Excerpt from English Usage: Studies in the History and Uses of English Words and Phrases

It is Often said that a preface is unnecessary. I feel, how ever, that I should write one to set forth the Object and the scope of this volume.

I have long felt that not only purists but a far better class of men were putting us, teachers and pupils and general pub lic, in strait-jackets. Distinguished grammarians and emi nent rhetorical scholars condemn in their books many words and phrases that we see all through the literature. They seem at times to combine to expel from the language some locution that we have heard frequently from attractive speakers and have seen often in the works of eminent writers.

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