Winston  Churchill,  the  author  of  those  much
discussed  novels,  Richard  Carvel  and  The  Crisis,
with  rather  unnecessary  modesty  regrets  to  say
that,  in  the  limited  course  of  his  compositions,  he
has  never  coined  any  original  words,  nor  does  he
feel  that  he  has  advanced  far  enough  in  his  pro-
fession to  give  any  views  of  value  on  the  subject.
Robert  Barr,  who  has  the  good  fortune  to  be  a
Scotchman,  a  Canadian,  and  an  American  rolled
into  one,  writes  jocularly  from  England,  asking
why  he  should  coin  words  when  there  are  thou-
sands now  in  the  language  which  he  doesn't  know
the  meaning  of  and  which  he  can't  spell.  The
man  who  would  coin  a  word  would  coin  a  lead
dollar,  he  asserts.  He  also  says  that  if  Kipling,
Mark  Twain,  Saltus,  Hawthorne,  Stedman,  and
numerous  others  have  confessed  to  me  that  they
have  committed  this  crime,  then  it  is  my  duty
not  to  write  a  book  on  it,  but  to  inform  the  police
and  get  this  notorious  gang  of  counterfeiters
placed  where  they  belong.  The  only  man  who
has  a  right  to  coin  a  word,  in  Barr's  opinion,  is  the
inventor  who  makes  a  machine  which  comes  into
the  world  without  a  name,  and  therefore  needs  one.
Tesla  and  Edison  have  the  right  to  construct  new
words  ;  Kipling  and  Ho  wells  have  not.  When  I
land  these  men  in  Sing  Sing,  Barr  wants  me  to


154  WORD-COINAGE.
let  him  know,  and  he  will  come  over  and  "do
time"  with  them  ;  for  if  he  does  not  invent  words,
he  says  he  has  committed  other  misdemeanors
which  entitle  him  to  put  on  the  same  picturesque
costume  that  they  will  wear,  and — well,  they  are
all  excellent  company,  in  jail  or  out.
