De Abusu linguae Graecae

HENR. STEPHANVS
to the philhellene Greek-loving reader.

WHILE I was commenting on certain abuses of the Latin language, I found some words that were indeed derived from the Greeks, but which had been granted citizenship by the Romans, among those I had to address. However, later, when typographic occupations interrupted the course of that work, it happened in some way that what was to be a ergon main task became a parergon secondary task for me. For it pleased me in the meantime to aposchediazein improvise/sketch out something about the abuse of those words and also certain others, while they remained in my memory. I would be surprised if, by this labor, I did not incur the anger of certain very learned men, because there are some errors among those I expose which, if any of them should deny having committed themselves, I shall convict them by their own writings and slay them, as it were, with their own sword. Yet I will not be as surprised at that (since we experience in this century, above all, that saying of Catullus: All things are ungrateful: to have done anything is not kindly) as I am surprised now that so polished a century has retained such horrid barbarism in certain words. For as far as the men of the previous century are concerned, one ought not to be surprised at such errors in them, any more than...

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