[2]
I have already,
in the portions of the first book dealing with the
subject of grammar, said all that is necessary on
the way to acquire idiomatic and correct speech.
But there my remarks were restricted to the prevention of positive faults, and it is well that I should
now point out that our words should have nothing
provincial or foreign about them. For you will find
[p. 197]
that there are a number of writers by no means
deficient in style whose language is precious rather
than idiomatic. As an illustration of my meaning
I would remind you of the story of the old woman
at Athens, who, when Theophrastus, a man of no
mean eloquence, used one solitary word in an
affected way, immediately said that he was a
foreigner, and on being asked how she detected it,
replied that his language was too Attic for Athens.
Again Asinius Pollio held that Livy,
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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