"ON OUR OWN"
Sir,-I wonder if some of the correspondents who are discussing the English language in your columns would be kind enough to comment on the use of an expression which causes the writer as much pain as the split infinitive can ever have caused Mr. A. P. Herbert. There was a time when one accepted the use of "on his own," "on our own," "on their own," as colloquialisms used chiefly by the young, but in recent years this phrase has so invaded the language that it may be met-and’ is so metanywhere at all, in the Press, in sermons, or in any type of serious literature. How is this to be accounted for? Was there indeed a gap-a vacuumin our vocabulary such as the gaps which were long ago filled by the French words fiancée, entrée, débris, téte-a-téte, and many others? Is the expression an abbreviation of "on his own account" or how did it arise? Here are examples culled from different authors this week-end: "Seeing that these principles, left to function on their own. ¥ "Each of my egos had to contest against the other, and become the centre, each on its own, of an ambition to conquer."
L. M. HUNTER
BROWN
(Nelson).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 430, 19 September 1947, Page 5
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206"ON OUR OWN" New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 430, 19 September 1947, Page 5
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