expedition of Western Europe to rescue the holy places of Palestine from the Saracens can be legitimately used as a metaphor for any endeavour inspired by high religious or ethical faith; yet people talk about killing flies in the summer as a crusade. (Laughter.) The use of such words is like the man in Swift who wore ruffles to conceal the fact that he had not a shirt. To be always talking at the top of one’s voice means disregarding all the finer shades, differences, and nuances of meaning.” (Hear, hear.)

There was a real danger in our inaccuracy and in the presumption which did not conceal that inaccuracy under a modest and becoming exterior, but protruded it so that one could hardly take up a magazine or book nowadays without finding a misquotation or misallusion in it Suggesting three remedies for this serious intellectual evil, he pleaded, firstly, for exact accuracy in teaching; secondly, for a great deal more training of young people in pure verbal memory. “The habit,” he added, “of paraphrasing, which means the habit of putting your own bad English in place of the author’s good English, has been detrimental to us, not only by lowering the standard of style, but by insufficiently developing one of the most valuable intellectual assets of the child.”

Another remedy in school life was to see that the child was brought into touch with some masterpiece every day. It might be a picture, a piece of music, a poem, or a piece of good prose literature. (Hear, hear.) The child should be brought into personal contact as frequently as possible with something that would set up an intellectual standard below which it would not willingly fail.

The president concluded with the admonition, “Always, verify your quotations.”