PATHOS

emotion; but in this phrase, now common though little recognized in dictionaries, the original wider sense of emotion in general is reverted to, & the p. f. means the tendency to credit nature with human emotions. Sphinxlike, siren-sweet, sly, benign, impassive, vindictive, callously indifferent the sea may seem to a consciousness addicted to pathetic fallacies.

pathos. For this & bathos the OED recognizes only the pronunciations pā-, bā-.

patois. For p., dialect, &c., see

pave makes the exceptional agentnoun paviour.

pavé. See FRENCH WORDS.

pawky. The Englishman is tempted to use the word merely as a synonym in certain contexts for Scotch; any jest uttered by a Scot is pawky, & pawky humour is understood to be unattainable except by Scots. The underlying notions are those of craftiness, concealment of intention, apparent gravity, ironical detachment. The pawky person says his say, &, if the hearers choose to find more point in the words than a plain interpretation necessitates, that is their business; more than other people's, his Jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears.

pay. For inflexions, see VERBS IN --IE &c., 1.

paysage. See FRENCH Words.

pedagogy, -gical. See GREek g. pedal makes -lled, -lling; -LL-, -L-.

PEDANTIC HUMOUR. No essential distinction is intended between this & POLYSYLLABIC HUMOUR; one or the other name is more appropriate to particular specimens, & the two headings are therefore useful for reference; but they are manifestations of the same impulse, & the few remarks needed may be made here for both. A warning is necessary, because we have all of us, except the abnormally stupid, been pedantic humourists in our time. We spend much of our childhood picking up a vocabulary; we like to air our latest finds; we discover that our elders are tickled when we come out with a new name that they thought beyond us; we devote some pains to tickling them further; & there we are, pedants & polysyllabists all. The impulse is healthy for children, & nearly universal-which is just why warning is necessary; for among so many there will always be some who fail to realize that the clever habit applauded at home will make them insufferable abroad. Most of those who are capable of writing well enough to find readers do learn with more or less of delay that playful use of long or learned words is a onesided game boring the reader more than it pleases the writer, that the impulse to it is a danger-signalfor there must be something wrong with what they are saying if it needs recommending by such puerilities—, & that yielding to the impulse is a confession of failure. But now & then even an able writer will go on believing that the incongruity between simple things to be said &

PEDANTRY

out-of-the-way words to say them in has a perennial charm; it has, for the reader who never outgrows hobbledehoyhood; but for the rest of us it is dreary indeed. It is possible that acquaintance with such labels as pedantic & polysyllabic humour may help to shorten the time that it takes to cure a weakness incident to youth.

An elementary example or two should be given. The words homoeopathic (small or minute), sartorial (of clothes), interregnum (gap), are familiar ones :- -To introduce Lords of Parliament' in such homoeopathic doses as to leave a preponderating power in the hands of those who enjoy a merely hereditary title./While we were motoring out to the station I took stock of his sartorial aspect, which had changed somewhat since we parted./ In his vehement action his breeches fall down & his waistcoat runs up, so that there is a great interregnum.

These words are, like most that are much used in humour of either kind, both pedantic & polysyllabic. A few specimens that cannot be described as polysyllabic are added here, & for the larger class of long words the article POLYSYLLABIC HUMOUR should be consulted :— ablution; aforesaid; beverage; bivalve (the succulent); caloric; cuticle ; digit; domestics; eke (adv.); ergo; erstwhile; felicide; nasal organ; neighbourhood (in the n. of, about); nether garments; optic (eye); parlous; vulpicide.

establish not what pedantry is, but only the place in the scale occupied by the author; & that, so far as it is worth inquiring into, can be better ascertained from the treatment of details, to some of which accordingly, with a slight classification, reference is now made. The entries under each heading are the names of articles; & by referring to a few of these the reader who has views of his own will be able to place the book in the pedantry scale & judge what may be expected of it. There are certainly many accuracies that are not pedantries, as well as some that are; there are certainly some pedantries that are not accuracies, as well as many that are ; & no book that attempts, as this one does, to give hundreds of decisions on the matter will find many readers who will accept them all.

Spelling Niceties: See Didacticism; -in & -ine; Mute e; amuck; gypsy; Mahomet; morale.

Pronunciation: See False quan

tity; French words; Greek g; Christmas; diphtheria; margarine. Long or learned words: See dual(istic); Love of the long word; fuliginous; intermediary; meticulous; thrasonical.

Synonyms: See apt; authentic ; broad; classic(al); exceedingly. Variants & differentiation: See acceptance; act(ion); alternative; ascendancy; complacent; masterful. Symmetry: See between; both; either; nor.

Logic & pleonasm: See ago; because; equally as; Haziness.

Rules of style: See and, 2; Elegant variation; Fused participle; only; Preposition at end; Split infinitive.

Reversion to etymological senses: See dastardly; decimate; egregious; enormous; infinite; internecine; journal.

Objections to particular words or constructions: See aggravate; cablegram; case; coastal ; conservative; different; doubt(ful); feasible; ilk; Inversion; like; oblivious; quieten.

pedlar. So spelt.

peewit. See PEWIT.

peignoir. See FRENCH Words. pekoe. Pronounce pěkō. Pelasgi, -gic. See GREEK G. pellucid. See TRANSPARENT. pelta. Pl. -ae.

pelvis. Pl. -ves (-ēz).

sce

penalize makes -zable; see MUTE E. Penates. Pronounce pinā'tēz. penchant. See FRENCH Words. pencil. Pronounce -sl. P. makes -lled, -lling, &c.; see -LL-, -L-.

pendant, pendent, pennant, pennon. There is much confusion between these; the reasonable distribution of meanings to forms would be as follows: pendent, the adjective, hanging; pendant, a noun, a hanging ornament or appurtenance; pennant, a noun in nautical use for certain pieces of rigging & certain flags; pennon, a noun in heraldic & military use for a lance-streamer or the like. Pendent should not be used as a noun; pendant should be neither an adjective nor the nautical noun; pennon should not be the nautical noun; see DIFFER

ENTIATION.

pendente lite. Pron. pěndě ́nti lī'ti. pendulum. Pl. -ms; see -UM. penetralia. A plural noun. penetrate makes -trable, -tor; see -ABLE 1, -OR.

penful. Pl. -ls; see -FUL. peninsula(r).

Uses of the noun (-la) instead of the adjective (-lar), as the Peninsula War, or vice versa, as the Spanish Peninsular, are wrong, but not uncommon. The former is indeed defensible, on the ground that nouns can be used attributively, but at least ill advised.

penman should be used with reference to handwriting only, not to the writing of books or articles; in the sense writer or author it is an affectation-not indeed a new invention, but a REVIVAL.

pen-name. See NOM DE GUERRE.

PERCENTAGE

peradventure. See ARCHAISM.

per capita. The consumption of tobacco & alcohol has increased during the year as follows: spirits, 1-112 gallons per capita, compared with 1030 in 1911./The entire production of opium in India is two grammes per capita yearly. This use is a modern blunder, encouraged in some recent dictionaries. (So much) a head', or ' per man', which is the meaning here, would not be per capita (any more than it would be 'per men'), but per caput. Per capita describes the method of sharing property in which persons, & not families, are the units, & its opposite is per stirpes; Patrimonial estates are divided per capita; purchased estates, per stirpes; it is out of place, & something of a barbarism, however lately popular, except in such a context.

percentage. See LOVE OF THE LONG WORD, & MISAPPREHENSIONS. The notion has gone abroad that a percentage is a small part. Far from that, while a part is always less than the whole, a percentage may be the whole or more than the whole; there is little comfort to be had in 1925 from reflecting that our cost of living can be expressed as

a percentage of 1914's. The uneducated public prefers a word that sounds scientific, even if it gives the sense less well, to another that it can understand; see POPULARIZED TECHNICALITIES. In all the following examples but the last, the word percentage has no meaning at all without the addition of small or of something else to define it; & in the last the greater part would be the English for the larger percentage :But in London there is no civic consciousness; the London-born provides only a percentage of its inhabitants./ The wealthy employers do not really count when you consider the position of domestic service, because they are. only few in number & employ only a percentage of the total of domestic servants./It is none the less true that the trade unions only represent a percentage of the whole body of railway workers./Our tax revenue is now fully one hundred & sixty millions sterling, & the Single Land Tax would not yield more than a percentage of this./The largest percentage of heat generated is utilizable, but the rest escapes & is lost. For an exact parallel, see PROPORTION.

perchance is very much out of place in pedestrian prose, as, for instance, in There is nothing, perchance, which so readily links the ages together as a small store of jewels & trinkets. See ARCHAISM, INCONGRUOUS VOCABULARY, & POETICISMS.

percolate makes -lable, -tor; see -ABLE 1, OR.

&

perdu, formerly naturalized common, has become comparatively rare, but can still be at least pronounced as English (perdū' per'du), though now usually printed in italics as French.

père. See FRENCH WORDS. peregrinate. A

HUMOUR Word.

or

POLYSYLLABIC

peremptory. Pronounce pě'rimtori, not perě'mtori.

PERFECT INFINITIVE, i. e. to have done &c. These are forms that often

PERFECT INFINITIVE

push their way in where they are not wanted, & sometimes, but less often, are themselves displaced by wrong presents.

1. After past tenses of hope, fear, expect, & the like, the perfect infinitive is used, incorrectly indeed & unnecessarily, but so often & with so useful an implication that it may well be counted idiomatic. That implication is that the thing hoped &c. did not in fact come to pass, & the economy of conveying this without a separate sentence compensates for lack of logical precision. So-Philosophy began to congratulate herself upon such a proselyte from the world of business, & hoped to have extended her power under the auspices of such a leader./It was the duty of that publisher to have rebutted a statement which he knew to be a calumny./ I was going to have asked, when.

2. After past conditionals such as should have liked, would have been possible, would have been the first to, the present infinitive is (almost invariably) the right form, but the perfect often intrudes, & this time without the compensation noted in 1, the implication of non-fulfilment being inherent in the governing verb itself. So :-If my point had not been this, I should not have endeavoured to have shown the connexion./Jim Scudamore would have been the first man to have acknowledged the anomaly./ Peggy would have liked to have shown her turban & bird of paradise at the ball./The Labour members opened their eyes wide, & except for a capital levy it is doubtful whether they would have dared to have gone further. Sometimes a writer, dimly aware that 'would have liked to have done' is usually wrong, is yet so fascinated by the perfect infinitive that he clings to that at all costs, & alters instead the part of his sentence that was right: On the point of church James was obdurate; he would like to have insisted on the other grudging items (would have liked to insist).

PERFECT

3. With seem, appear, & the like, people get puzzled over the combinations of the present & past of seem &c. with the present & perfect of the infinitive. The possible combinations are: He seems to know, He seems to have known, He seemed to know, He seemed to have known. The first admits of no confusion, & may be left aside; the last is very rarely wanted in fact, but is constantly resorted to as an en-tout-cas by those who cannot decide whether the umbrella of He seems to have known or the parasol of He seemed to know is more likely to suit the weather. The en-tout-cas has been taken in :-I warned him when he spoke to me that I could not speak to him at all if I was to be quoted as an authority; he seemed to have taken this as applying only to the first question he asked me (seems to have)./It was no infrequent occurrence for people going to the theatre in the dark to fall into the marshes after crossing the bridge; people seemed to have been much more willing to run risks in those days.

PERIPHRASIS

peril makes lling &c. (see -LL-, -L-), but perilous.

period. For synonyms see TIME. For the full stop, see STOPS. For the use in rhetoric, TECHNICAL

TERMS.

PERIOD IN ABBREVIATIONS. The practice of ending every abbreviation with a period (Wm. for William as well as Gen. for General, viz. for videlicet as well as sc. for scilicet, qr. for quarter as well as lb. for libra) is ill advised. Abbreviations are puzzling, but to puzzle is not their purpose, & everything that helps the reader to guess their meaning is a gain. One such help is to let him know when the first & last letters of the abbreviation are also those of the full word, which can be done by not using the period, but writing wt (not wt.) for weight, Bp (not Bp.) for bishop, Mr (not Mr.) for Mister, Bart (not Bart.) for baronet, bot. for botany but bot for bought, Capt. for captain but Cpl for corporal, doz. for dozen but cut for hundredweight, Feb. for February but fcp for foolscap, Frl. for Fräulein but Mlle for Mademoiselle, in. for inches but ft for feet, Geo. for George but Thos for Thomas, Lat. for Latin but G for Greek, h.w., but ht wt, for hit wicket.

periodic(al). The -ic form is not used of publications (periodical literature, periodicals); the -ical form is not used of literary composition (Johnson's periodic style); otherwise the two words do not differ in meaning, but the longer tends to oust the shorter.

peripeteia. See TECHNICAL TERMS PERIPHRASIS is the putting of things in a round-about way. In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable news is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris; Rarely does the • Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month contains a p. for