



Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Stephen Blundell
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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                                THE
                             VERBALIST:

                             _A MANUAL_
                              DEVOTED
             TO BRIEF DISCUSSIONS OF THE RIGHT AND THE
                         WRONG USE OF WORDS
                                AND
          TO SOME OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST TO THOSE WHO
               WOULD SPEAK AND WRITE WITH PROPRIETY.


                                BY
                           ALFRED AYRES.


 We remain shackled by timidity till we have learned to speak with
 propriety.--JOHNSON.

 As a man is known by his company, so a man's company may be known
 by his manner of expressing himself.--SWIFT.

                          [Illustration]

                             NEW YORK:
                     D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                     1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.
                               1887.




                           COPYRIGHT BY
                     D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                               1881




    Transcriber's Note

    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Archaic
    spellings have been retained as printed.




PREFATORY NOTE.


The title-page sufficiently sets forth the end this little book is
intended to serve.

For convenience' sake I have arranged in alphabetical order the subjects
treated of, and for economy's sake I have kept in mind that "he that
uses many words for the explaining of any subject doth, like the
cuttle-fish, hide himself in his own ink."

The curious inquirer who sets himself to look for the learning in the
book is advised that he will best find it in such works as George P.
Marsh's "Lectures on the English Language," Fitzedward Hall's "Recent
Exemplifications of False Philology," and "Modern English," Richard
Grant