A Word in Edgeways. By Ivor Brown. -(Cape. 7s. 6d.)
MANY things can be learned—would' that one could remember them all—from the latest (is it indeed to be the last ?) of Mr. Brown's word-books, but the chief pleasure lies in savouring his style. He is on the side of no party but that of words themselves. He knows the satisfaction of using them in their right sense to express his sympathies and his sense of the absurdity of things. But this, like other satisfactions, is made possible by discipline. It is founded on respect for words, joined with the belief that the study which they demand is a courtesy to which they are entitled. In the course of the book a few jolts are administered. Has Macbeth been overlooked in the note on lily-livered, and does not a suspicion of overlapping arise from two similar refer- ences to Attention Drawers? Cannot So long, of which various explanations are dis- cussed, be taken to mean for so long as you are out of my sight, take care of yourself? Lastly, is not regard for the prejudices of others and for their own sense of the importance of an occasion one of the things responsible for circumlocution and pomposity ; and is it not legitimate, by some means, to give expression to this ? Mr. Brown seems to think of it as being mere self-importance. His translation of a pompous resolution by a conference of doctors• is surely rather blunt. Or is this
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