Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
For the present I will define barbarism as an offence occurring in connexion with single words. Some of my readers may object that such a topic is beneath the dignity of so ambitious a work. But who does not know that some barbarisms occur in writing, others in speaking? For although what is incorrect in writing will also be incorrect in speech, the converse is not necessarily true, inasmuch as mistakes in writing are caused by addition or omission, substitution or transposition, while mistakes in speaking are due to separation or combination of syllables, to aspiration or other errors of sound.
Trivial as these points may seem, our boys are still at school and I am reminding their instructors of their duty. And if one of our teachers is lacking in education and has done no more than set foot in the outer courts of his art, he will have to confine himself to the rules published in the elementary text-books: the
One kind is due to race, such as the insertion of a Spanish or African term; for instance the iron tire of a wheel is called cantus, [*]( Pers. v. 71. Usually, though wrongly, spelt oanthus. ) though Persius uses it as established in the Latin language; Catullus picked up ploxenum [*](Cat. xcvii. 6.) (a box) in the valley of the Po, while the author of the in Pollionem, be he Labienus or Cornelius Gallus, imported casamo from Gaul in the sense of
follower.As for mastruca, [*]( In Or. pro Scauro. ) which is Sardinian for a
rough coat,it is introduced by Cicero merely as an object of derision.
Another kind of barbarism proceeds from the speaker's temper: for instance, we regard it as barbarous if a speaker use cruel or brutal language.
A third and very common kind, of which anyone may fashion examples for himself, consists in the addition or omission of a letter or syllable, or in the substitution of one for another or in placing one where it has no right to be.
Some teachers however, to display their learning, are in the habit of picking out examples of barbarism from the poets and attacking the authors whom they are expounding for using such words. A boy should however realize that in poets such peculiarities are pardonable or even praiseworthy, and should therefore be taught less common instances.
For Tinga of Placentia, if we may believe Hortensius who takes him to task for it, committed two barbarisms in one word by saying precula for pergula: that is to say he substituted c for g, and transposed r and e. On the other hand