The guardians of the laws of English have a stock of
taboos; but unlike the guardians of the laws of England they credit every
disregard of them to ignorance. They cannot conceive of malice
aforethought. We are forbidden, for example, to use the word "phenomenal"
in the sense of "extraordinary." But, with Mr. Crummles's Infant
Phenomenon in everybody's mind, can we expect the adjective to shake off
the old associations of its parent noun?
Last year I culled an amusing sentence from a "Standard" criticism of a
tale of adventure: "The story is a well-told, and in spite of the word
'unreliable,' a well-written one." Now just as many foolish persons
object to "a ... one" as to "unreliable." As for the first phrase, I am
sure so great a writer as Tom Hood would have pronounced it A1, while
"unreliable" is defended with unusual warmth by Webster's Dictionary. The
contention that "reliable" should be "reli-on-able," is ridiculous, and
Webster's argument is "laughable," which should obviously be
"laugh-at-able." These remarks are made quite without prejudice, for
personally I have little to complain of. (By the way, this sentence is as
open to blame as that of the professor who told his pupils "You must not
use a preposition to end a sentence with.
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