without intermission, uninterrupted; while continual means that that is constantly renewed and recurring with perhaps frequent stops and interruptions. As the Irish do something besides misuse shall, the doctor should have said that they continually use shall for will. I might perhaps venture to intimate that perpetually is likewise misused in the following sentence, which I copy from the London Queen, if I were not conscious that the monster that can write and print such a sentence would not hesitate to cable a thunderbolt at an offender on the slightest provocation. Judge, if my fears are groundless: "But some few people contract the ugly habit of making use of these expressions unconsciously and continuously, perpetually interlarding their conversation with them."

"She [Pisa] was perpetually [continually] at war by sea and land."-Howells.

Somebody rustled' it, and his perpetual (continual) inquiries after it resulted," etc.—Theodore Roosevelt.

'The amateur singer is perpetually [continually] introducing consecutive fifths and octaves into his music, perpetually [continually] bringing wrong color notes into his painting."-Author of The Green Carnation.

Person. See PARTY; also INDIVIDUAL. Personalty. This word does not, as think, mean the articles worn on one's person. erly a law term, and means personal property.

some persons

It is prop

"There is but one case on record of a peer of England leaving over $7,500,000 personalty.”

An English lady, desiring to leave a servant her clothing and jewels, described them in her will as her personalty, thereby, contrary to her intention, including ten thousand pounds in her bequest.

Personification. That rhetorical figure that attributes

sex, life, or action to inanimate objects, or ascribes to objects and brutes the acts and qualities of rational beings, is called personification or prosopopæia.

"The mountains sing together, the hills rejoice and clap their hands." "The worm, aware of his intent, harangued

him thus."

"See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad with all his rising train."-Thomson. "So saying, her rash hand, in evil hour,

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost."-Milton.

"War and Love are strange compeers.

War sheds blood, and Love sheds tears;

War has swords, and Love has darts;

War breaks heads, and Love breaks hearts."

"Levity is often less foolish and Gravity less wise than each of them appears."

The English language, by reserving the distinction of gender for living beings that have sex, gives especial scope for personification. The highest form of personification should be used seldom, and only when justified by the presence of strong feeling."-Bain.

"Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,

Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."-Cowper. Perspicuity. This word is not infrequently misused for perspicacity, though they are quite unlike in meaning. A near synonym of perspicuity is clearness. Both words

denote qualities requisite to render a discourse intelligible. Clearness of intellect is a natural gift; perspicuity is largely an acquired art.

Whenever we think clearly we express ourselves with perspicuity."

Perspicacity is the quality of being quick-sighted, discerning, acute, keen, which is the meaning intended in the following sentences:

"He had a high estimation of the intellectual and moral power and perspicuity [perspicacity] of the French mind." The great power of the Church, and the general ignorance, want of perspicuity [perspicacity], and submissiveness of the laity enabled it to fill up the breach in some shape or other, more or less vague."

Persuade. Sometimes misused for advise, thus: "This is one reason why I never persuade young ladies to publish.” Peruse. Often used when the more familiar word read would be the better word to use.

Suppose he were an enemy and hateful to me, should I still find pleasure in the perusal of his verses?" Better, "in reading his verses."

Pitcher. What in America is called a pitcher, in Great Britain is called a jug. It is to be hoped that no one will consider this information a sufficient reason for changing his practice, as pitcher is good old English. And then, we need the word jug to designate another vessel.

Place. Improperly used for where: "Let's go some place [where]." "I want to go some place [where]."

Phenomenon. Plural, phenomena.

"He

Plead. The imperfect tense and the perfect participle of the verb to plead are both pleaded, and not plead. pleaded not guilty." "You should have pleaded your cause

with more fervor."

Plenty. In Worcester's Dictionary we find the following note: "Plenty is much used colloquially as an adjective, in the sense of plentiful, both in this country and in England; and this use is supported by respectable authorities, though it is condemned by various critics. Johnson says: 'It is used barbarously, I think, for plentiful'; and Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, says: 'Plenty for plentiful appears to me so gross a vulgarism that I should not have thought it worthy of a place here if I had not sometimes found it in works of considerable merit.'" We should say, then, that money is plentiful, and not that it is plenty.

"The days when deer and wolves were plenty [plentiful] in Illinois."-N. Y. Sun.

Pleonasm. Redundancy, or pleonasm, is the use of more words than are necessary to express the thought clearly. "They returned back again to the same city from whence they came forth": the five words in italics are redundant, or pleonastic. "The different departments of science and of art mutually reflect light on each other [one another]": either of the expressions in italics embodies the whole idea. "The universal opinion of all men " is a pleonastic expression often heard. "I wrote you a letter yesterday": here a letter is redundant.

Redundancy is sometimes permissible, to be surer of conveying the meaning, for emphasis, and in the language of poetic embellishment.

Polite. This word is much used by persons of doubtful culture, where those of the better sort use the word kind. We accept kind, not polite, invitations; and when any one has been obliging, we tell him that he has been kind; and when an interviewing reporter tells us of his having met with a polite reception, we may be sure that

the person by whom he has been received deserves well for his considerate kindness.

"I thank you and Mrs. Pope for my kind reception."— Atterbury.

Portion. This word is often incorrectly used for part. A portion is properly a part assigned, allotted, set aside for a special purpose; a share, a division. The verb to portion means, to divide, to parcel, to endow. We ask, therefore, "In what part [not in what portion] of the country, state, county, town, or street do you live?"—or, if we prefer grandiloquence to correctness, reside. In the sentence, "A large portion of the land is untilled," the right word would be either part or proportion, according to the intention of the writer.

Posted. A word very much and very inelegantly used for informed. Such expressions as, "I will post you," "I must post myself up," "If I had been better posted," and the like, are, at the best, but one remove from slang.

"Posted, or well posted, in the sense of well informed or instructed, learned, or well read, is slangy and shoppysmelling of daybook and ledger."-Fitzgerald.

Precisely similar. “It was precisely similar to the accident that befell the same vessel last February.”—N. Y. Sun.

This is a locution difficult to defend. Precisely similar equals precisely resemblant. The writer probably meant very similar, or similar in every respect.

Predicate. Often misused in the sense of predict or foretell; also in the sense of to base or to found. Predicate means to expect or to assume one thing to be the product or the outcome of another. Contentment is predicated of virtue. Good health is predicated of a good constitution.