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Five Hundred Mistakes Corrected

This book is offered to the public, not to be classed with elaborate or learned works, nor expected, like some of its more pretending companions among the offspring of the press, to run the gauntlet of literary criticism. It was prepared to meet the wants of persons--numbered by multitudes in even the most intelligent and refined communities--who from deficiency of education, or from carelessness of manner, are in the habit of misusing many of the most common words of the English language, distorting its grammatical forms, destroying its beauty, and corrupting its purity. The most thorough mode that could be adopted to correct such errors, would doubtless be to impart to the ignorant a practical knowledge of the principles of language, as embodied in treatises on grammar; but such a good work, however desirable its results, has, in time past, been too difficult for the promoters of education to complete, and is still too great to give promise of speedy accomplishment. A better expedient, bearing immediate fruits, has been adopted in the present volume, which, while it does not aim to produce a radical reform, cannot fail to render great service to those who need to improve their usual modes of expression, and to be more discriminating in their choice of words.
65 printed pages
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Quotes

  • b1661163708has quoted3 years ago
    Elder and eldest are applied to persons--older and oldest to things
  • Lina Peklerhas quoted9 years ago
    100. "Victoria is Queen of the United Kingdom:" say, United Kingdoms. Who ever speaks of the United State of America?
  • Taisiia Zhyvanhas quotedlast year
    WORDS TO BE CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHED.--Be very careful to distinguish between indite and indict (the former meaning to write, and the latter to accuse); key and quay; principle and principal; marshal and martial; counsel and council; counsellor and councillor; fort and forte; draft and draught; place and plaice (the latter being the name of a fish); stake and steak; satire and satyr; stationery and stationary; ton and tun; levy and levee; foment and ferment; fomentation and fermentation; petition and partition; Francis and Frances; dose and doze; diverse and divers; device and devise; wary and weary; salary and celery; radish and reddish; treble and triple; broach and brooch; ingenious and ingenuous; prophesy and prophecy (some clergymen sounding the final syllable of the latter word long, like the former); fondling and foundling; lightning and lightening; genus and genius; desert and dessert; currier and courier; pillow and pillar; executer and executor (the former being the regular noun from the verb "to execute," and the latter a strictly legal term); ridicule and reticule; lineament and liniment; track and tract, lickerish and licorice (lickerish signifying dainty, and licorice being a plant, or preparation from it); statute and statue; ordinance and ordnance; lease and leash; recourse and resource; straight and strait (straight meaning direct, and strait, narrow); immerge and emerge; style and stile; compliment and complement; bass and base; contagious and contiguous; eminent and imminent; eruption and irruption; precedent and president; relic and relict.

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