Note 1023 — Chapter XXXIII
Reading edition
Bouhours points out several innovations which had lately come into use. He dislikes avoir des ménagemens, or avoir de la considération, and thinks these phrases would not last; in which he was mistaken. Tour de visage and tour d’esprit were new: the words fonds, mésures, amitiés, compte, and many more were used in new senses. Thus also assez and trop; as the phrase, je ne suis pas trop de votre avis. It seems, on reflection, that some of the expressions he animadverts upon, must have been affected while they were new, being in opposition to the correct meaning of words; and it is always curious, in other languages as well as our own, to observe the comparatively recent nobility of many things quite established by present usage. Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène p. 95.