[6]
For the present
I will define barbarism as an offence occurring in
connexion with single words. Some of my readers
may object that such a topic is beneath the dignity
of so ambitious a work. But who does not know
that some barbarisms occur in writing, others in
speaking? For although what is incorrect in
writing will also be incorrect in speech, the converse
is not necessarily true, inasmuch as mistakes in
writing are caused by addition or omission, substitution or transposition, while mistakes in speaking are
due to separation or combination of syllables, to
aspiration or other errors of sound.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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