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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: unpleasing to us. The better known words, even if their meaning be
perverted, are more agreeable to us and have a greater power over us. Most
of us have experienced a sort of delight and feeling of curiosity when we
first came across or when we first used for ourselves a new word or phrase
or figure of speech.
There are associations of sound and of sense by which every word is linked
to every other. One letter harmonizes with another; every verb or noun
derives its meaning, not only from itself, but from the words with which it
is associated. Some reflection of them near or distant is embodied in it.
In any new use of a word all the existing uses of it have to be considered.
Upon these depends the question whether it will bear the proposed extension
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