19 APRIL 1913, Page 14

BAD WORDS.

[TO !RR EDITOR OF THE "sine-ems."]

Sra,—Whatever you may decide as to "obsession" (how tired one is of the word !), pray set your face like a flint against the horrible verb "to obsess." As regards " pacificist," "pacifist," "pacist," &c., these terms are, I think, not only bad in point of form, but also open to objection as appearing to admit the claim of the advocate of peace at any price to be the true peacemaker and friend of peace. A propos of the spread of "bad words" (one cannot say "bad English," for it seems to be a kind of debased American-Latin), it makes one "stare and gasp" to find the able editor of one of your contemporaries, in an article published to-day, talking about " vim "1—I am, Sir

C. L. D.