PREFACE. XI our better knowledge of the wondrous capabilities of the English tongue. In this compilation I have passed by no words, &c, merely because they may be called vulgarisms; and I think with reason. The vulgar element, if the term must be used, has had far more to do with the formation of the English tongue than perhaps any other. There was a time when all English was vulgar ; when the lord who sat at the high table spoke a jargon of Korman-Erench, and the fine old Saxon, the language to be of the civOized world, was left to the churl and the swineherd. And vulgar as any words may be, the process of word-formation and the history of every dialect are written in them; and nothing should be thrown away by the word-collector, any more than by a botamst a singular shooting specimen of a plant; if he would learn the laws that regulate its formation, he must keep his eye on every manifestation oi vitality. In fact, such pronuncia- tions as gain for griny achdlard lot scJiolar, bud for but^ and so on, throw a light on a process which has ever influenced language, and no doubt ever will. What was good English once, in numerous cases is called a vulgarism now. What is a vulgarism now may be good English hereafter. We must not give ourselves airs, and presume to say the English of the day is perfect and for ever fixed: all history proves the contrary, and it is a sign of its vigour that it is not fixed, but capable of indefinite improvement. Growth must continue, changes must supervene, even as things are, but greater may occur. For instance, should the capital of the British Isles be removed to Dublin, then Thackeray's jokes of Oarge for Oewye, park for park, &c., would be jokes no longer. Or if Mother Shipton's saying (henelf a Yorkshire worthy) should in its fulness be verified, ' York was, London is, and Lincoln shall be The greatest city of the three,' would there not be a manifest change in the English of the courtly and polite 1 With these ideas I have passed by nothing save one or two words not usually found in dictionaries, and which need not be perpetuated. In conclusion, I must express my obligations to the many Mends
