Though contracted to its last
letter, a word still asserts its existence; but when even the last
letter has vanished its state is parlous indeed.
An Anglicism much ridiculed in America is "different to." As a
Scotchman, I dislike it, and would neither use nor defend it. At the
same time I cannot but hint to American critics that the use of a
particular preposition in a particular context is largely a matter of
convention; that when we learn a new language we have simply to get up
by rote the conventions that obtain in this regard, reason being little
or no guide to us; and that within the same language the conventions are
always changing. You may easily nonplus even a good grammarian by asking
him suddenly, "What preposition should you use in such-and-such a
context?" just as you may puzzle a man by asking him to spell a word
which, if he wrote it without thinking about it, would present no
difficulty to him. Some very good American writers always say, "at the
North," and "at the South," where an Englishman would certainly say
"in." "At," to my mind, suggests a very narrow point of space. I should
say "at" a village, but "in" a city--"at Concord," but "in Boston." I
recognise, however, that this is a mere matter of convention, and do
not dream of condemning "at the North" as an error.
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