On Certain Abuses in Language [pp. 248-272]

OA CERTAlN ABUSES IX LANGUAGE.i
ing to my rule, for Teutonic beginning against Romance commnencement; tho I must do penance for my past sins by saying
openly that I found the word commence in a writing of my own
six-and-twenty years old. But at the same time I must again
insist that this difference is a mere difference of taste and style.
He who says commence instead of begin in no way sins against
the law of clearness; his meaning may be just as plain, his line
of thought may be just as accurate, as if he used the Teutonic
word. But it is, I think, another thing when, instead of either
beginning or commencing, we get to initiating and inaugurating.
Then we are fairly landed in the grand style, the high-polite
style, the diplomatic style-the style of those who have no
meaning while they think they have one-the style of those who
have no meaning, but who wish other people to think that they
have one-the style of those who have a very distinct meaning,
but who wish other people not to know what it is. When one
tremendous personage "initiates a policy," when another tremendous personage "inaugurates an epoch," what is it that
their excellencies, highnesses, or majesties really do? They
begin or commence something; but what is it that they begin
or commence? I should like to believe with the song that
"there's a good time coming." When the good time comes it
will, I should guess, be in the high-polite style, an "epoch;" being
an "epoch,"' it will doubtless have to be " inaugurated." Only
what is the exact ritual for the inauguration of an epoch? How
ought the tremendous personage who will have to do the work
of inauguration to set about it? Can any one tell us in plain
English, in words which at least go away no further from plain
English than commence and conceal?
I think then that my readers will be pleased to learn what I
may report upon the personal authority of one of the revisers of
the translation of the Bible, that two familiar passages of the Old
and New Testament are not to be touched. The first words of
the book of Genesis and the first words of Saint John's Gospel
are to stay as they are. The beginning is still to be the beginning; it is not to be turned into a commencement, still less into
an inauguration. This last word inauguration, and its verb to
inaugurate, supply me with a good example of the kind of abuse
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