[9]
For there is a place in
oratory for almost every word, with the exception
only of a very few, which are not sufficiently seemly.
Such words are indeed often praised when they
occur in writers of iambics1 or of the old comedy,
[p. 9]
but we need do no more than consider our own
special task. All words, with these exceptions,
may be admirably employed in some place or
other. For sometimes we shall even require low
and common words, while those which would
seem coarse if introduced in the more elegant
portions of our speech may, under certain circumstances, be appropriate enough.
1 See §§ 59 and 96.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.