restricted, or there may be a transfer of meaning. In the colloquial use
of "funny" we have an extension of its literary sense. The same is true of
"splendid," "jolly," "lovely," and "awfully," and of such Latin words as
"lepidus," "probe," and "pulchre." When we speak of "a splendid sun," we
are using splendid in its proper sense of shining or bright, but when we
say, "a splendid fellow," the adjective is used as a general epithet
expressing admiration. On the other hand, when a man of a certain class
refers to his "woman," he is employing the word in the restricted sense of
"wife." Perhaps we should put in a third category that very large
colloquial use of words in a transferred or figurative sense, which is
illustrated by "to touch" or "to strike" when applied to success in
getting money from a person. Our current slang is characterized by the
free use of words in this figurative way.

Under the head of syntax we must content ourselves with speaking of only
two changes, but these were far-reaching. We have already noticed the
analytical tendency of preliterary Latin. This tendency was held in check,
as we have just observed, so far as verb forms were concerned, but in the
comparison of adjectives and in the use of the cases it steadily made
headway, and ultimately triumphed over the synthetical principle. The
method adopted by literary Latin of indicating the comparative and the
superlative degrees of an adjective, by adding the endings -ior and
-issimus respectively, succumbed in the end to the practice of prefixing
plus or magis and maxime to the positive form. To take another
illustration of the same characteristic of popular Latin, as early as the
time of Plautus, we see a tendency to adopt our modern method of
indicating the relation which a substantive bears to some other word in
the sentence by means of a preposition rather than by simply using a case
form. The careless Roman was inclined to say, for instance, magna pars de
exercitu, rather than to use the genitive case of the word for army, magna