"Solecism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though, that the blacks, when drinking at a river or water-hole, invariably scoop up the water with their hands, and never put their mouths right down close to the surface of the water. Well, one day I was guilty of this solecism. I had been out on a hunting expedition, and reached the water-hole with an intense burning thirst. My mentor was not with me. I fell on my knees and fairly buried my face in the life-giving fluid. Suddenly I heard murmurs behind me. I turned presently and saw a party of my blacks ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... models, and is not to be accused of artificiality, but to be credited with a true sincerity of selection in juxtaposing his soft corals and carnations and gleaming topaz, amethyst, and sapphire hues. The most exacting literalist can hardly accuse them of solecism in their rendering of nature, true as it is that their decorative sense is so strong as to lead them to impose on nature their own sentiment instead of yielding themselves to absorption in hers, and thus, ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... name, so is your comely face Touch'd everywhere with such diffused grace, As that in all that admirable round There is not one least solecism found; And as that part, so every portion else Keeps line ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... much money to spend. It added nothing to him if he had much, it took nothing from him if he had little.' A sharp fellow who worked, and a stupid fellow who was idle, were both of them in good odour enough, but a stupid boy who presumed to work was held to be an insufferable solecism.[25] ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.... A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." But Marshall was mighty and his view prevailed, though from time to time other men, clinging to Jefferson's opinion, likewise opposed the exercise by the Courts of the high power of passing ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... huddled into sense; but in the intervals of thought, leave a great gap between. Montesquieu said, he often lost an idea before he could find words for it: yet he dictated, by way of saving time, to an amanuensis. This last is, in my opinion, a vile method, and a solecism in authorship. Horne Tooke, among other paradoxes, used to maintain, that no one could write a good style who was not in the habit of talking and hearing the sound of his own voice. He might as well have said ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... theatre. They began in 1880 to affect it as never before. The one invaded Irving's premieres at the Lyceum. The other sang paeans in praise of the Bancrofts. The French plays, too, were the feigned delight of all the modish world. Not to have seen Chaumont in Totot chez Tata was held a solecism. The homely mesdames and messieurs from the Parisian boards were 'lionised' (how strangely that phrase rings to modern ears!) in ducal drawing-rooms. In fact, all the old prejudice of rank was being swept away. ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... still a little tenacious on this point. He often rails against the universal use of carriages, and quotes the words of honest Nashe to that effect. "It was thought," says Nashe, in his Quaternio, "a kind of solecism, and to savour of effeminacy, for a young gentleman in the flourishing time of his age to creep into a coach, and to shroud himself from wind and weather: our great delight was to out-brave the blustering boreas upon a great horse; to arm and ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... hesitated, wondering whether her request might not be a social solecism, like asking a professional ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair |
