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Vulgar Tongue

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is the ordinary common language of the people or country. The phrase "vulgar tongue" occurs in two or three of the rubrics and exhortations of the English Book of Common Prayer; e.g., in the service for baptism, which makes it obligatory "that baptism be ministered in the vulgar tongue." The preface to the Prayer-book, however, contains a reservation, that "it is not meant but that when men say morning and evening prayer privately, they may say the same in. any language that t they themselves do understand." The expression stood formerly in the English tongue, and was changed in compliance with the suggestion that "suppose, as it often falls out, that children of strangers who never intended to stay in England should be brought there for baptism," it would be objectionable that they should be required to learn the principles of religion in the English tongue. (See VERNACULAR).