Part 17

LUGGAGE--BAGGAGE. The former of these words is generally used in England, the latter in America.

LUNCH. This word, when used as a substantive, may at the best be accounted an inelegant abbreviation of luncheon. The dictionaries barely recognize it. The proper phraseology to use is, "Have you lunched?" or, "Have you had your luncheon?" or, better, "Have you had luncheon?" as we may in most cases presuppose that the person addressed would hardly take anybody's else luncheon.

LUXURIOUS--LUXURIANT. The line is drawn much more sharply between these two words now than it was formerly. Luxurious was once used, to some extent at least, in the sense of rank growth, but now all careful writers and speakers use it in the sense of indulging or delighting in luxury. We talk of a luxurious table, a luxurious liver, luxurious ease, luxurious freedom. Luxuriant, on the other hand, is restricted to the sense of rank, or excessive, growth or production; thus, luxuriant weeds, luxuriant foliage or branches, luxuriant growth.

"Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, But show no mercy to an empty line."--Pope.

MAD. Professor Richard A. Proctor, in a recent number of "The Gentleman's Magazine," says: "The word mad in America seems nearly always to mean angry. For mad, as we use the word, Americans say crazy. Herein they have manifestly impaired the language." Have they?

"Now, in faith, Gratiano, You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief; An 'twere, to me, I would be mad at it." --"Merchant of Venice."

"And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities."--Acts xxvi, II.

MAKE A VISIT. The phrase "make a visit," according to Dr. Hall, whatever it once was, is no longer English.

MALE. See FEMALE.

MARRY. There has been some discussion, at one time and another, with regard to the use of this word. Is John Jones married to Sally Brown or with Sally Brown, or are they married to each other? Inasmuch as the woman loses her name in that of the man to whom she is wedded, and becomes a member of his family, not he of hers--inasmuch as, with few exceptions, it is her life that is merged in his--it would seem that, properly, Sally Brown is married to John Jones, and that this would be the proper way to make the announcement of their having been wedded, and not John Jones to Sally Brown.

There is also a difference of opinion as to whether the active or the passive form is preferable in referring to a person's wedded state. In speaking definitely of the act of marriage, the passive form is necessarily used with reference to either spouse. "John Jones was married to Sally Brown on Dec. 1, 1881"; not, "John Jones married Sally Brown" on such a date, for (unless they were Quakers) some third person married him to her and her to him. But, in speaking indefinitely of the fact of marriage, the active form is a matter of course. "Whom did John Jones marry?" "He married Sally Brown." "John Jones, when he had sown his wild oats, married [married himself, as the French say] and settled down." Got married is a vulgarism.

MAY. In the sense of can, may, in a negative clause, has become obsolete. "Though we may say a horse, we may not say a ox." The first may here is permissible; not so, however, the second, which should be can.

MEAT. At table, we ask for and offer beef, mutton, veal, steak, turkey, duck, etc., and do not ask for nor offer meat, which, to say the least, is inelegant. "Will you have [not, take] another piece of beef [not, of the beef]?" not, "Will you have another piece of meat?"

MEMORANDUM. The plural is memoranda, except when the singular means a book; then the plural is memorandums.

MERE. This word is not unfrequently misplaced, and sometimes, as in the following sentence, in consequence of being misplaced, it is changed to an adverb: "It is true of men as of God, that words merely meet with no response." What the writer evidently intended to say is, that mere words meet with no response.

METAPHOR. An implied comparison is called a metaphor; it is a more terse form of expression than the simile. Take, for example, this sentence from Spenser's "Philosophy of Style": "As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry." Expressed in metaphors, this becomes: "The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided, transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry."

Worcester's definition of a metaphor is: "A figure of speech founded on the resemblance which one object is supposed to bear, in some respect, to another, or a figure by which a word is transferred from a subject to which it properly belongs to another, in such a manner that a comparison is implied, though not formally expressed; a comparison or simile comprised in a word; as, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet.'" A metaphor differs from a simile in being expressed without any sign of comparison; thus, "the silver moon" is a metaphor; "the moon is bright as silver" is a simile. Examples:

"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased-- Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?"

"At length Erasmus Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And drove those holy Vandals off the stage."

"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent."

METONYMY. The rhetorical figure that puts the effect for the cause, the cause for the effect, the container for the thing contained, the sign, or symbol, for the thing signified, or the instrument for the agent, is called metonymy.

"One very common species of metonymy is, when the badge is put for the office. Thus we say the miter for the priesthood; the crown for royalty; for military occupation we say the sword; and for the literary professions, those especially of theology, law, and physic, the common expression is the gown."--Campbell.

Dr. Quackenbos, in his "Course of Composition and Rhetoric," says: "Metonymy is the exchange of names between things related. It is founded, not on resemblance, but on the relation of, 1. Cause and effect; as,'They have Moses and the prophets,' i. e., their writings; 'Gray hairs should be respected,' i. e., old age. 2. Progenitor and posterity; as, 'Hear, O Israel!' i. e., descendants of Israel. 3. Subject and attribute; as, 'Youth and beauty shall be laid in dust,' i. e., the young and beautiful. 4. Place and inhabitant; as, 'What land is so barbarous as to allow this injustice?' i. e., what people. 5. Container and thing contained; as, 'Our ships next opened fire,' i. e., our sailors. 6. Sign and thing signified; as, 'The scepter shall not depart from Judah,' i. e., kingly power. 7. Material and thing made of it; as, 'His steel gleamed on high,' i. e., his sword."

"Petitions having proved unsuccessful, it was determined to approach the throne more boldly."

MIDST, THE. See IN OUR MIDST.

MIND--CAPRICIOUS. "Lord Salisbury's mind is capricious."--"Tribune," April 3, 1881. See EQUANIMITY OF MIND.

MISPLACED CLAUSES. In writing and speaking, it is as important to give each clause its proper place as it is to place the words properly. The following are a few instances of misplaced clauses and adjuncts: "All these circumstances brought close to us a state of things which we never thought to have witnessed [to witness] in peaceful England. In the sister island, indeed, we had read of such horrors, but now they were brought home to our very household hearth."--Swift. Better: "We had read, indeed, of such horrors occurring in the sister island," etc.