_Eventuate_. The editor of Coleridge's Table Talk, very justly denounces this Americanism. He says it is to be met with in Washington Irving's Tour to the Prairies. If so, so much the worse for the book. It is a barbarism, "I pray you avoid it." We do not need the word, so that it cannot be sneaked in, under the plea of necessity. The English verb, _to result_, means all, I presume, that the fathers of _eventuate_ design that it shall mean. If we may coin _eventuate_ from event, why not _processiate_ from process, _contemptiate_ from contempt, _excessiate_ from excess, and a hundred more, all as useful and elegant as _eventuate_? _Directly_. Many of the English writers of the present day, use this word in a manner inelegant and unsanctioned, I am convinced, by any standard author. They appear to think that it has the same meaning as the phrase "as soon as." For instance: "The troops were dismissed _directly_ the general had reviewed them." "The House of Lords adjourned _directly_ this important bill had passed." I am happy to find that the writers in this country have not fallen into it. _Mutual_. When persons speak of an individual's being _a mutual friend_ of two others, who perhaps may not know each other, they attach a meaning to the word mutual which does not belong to it. A and B may be mutual friends, but how C can be the mutual friend of A and B it is difficult to comprehend. Where is the mutuality in this case? We should say, C is the _common_ friend of A and B. Several of the associations for interment which have lately been instituted, have seized upon the word _mutual_ and used it very absurdly. They style themselves "Mutual Burial Societies." How can two individuals _bury each other_? and yet this is implied by the term "_mutual_." Is not the familiar phrase, "now-a-days," a corruption of "in our days?" "_If I am not mistaken_." This is evidently wrong. If what I say to another is misunderstood, I am _mistaken_, but if I misunderstand what is said to me, I am _mistaking_, and so we should speak and write. _Degrees of perfection_. "The army," says president Monroe, in one of his messages, "has arrived at _a high degree of perfection_." There can be no degrees of perfection. Any thing which is _perfect_ cannot become _more_ {389} _perfect_, and any thing which falls short of perfection is in _a degree of imperfection_.