"Vernacular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... using words beyond the ordinary vernacular of his neighborhood. To this end, he made a small vest-pocket lexicon ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... bearers and they set down our cages in front of a card-house of the same description as that at Tientsin where we had been so nicely "taken in and done for," as Macan would have expressed it in his Irish vernacular. ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... appoint not only divines of established reputation for sound theology, and especially for their knowledge in connection with the original languages of the sacred volume, but some one author at least noted for his mastery over the vernacular language. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... perversions of the doctrine of Jesus derived their moral force from his credit, and so had to keep his gospel alive. When the Protestants translated the Bible into the vernacular and let it loose among the people, they did an extremely dangerous thing, as the mischief which followed proves; but they incidentally let loose the sayings of Jesus in open competition with the sayings of Paul and Koheleth and David and Solomon and the authors of Job and the Pentateuch; and, ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... Protestantism had owed its victory. It is well known that of all the instruments employed by the Reformers of Germany, of England, and of Scotland, for the purpose of moving the public mind, the most powerful was the Bible translated into the vernacular tongues. In Ireland the Protestant Church had been established near half a century before the New Testament was printed in Erse. The whole Bible was not printed in Erse till this Church had existed ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knife and fork, of breaking his bread properly, and of removing his spoon from his coffee-cup, they were quite overpowering. During his two years in the army he had drifted into the easy habits and easier vernacular of the enlisted man. Whatever knowledge he had of the amenities of life had almost been forgotten. But, though his social virtues were few, he passionately identified himself with them rather than with his faults, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Bradley in 1913 informed the International Historical Congress that the word son had ceased to be vernacular in the dialects of many parts of England. 'I would not venture to assert (he adds) that the identity of sound with sun is the only cause that has led to the widespread disuse of son in dialect speech, but I think it has ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... we spent most of our time in swimming. On the sand-bar above the railroad bridge we fell in with a bunch of boys likewise in swimming. Between swims we lay on the bank and talked. They talked differently from the fellows I had been used to herding with. It was a new vernacular. They were road-kids, and with every word they uttered the lure of The Road laid hold ...
— The Road • Jack London
... worthy of notice is the Cavia australis, called cui in the vernacular from its voice: a timid, social, mouse-coloured little creature, with a low gurgling language, like running babbling waters; in habits resembling its domestic pied relation the guinea pig. It loves ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... were now dancing about the deck in a delirium of delight—calling out in true piratical terms, "We die, but we never surrender!" Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to the effect that he'd "knock the liver and lights out o' the hull gang," an expression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he never having cleaned a fish in ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... classes of English settlers appear to have adopted it by preference. Military proclamations were issued in this language;[512] or if the Saxon tongue were used, it was translated for the general benefit into the vernacular. During the Commonwealth, however, the English tongue made some way; and it is remarkable that the English-speaking Irish of the lower classes, in the present day, have preserved the idioms and the accentuation used about this period. Many ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the first man who thought consecutively in the German vernacular, and who made this philosophically still virginal language a medium for expressing profound thought. In addition he wrote Latin treatises which were discovered a short time ago; I have not read them, but I have no doubt that his profoundest convictions were expressed in ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... faultlessly professional phraseology of their leader; and, overwhelmed with mortification, the posse ached to recall them; for that the correct technical term had been applied by one for years trained to the vernacular of his calling was little consolation to these sensitive souls, now consumed ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... tradition. Palaemon is a classical name,[8] and Arcite might be a corruption of Archytas. Boccaccio's Teseide (the story of Theseus) which was written about 1344, and may have been first issued wholly or in part under the title of Amazonide, is a poem in the vernacular consisting of twelve books and ten thousand lines in ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... In the vernacular of the show profession of today, Rosston, Springer & Henderson took up the stand and did not appear in Brownsville. They were ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... who rode to dances with a shawl thrown over her skirt; who wore her hair cropped and curling all over her head; who answered indifferently to the name of William or Bill; whose speech was heavy with the flowers of the vernacular; who could act in amateur theatricals, play on the banjo, rule eight servants and two horses, their accounts and their diseases, and look men slowly and deliberately between the eyes—yea, after they had proposed ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... slumber and set him to work. Four casings and tubes for a two-ton truck run into money, as Casey was telling himself complacently. He had not yet sold any tires for a two-ton truck, and he had just two fabrics and two cords, in trade vernacular. He paid no further attention to the man, since there would be no bickering. When a man has only two badly chewed tires, and four wheels, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... see through the open door an Igorot boy, stark naked save gee-string and a little open coat, passing the plate. Father Clapp has been here seven years, has compiled a Bontok-English Dictionary, and translated the Gospel of Saint Mark into the vernacular. As already said, he has a school, a sort of hospital; is building a stone church; is full of his work, and deserves the warmest support. It must be very hard to get at what is going on behind the eyes of his native parishioners. For example, shortly before our arrival, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Deerslayer, when the other had ended his brief but spirited narrative, speaking always in the Delaware tongue, which for the reader's convenience only we render into the peculiar vernacular of the speaker—"Well, Sarpent, as you've been scouting around these Mingos, have you anything to tell us of their captyves, the father of these young women, and of another, who, I somewhat conclude, is the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... gnarled, wrinkled visage, which he shrouded in a green veil when hiving a swarm. He was a good-hearted old fellow, but very rough in his talk. He had been to sea in early life, and profanity had become the characteristic of his vernacular. Well, word came one morning that the bees were swarming, and a minute later I aroused the old man, who was smoking and dozing on his porch. I don't believe you ever ran faster, Alf, than I did then. Hiving bees was the old fellow's hobby and pride, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... two," the Kid answered, which in the vernacular means that any sum up to $200 be laid on one card save only on the last turn, when the amount ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... open. A lottery with 1500 square miles of territory as the sweepstakes and 100,000 people playing its wheel of fortune. Trying to describe its size and sweep and significance, I find myself, in the vernacular of the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne, Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... translations of the Scriptures, the Church Services, and other books, and the preachers in the vernacular for the infant Russian nation? The books had been translated about one hundred and twenty-five years previously, for the benefit of a small Slavonic tribe, the Moravians. This tribe had been baptized by German ecclesiastics, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Christian life must be infused into his character. To the Christian public, all other questions subordinate themselves to this, and this needs, not speculation, but hard work; legislation cannot do it, the church must; time will not do it, Christian teaching and example alone can. The vernacular question, so much agitated recently, is important only as it may hinder ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... Bruce, with evident reluctance, lowered his hand. Whoever these Indians were they well understood the principles that governed civilized warfare. They well knew that the white soldiers would respect a flag of truce, though in their own vernacular they referred to the sacred emblem only as a "fool flag," and sometimes used it, as did the Modocs five years later, to lure officers into ambush and deliberately murder them. They knew the white soldiers would take no advantage of foemen gathered for a conference ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... mildly, as he opened the hall door, "I am going around to the Supreme Court rooms. In five minutes you may step into the inner office, and inform the lady who is waiting there that"— here Lawyer Gooch made use of the vernacular—"that there's nothing doing." ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... reappearing Saint to persuade him to accept Christianity.—Monologue and dialogue are throughout in song. The following is one of the three verses in which the barbarian proclaims his loss; the last two lines in the vernacular are ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... were compelled to take a long chance. A Mounted Policeman can't use his gun except in self-defense. He isn't supposed to smoke up a fugitive unless the fugitive begins to throw lead his way—which method of procedure gives a man who is, in the vernacular, "on the dodge" all the best of a situation like that; for it gives an outlaw a chance to take the initiative, and the first shot often settles an argument of that kind. The dominating idea, as I understood it, was that the majesty of the law should prove a sufficiently ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... is no more religious than the American or the Britisher. He drinks as much whisky as they do light wines and beer. He "cusses" in the same unholy vernacular, only more vigorously. He strikes back as quickly. He hits as hard. He gives his enemy one cheek and then the other, and then both feet and fists; but the Canadian goes to church. One of the most amazing sights of the new frontier cities is to see a church debouching of a Sunday ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... start as to time, and a still greater advantage in the character of its population. And in addition to these we have the undoubted and constantly increasing supremacy of the English language. Just as during the Middle Ages Latin was the vernacular of the learned classes, and as to-day French is the language of diplomacy in Europe, so is English the common tongue in all the commercial localities of the globe. With English a man can commit himself to foreign travel anywhere, while outside ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... matter. The earliest existing form of the name, after the English Conquest, seems to be that given in a Latin Charter of the eighth century as Weogorna civitas. (Here it is difficult to disentangle the English from its Latin dress.) A little later it appears in a vernacular shape (also in a charter) as Wigran ceaster. In the later part of the English Chronicle it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster, from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... of more hot water, and on the way heard voices which made him call Mr. Graham, who knew more of the vernacular German patois than himself, to understand it. He thought he had caught something about English, and a doctor at Kandersteg. It was true. A guide belonging to the other side of the pass, who had been weather-bound at Kandersteg, had just come up with tidings ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sixth day Bivens rose early and declared that he would try the ducks. The day before had been, in the local vernacular, a "weather breeder"—a day of breathless seas, a soft haze hanging from the sky, a lazy, sensuous, dreamy, alluring tenderness in ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... conceded modern liberty when he granted the charter of medieval liberties, as to think that he permitted some one to found a new religion when he licensed him to endow a new religious house (novam religionem); and to regard Magna Carta as a great popular achievement, when no vernacular version of it is known to have existed before the sixteenth century, and when it contains hardly a word or an idea of popular English origin, involves complete misunderstanding of its meaning and a serious antedating of ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... Monarchy, and the Constitution generally were dear to Borrow, but he hated all the aristocracy (except those whom he knew personally) and most of the gentry. Also, he had the odd Radical sympathy for anybody who, as the vernacular has it, was "kept out of his rights." I do not know, but I should think, that Borrow was a strong Tichbornite. In that curious book Wild Wales, where almost more of his real character appears than in any other, he has to do with ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... lapses. Moral lapses are to be regretted, of course; but they do not vitiate our status as the Sons of God. It is possible that no one believes they do; but much of the loose statement current among those who lay emphasis on morals would give that impression. There is a whole vernacular in vogue in which souls are "lost" or "saved" according to the degree to which they conform or do not conform to other people's views as to what they ought to do. Much of our pietism is to the effect that God is at the ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... Jane, that when he spoke on medical topics and subjects, which formed the only real education he had received, his mode of speech was refined and almost polished; whereas, his usual language when engaged in seafaring matters—his present vocation—was vernacular in the extreme, smacking more of Vermont than it did of Harvard ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... the Chinese language later assumed a monosyllabic, isolating, uninflected form, grammatical relations being indicated by position. From the earliest forms of speech several subordinate vernacular languages arose in various districts, and from these sprang local dialects, etc. Tone-distinctions arose—i.e. the same words pronounced with a different intonation came to mean different things. Development of these distinctions ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... was suffering from tetter or other serious skin trouble and was peeling badly. There was a current superstition about the place to the effect that the bathroom and the water supply might on occasion be heated with a device known in the vernacular as ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... finances, partly by the liberal expenditure of British capital. Above all, the period saw the beginning of a system of popular education, of which the English language became the main vehicle, because none of the thirty-eight recognised vernacular tongues of India either possessed the necessary literature, or could be used as a medium for instruction in modern science. In 1858 three universities were established; and although their system was ill-devised, under the malign influence of the analogy ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... curious. Instead of using an Anglo-French dictionary, he always used one in Anglo-Latin. The sense of a Latin or Greek word, he said, is better established, more surely fixed, more definite, less liable to capricious peculiarities of convention, than the vernacular words which the whim or ignorance of the lexicographer may choose. The reader composes his own vocabulary, and gains both correctness and energy.[25] However this may be, his knowledge of English was more accurate ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to express the opinion that the Russian Jews hailed, not from Germany, as is commonly supposed, but from the banks of the Volga. This hypothesis, corroborated by tradition, Harkavy established as a fact. Originally the vernacular of the Jews of Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev was Russian and Polish, or, rather, the two being closely allied, Palaeo-Slavonic. The havoc wrought by the Crusades in the Jewish communities of Western Europe caused a constant stream of German-Jewish immigrants to pour, since 1090, into the comparatively ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... education had only included reading, writing, needlework and cookery, and she knew no language but her own. Her husband had been taught Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of the nautical order, and entirely oral and vernacular. However, it enabled him to aver that the letter—if such it were—was neither Scottish, French, Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch. He looked at it in all directions, and shook ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... translation he would not in the least recognize it. The fact is, Mr. Tippengray, I do not believe that your method of Greek pickling will answer to preserve our fiction for the future. It may do for histories and scientific work, but when you come to dialect and vernacular, if you once get it into Greek you can never get it back again as ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... does not deal exclusively with the dusty records of dead languages and bygone civilizations. It is linked up with present questions, and is alive to the changing India of to-day. Among the matters discussed during my visit were such as: the substitution of a vernacular for English in the university course; the possibility of a national language for all India; the advisability of co-education; and the place of the unmarried woman in New India. To report all that the girls said and wrote would require a book ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... scarcely omitting the work of Humboldt, in which he sought to represent the whole of geology by algebraic symbols. Percival's work actually demands, and would richly repay, a translation into the vernacular of descriptive geology,—the language and mode of illustration employed by Murchison and Hitchcock. In its present form, it is safe to say, it has never found a single reader among the persons for whose benefit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... before literary clubs and circles bellowed extracts from Goethe and Schiler in the German, shaking his fists, purple with vehemence. The Cherokee, arrayed in fringed buckskin and blue beads, rented from a costumer, intoned folk songs of his people in the vernacular. The elocutionist in cheese-cloth toga and tin bracelets, rendered "The Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung." The Chinaman, in the robes of a mandarin, lectured on Confucius. The Armenian, in fez and baggy trousers, spoke of the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... to recall or to reconstruct; and when older people attempt to reconstruct it, they remember the emotions which underlay it, and the eager interests out of which it all sprang; and they make it something picturesque, epigrammatic, and vernacular which is wholly untrue to life. The fact is that the talk of schoolboys is very trivial and almost wholly symbolical; emotion reveals itself in glance and gesture, not in word at all. I suppose that most of us remember our boyish friendships, ardent and eager personal admirations, extraordinary ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you," said Philip, laughing. "Oh, go on, my friend. Don't say 'sir' to me; it's a badge of servitude pasted onto the vernacular. Say ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... not want to use the present as a point of departure. It wants to bask in the present perfection of color, word, or sound. The practical man is interested in a present situation for what can be done with it; he wants to know, in the vernacular, "What comes next?" "Where do we go from here?" The appreciator wishes to remain in the lovely interlude of perfection which he experiences in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Hastings with oranges and bananas, and the two became great friends. It was a pretty sight seeing the fearless small boy in his white suit, bare legs, and little sun-helmet, standing in front of the great beast who could have crushed him to a wafer in one second, and ordering him in the vernacular, with his shrill child's voice, to kneel. It was a more curious sight seeing the huge animal at once obey his little mentor, and, struggling with the infirmities and rheumatic joints of old age (to which, alas! ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... by which the University of Cambridge, Eng., was formerly known. At present it is sometimes designated by this title in poetry, and in addresses written in other tongues than the vernacular. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... to the horse as he touched him with the whip. The horse responded nobly and they bowled along right merrily. Bob tried to think what "Allons, Gi-may" meant. He got the first word all right. That meant "Giddap or Go-along" in the vernacular but what that "Gi-may" meant he could not think. He did not want to ask Mr. Waterman so soon for information. Taking the bull by the horns, Bob began a conversation with the driver. To be sure it was very limited, for Bob had his ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... had been so prevalent on the passage to Bear Island. Mr. Cooke had never felt better, and looked every inch a sea-captain in his natty yachting-suit. He had acquired a tan on the island; and, as is eminently proper on a boat, he affected nautical manners and nautical ways. But his vernacular savored so hopelessly of the track and stall that he had been able to acquire no mastery over the art of marine invective. And he possessed not so much as one maritime oath. As soon as we had swung clear of the cove he made for the weather stays, where he assumed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that our Scottish brethren would resign, together with 'backslidings,' to the use of field preachers. But worse, by a great deal, and not even intelligible in England, is the word thereafter, used as an adverb of time, i.e., as the correlative of hereafter. Thereafter, in pure vernacular English, bears a totally different sense. In 'Paradise Lost,' for instance, having heard the character of a particular angel, you are told that he spoke thereafter, i.e., spoke agreeably to that character. 'How a score of sheep, Master Shallow?' The answer ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... think it probable that the little peoples and the provinces which cultivate a national speech, will long find a great facility in expressing themselves in verse. I observe that it has recently been stated that Wales, which has always teemed with vernacular poets, has never possessed so many as she does at this time. I am debarred by what Keats called "giant ignorance" from expressing an opinion on the subject, but I presume that in Welsh the resources of language are far from being so seriously exhausted as ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the vernacular versions the second line of 130 has been rendered wrongly. The two lines are quite unconnected with each other. Nilakantha rightly supposes that Karyam is understood after Mahikshitah. Karana, however, is not kriya as explained by Nilakantha ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... same, sedan, carriage, Royal boat, yacht &c. and on her being grown up she became more prudent than other children of the same age, she paid every affectionate attention to her affectionate and esteemed father in every thing where her ability allowed; she was well educated in the vernacular Siamese literature which she commenced to study when she was 3 years old, and in last year she commenced to study in the English School where the schoolmistress, Lady L—— has observed that she ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... vernacular poet, author of "The Mitherless Bairn," &c.; was a native of and hand-loom weaver at Aberdeen; endured ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... peoples of Western Europe began to show themselves even in their Latin poetry, but it is naturally in the rise of the vernacular literatures, during the Middle Ages, that we trace the signs of thnic differentiation. Teuton and Frank and Norseman, Spaniard or Italian, betray their blood as soon as they begin to sing in their own tongue. The ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... foreign simulating a vernacular origin.—These may occur in any mixed language whatever; they occur, however, oftener in the English than in ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... wood-cutting and printing. A Vulgate from Dr. Faustus's own press, a mass book and breviary, Thomas a Kempis's Imitation and the Nuremburg Chronicle all in Latin, and the poetry of the gentle Minnesinger and bird lover, Walther von Vogelweide, in the vernacular: these were her stock, which Hausfrau Johanna had viewed as a foolish encumbrance, and Hugh Sorel would never have transported to the castle unless they had been so well concealed in Christina's kirtles that he had taken them for parts ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... preservation of government on the basis of a free constitution. Wherever it exists there will be foolish and violent paragraphs in the newspapers, as there are, I am sorry to say, foolish and violent speeches in both houses of Congress. In truth, Sir, I must say that, in my opinion, the vernacular tongue of the country has become greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted by the style of our Congressional debates. And if it were possible for those debates to vitiate the principles of the people as much as they have depraved ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the burly Buggins, than whom no Goose had a more fluent use of his vernacular. He was not polished as Robinson, nor had he ever possessed the exquisite keenness of Crowdy. But in speaking he always hit the nail on the head, and carried his hearers with him by the energy and perspicuity of his argument. But by degrees the world ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... universal Bantu vernacular, French (official), English (official), Kiswahili (Swahili) used in ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... possessed. It should be said that during the fifteenth century the popularity of these plays increased enormously, records of their performance being found in all parts of England, including Cornwall and Wales, where they were acted in the vernacular. ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... itinerary, as in all the ancient voyages and travels, the names of persons, places, and things, are generally given in an extremely vicious orthography, often almost utterly unintelligible, as taken down orally, according to the vernacular modes of the respective writers, without any intimate knowledge of the native language, or the employment of any fixed general standard. To avoid the multiplication of notes, we have endeavoured to supply this defect, by subjoining those names which are now almost universally adopted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... encouraging Oriental learning by stipends paid to students in Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic; and by liberal grants for the publication of works in those languages. The other half were in favour of teaching the elements of knowledge in the vernacular tongues, and the higher branches in English. On his arrival, Macaulay was appointed President of the Committee; but he declined to take any active part in its proceedings until the Government had finally pronounced on the question at issue. Later in January 1835 the advocates of the two ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... which he greatly plumed himself. Howbeit, 'twas all for no other reason than that, being a man of substance, he gave liberal doles to the friars; who, for that they got thereof, this one hose, another a cloak, and a third a hood, would teach him good orisons, or give him the paternoster in the vernacular, or the chant of St. Alexis, or the lament of St. Bernard, or the laud of Lady Matilda, or the like sorry stuff, which he greatly prized, and guarded with jealous care, deeming them all most conducive to the salvation ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... accommodations at all, but which pushes before her from Pittsburg to New Orleans more than a score of flatbottomed, square-nosed scows, aggregating perhaps more than an acre of surface, and heavy laden with coal. Such a tow—for "tow" it is in the river vernacular, although it is pushed—will transport more in one trip than would suffice to load six heavy freight trains. Not infrequently the barges or scows will number more than thirty, carrying more than 1000 tons each, or a cargo exceeding in value $100,000. During the season when navigation ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the villa of Pollius Felix; it is now known as Punta Calcarella, but used to be called Petrapoli; pure Greek: Pollio's rock. There is still a mine of such material to be exploited by all who care to study the vernacular. The giant euphorbia, for instance, common on these hills, is locally known as "totomaglie"; ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... while!" Nina said, with daring. There was exquisite homage in the dropped, listening head, the eyes that smiled so close to her own. "But if I tell Mother that, she thinks I'm crazy!" she added, lapsing into the school vernacular against a desperate effort to sustain the conversation at ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... some scope for any display of their own cleverness in finding the proofs they so yearned to possess in rounding up the "cantankerous varmint," as Perk was already calling Kearns in his Yankee vernacular. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... has been already observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue.] ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... for active participation in civic affairs other than a yearly visit to the polls to register his vote. He has not done much more than this since his inception. His work alone has sufficed, for him, at least, though the time is past when he can bury himself in his professional work and, in the vernacular, get away with it. Men of the stamp of Herbert Hoover have demonstrated the very great need for men of scientific training in public affairs. Such places heretofore have been filled with business men ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... face, already quite definitely marked with her sex, came in so funnily atop that she got clear away from all my power of similes and resembled nothing in the world but Nellie in masquerade. Then there was Robinet in a white night gown, old woman's cap (mutch, in my vernacular), snuff-box and crutch doubled up and yet leaping and gyrating about the floor with incredible agility; and lastly, Mademoiselle in a sort of elderly walking-dress and with blue spectacles. And all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a scientific basis, but naturally more difficult for the use of beginners. To obviate the matter Lamarck conceived and proposed the dichotomic method for the easy determination of species. No new species were described, and the work, written in the vernacular, was simply a guide to the indigenous plants of France, beginning with the cryptogams and ending with the flowering plants. A second edition appeared in 1780, and a third, edited and remodelled by A. P. De Candolle, and forming six volumes, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... will kindly shut up," he said, blending his natural politeness with his employment of the vernacular, "and if you will also answer a few questions I will save you a lot of trouble. You were Lady ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Rolle of Hampole, especially his translation and exposition of the Psalter, edited by the Rev. H.R. Bramley (Oxford, 1884), and the Prose Treatises edited by the Rev. G.G. Perry for the Early English Text Society. Dr Murray further calls attention to the Early Scottish Laws, of which the vernacular translations partly ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... a playlet depends upon showing not the conventional stage, as it is commonly seen, but the real stage as it is, unset with scenery; therefore sometimes the entire stage is used as the playing stage, and then in the vernacular it is ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... children, and, early in the acquaintance, fortunately brought them to the house. The moment I saw the strange girl, I recognized a rural type of Melissa Daggett, while the urchin of Bobsey's age did not scruple to use vile language in my hearing. I doubt whether the poor little savage had any better vernacular. I told them kindly but firmly that they must not come on the place again ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... the oldest of the vernacular literatures of modern Europe; and it is a consequence of this that its relations with Latin literature have been the closest. All the vernacular literatures have been influenced by the Latin, but of Anglo-Saxon literature alone can it be said that it has been subjected to ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes' clubs going, for yule-tide, when the bands of mummers came round, dressed out in ribbons and coloured paper caps, and stamped round the Squire's kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular the legend of St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound doctor, who plays his part at healing the Saint—a relic, I believe, of the old Middle-age mysteries. It was the first dramatic representation which greeted ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... and despair.' Dr. Beattie (Life, p. 243) wrote on Jan. 5, 1778:—'We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language, which we understand, but cannot speak.' He adds:—'I have spent some years in labouring to acquire the art of giving a vernacular cast to the English we write.' Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto, p. 222) says:—'Since we began to affect speaking a foreign language, which the English dialect is to us, humour, it must be confessed, is less ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He commented briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the theatres, touched on the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at nearby country clubs conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, gossiping pleasantly in the vernacular about horses and packs and drag-hunts and stables, and what people thought of the new English hounds of the trial pack, and how the new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to break so many bones ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica, suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit. Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... then repeated the question in the vernacular of the markets, interspersed with cosas and abas ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... which these stories are presented is the language in which they were collected and written down,—English. Perhaps no apology is required for not printing the vernacular herewith; nevertheless an explanation might be made. In the first place, the object in recording these tales has been a literary one, not a linguistic one. In the second place, the number of distinctly different languages represented by the originals might ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... have made her very familiar with their tongue. In reading these Letters one cannot fail to perceive how fittingly Spanish words and phrases are interwoven with her own English. At the time these Letters were written, many Spanish words were a part of the California vernacular, but to Shirley belongs the honor of introducing them into the literature of California; hence, in printing the Letters, such words are not italicized, as they usually are, by printers who should ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... butter-making, poultry-farming, bootmaking, tanning and quarrying (lime, slate and paving-stones). The borough of Denbigh has a separate commission of the peace, but no separate court of quarter sessions. The town has long been known as a Welsh publishing centre, the vernacular newspaper, Baner, being edited and printed here. Near Denbigh, at Bodelwyddan, &c., coal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... written in the racy Dutch of the sixteenth century! What could he not have produced if, instead of gleaning and commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, for his themes, availed himself of the proverbs of the vernacular? To us such a proverb is perhaps even more sapid than the sometimes slightly finical ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... from the people and losing sight of the ignorance and filth and heathenism, we forget what our chief aim should be, not simply school-work for the children, but Christianization and civilization for the masses. This, in its greatest effectiveness, can be done at the out-stations and in the vernacular only. It is necessary to have the gospel preached constantly in order to have it penetrate these darkened hearts, preached in a tongue which can be understood, and necessary to have a Christian life lived in its simplicity in their very midst. The native missionary's family ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... popularity of the verse in the vernacular. Clearly, then, the Latin version is a translation of this, and not vice versa. It must have been a rhyming formula in the vernacular, which had a life of its own quite ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... her. "If you insist," he said. The girl started in surprise at the words, and the man plunged immediately into the vernacular of the cow-country as he followed her into the timber. "Yes. A cup of Java wouldn't go bad, but I won't stop long. I want to kind of circulate along the back-trail a ways to see if we're bein' followed." He took the cup of coffee from her hand and watched as she sliced the bacon ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... boy, established at the crossing, who had indeed rendered himself conspicuous by his endeavours to ferry Puckers over dry-shod, was accosted by a shabby-genteel and remarkably good-looking man in the following vernacular— ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... much inclined to resent this tone, and to use her vernacular. But it seemed only too probable that Fanny had been deceiving her, and, as she really feared for the girl's safety, prudence bade her be civil ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... regard with affectionate veneration the life-work of the Reformers, and the theology of the Reformation. Of a later date, and in our own vernacular, we have inherited from the Puritans an indigenous theology, great in quantity and precious in kind,—a legacy that has enriched our age more, perhaps, than the age is altogether willing to acknowledge. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... in after years against the slayers of the Vaudois. The Italian language is named by him among three which, about the time of his migration to the University, he had added to the classical and the vernacular, the other two being French and Hebrew. It has been remarked, however, that his use of "Penseroso," incorrect both in orthography and signification, shows that prior to his visit to Italy he was unacquainted ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... cacophonous brown sparrow; sometimes he's a splendid florid money-lender, or an aproned and obsequious greengrocer, or a trusted friend, hearty and familiar. But he 's always there; and he's always—if you don't mind the vernacular—'on the snatch.'" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... the frontier spawned has been described as rationalistic. However, this was a rationalism which was not at odds with empiricism, but which was more in line with what has been called the American philosophy, pragmatism. Or, to put it in the vernacular, "if it works, it's good." The frontiersman was a trial-and-error empiricist, who believed in his own ability to fathom the depths of the problems which plagued him. If the apparent solution contradicted past patterns and interpretations, he justified his actions ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... A lady equally admired for her modesty, the beauty of her person, and the excellency of her talents. Gaia, says Tiraboschi, may perhaps lay claim to the praise of having been the first among the Italian ladies, by whom the vernacular poetry was ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... have been hindered and also enlarged during the past year. The hindrance came from the interference of the Government. In its well-intended zeal for the introduction of the English language, it surpassed the limits which experience had fixed, by requiring that the vernacular should not be taught, nor even spoken, in any Indian schools on the Reservation including these mission stations, which were wholly sustained by benevolent funds. Under this ruling, thirteen stations were closed from September to January. But the remonstrances coming from almost every denomination ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... the war brought on internal strife and revolution which robbed Czar Nicholas of his throne, traces its history back for more than ten centuries, when the Norse invaded the territory and founded Veliki Novgorod, for many years one of the chief Russian cities. The Norse, to use the modern vernacular, "put Russia on the map" when the Russian army fought its way to the very walls of Constantinople. Much of the early history of the country is legendary, and one of the famous stories is that after Igor, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... of the supremacy of the written Word of God over human traditions, as well as of the right of all Christian men and women to have direct access to that blessed Word; not only the translation into the vernacular—German, English, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish—and the circulation throughout Western Europe of that which for ages had been to the Christian laity as a book that is sealed; but it was also, above all this, the infusion of a new and higher ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... Nelia dropped into her childhood vernacular as she looked down the bank, "Likely yo' mout he'p me ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... perhaps, is his poem on "The Skull." Even in this case some moral pictures[105] have been omitted, as either too coarsely or too solemnly touched, to be fit for our purpose. A few lines of the conclusion are also omitted, as being mere amplifications of Scripture—wonderful, indeed, in point of vernacular beauty or sublimity, but not fusible for other use. Slight traces of imitation may be perceived; "The Grave" of Blair, and some passages of "Hamlet," ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Then incidentally he asks for business and perhaps for politics and may be as an afterthought and for his own comfort he may pray for the good will of his fellows. Tom Van Dorn became known in the vernacular as a "ladies man." It did not hurt his reputation as a lawyer, for he was young and youth is supposed to have its follies so long as its follies are mere follies. No one in that day hinted that Tom Van Dorn ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... it not but the once," was the retort; and then they struck each other with their fists in rough play, and laughed, and said good-night in the vernacular. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rejoiced in his Sunday's suit. It was a great occasion for both parties. On first recognising each other, the ladies exchanged looks which were truly edifying to behold. Mrs. Anderson's was that of calm, dignified triumph; and which, if translated into her own vernacular, would have said, "My word, lass, but ye'll fin whar ye are noo." Mrs. Callender's, again, was that of bold defiance, and told of a spirit that was unconquerable—game to the last being the most strongly marked ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... lamely and laboriously translated into the vernacular by Squanto, Winslow wiped his brow and wished that it consisted with his dignity to throw off his armor and stretch himself upon the pine needles at his feet, but it evidently did not; and in a moment or two Squanto delivered to him the king's reply that he was very willing to become an ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... say, sirrah," cried Potts. "You are quite sure the hut is behind the clough; and the rindle, which, being interpreted from your base vernacular, I believe means a gutter, in ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... current rules of prosody in tender consideration for its thousands of English readers. There is, however, we are tolerably assured, a certain class of critics who venture to lament that this laughter-inspiring muse should have descended from the sunny Parnassus of its own vernacular to the meads below, where disport the unlearned and uninspired, the mere kids and lambs of its celestial audience: a generous absurdity, at which the very Devil of Delphos might have demurred. These are the dapper gentlemen, who, tripping gayly along to the blasts and tinklings ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... me, and to prove that I was more fully conversant with the language, as he confidently believed, than I felt disposed to concede. Something was being read over to me by the Clerk upon which my thoughts were concentrated. Suddenly the Chairman roared out a terrifying word in the vernacular. I never moved a hair. I behaved just as if the Chairman had merely sneezed. My imperturbability appeared to convince him that I really did not understand German, because no further reference was made to the fact. Subsequently my interpreter ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... but always to hold the other's attention, to permit his brain no chance to wander from the subject to any other. But the fellow seemed now to have become as tractable as before he had been sullen, stubborn; gave his version in his own vernacular, always keenly attentive, observant of the other's every motion. His strength had apparently returned; he seemed little the worse for his late encounter. At length came an interval; just for an instant John Steele's eyes shut; the fingers that had held the pen closed ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... himself, in eight small volumes (Boston, 1857-1858). Thenceforward the leisure of his life—much increased by his transfer, in 1876, to the new professorship of English—was devoted to the comparative study of British vernacular ballads. He accumulated, in the university library, one of the largest folklore collections in existence, studied manuscript rather than printed sources, and carried his investigations into the ballads of all other tongues, meanwhile giving a sedulous but conservative hearing to popular ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... have seen these wild Indian ponies rearing alternately before and behind, or "bucking," as it is called in the vernacular, will appreciate ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time. And the most interesting parts of the Arthurian story are rarely handled at all in such early vernacular versions of it as we have, whether in verse or prose. Naturally enough, perhaps, it was the fabulous historic connection with British history, and the story of the great British enchanter Merlin, that attracted most ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... unable to determine whether they were cow-boys or miners, these being the two classes into which, as he imagined, the western population was about evenly divided. That they immediately classified him, in their western vernacular, as a "tenderfoot," and a remarkably verdant specimen at that, was not owing to their superior penetration, as it was a ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the vernacular dialects of not a few of its subjugated provinces, and greatly promoted the diffusion of Latin. That language, which had gradually spread throughout Italy and the west of Europe, was at length understood by persons of rank and education ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... after all, never to be decently shipwrecked. We had suffered but little injury, and proceeded on our way as quietly as if nothing had interrupted our course. On our arrival at the next pilot station the captain put the pilot ashore, with a parting malediction in the Swedish vernacular. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... archiepiscopal; where that university still subsists in which philosophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whose name has as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the instability of vernacular languages admits. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... vernacular styles the plant "a coarse root," or a "Horse radish," as distinguished from the eatable radish (root), the Raphanus sativus. Formerly it was named Mountain Radish, and Great Raifort. This is said to ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie |
