170 Aug. Western: Anm. af Stoffel, Intensives and Down-toners. that John is less poor than William, without saying anything of the latter’s degree of poverty; it is simply the negation of an equality and nothing more. In the latter case, on the contrary (John isn’t so poor as W.) we not only say that John is less poor than William, but the extra stress on so enables us to convey the impression that William’s poverty is very great indeed. After having made this clear, the author proceeds to give a large number of examples of the type not as—as, e. g. She was not as clever as Mrs. Hauksbee, but she was no fool, and he comes to the conclnsion that this type is used in order to convey to ‘the eye the same shade of meaning as is conveyed to the ear by putting an extra stress on so in the form not so—as. The example just given, therefore means: She was less clever than Mrs. H. who was exceptionally clever. I think there can be little doubt that the author has hit upon the right solution of this difficulty, even if, as he admits, cases may be found of not as—as, where not so—as would seem to be more correct. The concluding chapter of Part I. gives a short summary of some modern intensive adverbs such as vastly, awfully, jolly, sinful, cruel, badly. I cannot here deny myself the pleasure of mentioning the curious use in Norwegian schoolboys’ and schoolgirls’ slang (at least in my part of the country) of the adverb ilde (badly). This intensive is not only used in such phrases as ilde vondt («badly hurtful»), and ide stygí («badly ugly»), which are quite natural, but a young lady or gentleman cannot more forcibly express their admiration of anything, whether speaking of material or spiritual enjoyment, than by declaring it to be ilde godt («badly good»). In the second part the author treats of what he calls Downtoners i. e. adverbs conveying the idea of a moderately high degree, such as rather and pretty. The difference between these when placed before an adjective, for instance, rather cold and pretty cold is that rather is a sentence-modifier, and pretty a word-modifier; they therefore stand in the same relation to each other as guite and very. Rather may also be called an apologetic adverb, that «serves to tone down the harshness of a statement». Thus when, in Dickens's Christmas Carol, Bob apologises to Scrooge for being late on the morning after Christmas Day, he says, «I was making rather merry yesterday, sir». This apologetic, sentence-modifying use of rather dates from about the middle of the 18th century, and is believed by the author to have originated in the use of rather before a comparative, e. g. her consternation was rather greaier than his had been, which again is probably an ellipsis for: her consternation was greater, raiher than less, than his had been, that is, if there was any difference between his consternation and hers, the excess was on