The next question that presents itself to one who wishes to use English correctly is, How am I to know what words and expressions are in good use?

CONVERSATION AND GOOD USE.—­Good use cannot be determined solely by observing the conversation of our associates; for the chances are that they use many local expressions, some slang, and possibly some vulgarisms.  “You often hear it” is not proof that an expression is in good use.

NEWSPAPERS AND GOOD USE.—­Nor can good use be learned from what we see in newspapers.  Newspapers of high rank contain from time to time, especially in their editorial columns, some of the best modern prose, and much literature that has become standard was first printed in periodicals; but most of the prose in newspapers is written necessarily by contributors who do not belong to the class of “speakers or writers whom the world deems the best.”  As the newspaper in its news records the life of every day, so in its style it too frequently records the slang of daily life and the faults of ordinary conversation.  A newspaper contains bits of English prose from hundreds of different pens, some skilled, some unskilled; and this jumble of styles does not determine good use.

NO ONE BOOK OR WRITER DECISIVE.—­Nor is good use to be learned from our favorite author, unsupported by other authority; not even, as we have seen, from the English Bible, when it stands alone.  No writer, even the greatest, is free from occasional errors; but these accidental slips are not to be considered in determining good use.  Good use is decided by the prevailing usage of the writers whose works make up permanent English literature, not by their inadvertencies.  “The fact that Shakspere uses a word, or Sir Walter Scott, or Burke, or Washington Irving, or whoever happens to be writing earnestly in Melbourne or Sidney, does not make it reputable.  The fact that all five of these authorities use the word in the same sense would go very far to establish the usage.  On the other hand, the fact that any number of newspaper reporters agree in usage does not make the usage reputable.  The style of newspaper reporters is not without merit; it is very rarely unreadable; but for all its virtue it is rarely a well of English undefiled."[5]

“Reputable use is fixed, not by the practice of those whom A or B deems the best speakers or writers, but by the practice of those whom the world deems the best,—­those who are in the best repute, not indeed as to thought, but as to expression, the manner of communicating thought.  The practice of no one writer, however high he may stand in the public estimation, is enough to settle a point; but the uniform or nearly uniform practice of reputable speakers or writers is decisive."[6]