It is only through lack of imagination that a people adapts the same expression to a hundred different ideas. It is a ridiculous sterility not to have known how to express otherwise _an arm of the sea_, _a scale arm_, _an arm of a chair_; there is poverty of thought in saying equally the _head of a nail_, the _head of an army_. Ignorance has introduced another custom into all modern languages. A thousand terms no longer signify what they should signify. _Idiot_ meant _solitary_, to-day it means _foolish_; _epiphany_ signified _appearance_, to-day it is the festival of three kings; _baptize_ is to dip in water, we say _baptize with the name_ of John or James. To these defects in almost all languages are added barbarous irregularities. Venus is a charming name, _venereal_ is abominable. Another result of the irregularity of these languages composed at hazard in uncouth times is the quantity of compound words of which the simple form does not exist any more. They are children who have lost their father. We have _architects_ and no _tects_; there are things which are _ineffable_ and none which are _effable_. One is _intrepid_, one is not _trepid_. There are _impudent_ fellows, _insolent_ fellows, but neither _pudent_ fellows nor _solent_ fellows. All languages more or less retain some of these defects; they are all irregular lands from which the hand of the adroit artist knows how to derive advantage. Other defects which make a nation's character evident always slip into languages. In France there are fashions in expressions as in ways of doing the hair. A fashionable invalid or doctor will take it into his head to say that he has had a _soupcon_ of fever to signify that he has had a slight attack; soon the whole nation has _soupcons_ of colics, _soupcons_ of hatred, love, ridicule. Preachers in the pulpit tell you that you must have at least a _soupcon_ of God's love. After a few months this fashion gives place to another. What does most harm to the nobility of the language is not this passing fashion with which people are soon disgusted, not the solecisms of fashionable people into which good authors do not fall, but the affectation of mediocre authors in speaking of serious things in a conversational style. Everything conspires to corrupt a language that is rather widely diffused; authors who spoil the style by affectation; those who write to foreign countries, and who almost always mingle foreign expressions with their natural tongue; merchants who introduce into conversation their business terms.