USE OF LATIN WORDS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4729, 25 July 1924, Page 2

USE OF LATIN WORDS.

UNNECESSARY EXPRESSIONS SUPPORT FOR ENGLISH. There are conscientious guardians of the English language, but seldom are protests made against the increas ■ ing use of Latin, or pseudo-Latin, words hi official and. everyday speech, says the “London Tinies.” Some of them are wholly unjustifiable, and many others are unnecessary. For instance, there seems to be no authority for per capita ; it is as if the English version were “a-heads.” While per annum and per diem may be right, per year and per day are surely uncalled for. Per cent., again, is constantly misapplied to things where no division into hundredth parts is intended or even possible. Half, half as much again, and by half have become in certain circles almost stereotyped into a uniform fifty per cent,, and it may not be long before the story of the man who had two sons, fifty per cent, of whom he sent to Oxford and fifty per cent to Cambridge, will cease to be a parody. Minimum and maximum are too often written when their plain English equivalents are preferable; and even such a monstrosity as a maximum bonus is within the limits of possibility. Other expressions, like moratorium, which is not to be found in the Latin dictionary seem to come forth only at timers of crisis, and then with an air of wisdom and authority as if they were the only possible words to fit to meet the solemnity "of the occasion. Who invented the kindly, but now overdone, bonus ? Why did he not say bounty, or make it bonum, on the analogy of magnum ?