Monday, August 24, 2020

 

Neglect of Words

Roger Ascham (1515-1568), The Scholemaster, ed. John E.B. Mayor (London: Bell and Daldy, 1863), p. 137:
Ye know not, what hurt ye do to learning, that care not for wordes, but for matter, and so make a devorse betwixt the tong and the hart. For marke all aiges: looke upon the whole course of both the Greeke and Latin tonge, and ye shall surelie finde, that, whan apte and good wordes began to be neglected, and properties of those two tonges to be confounded, than also began ill deedes to spring: strange maners to oppresse good orders, newe and fond opinions to strive with olde and trewe doctrine, first in Philosophie, and after in Religion: right judgement of all thinges to be perverted, and so vertue with learning is contemned, and studie left of: of ill thoughtes cummeth perverse judgement: of ill deedes springeth lewde taulke. Which fower misorders, as they mar mans life, so destroy they good learning withall.
fower = four.

Albert Camus, The Plague (tr. Stuart Gilbert):
I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clean-cut language.

J'ai compris que tout le malheur des hommes venait de ce qu'ils ne tenaient pas un langage clair.



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