Clipping:A plea for a simpler vocabulary
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| Date | Sunday, September 6, 1868 |
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| Text | The editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, who has been reading the report of a base ball match, and gave it up, says: “between muffs, grounders, flies, stingers, daisy cutters, corkers, hot and high bounders and whitewashes, we came to as clear a comprehension of the game as though the report was written in hieroglyphics and recorded upon the Loretta [sic] stone.” He appeals to the fraternity, in conclusion, as follows: “Gentlemen, gentlemen! If this thing goes on, to what amazing dimensions will the next edition of Webster’s Unabridged be swollen in the effort to define all known words employed by the English tongue. Spare the coming generations. Make one effort to give an intelligible account of your interesting game, that will not require a glossary of terms and an amount of painful study equal to the translation of a page of Sophocles. The antiquarian of the twenty-first century should be considerately thought of. When he digs out of the dust of centuries a file of the Commercial of the year 1868, and comes upon the account of the great match game of base ball between the Red Stockings, of Cincinnati, and the Union Club, of Morrisania, imagine his perplexity and despair as he attempts to make it intelligible to his generation–and be merciful. |
| Source | Philadelphia Sunday Mercury |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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