A Dictionary of Cont..

Morpheus 306
mean a stupid person (Any moron would know
enough not to give his right name) and has become
a term in the more sensational newspapers
for a sex pervert (Moron strikes again. Removing
shrubbery and lagoons will not improve the
morals of a moron). This last use is not standard
and should be discouraged if only because it
helps to obscure a serious social problem.
Morpheus, in the arms of. To refer to being
asleep as being in the arms of Morpheus is to
employ a strained and tedious expression. It is a
pedantic observation, though the affectation of
the usual reference to Morpheus justifies it, but
Morpheus was not the god of sleep. He was the
shaper of dreams. His father, Hypnos, was the
god of sleep.
mortal. In addition to its standard meanings of
liable to death or pertaining to man as subject to
death or pertaining to death or to this world,
mortal has a number of meanings in America,
none of which are found in literary English. It
means long and wearisome (She held me there
three mortal hours, going into the details of her
various ailments), great (He was in a mortal
hurry), and possible or conceivable (The thing
was of no mortal rrse). The last of these is probably
an extension of its standard meaning of
“related to this world in which all living things
are mortal.” That is, “It is of no use in this
world.”
Moses, as meek as. We don’t hear As meek as
Moses as much as we used to, but the conservative
force of alliteration still keeps it alive.
The phrase is a cliche and seemingly a contradiction.
We are assured in Numbers 12:3 that
the man Moses was very meek, above all the
men which were upon the face of the earth. But
his actions hardly bear this out. He killed the
Egyptian taskmaster, he destroyed Pharaoh’s
host. he smashed the tablets of the Ten Commandments,
he literally forced the golden calf
down the throats of the backsliders, he instigated
the slaying of about three thousand Israelites
as a disciplinary measure and smote the
rock which God had commanded him merely to
speak to.
All of this may indicate a vigor of character
inseparable from his powers of leadership but it
doesn’t accord with any known definition of
meekness. The commentators have striven manfully
with the passage, though their task has been
the more difficult in that until quite recently it
was assumed that Moses himself had written it
and it is hard to reconcile the possession of
meekness with so unequivocal a declaration of
it. The Bishops and Clergy of the Anglican
Church (in 1888) saw in Moses’ account of his
own humility “the simplicity of one who bears
witness of himself” and felt that his engaging
frankness in the matter “especially manifested
the direction of the Holv Spirit.” Weedon
felt that since this particular virtue of the prophet’s
might otherwise have escaped our attention
we had cause to be grateful to him for setting
false modesty aside and pointing it out to us.
The Cambridge Bible sought to resolve the
difficulty by suggesting that meek was here to be
understood in the sense of “pious,” though they
admitted that the suggestion offered “serious
difficulty,” not the least of which was that no
dictionary recognized any such sense.
Then in 1941, speaking before the annual
meeting of the Oriental Society, Professor 0.
R. Sellers, Professor of Old Testament at the
Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago,
pointed out that meek was a mistranslation of
the Hebrew word that would be better rendered
as vexed, put out, or irritable.
most; mostly. Most is the superlative form of the
words much and many.
The adjective most may mean greatest in
amount and qualify a singular noun, as in the
most power. It may also mean greatest in number
or nearly all and qualify a plural noun, as in
most men. It may be used in both senses as if
it were a noun, as in the most he could give was
ten dollars and most of his friends are awav. In
England the article the is no longer used before
most when it has a plural sense and the use of
the in a construction of this kind is considered a
Scotch idiom. In the United States the is not
used when most means nearly all but it is still
used when most means the greatest number, as
in the most were on my side.
The suffix -most is added to certain nouns and
adjectives to form superlative adjectives indicating
position, as in topmost, bottommost, furthermost,
innermost.
Most is also used as an adverb and means to
the greatest extent or in the highest degree, as
in he works most. It may be used before an
adjective or adverb to make what is equivalent
to a superlative form, as in most extraordinary,
most quickly. (See comparison of adjectives
and adverbs.) It may also be used in this position
as a pure intensive, or a stronger form of
very, as in it was most convincing and a most
wholesome meal. It always has this intensive
force when it follows the article a rather than
the article the.
In standard English most is not used freely as
an adverb with the meaning of nearly or almost.
It cannot be used in this sense to qualify a verb,
as in he most won, or before the article the, as
in he is most the richest man I know. But it is
used in this sense to qualify the adjective-pronouns
all, everyone, everybody, anyone, anybody,
and the one adverb always, as in most anyone
would say and we most always go shopping
on Saturday. Some grammarians claim that most
used in the sense of almost is always unacceptable.
But there is no doubt that these forms are
acceptable spoken English in the United States.
They are heard everywhere. And there is no
theoretical, or grammatical, reason why most
should not be used in this way.
The adverb mostly could once be used interchangeably
with the adverb most. The two words
may still be used in the same positions but they
now mean different things. Mostly means in the
main or on the whole, as in their homes are
mostly shabby. The adverb most, on the other