" INFINITELY."
[TO TRH EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—May I appeal to your love of accurate English agains the common use in writing, as in speaking, of the word " infinitely " as equivalent to " considerably "or " indefinitely "P —you write that " oil is infinitely less bulky than coal in pro- portion to the energy derived from it." You write that " the habitual loafer does infinite mischief." In the first case you intend "considerably" and in the second case you can only mean that the mischief is indefinite, sometimes great, some- times no worse than this letter from your obedient servant, AN HABITUAL LOAFER OF NEcEssiTv.
LWe stand corrected. Our use was a vulgarism. And yet we must not run into a taboo of this noble word. Swinburne uses it finely, accurately, and therefore without vulgarity, in the line, "In the infinite spirit is room for the pulse of an infinite pain." There the use is exact, because it does not imply mere magnitude.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
