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WORDS ABOUT WORDS
All provincial or bye-phrases come under the same mark of reprobation — all such as the writer transfers to the page from his fireside or a particular coterie, or that he invents for his own sole use and convenience. I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them circulation or value. I am fastidious in this respect, and would almost as soon coin the currency of the realm as counterfeit the King's English.
—William Hazlitt, English essayist, On Familiar Style, 1821

Posted on February 4, 2000 at 11:10 PM

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