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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: English Past and Present + +Author: Richard Chevenix Trench + +Editor: A. Smythe Palmer + +Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20900] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Amy Cunningham, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber’s Note</h3> + +<p>This e-text uses a number of special characters, including:</p> +<ul><li>vowels with macrons: ā ē ō</li> +<li>vowels with breves: ă ĕ ŏ</li> +<li>accented Greek: ἀ ἔ ἦ ϊ ῦ ῳ</li> +<li>phonetic symbols: <span title="e symbol">ɛ</span> <span title="i symbol">ɨ</span> +<span title="o symbol">ɵ</span> <span title="ng symbol">ŋ</span></li></ul> + +<p>If these do not display correctly, make sure that your browser’s +file encoding is set to UTF-8. You may also need to change your default +font. For Greek words, the transliteration will appear if you move the +mouse over the word: <span title="Greek: akmê">ἀκμή</span></p> + +<p>A short passage on page 222 uses some symbols that are not in Unicode; +see the <a href="#phonetic">explanation</a> at the end of the text for +images of the original symbols and the transcription scheme.</p> + +<p>In the original book, the odd-numbered pages have unique headers, +represented here as sidenotes.</p> + +<p>Obvious printing errors involving punctuation (such as missing single +quotes), as well as alphabetization errors in the index, have been +corrected without notes. Other corrections of +printing errors are noted using mouse-hover popups +<ins class="correction" title="description of change">like this</ins>. +Variation in the spelling of the names Jonson/Johnson, Spenser/Spencer, +and Ralegh/Raleigh is as in the original.</p> +</div> + + + +<h1>ENGLISH<br /> +PAST AND PRESENT<br /><br /></h1> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.<br /><br /></h2> + + + +<p class="center"><i>Edited with Emendations</i></p> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center">A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D.<br /><br /></p> + + +<p class="center"><i>Author of ‘The Folk and their Word-lore,’ ‘Folk-Etymology,’ +‘Babylonian Influence on the Bible,’ etc.</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 114px;"> +<img src="images/pmark.png" width="114" height="153" alt="" title="Printer’s Mark" /> +</div> + + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London</span></p> + +<p class="center">GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, <span class="smcap">Limited</span></p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.</p> + +<p class="center">1905 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span> +</p> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2>EDITOR’S PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>In editing the present volume I have thought it +well to follow the same rule which I laid down for +myself in editing <i>The Study of Words</i>, and have +made no alteration in the text of Dr. Trench’s +work (the fifth edition). Any corrections or additions +that seemed to be demanded owing to the +progress of lexicographical knowledge have been +reserved for the foot-notes, and these can always +be distinguished from those in the original by the +square brackets [thus] within which they are placed.</p> + +<p>On the whole more corrections have been required +in <i>English Past and Present</i> than in <i>The +Study of Words</i> owing to the sweeping statements +which involve universal negatives—statements, +e.g. that certain words either first came into use, +or ceased to be employed, at a specific date. +Nothing short of the combined researches of an +army of co-operative workers, such as the <i>New +English Dictionary</i> commanded, could warrant the +correctness of assertions of this kind, which imply +an exhaustive acquaintance with a subject so immense +as the entire range of English literature.</p> + +<p>Even the mistakes of a learned man are instructive +to those who essay to follow in his steps, and +it is not without use to point them out instead of +ignoring or expunging them. Thus, when the +Archbishop falls into the error (venial when he +wrote) of assuming an etymological connexion +between certain words which have a specious air +of kinship—such as ‘care’ and ‘cura,’ ‘bloom’ +and ‘blossom,’ ‘ghastly’ and ‘ghostly,’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>‘brat’ and ‘brood,’ ‘slow’ and ‘slough’—he +makes just the mistakes which we would be +tempted to make ourselves had not Professor +Skeat and Dr. Murray and the great German +School of philologists taught us to know better. +Our plan, therefore, has been to leave such errors in +the text and point out the better way in the notes. +In other words, we have treated the Archbishop’s +work as a classic, and the occasional emendations +in the notes serve to mark the progress of half a +century of etymological investigation. It is hardly +necessary to point out that the chronological landmarks +occurring here and there need an obvious +equation of time to make them correct for the +present year of grace, e.g. ‘lately,’ when it occurs, +must be understood to mean at least fifty years ago, +and a similar addition must be made to other +time-points when they present themselves.</p> + +<p class="signature"><span class="smcap">A. Smythe Palmer</span>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_THE_FIRST_EDITION" id="PREFACE_TO_THE_FIRST_EDITION"></a>PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION</h2> + + +<p>A series of four lectures which I delivered last +spring to the pupils of the King’s College School, +London, supplied the foundation to this present +volume. These lectures, which I was obliged to +prepare in haste, on a brief invitation, and under +the pressure of other engagements, being subsequently +enlarged and recast, were delivered in the +autumn somewhat more nearly in their present +shape to the pupils of the Training School, Winchester; +with only those alterations, omissions +and additions, which the difference in my hearers +suggested as necessary or desirable. I have found +it convenient to keep the lectures, as regards the +persons presumed to be addressed, in that earlier +form which I had sketched out at the first; and, +inasmuch as it helps much to keep lectures vivid +and real that one should have some well defined +audience, if not actually before one, yet before the +mind’s eye, to suppose myself throughout addressing +my first hearers. I have supposed myself, that +is, addressing a body of young Englishmen, all with +a fair amount of classical knowledge (in my explanations +I have sometimes had others with less +than theirs in my eye), not wholly unacquainted +with modern languages; but not yet with any +special designation as to their future work; having +only as yet marked out to them the duty in general +of living lives worthy of those who have England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +for their native country, and English for their +native tongue. To lead such through a more intimate +knowledge of this into a greater love of that, +has been a principal aim which I have set before +myself throughout.</p> + +<p>In a few places I have been obliged again to go +over ground which I had before gone over in a +little book, <i>On the Study of Words</i>; but I believe +that I have never merely repeated myself, nor +given to the readers of my former work and now +of this any right to complain that I am compelling +them to travel a second time by the same paths. +At least it has been my endeavour, whenever I +have found myself at points where the two books +come necessarily into contact, that what was +treated with any fulness before, should be here +touched on more lightly; and only what there was +slightly handled, should here be entered on at large.</p> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapter"><a href="#I">LECTURE I</a> + <span class="smaller right">PAGE</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#I">English a Composite Language</a></td> + <td class="right">1</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapter"><a href="#II">LECTURE II</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#II">Gains of the English Language</a></td> + <td class="right">40</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapter"><a href="#III">LECTURE III</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#III">Diminutions of the English Language</a></td> + <td class="right">113</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapter"><a href="#IV">LECTURE IV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IV">Changes in the Meaning of English Words</a></td> + <td class="right">176</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapter"><a href="#V">LECTURE V</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#V">Changes in the Spelling of English Words</a></td> + <td class="right">212</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Index">Index</a></td><td class="right">257</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="ENGLISH" id="ENGLISH"></a>ENGLISH<br /> +PAST AND PRESENT</h2> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE</h3> + + +<p>“A very slight acquaintance with the history +of our own language will teach us that the speech +of Chaucer’s age is not the speech of Skelton’s, that +there is a great difference between the language +under Elizabeth and that under Charles the +First, between that under Charles the First and +Charles the Second, between that under Charles +the Second and Queen Anne; that considerable +changes had taken place between the beginning +and the middle of the last century, and that +Johnson and Fielding did not write altogether +as we do now. For in the course of a nation’s +progress new ideas are evermore mounting above +the horizon, while others are lost sight of and +sink below it: others again change their form and +aspect: others which seemed united, split into +parts. And as it is with ideas, so it is with their +symbols, words. New ones are perpetually coined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +to meet the demand of an advanced understanding, +of new feelings that have sprung out of the +decay of old ones, of ideas that have shot forth +from the summit of the tree of our knowledge; +old words meanwhile fall into disuse and become +obsolete; others have their meaning narrowed +and defined; synonyms diverge from each other +and their property is parted between them; nay, +whole classes of words will now and then be thrown +overboard, as new feelings or perceptions of +analogy gain ground. A history of the language +in which all these vicissitudes should be pointed +out, in which the introduction of every new word +should be noted, so far as it is possible—and +much may be done in this way by laborious and +diligent and judicious research—in which such +words as have become obsolete should be followed +down to their final extinction, in which all the +most remarkable words should be traced through +their successive phases of meaning, and in which +moreover the causes and occasions of these changes +should be explained, such a work would not only +abound in entertainment, but would throw more +light on the development of the human mind +than all the brainspun systems of metaphysics +that ever were written”.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p>These words, which thus far are not my own, +but the words of a greatly honoured friend and +teacher, who, though we behold him now no +more, still teaches, and will teach, by the wisdom +of his writings, and the nobleness of his life (they +are words of Archdeacon Hare), I have put in +the forefront of my lectures; seeing that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +anticipate in the way of masterly sketch all which +I shall attempt to accomplish, and indeed draw +out the lines of much more, to which I shall not +venture so much as to put my hand. They are +the more welcome to me, because they encourage +me to believe that if, in choosing the English +language, its past and its present, as the subject +of that brief course of lectures which I am to +deliver in this place, I have chosen a subject +which in many ways transcends my powers, and +lies beyond the range of my knowledge, it is yet one +in itself of deepest interest, and of fully recognized +value. Nor can I refrain from hoping that +even with my imperfect handling, it is an argument +which will find an answer and an echo in the +hearts of all who hear me; which would have +found this at any time; which will do so especially +at the present. For these are times which naturally +rouse into liveliest activity all our latent +affections for the land of our birth. It is one +of the compensations, indeed the greatest of all, +for the wastefulness, the woe, the cruel losses of +war<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>, that it causes and indeed compels a people +to know itself a people; leading each one to +esteem and prize most that which he has in common +with his fellow countrymen, and not now any +longer those things which separate and divide +him from them.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Love of our own Tongue</i></div> + +<p>And the love of our own language, what is it in +fact, but the love of our country expressing +itself in one particular direction? If the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +acts of that nation to which we belong are precious +to us, if we feel ourselves made greater by their +greatness, summoned to a nobler life by the +nobleness of Englishmen who have already lived +and died, and have bequeathed to us a name +which must not by us be made less, what exploits +of theirs can well be nobler, what can more clearly +point out their native land and ours as having +fulfilled a glorious past, as being destined for a +glorious future, than that they should have +acquired for themselves and for those who come +after them a clear, a strong, an harmonious, a +noble language? For all this bears witness to +corresponding merits in those that speak it, to +clearness of mental vision, to strength, to harmony, +to nobleness in them that have gradually formed +and shaped it to be the utterance of their inmost +life and being.</p> + +<p>To know of this language, the stages which it +has gone through, the sources from which its +riches have been derived, the gains which it is now +making, the perils which have threatened or are +threatening it, the losses which it has sustained, +the capacities which may be yet latent in it, +waiting to be evoked, the points in which it transcends +other tongues, in which it comes short of +them, all this may well be the object of worthy +ambition to every one of us. So may we hope to +be ourselves guardians of its purity, and not +corrupters of it; to introduce, it may be, others +into an intelligent knowledge of that, with which +we shall have ourselves more than a merely superficial +acquaintance; to bequeath it to those who +come after us not worse than we received it our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>selves. +“Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna”,—this +should be our motto in respect at once of our +country, and of our country’s tongue.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Duty to our own Tongue</i></div> + +<p>Nor shall we, I trust, any of us feel this subject +to be alien or remote from the purposes which +have brought us to study within these walls. It +is true that we are mainly occupied here in +studying other tongues than our own. The time +we bestow upon it is small as compared with that +bestowed on those others. And yet one of our +main purposes in learning them is that we may +better understand this. Nor ought any other to +dispute with it the first and foremost place in our +reverence, our gratitude, and our love. It has +been well and worthily said by an illustrious German +scholar: “The care of the national language +I consider as at all times a sacred trust and a most +important privilege of the higher orders of society. +Every man of education should make it the object +of his unceasing concern, to preserve his language +pure and entire, to speak it, so far as is in his +power, in all its beauty and perfection.... +A nation whose language becomes rude and +barbarous, must be on the brink of barbarism in +regard to everything else. A nation which allows +her language to go to ruin, is parting with the last +half of her intellectual independence, and testifies +her willingness to cease to exist”<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>.</p> + +<p>But this knowledge, like all other knowledge +which is worth attaining, is only to be attained +at the price of labour and pains. The language +which at this day we speak is the result of pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>cesses +which have been going forward for hundreds +and for thousands of years. Nay more, it is not +too much to affirm that processes modifying the +English which at the present day we write and +speak have been at work from the first day that +man, being gifted with discourse of reason, projected +his thought from out himself, and embodied +and contemplated it in his word. Which things +being so, if we would understand this language +as it now is, we must know something of it as it +has been; we must be able to measure, however +roughly, the forces, which have been at work upon +it, moulding and shaping it into the forms which +it now wears.</p> + +<p>At the same time various prudential considerations +must determine for us how far up we will +endeavour to trace the course of its history. There +are those who may seek to trace our language to the +forests of Germany and Scandinavia, to investigate +its relation to all the kindred tongues that +were there spoken; again, to follow it up, till it +and they are seen descending from an elder stock; +nor once to pause, till they have assigned to it its +place not merely in respect of that small group of +languages which are immediately round it, but in +respect of all the tongues and languages of the +earth. I can imagine few studies of a more surpassing +interest than this. Others, however, must +be content with seeking such insight into their +native language as may be within the reach of all +who, unable to make this the subject of especial +research, possessing neither that vast compass +of knowledge, nor that immense apparatus of +books, not being at liberty to dedicate to it that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +devotion almost of a life which, followed out to +the full, it would require, have yet an intelligent +interest in their mother tongue, and desire to +learn as much of its growth and history and +construction as may be reasonably deemed within +their reach. To such as these I shall suppose +myself to be speaking. It would be a piece of +great presumption in me to undertake to speak to +any other, or to assume any other ground than +this for myself.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Past explains the Present</i></div> + +<p>I know there are some, who, when they are +invited to enter at all upon the past history of the +language, are inclined to make answer—“To what +end such studies to us? Why cannot we leave +them to a few antiquaries and grammarians? +Sufficient to us to know the laws of our present +English, to obtain an accurate acquaintance with +the language as we now find it, without concerning +ourselves with the phases through which it has +previously past”. This may sound plausible +enough; and I can quite understand a real lover +of his native tongue, who has not bestowed +much thought upon the subject, arguing in this +manner. And yet indeed such argument proceeds +altogether on a mistake. One sufficient reason +why we should occupy ourselves with the past of +our language is, because the present is only intelligible +in the light of the past, often of a very remote +past indeed. There are anomalies out of number +now existing in our language, which the pure logic +of grammar is quite incapable of explaining; +which nothing but a knowledge of its historic +evolutions, and of the disturbing forces which have +made themselves felt therein, will ever enable us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +to understand. Even as, again, unless we possess +some knowledge of the past, it is impossible that +we can ourselves advance a single step in the +unfolding of the latent capabilities of the language, +without the danger of committing some barbarous +violation of its very primary laws.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p>The plan which I have laid down for myself, +and to which I shall adhere, in this lecture and in +those which will succeed it, is as follows. In this +my first lecture I will ask you to consider the +language as now it is, to decompose with me some +specimens of it, to prove by these means, of what +elements it is compact, and what functions in it +these elements or component parts severally +fulfil; nor shall I leave this subject without asking +you to admire the happy marriage in our tongue of +the languages of the north and south, an advantage +which it alone among all the languages of Europe +enjoys. Having thus presented to ourselves the +body which we wish to submit to scrutiny, +and having become acquainted, however slightly, +with its composition, I shall invite you to go back +with me, and trace some of the leading changes to +which in time past it has been submitted, and +through which it has arrived at what it now is; and +these changes I shall contemplate under four +aspects, dedicating a lecture to each;—changes +which have resulted from the birth of new, or the +reception of foreign, words;—changes consequent +on the rejection or extinction of words or powers +once possessed by the language;—changes through +the altered meaning of words;—and lastly, as not +unworthy of our attention, but often growing out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +of very deep roots, changes in the orthography of +words.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Alterations unobserved</i></div> + +<p>I shall everywhere seek to bring the subject +down to our present time, and not merely call your +attention to the changes which have been, but to +those also which are now being, effected. I shall +not account the fact that some are going on, so to +speak, before our own eyes, a sufficient ground to +excuse me from noticing them, but rather an additional +reason for doing this. For indeed changes +which are actually proceeding in our own time, +and which we are ourselves helping to bring about, +are the very ones which we are most likely to fail +in observing. There is so much to hide the nature +of them, and indeed their very existence, that, +except it may be by a very few, they will often +pass wholly unobserved. Loud and sudden revolutions +attract and compel notice; but silent and +gradual, although with issues far vaster in store, +run their course, and it is only when their cycle +is completed or nearly so, that men perceive what +mighty transforming forces have been at work +unnoticed in the very midst of themselves.</p> + +<p>Thus, to apply what I have just affirmed to this +matter of language—how few aged persons, let +them retain the fullest possession of their faculties, +are conscious of any difference between the spoken +language of their early youth, and that of their old +age; that words and ways of using words are +obsolete now, which were usual then; that many +words are current now, which had no existence at +that time. And yet it is certain that so it must be. +A man may fairly be supposed to remember clearly +and well for sixty years back; and it needs less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +than five of these sixties to bring us to the period +of Spenser, and not more than eight to set us in +the time of Chaucer and Wiclif. How great a +change, what vast modifications in our language, +within eight memories. No one, contemplating +this whole term, will deny the immensity of the +change. For all this, we may be tolerably sure +that, had it been possible to interrogate a series +of eight persons, such as together had filled up +this time, intelligent men, but men whose attention +had not been especially roused to this subject, +each in his turn would have denied that there had +been any change worth speaking of, perhaps any +change at all, during his lifetime. And yet, +having regard to the multitude of words which +have fallen into disuse during these four or five +hundred years, we are sure that there must have +been some lives in this chain which saw those +words in use at their commencement, and out of +use before their close. And so too, of the multitude +of words which have sprung up in this period, +some, nay, a vast number, must have come into +being within the limits of each of these lives. It +cannot then be superfluous to direct attention to +that which is actually going forward in our language. +It is indeed that, which of all is most +likely to be unobserved by us.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p>With these preliminary remarks I proceed at +once to the special subject of my lecture of to-day. +And first, starting from the recognized fact that +the English is not a simple but a composite language, +made up of several elements, as are the +people who speak it, I would suggest to you the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +profit and instruction which we might derive from +seeking to resolve it into its component parts—from +taking, that is, any passage of an English +author, distributing the words of which it is made +up according to the languages from which they +are drawn; estimating the relative numbers and +proportions, which these languages have severally +lent us; as well as the character of the words +which they have thrown into the common stock +of our tongue.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Proportions in English</i></div> + +<p>Thus, suppose the English language to be divided +into a hundred parts; of these, to make a rough +distribution, sixty would be Saxon; thirty would +be Latin (including of course the Latin which has +come to us through the French); five would be +Greek. We should thus have assigned ninety-five +parts, leaving the other five, perhaps too large a +residue, to be divided among all the other languages +from which we have adopted isolated +words<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>. And yet these are not few; from our +wide extended colonial empire we come in contact +with half the world; we have picked up words +<ins class="correction" title="missing ‘i’ in original">in</ins> every quarter, and, the English language +possessing a singular power of incorporating +foreign elements into itself, have not scrupled to +make many of these our own<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Oriental Words</i></div> + +<p>Thus we have a certain number of Hebrew +words, mostly, if not entirely, belonging to religious +matters, as ‘amen’, ‘cabala’, ‘cherub’, ‘ephod’, +‘gehenna’, ‘hallelujah’, ‘hosanna’, ‘jubilee’, +‘leviathan’, ‘manna’, ‘Messiah’, ‘sabbath’, +‘Satan’, ‘seraph’, ‘shibboleth’, ‘talmud’. The +Arabic words in our language are more numerous; +we have several arithmetical and astronomical +terms, as ‘algebra’, ‘almanack’, ‘azimuth’, +‘cypher’<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>, ‘nadir’, ‘talisman’, ‘zenith’, ‘zero’; +and chemical, for the Arabs were the chemists, +no less than the astronomers and arithmeticians +of the middle ages; as ‘alcohol’, ‘alembic’, +‘alkali’, ‘elixir’. Add to these the names of +animals, plants, fruits, or articles of merchandize +first introduced by them to the notice of Western +Europe; as ‘amber’, ‘artichoke’, ‘barragan’, +‘camphor’, ‘coffee’, ‘cotton’, ‘crimson’, +‘gazelle’, ‘giraffe’, ‘jar’, ‘jasmin’, ‘lake’ +(lacca), ‘lemon’, ‘lime’, ‘lute’, ‘mattress’, +‘mummy’, ‘saffron’, ‘sherbet’, ‘shrub’, ‘sofa’, +‘sugar’, ‘syrup’, ‘tamarind’; and some further +terms, ‘admiral’, ‘amulet’, ‘arsenal’, ‘assassin’, +‘barbican’, ‘caliph’, ‘caffre’, ‘carat’, ‘divan’, +‘dragoman’<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>, ‘emir’, ‘fakir’, ‘firman’, +‘harem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>’, +‘hazard’, ‘houri’, ‘magazine’, ‘mamaluke’, +‘minaret’, ‘monsoon’, ‘mosque’, ‘nabob’, +‘razzia’, ‘sahara’, ‘simoom’, ‘sirocco’, ‘sultan’, +‘tarif’, ‘vizier’; and I believe we shall +have nearly completed the list. We have moreover +a few Persian words, as ‘azure’, ‘bazaar’, +‘bezoar’, ‘caravan’, ‘caravanserai’, ‘chess’, +‘dervish’, ‘lilac’, ‘orange’, ‘saraband’, ‘taffeta’, +‘tambour’, ‘turban’; this last appearing +in strange forms at its first introduction into the +language, thus ‘tolibant’ (Puttenham), ‘tulipant’ +(Herbert’s <i>Travels</i>), ‘turribant’ (Spenser), +‘turbat’, ‘turbant’, and at length ‘turban’. +We have also a few Turkish, such as ‘chouse’, +‘janisary’, ‘odalisque’, ‘sash’, ‘tulip’<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>. Of +‘civet’<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and +‘scimitar’<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> I believe it can only be +asserted that they are Eastern. The following +are Hindostanee, ‘avatar’, ‘bungalow’, ‘calico’, +‘chintz’, ‘cowrie’, ‘lac’, ‘muslin’, ‘punch’, +‘rupee’, ‘toddy’. ‘Tea’, or ‘tcha’, as it was +spelt at first, of course is Chinese, so too are ‘junk’ +and ‘satin’<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>.</p> + +<p>The New World has given us a certain number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +of words, Indian and other—‘cacique’ (‘cassique’, +in Ralegh’s <i>Guiana</i>), ‘canoo’, ‘chocolate’, +‘cocoa’<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>, ‘condor’, ‘hamoc’ (‘hamaca’ in Ralegh), +‘jalap’, ‘lama’, ‘maize’ (Haytian), ‘pampas’, +‘pemmican’, ‘potato’ (‘batata’ in our earlier +voyagers), ‘raccoon’, ‘sachem’, ‘squaw’, ‘tobacco’, +‘tomahawk’, ‘tomata’ (Mexican), ‘wigwam’. +If ‘hurricane’ is a word which Europe +originally obtained from the Caribbean islanders<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>, +it should of course be included in this list<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>. A +certain number of words also we have received, +one by one, from various languages, which sometimes +have not bestowed on us more than this +single one. Thus ‘hussar’ is Hungarian; ‘caloyer’, +Romaic; ‘mammoth’, of some Siberian +language;<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> ‘tattoo’, Polynesian; ‘steppe’, +Tartarian; ‘sago’, ‘bamboo’, ‘rattan’, ‘ourang +outang’, are all, I believe, Malay words; ‘assegai’<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +‘zebra’, ‘chimpanzee’, +‘<ins class="correction" title="so in original">fetisch</ins>’, belong to +different African dialects; the last, however, having +reached Europe through the channel of the +Portuguese<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Italian Words</i></div> + +<p>To come nearer home—we have a certain +num<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>ber +of Italian words, as ‘balcony’, ‘baldachin’, +‘balustrade’, ‘bandit’, ‘bravo’, ‘bust’ (it was +‘busto’ as first used in English, and therefore +from the Italian, not from the French), ‘cameo’, +‘canto’, ‘caricature’, ‘carnival’, ‘cartoon’, +‘charlatan’, ‘concert’, ‘conversazione’, ‘cupola’, +‘ditto’, ‘doge’, ‘domino’<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>, ‘felucca’, ‘fresco’, +‘gazette’, ‘generalissimo’, ‘gondola’, ‘gonfalon’, +‘grotto’, (‘grotta’ is the earliest form in which +we have it in English), ‘gusto’, ‘harlequin’<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>, +‘imbroglio’, ‘inamorato’, ‘influenza’, ‘lava’, +‘malaria’, ‘manifesto’, ‘masquerade’ (‘mascarata’ +in Hacket), ‘motto’, ‘nuncio’, ‘opera’, +‘oratorio’, ‘pantaloon’, ‘parapet’, ‘pedantry’, +‘pianoforte’, ‘piazza’, ‘portico’, ‘proviso’, ‘regatta’, +‘ruffian’, ‘scaramouch’, ‘sequin’, +‘seraglio’, ‘sirocco’, ‘sonnet’, ‘stanza’, ‘stiletto’, +‘stucco’, ‘studio’, ‘terra-cotta’, ‘umbrella’, +‘virtuoso’, ‘vista’, ‘volcano’, ‘zany’. +‘Becco’, and ‘cornuto’, ‘fantastico’, ‘magnifico’, +‘impress’ (the armorial device upon shields, and +appearing constantly in its Italian form ‘impresa’), +‘saltimbanco’ (= mountebank), all once +common enough, are now obsolete. Sylvester +uses often ‘farfalla’ for butterfly, but, as far as I +know, this use is peculiar to him. + +<span class="sidenote"><i>Spanish, Dutch and Celtic Words</i></span> + +If these are at +all the whole number of our Italian words, and +I cannot call to mind any other, the Spanish in the +language are nearly as numerous; nor indeed +would it be wonderful if they were more so;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +our points of contact with Spain, friendly and +hostile, have been much more real than with Italy. +Thus we have from the Spanish ‘albino’, ‘alligator’ +(<ins class="correction" title="removed spurious quote mark after ‘lagarto’">el lagarto</ins>), +‘alcove’<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>, ‘armada’, ‘armadillo’, +‘barricade’, ‘bastinado’, ‘bravado’, ‘caiman’, +‘cambist’, ‘camisado’, ‘carbonado’, +‘cargo’, ‘cigar’, ‘cochineal’, ‘Creole’, ‘desperado’, +‘don’, ‘duenna’, ‘eldorado’, ‘embargo’, +‘flotilla’, ‘gala’, ‘grandee’, ‘grenade’, ‘guerilla’, +‘hooker’<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>, ‘infanta’, ‘jennet’, ‘junto’, ‘merino’, +‘mosquito’, ‘mulatto’, ‘negro’, ‘olio’, ‘ombre’, +‘palaver’, ‘parade’, ‘parasol’, ‘parroquet’, +‘peccadillo’, ‘picaroon’, ‘platina’, ‘poncho’, +‘punctilio’, (for a long time spelt ‘puntillo’, +in English books), ‘quinine’, ‘reformado’, +‘savannah’, ‘serenade’, ‘sherry’, ‘stampede’, +‘stoccado’, ‘strappado’, ‘tornado’, ‘vanilla’, +‘verandah’. ‘Buffalo’ also is Spanish; ‘buff’ +or ‘buffle’ being the proper English word; +‘caprice’ too we probably obtained rather from +Spain than Italy, as we find it written ‘capricho’ +by those who used it first. Other Spanish words, +once familiar, are now extinct. ‘Punctilio’ lives +on, but not ‘punto’, which occurs in Bacon. +‘Privado’, signifying a prince’s favourite, one +admitted to his <i>privacy</i> (no uncommon word in +Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; +so too has ‘quirpo’ (cuerpo), the name given to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +jacket fitting close to the <i>body</i>; ‘quellio’ (cuello), +a ruff or <i>neck</i>-collar; and ‘matachin’, the title of a +sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early +dramatists; and ‘flota’ was the constant name +of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. ‘Intermess’ +is employed by Evelyn, and is the Spanish ‘entremes’, +though not recognized as such in our +dictionaries. ‘Mandarin’ and ‘marmalade’ are +our only Portuguese words I can call to mind. A +good many of our sea-terms are Dutch, as ‘sloop’, +‘schooner’, ‘yacht’, ‘boom’, ‘skipper’, ‘tafferel’, +‘to smuggle’; ‘to wear’, in the sense of veer, as +when we say ‘<i>to wear</i> a ship’; ‘skates’, too, and +‘stiver’, are Dutch. Celtic <i>things</i> are for the most +part designated among us by Celtic words; such +as ‘bard’, ‘kilt’, ‘clan’, ‘pibroch’, ‘plaid’, +‘reel’. Nor only such as these, which are all of +them comparatively of modern introduction, but a +considerable number, how large a number is yet a +very unsettled question, of words which at a much +earlier date found admission into our tongue, are +derived from this quarter.</p> + +<p>Now, of course, I have no right to presume that +any among us are equipped with that knowledge +of other tongues, which shall enable us to detect of +ourselves and at once the nationality of all or most +of the words which we may meet—some of them +greatly disguised, and having undergone manifold +transformations in the process of their adoption +among us; but only that we have such helps at +command in the shape of dictionaries and the +like, and so much diligence in their use, as will +enable us to discover the quarter from which the +words we may encounter have reached us; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +I will confidently say that few studies of the +kind will be more fruitful, will suggest more various +matter of reflection, will more lead you into the +secrets of the English tongue, than an analysis of +a certain number of passages drawn from different +authors, such as I have just now proposed. For +this analysis you will take some passage of English +verse or prose—say the first ten lines of <i>Paradise +Lost</i>—or the Lord’s Prayer—or the 23rd Psalm; +you will distribute the whole body of words contained +in that passage, of course not omitting the +smallest, according to their nationalities—writing, +it may be, A over every Anglo-Saxon word, L +over every Latin, and so on with the others, if +any other should occur in the portion which you +have submitted to this examination. When this +is done, you will count up the <i>number</i> of those +which each language contributes; again, you will +note the <i>character</i> of the words derived from each +quarter.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Two Shapes of Words</i></div> + +<p>Yet here, before I pass further, I would observe +in respect of those which come from the Latin, that +it will be desirable further to mark whether they +are directly from it, and such might be marked L¹, +or only mediately from it, and to us directly from +the French, which would be L², or L at second +hand—our English word being only in the second +generation descended from the Latin, not the child, +but the child’s child. There is a rule that holds +pretty constantly good, by which you may determine +this point. It is this,—that if a word be +directly from the Latin, it will not have undergone +any alteration or modification in its form and +shape, save only in the termination—‘innocentia’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>will have become ‘innocency’, ‘natio’ will +have become ‘nation’, ‘firmamentum’ ‘firmament’, +but nothing more. On the other hand, +if it comes <i>through</i> the French, it will generally be +considerably altered in its passage. It will have +undergone a process of lubrication; its sharply +defined Latin outline will in good part have departed +from it; thus ‘crown’ is from ‘corona’, +but though ‘couronne’, and itself a dissyllable, +‘coroune’, in our earlier English; ‘treasure’ +is from ‘thesaurus’, but through ‘trésor’; ‘emperor’ +is the Latin ‘imperator’, but it was first +‘empereur’. It will often happen that the +substantive has past through this process, having +reached us through the intervention of the French; +while we have only felt at a later period our want +of the adjective also, which we have proceeded +to borrow direct from the Latin. Thus, ‘people’ +is indeed ‘populus’, but it was ‘peuple’ first, +while ‘popular’ is a direct transfer of a Latin +vocable into our English glossary. So too ‘enemy’ +is ‘inimicus’, but it was first softened in the +French, and had its Latin physiognomy to a great +degree obliterated, while ‘inimical’ is Latin +throughout; ‘parish’ is ‘paroisse’, but ‘parochial’ +is ‘parochialis’; ‘chapter’ is ‘chapitre’, +but ‘capitular’ is ‘capitularis’.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Doublets</i></div> + +<p>Sometimes you will find in English what I may +call the double adoption of a Latin word; which +now makes part of our vocabulary in two shapes; +‘doppelgängers’ the Germans would call such +words<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>. +There is first the elder word, which +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +French has given us; but which, before it gave, it +had fashioned and moulded, cutting it short, it +may be, by a syllable or more, for the French +devours letters and syllables; and there is the +later word which we borrowed immediately from +the Latin. I will mention a few examples; ‘secure’ +and ‘sure’, both from ‘securus’, but one +directly, the other through the French; ‘fidelity’ +and ‘fealty’, both from ‘fidelitas’, but one +directly, the other at second-hand; ‘species’ +and ‘spice’, both from ‘species’, spices being +properly only <i>kinds</i> of aromatic drugs; ‘blaspheme’ +and ‘blame’, both from ‘blasphemare’<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>, but +‘blame’ immediately from ‘blâmer’. Add to +these ‘granary’ and ‘garner’; ‘captain’ (capitaneus) +and ‘chieftain’; ‘tradition’ and ‘treason’; +‘abyss’ and ‘abysm’; ‘regal’ and +‘royal’; ‘legal’ and ‘loyal’; ‘cadence’ and +‘chance’; ‘balsam’ and ‘balm’; ‘hospital’ and +‘hotel’; ‘digit’ and ‘doit’<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>; ‘pagan’ and ‘paynim’; +‘captive’ and ‘caitiff’; ‘persecute’ and +‘pursue’; ‘superficies’ and ‘surface’; ‘faction’ +and ‘fashion’; ‘particle’ and ‘parcel’; ‘redemption’ +and ‘ransom’; ‘probe’ and ‘prove’; ‘abbreviate’ +and ‘abridge’; ‘dormitory’ and ‘dortoir’ +or ‘dorter’ (this last now obsolete, but not +uncommon in Jeremy Taylor); ‘desiderate’ and +‘desire’; ‘fact’ and ‘feat’; ‘major’ and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +‘mayor’; ‘radius’ and ‘ray’; ‘pauper’ and +‘poor’; ‘potion’ and ‘poison’; ‘ration’ and +‘reason’; ‘oration’ and ‘orison’<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>. I have, +in the instancing of these named always the Latin +form before the French; but the reverse I suppose +in every instance is the order in which the words +were adopted by us; we had ‘pursue’ before +‘persecute’, ‘spice’ before ‘species’, ‘royalty’ +before ‘regality’, and so with the others<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>.</p> + +<p>The explanation of this greater change which +the earlier form of the word has undergone, is not +far to seek. Words which have been introduced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +into a language at an early period, when as yet +writing is rare, and books are few or none, when +therefore orthography is unfixed, or being purely +phonetic, cannot properly be said to exist at all, +such words for a long while live orally on the lips of +men, before they are set down in writing; and out +of this fact it is that we shall for the most part find +them reshaped and remoulded by the people who +have adopted them, entirely assimilated to <i>their</i> +language in form and termination, so as in a little +while to be almost or quite indistinguishable from +natives. On the other hand a most effectual check +to this process, a process sometimes barbarizing +and defacing, however it may be the only one which +will make the newly brought in entirely homogeneous +with the old and already existing, is +imposed by the existence of a much written language +and a full formed literature. The foreign +word, being once adopted into these, can no longer +undergo a thorough transformation. For the +most part the utmost which use and familiarity +can do with it now, is to cause the gradual dropping +of the foreign termination. Yet this too is not +unimportant; it often goes far to making a home +for a word, and hindering it from wearing the appearance +of a foreigner and +stranger<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Analysis of English</i></div> + +<p>But to return from this digression—I said just +now that you would learn very much from observing +and calculating the proportions in which the +words of one descent and those of another occur in +any passage which you analyse. Thus examine +the Lord’s Prayer. It consists of exactly seventy +words. You will find that only the following six +claim the rights of Latin citizenship—‘trespasses’, +‘trespass’, ‘temptation’, ‘deliver’, ‘power’, +‘glory’. Nor would it be very difficult to substitute +for any one of these a Saxon word. Thus +for ‘trespasses’ might be +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘substitued’">substituted</ins> ‘sins’; for +‘deliver’ ‘free’; for ‘power’ ‘might’; for ‘glory’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>‘brightness’; which would only leave ‘temptation’, +about which there could be the slightest +difficulty, and ‘trials’, though we now ascribe to +the word a somewhat different sense, would in fact +exactly correspond to it. This is but a small percentage, +six words in seventy, or less than ten in the +hundred; and we often light upon a still smaller +proportion. Thus take the first three verses of the +23rd Psalm:—“The Lord is my Shepherd; therefore +can I lack nothing; He shall feed me in a +green <i>pasture</i>, and lead me forth beside the waters +of <i>comfort</i>; He shall <i>convert</i> my soul, and bring me +forth in the paths of righteousness for his Name’s +sake”. Here are forty-five words, and only the +three in italics are Latin; and for every one of +these too it would be easy to substitute a word of +Saxon origin; little more, that is, than the proportion +of seven in the hundred; while, still +stronger than this, in five verses out of Genesis, +containing one hundred and thirty words, there are +only five not Saxon, less, that is, than four in the +hundred.</p> + +<p>Shall we therefore conclude that these are the +proportions in which the Anglo-Saxon and Latin +elements of the language stand to one another? +If they are so, then my former proposal to express +their relations by sixty and thirty was greatly at +fault; and seventy and twenty, or even eighty and +ten, would fall short of adequately representing the +real predominance of the Saxon over the Latin +element of the language. But it is not so; the +Anglo-Saxon words by no means outnumber the +Latin in the degree which the analysis of those +passages would seem to imply. It is not that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +are so many more Anglo-Saxon words, but that +the words which there are, being words of more +primary necessity, do therefore so much more +frequently recur. The proportions which the +analysis of the <i>dictionary</i> that is, of the language +<i>at rest</i>, would furnish, are very different from +these which I have just instanced, and which the +analysis of <i>sentences</i>, or of the language <i>in motion</i>, +gives. Thus if we examine the total vocabulary +of the English Bible, not more than sixty per cent. +of the words are native; such are the results +which the Concordance gives; but in the actual +translation the native words are from ninety in +some passages to ninety-six in others per cent<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Anglo-Saxon the Base of English</i></div> + +<p>The notice of this fact will lead us to some very +important conclusions as to the <i>character</i> of the +words which the Saxon and the Latin severally +furnish; and principally to this:—that while the +English language is thus compact in the main of +these two elements, we must not for all this regard +these two as making, one and the other, exactly +the same <i>kind</i> of contributions to it. On the contrary +their contributions are of very different character. +The Anglo-Saxon is not so much, as I have +just called it, one element of the English language, +as the foundation of it, the basis. All +its joints, its whole <i>articulation</i>, its sinews and its +ligaments, the great body of articles, pronouns, +conjunctions, prepositions, numerals, auxiliary +verbs, all smaller words which serve to knit together +and bind the larger into sentences, these, +not to speak of the grammatical structure of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +language, are exclusively Saxon. The Latin may +contribute its tale of bricks, yea, of goodly and +polished hewn stones, to the spiritual building; +but the mortar, with all that holds and binds the +different parts of it together, and constitutes them +into a house, is Saxon throughout. I remember +Selden in his <i>Table Talk</i> using another comparison; +but to the same effect: “If you look upon +the language spoken in the Saxon time, and the +language spoken now, you will find the difference +to be just as if a man had a cloak which he wore +plain in Queen Elizabeth’s days, and since, here +has put in a piece of red, and there a piece of +blue, and here a piece of green, and there a piece of +orange-tawny. We borrow words from the French, +Italian, Latin, as every pedantic man pleases”.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Composite Languages</i></div> + +<p>I believe this to be the law which holds good in +respect of all composite languages. However composite +they may be, yet they are only so in regard +of their words. There may be a medley in respect +of these, some coming from one quarter, some +from another; but there is never a mixture of +grammatical forms and inflections. One or other +language entirely predominates here, and everything +has to conform and subordinate itself to the +laws of this ruling and ascendant language. The +Anglo-Saxon is the ruling language in our present +English. Thus while it has thought good to drop +its genders, even so the French substantives which +come among us, must also leave theirs behind +them; as in like manner the French verbs must +renounce their own conjugations, and adapt themselves +to ours<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>. +I believe that a remarkable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +parallel to this might be found in the language of +Persia, since the conquest of that country by the +Arabs. The ancient Persian religion fell with the +government, but the language remained totally +unaffected by the revolution, in its grammatical +structure and character. Arabic vocables, the +only exotic words in Persian, are found in numbers +varying with the object and quality, style and +taste of the writers, but pages of pure idiomatic +Persian may be written without employing a +single word from the Arabic.</p> + +<p>At the same time the secondary or superinduced +language, even while it is quite unable to force any +of its forms on the language which receives its +words, may yet compel that to renounce a portion +of its own forms, by the impossibility which is +practically found to exist of making them fit the +new comers; and thus it may exert although not +a positive, yet a negative, influence on the grammar +of the other tongue. It has been so, as is generally +admitted, in the instance of our own. “When the +English language was inundated by a vast influx +of French words, few, if any, French forms were +received into its grammar; but the Saxon forms +soon dropped away, because they did not suit the +new roots; and the genius of the language, from +having to deal with the newly imported words in +a rude state, was induced to neglect the inflections +of the native ones. This for instance led to the +introduction of the <i>s</i> as the universal termination +of all plural nouns, which agreed with the usage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +of the French language, and was not alien from +that of the Saxon, but was merely an extension +of the termination of the ancient masculine to +other classes of nouns”<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Anglo-Saxon Element</i></div> + +<p>If you wish to convince yourselves by actual +experience, of the fact which I just now asserted, +namely, that the radical constitution of the language +is Saxon, I would say, Try to compose a +sentence, let it be only of ten or a dozen words, +and the subject entirely of your choice, employing +therein only words which are of a Latin derivation. +I venture to say you will find it impossible, or +next to impossible to do it; whichever way you +turn, some obstacle will meet you in the face. +And while it is thus with the Latin, whole pages +might be written, I do not say in philosophy or +theology or upon any abstruser subject, but on +familiar matters of common everyday life, in +which every word should be of Saxon extraction, +not one of Latin; and these, pages in which, +with the exercise of a little patience and ingenuity, +all appearance of awkwardness and constraint +should be avoided, so that it should never occur +to the reader, unless otherwise informed, that the +writer had submitted himself to this restraint and +limitation in the words which he employed, and +was only drawing them from one section of the +English language. Sir Thomas Browne has given +several long paragraphs so constructed. Take +for instance the following, which is only a little +fragment of one of them: “The first and foremost +step to all good works is the dread and fear of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +Lord of heaven and earth, which through the Holy +Ghost enlighteneth the blindness of our sinful +hearts to tread the ways of wisdom, and lead our +feet into the land of blessing”<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>. This is not +stiffer than the ordinary English of his time. I +would suggest to you at your leisure to make these +two experiments; you will find it, I think, exactly +as I have here affirmed.</p> + +<p>While thus I bring before you the fact that it +would be quite possible to write English, forgoing +altogether the use of the Latin portion of the +language, I would not have you therefore to conclude +that this portion of the language is of little +value, or that we could draw from the resources +of our Teutonic tongue efficient substitutes for all +the words which it has contributed to our glossary. +I am persuaded that we could not; and, if we +could, that it would not be desirable. I mention +this, because there is sometimes a regret expressed +that we have not kept our language more free +from the admixture of Latin, a suggestion made +that we should even now endeavour to keep under +the Latin element of it, and as little as possible +avail ourselves of it. I remember Lord Brougham +urging upon the students at Glasgow as a help to +writing good English, that they should do their +best to rid their diction of long-tailed words in +‘osity’ and ‘ation’<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>. He plainly intended to indicate +by this phrase all learned Latin words, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +words derived from the Latin. This exhortation +is by no means superfluous; for doubtless there +were writers of a former age, Samuel Johnson in +the last century, Henry More and Sir Thomas +Browne in the century preceding, who gave undue +preponderance to the learned, or Latin, portion in +our language; and very much of its charm, of its +homely strength and beauty, of its most popular +and truest idioms, would have perished from it, +had they succeeded in persuading others to write +as they had written.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Anglo-Saxon Aboriginal</i></div> + +<p>But for all this we could <i>almost</i> as ill spare this +side of the language as the other. It represents +and supplies needs not less real than the other +does. Philosophy and science and the arts of a +high civilization find their utterance in the Latin +words of our language, or, if not in the Latin, in +the Greek, which for present purposes may be +grouped with them. How they should have +found utterance in the speech of rude tribes, +which, never having cultivated the things, must +needs have been without the words which should +express those things. Granting too that, <i>cœteris +paribus</i>, when a Latin and a Saxon word offer +themselves to our choice, we shall generally do +best to employ the Saxon, to speak of ‘happiness’ +rather than ‘felicity’, ‘almighty’ rather than +‘omnipotent’, a ‘forerunner’ rather than a ‘precursor’, +still these latter must be regarded as much +denizens in the language as the former, no alien +interlopers, but possessing the rights of citizenship +as fully as the most Saxon word of them all. +One part of the language is not to be favoured at +the expense of the other; the Saxon at the cost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +of the Latin, as little as the Latin at the cost of +the Saxon. “Both are indispensable; and speaking +generally without stopping to distinguish as to +subject, both are <i>equally</i> indispensable. Pathos, +in situations which are homely, or at all connected +with domestic affections, naturally moves by Saxon +words. Lyrical emotion of every kind, which (to +merit the name of <i>lyrical</i>) must be in the state +of flux and reflux, or, generally, of agitation, also +requires the Saxon element of our language. And +why? Because the Saxon is the aboriginal element; +the basis and not the superstructure: consequently +it comprehends all the ideas which are +natural to the heart of man and to the elementary +situations of life. And although the Latin often +furnishes us with duplicates of these ideas, yet the +Saxon, or monosyllabic part, has the advantage of +precedency in our use and knowledge; for it is the +language of the nursery whether for rich or poor, +in which great philological academy no toleration +is given to words in ‘osity’ or ‘ation’. There is +therefore a great advantage, as regards the consecration +to our feelings, settled by usage and custom +upon the Saxon strands in the mixed yarn +of our native tongue. And universally, this may +be remarked—that wherever the passion of a +poem is of that sort which <i>uses</i>, <i>presumes</i>, or +<i>postulates</i> the ideas, without seeking to extend +them, Saxon will be the ‘cocoon’ (to speak by +the language applied to silk-worms), which the +poem spins for itself. But on the other hand, +where the motion of the feeling is <i>by</i> and <i>through</i> +the ideas, where (as in religious or meditative +poetry—Young’s, for instance, or Cowper’s), the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +pathos creeps and kindles underneath the very +tissues of the thinking, there the Latin will predominate; +and so much so that, whilst the flesh, the +blood, and the muscle, will be often almost exclusively +Latin, the articulations only, or hinges +of connection, will be the Anglo-Saxon”.</p> + +<p>These words which I have just quoted are De +Quincey’s—whom I must needs esteem the greatest +living master of our English tongue. And on the +same matter Sir Francis Palgrave has expressed +himself thus: “Upon the languages of Teutonic +origin the Latin has exercised great influence, but +most energetically on our own. The very early +admixture of the <i>Langue d’Oil</i>, the never interrupted +employment of the French as the language +of education, and the nomenclature created by the +scientific and literary cultivation of advancing and +civilized society, have Romanized our speech; the +warp may be Anglo-Saxon, but the woof is Roman +as well as the embroidery, and these foreign materials +have so entered into the texture, that were +they plucked out, the web would be torn to rags, +unravelled and destroyed”<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The English Bible</i></div> + +<p>I do not know where we could find a happier +example of the preservation of the golden mean +in this matter than in our +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘authorized’">Authorized</ins> Version of the +Bible. One of the chief among the minor and +secondary blessings which that Version has conferred +on the nation or nations drawing spiritual +life from it,—a blessing not small in itself, but +only small by comparison with the infinitely +higher blessings whereof it is the vehicle to them,—is +the happy wisdom, the instinctive tact, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +which its authors have steered between any futile +mischievous attempt to ignore the full rights of +the Latin part of the language on the one side, +and on the other any burdening of their Version +with such a multitude of learned Latin terms as +should cause it to forfeit its homely character, +and shut up large portions of it from the understanding +of plain and unlearned men. There is a +remarkable confession to this effect, to the wisdom, +in fact, which guided them from above, to +the providence that overruled their work, an +honourable acknowledgement of the immense +superiority in this respect of our English Version +over the Romish, made by one now, unhappily, +familiar with the latter, as once he was with our +own. Among those who have recently abandoned +the communion of the English Church one has +exprest himself in deeply touching tones of lamentation +over all, which in renouncing our translation, +he feels himself to have forgone and lost. These +are his words: “Who will not say that the uncommon +beauty and marvellous English of the +Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds +of heresy in this country? It lives on the +ear, like a music that can never be forgotten, like +the sound of church bells, which the convert +hardly knows how he can forgo. Its felicities +often seem to be almost things rather than mere +words. It is part of the national mind, and the +anchor of national seriousness.... The memory +of the dead passes into it. The potent +traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its +verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of +a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>presentative +of his best moments, and all that +there has been about him of soft and gentle and +pure and penitent and good speaks to him for +ever out of his English Bible.... It is his +sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and +controversy never soiled. In the length and +breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with +one spark of religiousness about him, whose spiritual +biography is not in his Saxon Bible”<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Rhemish Bible</i></div> + +<p>Such are his touching words; and certainly one +has only to compare this version of ours with the +Rhemish, and the transcendent excellence of our +own reveals itself at once. I am not extolling +now its superior scholarship; its greater freedom +from by-ends; as little would I urge the fact that +one translation is from the original Greek, the +other from the Latin Vulgate, and thus the translation +of a translation, often reproducing the mistakes +of that translation; but, putting aside all +considerations such as these, I speak only here of +the superiority of the diction in which the meaning, +be it correct or incorrect, is conveyed to English +readers. Thus I open the Rhemish version at +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Galations’">Galatians</ins> +v. 19, where the long list of the “works +of the flesh”, and of the “fruit of the Spirit”, +is given. But what could a mere English reader +make of words such as these—‘impudicity’, +‘ebrieties’, ‘comessations’, ‘longanimity’, all +which occur in that passage? while our Version for +‘ebrieties’ has ‘drunkenness’, for ‘comessations’ +has ‘revellings’, and so also for ‘longanimity’ +‘longsuffering’. Or set over against one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +another such phrases as these,—in the Rhemish, +“the exemplars of the celestials” (Heb. ix. 23), +but in ours, “the patterns of things in the heavens”. +Or suppose if, instead of the words <i>we</i> read at +Heb. xiii. 16, namely “To do good and to communicate +forget not; for with such sacrifices +God is well pleased”, we read as follows, which +are the words of the Rhemish, “Beneficence and +communication do not forget; for with such hosts +God is promerited”!—Who does not feel that if +our Version had been composed in such Latin-English +as this, had abounded in words like +‘odible’, ‘suasible’, ‘exinanite’, ‘contristate’, +‘postulations’, ‘coinquinations’, ‘agnition’, ‘zealatour’, +all, with many more of the same mint, +in the Rhemish Version, our loss would have been +great and enduring, one which would have searched +into the whole religious life of our people, and been +felt in the very depths of the national mind<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>?</p> + +<p>There was indeed something still deeper than +love of sound and genuine English at work in our +Translators, whether they were conscious of it or +not, which hindered them from presenting the +Scriptures to their fellow-countrymen dressed out +in such a semi-Latin garb as this. The Reformation, +which they were in this translation so +mightily strengthening and confirming, was just a +throwing off, on the part of the Teutonic nations, +of that everlasting pupilage in which Rome would +have held them; an assertion at length that they +were come to full age, and that not through her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +but directly through Christ, they would address +themselves unto God. The use of the Latin +language as the language of worship, as the language +in which the Scriptures might alone be +read, had been the great badge of servitude, even +as the Latin habits of thought and feeling which +it promoted had been the great helps to the continuance +of this servitude, through long ages. It +lay deep then in the very nature of their cause +that the Reformers should develop the Saxon, or +essentially national, element in the language; +while it was just as natural that the Roman Catholic +translators, if they must translate the Scriptures +into English at all, should yet translate +them into such English as should bear the nearest +possible resemblance to the Latin Vulgate, which +Rome with a very deep wisdom of this world +would gladly have seen as the only one in the +hands of the faithful.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Future of the English Language</i></div> + +<p>Let me again, however, recur to the fact that +what our Reformers did in this matter, they did +without exaggeration; even as they had shown the +same wise moderation in still higher matters. +They gave to the Latin side of the language its +rights, though they would not suffer it to encroach +upon and usurp those of the Teutonic part of the +language. It would be difficult not to believe, +even if many outward signs said not the same, +that great things are in store for the one language +of Europe which thus serves as connecting link +between the North and the South, between the +languages spoken by the Teutonic nations of +the North and by the Romance nations of the +South; which holds on to and partakes of both;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +which is as a middle term between them<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>. +<ins class="correction" title="so in original">There +are who</ins> venture to hope that the English Church, +being in like manner double-fronted, looking on +the one side toward Rome, being herself truly +Catholic, looking on the other towards the Protestant +communions, being herself also protesting +and reforming, may yet in the providence of God +have an important part to play for the reconciling +of a divided Christendom. And if this ever +should be so, if, notwithstanding our sins and +unworthiness, so blessed a task should be in store +for her, it will not be a small help and assistance +thereunto, that the language in which her mediation +will be effected is one wherein both parties +may claim their own, in which neither will feel +that it is receiving the adjudication of a stranger, +of one who must be an alien from its deeper +thoughts and habits, because an alien from its +words, but a language in which both must recognize +very much of that which is deepest and most +precious of their own.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Jacob Grimm on English</i></div> + +<p>Nor is this prerogative which I have just claimed +for our English the mere dream and fancy of +patriotic vanity. The scholar who in our days +is most profoundly acquainted with the great group +of the Gothic languages in Europe, and a devoted +lover, if ever there was such, of his native German, +I mean Jacob Grimm, has expressed himself very +nearly to the same effect, and given the palm over +all to our English in words which you will not +grudge to hear quoted, and with which I shall bring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +this lecture to a close. After ascribing to our +language “a veritable power of expression, such +as perhaps never stood at the command of any +other language of men”, he goes on to say, “Its +highly spiritual genius, and wonderfully happy +development and condition, have been the result +of a surprisingly intimate union of the two noblest +languages in modern Europe, the Teutonic and the +Romance—It is well known in what relation these +two stand to one another in the English tongue; +the former supplying in far larger proportion the +material groundwork, the latter the spiritual conceptions. +In truth the English language, which +by no mere accident has produced and upborne +the greatest and most predominant poet of modern +times, as distinguished from the ancient classical +poetry (I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare), +may with all right be called a world-language; +and like the English people, appears destined +hereafter to prevail with a sway more extensive +even than its present over all the portions of the +globe<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>. +For in wealth, good sense, and +closeness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +of structure no other of the languages at this day +spoken deserves to be compared with it—not even +our German, which is torn, even as we are torn, +and must first rid itself of many defects, before +it can enter boldly into the lists, as a competitor +with the English”<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>.</p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +These lectures were first delivered during the Russian +War. [See De Quincey to the same effect, <i>Works</i>, 1862, +vol. iv. pp. vii, 286.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +F. Schlegel, <i>History of Literature, Lecture 10</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +[If dictionary words be counted as apart from the +spoken language, the proportion of the component elements +of English is very different. M. Müller quotes a +calculation which makes the classical element about +68 per cent, the Teutonic about 30, and miscellaneous +about 2 (<i>Science of Language</i>, 8th ed. i, 89). See Skeat, +<i>Principles of Eng. Etymology</i>, ii, 15 <i>seq.</i>, and <i>infra</i> +<a href="#Page_25">p. 25</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +[What here follows should be compared with the +fuller and more accurate lists of words borrowed from +foreign sources given by Prof. Skeat in his larger <i>Etymolog. +Dictionary</i>, 759 <i>seq.</i>; and more completely in his <i>Principles +of Eng. Etymology</i>, 2nd ser. 294-440.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> +Yet see J. Grimm, <i>Deutsche Mythologie</i>, p. 985.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> +The word hardly deserves to be called English, yet +in Pope’s time it had made some progress toward naturalization. +Of a real or pretended polyglottist, who +might thus have served as an universal <i>interpreter</i>, he +says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Pity you was not <i>druggerman</i> at Babel”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>‘Truckman’, or more commonly ‘truchman’, familiar +to all readers of our early literature, is only another form +of this, one which probably has come to us through +‘turcimanno’, the Italian form of the word. [See my +<i>Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, p. 19].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> +[‘Tulip’, at first spelt <i>tulipan</i>, is really the same word +as <i>turban</i> (<i>tulipant</i> just above), which the flower was +thought to resemble (Persian <i>dulband</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> +[Ultimately from the Arabic <i>zabād</i> (N.E.D.).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> +[Apparently to be traced to the Persian <i>shim-shír</i> or +<i>sham-shír</i> (“lion’s-nail”), a crooked sword (Skeat).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> +[Rather through the French from low Latin <i>satinus</i> +or <i>setinus</i>, a fabric made of <i>seta</i>, silk. But Yule holds +that it may be from Zayton or Zaitun (in Fokien, China), +an important emporium of Western trade in the Middle +Ages (<i>Hobson-Jobson</i>, 602).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> +[Probably intended for <i>cacao</i>, which is Mexican. +<i>Cocoa</i>, the nut, is from Portuguese <i>coco</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> +See Washington Irving, <i>Life and Voyages of Columbus</i>, +b. 8, c. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> +[It is from the Haytian <i>Hurakan</i>, the storm-god +(<i>The Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, 90).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> +[From old Russian <i>mammot</i>, whence modern Russian +<i>mamant</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> +[‘Assagai’ is from the Arabic <i>az-</i> (<i>al-</i>) <i>zaghāyah</i>, ‘the +<i>zagāyah</i>’, a Berber name for a lance (N.E.D.).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> +[This puts the cart before the horse. ‘Fetish’ is +really the Portuguese word <i>feitiço</i>, artificial, made-up, +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘facititious’">factitious</ins> +(Latin <i>factitius</i>), applied to African amulets +or idols.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> +[‘Domino’ is Spanish rather than Italian (Skeat, +<i>Principles</i>, ii, 312).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> +[‘Harlequin’ appears to be an older word in French +than in Italian (<i>ibid.</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> +On the question whether this ought to have been +included among the Arabic, see Diez, <i>Wörterbuch d. +Roman. Sprachen</i>, p. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> +Not in our dictionaries; but a kind of coasting +vessel well known to seafaring men, the Spanish ‘urca’; +thus in Oldys’ <i>Life of Raleigh</i>: “Their galleons, galleasses, +gallies, <i>urcas</i>, and zabras were miserably shattered”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> +[A valuable list of such doublets is given by +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Pro f’">Prof.</ins> +Skeat in his large <i>Etymological Dictionary</i>, p. 772 <i>seq.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> +This particular instance of double adoption, of +‘dimorphism’ as Latham calls it, ‘dittology’ as Heyse, +recurs in Italian, ‘bestemmiare’ and ‘biasimare’; and +in Spanish, ‘blasfemar’ and ‘lastimar’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> +[‘Doit’, a small coin (Dutch <i>duit</i>) has no relation to, +‘digit’. Was the author thinking of old French <i>doit</i>, +a finger, from Latin <i>digitus</i>?]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> +Somewhat different from this, yet itself also curious, +is the passing of an Anglo-Saxon word in two different +forms into English, and continuing in both; thus ‘desk’ +and ‘dish’, both the Anglo-Saxon ‘disc’ [a loan-word +from Latin <i>discus</i>, Greek <i>diskos</i>] the German ‘tisch’; +‘beech’ and ‘book’, both the Anglo-Saxon ‘boc’, our +first books being <i>beechen</i> tablets (see Grimm, <i>Wörterbuch</i>, +s. vv. ‘Buch’, ‘Buche’); ‘girdle’ and ‘kirtle’; both +of them corresponding to the German ‘gürtel’; already +in Anglo-Saxon a double spelling, ‘gyrdel’, ‘cyrtel’, +had prepared for the double words; so too ‘haunch’ +and ‘hinge’; ‘lady’ and ‘lofty’ [these last three instances +are not doublets at all, being quite unrelated; see Skeat, +s. vv.]; ‘shirt’, and ‘skirt’; ‘black’ and ‘bleak’; ‘pond’ +and ‘pound’; ‘deck’ and ‘thatch’; ‘deal’ and ‘dole’; +‘weald’ and ‘wood’†; ‘dew’ and ‘thaw’†; ‘wayward’ +and ‘awkward’†; ‘dune’ and ‘down’; ‘hood’ and +‘hat’†; ‘ghost’ and ‘gust’†; ‘evil’ and ‘ill’†; +‘mouth’ and ‘moth’†; ‘hedge’ and ‘hay’.</p> + +<p>[All these suggested doublets which I have obelized +must be dismissed as untenable.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> +We have in the same way double adoptions from the +Greek, one direct, at least as regards the forms; one +modified by its passage through some other language; +thus, ‘adamant’ and ‘diamond’; ‘monastery’ and +‘minster’; ‘scandal’ and ‘slander’; ‘theriac’ and +‘treacle’; ‘asphodel’ and ‘daffodil’; ‘presbyter’ and +‘priest’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> +The French itself has also a double adoption, or as +perhaps we should more accurately call it there, a double +formation, from the Latin, and such as quite bears out +what has been said above: one going far back in the +history of the language, the other belonging to a later +and more literary period; on which subject there are +some admirable remarks by Génin, <i>Récréations Philologiques</i>, +vol. i. pp. 162-66; and see Fuchs, <i>Die Roman. +Sprachen</i>, p. 125. Thus from ‘separare’ is derived +‘sevrer’, to separate the child from its mother’s breast, +to wean, but also ‘séparer’, without this special sense; +from ‘pastor’, ‘pâtre’, a shepherd in the literal, and +‘pasteur’ the same in a tropical, sense; from ‘catena’, +‘chaîne’ and ‘cadène’; from ‘fragilis’, ‘frêle’ and +‘fragile’; from ‘pensare’, ‘peser’ and ‘penser’; from +‘gehenna’, ‘gêne’ and ‘géhenne’; from ‘captivus’, +‘chétif’ and ‘captif’; from ‘nativus’, ‘naïf’ and +‘natif’; from ‘designare’, ‘dessiner’ and ‘designer’; +from ‘decimare’, ‘dîmer’ and ‘décimer’; from ‘consumere’, +‘consommer’ and ‘consumer’; from ‘simulare’, +‘sembler’ and ‘simuler’; from the low Latin, ‘disjejunare’, +‘dîner’ and ‘déjeûner’; from ‘acceptare’, +‘acheter’ and ‘accepter’; from ‘homo’, ‘on’ and +‘homme’; from ‘paganus’, ‘payen’ and ‘paysan’ [the +latter from ‘pagensis’]; from ‘obedientia’, ‘obéissance’ +and ‘obédience’; from ‘strictus’, ‘étroit’ and ‘strict’; +from ‘sacramentum’, ‘serment’ and ‘sacrement’; +from ‘ministerium’, ‘métier’ and ‘ministère’; from +‘parabola’, ‘parole’ and ‘parabole’; from ‘peregrinus’, +‘pélerin’ and ‘pérégrin’; from ‘factio’, ‘façon’ and +‘faction’, and it has now adopted ‘factio’ in a third +shape, that is, in our English ‘fashion’; from ‘pietas’, +‘pitié’ and ‘piété’; from ‘capitulum’, ‘chapitre’ and +‘capitule’, a botanical term. So, too, in Italian, ‘manco’, +maimed, and ‘monco’, maimed <i>of a hand</i>; ‘rifutáre’, +to refute, and ‘rifiutáre’, to refuse; ‘dama’ and +‘donna’, both forms of ‘domina’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> +See Marsh, <i>Manual of the English Language</i>, Engl. +Ed. p. 88 <i>seq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> +W. Schlegel (<i>Indische Bibliothek</i>, vol. i. p. 284): +Coeunt quidem paullatim in novum corpus peregrina +vocabula, sed grammatica linguarum, unde petitæ sunt, +ratio perit.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> +J. Grimm, quoted in <i>The Philological Museum</i> +vol. i. p. 667.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> +<i>Works</i>, vol. iv. p. 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> +[These words are taken from the ‘Whistlecraft’ +of John Hookham Frere:—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Don’t confound the language of the nation<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With long-tail’d words in <i>osity</i> and <i>ation</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p class="citation">(<i>Works</i>, 1872, vol. 1, p. 206).]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> +<i>History of Normandy and England</i>, vol. i, p. 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> +[F. W. Faber,] <i>Dublin Review</i>, June, 1853.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> +There is more on this matter in my book <i>On the +Authorized Version of the New Testament</i>, pp. 33-35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> +See a paper <i>On the Probable Future Position of the +English Language</i>, by T. Watts, Esq., in the <i>Proceedings +of the Philological Society</i>, vol. iv, p. 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> +A little more than two centuries ago a poet, himself +abundantly deserving the title of ‘well-languaged’; +which a cotemporary or near successor gave him, ventured +in some remarkable lines timidly to anticipate this. +Speaking of his native tongue, which he himself wrote +with such vigour and purity, though wanting in the fiery +impulses which go to the making of a first-rate poet, +Daniel exclaims:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And who, in time, knows whither we may vent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This gain of our best glory shall be sent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To enrich unknowing nations with our stores?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What worlds in the yet unformèd Occident<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May come refined with the accents that are ours?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or who can tell for what great work in hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The greatness of our style is now ordained?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What powers it shall bring in, what spirits command,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What thoughts let out, what humours keep restrained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What mischief it may powerfully withstand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what fair ends may thereby be attained”?<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> +<i>Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache</i>, Berlin, 1832, p. 5.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p></div> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE</h3> + + +<p>It is not for nothing that we speak of some languages +as <i>living</i>, of others as <i>dead</i>. All spoken +languages may be ranged in the first class; for +as men will never consent to use a language without +more or less modifying it in their use, will never +so far forgo their own activity as to leave it +exactly where they found it, it will therefore, +so long as it is thus the utterance of human thought +and feeling, inevitably show itself alive by many +infallible proofs, by motion, growth, acquisition, +loss, progress, and decay. A living language +therefore is one which abundantly deserves this +name; for it is one in which, spoken as it is by +living men, a <i>vital</i> formative energy is still at +work. It is one which is in course of actual evolution, +which, if the life that animates it be a +healthy one, is appropriating and assimilating +to itself what it anywhere finds congenial to its +own life, multiplying its resources, increasing its +wealth; while at the same time it is casting off +useless and cumbersome forms, dismissing from its +vocabulary words of which it finds no use, rejecting +from itself by a re-active energy the foreign +and heterogeneous, which may for a while have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +been forced upon it. I would not assert that in +the process of all this it does not make mistakes; +in the desire to simplify it may let go distinctions +which were not useless, and which it would have +been better to retain; the acquisitions which it +makes are very far from being all gains; it sometimes +rejects words as worthless, or suffers words +to die out, which were most worthy to have lived. +So far as it does this its life is not perfectly healthy; +there are here signs, however remote, of disorganization, +decay, and ultimate death; but still it +lives, and even these misgrowths and malformations, +the rejection of this good, the taking up +into itself of that ill, all these errors are themselves +the utterances and evidences of life. A +dead language is the contrary of all this. It is +dead, because books, and not now any generation +of living men, are the guardians of it, and what +they guard, they guard without change. Its +course has been completely run, and it is now +equally incapable of gaining and of losing. We +may come to know it better; but in itself it is +not, and never can be, other than it was when +it ceased from the lips of men.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>English a Living Language</i></div> + +<p>Our own is, of course, a living language still. +It is therefore gaining and losing. It is a tree in +which the vital sap is circulating yet, ascending +from the roots into the branches; and as this +works, new leaves are continually being put forth +by it, old are dying and dropping away. I propose +for the subject of my present lecture to consider +some of the evidences of this life at work in +it still. As I took for the subject of my first lecture +the actual proportions in which the several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +elements of our composite English are now found +in it, and the service which they were severally +called on to perform, so I shall consider in this the +<i>sources</i> from which the English language has enriched +its vocabulary, the <i>periods</i> at which it has +made the chief additions to this, the <i>character</i> of +the additions which at different periods it has +made, and the <i>motives</i> which induced it to seek them.</p> + +<p>I had occasion to mention in that lecture and +indeed I dwelt with some emphasis on the fact, +that the core, the radical constitution of our language, +is Anglo-Saxon; so that, composite or +mingled as it must be freely allowed to be, it is only +such in respect to words, not in respect of construction, +inflexions, or generally its grammatical +forms. These are all of one piece; and whatever +of new has come in has been compelled to conform +itself to these. The framework is English; only +a part of the filling in is otherwise; and of this +filling in, of these its comparatively more recent +accessions, I now propose to speak.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Norman Conquest</i></div> + +<p>The first great augmentation by foreign words +of our Saxon vocabulary, setting aside those which +the Danes brought us, was a consequence, although +not an immediate one, of the battle of Hastings, +and of the Norman domination which Duke +William’s victory established in our land. And +here let me say in respect of that victory, in contradiction +to the sentimental regrets of Thierry and +others, and with the fullest acknowledgement of +the immediate miseries which it entailed on the +Saxon race, that it was really the making of England; +a judgment, it is true, but a judgment and +mercy in one. God never showed more plainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +that He had great things in store for the people +which should occupy this English soil, than when +He brought hither that aspiring Norman race. +At the same time the actual interpenetration of +our Anglo-Saxon with any large amount of French +words did not find place till very considerably +later than this event, however it was a consequence +of it. Some French words we find very soon after; +but in the main the two streams of language continued +for a long while separate and apart, even +as the two nations remained aloof, a conquering +and a conquered, and neither forgetting the fact.</p> + +<p>Time however softened the mutual antipathies. +The Norman, after a while shut out from France, +began more and more to feel that England was +his home and sphere. The Saxon, recovering +little by little from the extreme depression which +had ensued on his defeat, became every day a +more important element of the new English nation +which was gradually forming from the coalition +of the two races. His language partook of his +elevation. It was no longer the badge of inferiority. +French was no longer the only language in which +a gentleman could speak, or a poet sing. At +the same time the Saxon, now passing into the +English language, required a vast addition to its +vocabulary, if it were to serve all the needs of +those who were willing to employ it now. How +much was there of high culture, how many of the +arts of life, of its refined pleasures, which had been +strange to Saxon men, and had therefore found no +utterance in Saxon words. All this it was sought +to supply from the French.</p> + +<p>We shall not err, I think, if we assume the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +period of the incoming of French words into the +English language to have been when the Norman +nobility were exchanging their own language for +the English; and I should be disposed with Tyrwhitt +to believe that there is much exaggeration in +attributing the large influx of these into English +to one man’s influence, namely to Chaucer’s<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>. +Doubtless he did much; he fell in with and furthered +a tendency which already prevailed. +But to suppose that the majority of French vocables +which he employed in his poems had never +been employed before, had been hitherto unfamiliar +to English ears, is to suppose that his poems +must have presented to his contemporaries an +absurd patchwork of two languages, and leaves +it impossible to explain how he should at once +have become the popular poet of our nation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Influence of Chaucer</i></div> + +<p>That Chaucer largely developed the language in +this direction is indeed plain. We have only to +compare his English with that of another great +master of the tongue, his contemporary Wiclif, to +perceive how much more his diction is saturated +with French words than is that of the Reformer. +We may note too that many which he and others +employed, and as it were proposed for admission, +were not finally allowed and received; so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +no doubt they went beyond the needs of the language, +and were here in excess<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>. At the same +time this can be regarded as no condemnation of +their attempt. It was only by actual experience +that it could be proved whether the language +wanted those words or not, whether it could +absorb them into itself, and assimilate them with +all that it already was and had; or did not require, +and would therefore in due time reject and put +them away. And what happened then will happen +in every attempt to transplant on a large scale +the words of one language into another. Some +will take root; others will not, but after a longer +or briefer period will wither and die. Thus I +observe in Chaucer such French words as these, +‘misericorde’, ‘malure’ (malheur), ‘penible’, +‘ayel’ (aieul), ‘tas’, ‘gipon’, ‘pierrie’ (precious +stones); none of which, and Wiclif’s ‘creansur’ +(2 Kings iv. 1) as little, have permanently won a +place in our tongue. For a long time ‘mel’, +used often by Sylvester, struggled hard for a place +in the language side by side with honey; ‘roy’ +side by side with king; this last quite obtained +one in Scotch. It is curious to mark some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +these French adoptions keeping their ground to +a comparatively late day, and yet finally extruded: +seeming to have taken firm root, they have yet +withered away in the end. Thus it has been, +for example, with ‘egal’ (Puttenham); with +‘ouvert’, ‘mot’, ‘ecurie’, ‘baston’, ‘gite’ +(Holland); with ‘rivage’, ‘jouissance’, ‘noblesse’, +‘tort’ (= wrong), ‘accoil’ (accuellir), +‘sell’ (= saddle), all occurring in Spenser; with +‘to serr’ (serrer), ‘vive’, ‘reglement’, used all by +Bacon; and so with ‘esperance’, ‘orgillous’ +(orgueilleux), ‘rondeur’, ‘scrimer’ (= fencer), +all in Shakespeare; with ‘amort’ (this also in +Shakespeare)<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>, and ‘avie’ (Holland). ‘Maugre’, +‘congie’, ‘devoir’, ‘dimes’, ‘sans’, and ‘bruit’, +used often in our Bible, were English once<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>; when +we employ them now, it is with the sense that we +are using foreign words. The same is true of +‘dulce’, ‘aigredoulce’ (= soursweet), of ‘mur’ +for wall, of ‘baine’ for bath, of the verb ‘to cass’ +(all in Holland), of ‘volupty’ (Sir Thomas Elyot), +‘volunty’ (Evelyn), ‘medisance’ (Montagu), +‘petit’ (South), ‘aveugle’, ‘colline’ (both in +<i>State Papers</i>), and ‘eloign’ (Hacket)<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>.</p> + +<p>We have seen when the great influx of French<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +words took place—that is, from the time of the +Conquest, although scantily and feebly at the first, +to that of Chaucer. But with him our literature +and language had made a burst, which they were +not able to maintain. He has by Warton been +well compared to some warm bright day in the +very early spring, which seems to say that the +winter is over and gone; but its promise is deceitful; +the full bursting and blossoming of the springtime +are yet far off. That struggle with France +which began so gloriously, but ended so disastrously, +even with the loss of our whole ill-won +dominion there, the savagery of our wars of the +Roses, wars which were a legacy bequeathed to us +by that unrighteous conquest, leave a huge gap in +our literary history, nearly a century during which +very little was done for the cultivation of our +native tongue, during which it could have made +few important accessions to its wealth.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Latin Importation</i></div> + +<p>The period however is notable as being that +during which for the first time we received a large +accession of Latin words. There was indeed +already a small settlement of these, for the most +part ecclesiastical, which had long since found their +home in the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon itself, and +had been entirely incorporated into it. The fact +that we had received our Christianity from Rome, +and that Latin was the constant language of the +Church, sufficiently explains the incoming of these. +Such were ‘monk’, ‘bishop’ (I put them in their +present shapes, and do not concern myself whether +they were originally Greek or no; they reached <i>us</i> +as Latin); ‘provost’, ‘minster’, ‘cloister’, +‘candle’, ‘psalter’, ‘mass’, and the names of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +certain foreign animals, as ‘camel’, or plants or +other productions, as ‘pepper’, ‘fig’; which are +all, with slightly different orthography, Anglo-Saxon +words. These, however, were entirely +exceptional, and stood to the main body of the +language not as the Romance element of it does +now to the Gothic, one power over against another, +but as the Spanish or Italian or Arabic words in +it now stand to the whole present body of the +language—and could not be affirmed to affect it +more.</p> + +<p>So soon however as French words were imported +largely, as I have just observed, into the language, +and were found to coalesce kindly with the native +growths, this very speedily suggested, as indeed it +alone rendered possible, the going straight to the +Latin, and drawing directly from it; and thus in +the hundred years which followed Chaucer a large +amount of Latin found its way, if not into our +speech, yet at all events into our books—words +which were not brought <i>through</i> the French, for +they are not, and have not at any time been, +French, but yet words which would never have +been introduced into English, if their way had not +been prepared, if the French already domesticated +among us had not bridged over, as it were, the +gulf, that would have otherwise been too wide +between them and the Saxon vocables of our +tongue.</p> + +<p>In this period, a period of great depression of +the national spirit, we may trace the attempt at a +pedantic latinization of English quite as clearly at +work as at later periods, subsequent to the revival +of learning. It was now that a crop of such words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +as ‘facundious’, ‘tenebrous’, ‘solacious’, ‘pulcritude’, +‘consuetude’ (all these occur in Hawes), +with many more, long since rejected by the language, +sprung up; while other words, good in +themselves, and which have been since allowed, +were yet employed in numbers quite out of proportion +with the Saxon vocables with which they +were mingled, and which they altogether overtopped +and shadowed. Chaucer’s hearty English +feeling, his thorough sympathy with the people, +the fact that, scholar as he was, he was yet the +poet not of books but of life, and drew his best +inspiration from life, all this had kept him, in the +main, clear of this fault. But in others it is very +manifest. Thus I must esteem the diction of +Lydgate, Hawes, and the other versifiers who +filled up the period between Chaucer and Surrey, +immensely inferior to Chaucer’s; being all stuck +over with long and often ill-selected Latin words. +The worst offenders in this line, as Campbell himself +admits, were the Scotch poets of the fifteenth +century. “The prevailing fault”, he says, “of +English diction, in the fifteenth century, is redundant +ornament, and an affectation of anglicising +Latin words. In this pedantry and use of “aureate +terms” the Scottish versifiers went even +beyond their brethren of the south.... When +they meant to be eloquent, they tore up words +from the Latin, which never took root in the language, +like children making a mock garden with +flowers and branches stuck in the ground, which +speedily wither”<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>.</p> + +<p>To few indeed is the wisdom and discretion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +given, certainly it was given to none of those, to +bear themselves in this hazardous enterprise +according to the rules laid down by Dryden; who +in the following admirable passage declares the +motives that induced him to seek for foreign +words, and the considerations that guided him +in their selection: “If sounding words are not +of our growth and manufacture, who shall hinder +me to import them from a foreign country? +I carry not out the treasure of the nation which +is never to return, but what I bring from Italy +I spend in England. Here it remains and here +it circulates, for, if the coin be good, it will pass +from one hand to another. I trade both with +the living and the dead, for the enrichment of +our native language. We have enough in England +to supply our necessity, but if we will have things +of magnificence and splendour, we must get them +by commerce. Poetry requires adornment, and +that is not to be had from our old Teuton monosyllables; +therefore if I find any elegant word in a +classic author, I propose it to be naturalized by +using it myself; and if the public approves of it, +the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish +betwixt pedantry and poetry: every man therefore +is not fit to innovate. Upon the whole matter +a poet must first be certain that the word he +would introduce is beautiful in the Latin; and +is to consider in the next place whether it will +agree with the English idiom: after this, he ought +to take the opinion of judicious friends, such as +are learned in both languages; and lastly, since +no man is infallible, let him use this licence very +sparingly; for if too many foreign words are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed +not to assist the natives, but to conquer them”<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Influence of the Reformation</i></div> + +<p>But this tendency to latinize our speech was +likely to receive, and actually did receive, a new +impulse from the revival of learning, and the +familiar re-acquaintance with the great masterpieces +of <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘antient’">ancient</ins> +literature which went along +with this revival. Happily another movement +accompanied, or at least followed hard on this; +a movement in England essentially national; +and which stirred our people at far deeper depths +of their moral and spiritual life than any mere +revival of learning could have ever done; I refer, +of course, to the Reformation. It was only +among the Germanic nations of Europe, as has +often been remarked, that the Reformation struck +lasting roots; it found its strength therefore in +the Teutonic element of the national character, +which also it in its turn further strengthened, +purified, and called out. And thus, though Latin +came in upon us now faster than ever, and in a +certain measure also Greek, yet this was not +without its redress and counterpoise, in the +cotemporaneous unfolding of the more fundamentally +popular side of the language. Popular +preaching and discussion, the necessity of dealing +with truths the most transcendent in a way to +be understood not by scholars only, but by +‘idiots’ as well, all this served to evoke the native +resources of our tongue; and thus the relative +proportion between the one part of the language +and the other was not dangerously disturbed, +the balance was not destroyed; as it might +well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +have been, if only the +Humanists<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> had been at +work, and not the Reformers as well.</p> + +<p>The revival of learning, which made itself first +felt in Italy, extended to England, and was operative +here, during the reigns of Henry the Eighth +and his immediate successors. Having thus +slightly anticipated in time, it afterwards ran +exactly parallel with, the period during which +our Reformation was working itself out. The +epoch was in all respects one of immense mental +and moral activity, and such never leave the +language of a nation where they found it. Much +is changed in it; much probably added; for the +old garment of speech, which once served all +needs, has grown too narrow, and serves them +now no more. “Change in language is not, as +in many natural products, continuous; it is not +equable, but eminently by fits and starts”; and +when the foundations of the national mind are +heaving under the power of some new truth, +greater and more important changes will find +place in fifty years than in two centuries of calmer +or more stagnant existence. Thus the activities +and energies which the Reformation awakened +among us here—and I need not tell you that these +reached far beyond the domain of our directly +religious life—caused mighty alterations in the +English tongue<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Rise of New Words</i></div> + +<p>For example, the Reformation had its scholarly, +we might say, its scholastic, as well as its popular, +aspect. Add this fact to the fact of the revived +interest in classical learning, and you will not +wonder that a stream of Latin, now larger than +ever, began to flow into our language. Thus +Puttenham, writing in Queen Elizabeth’s +reign<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>, +gives a long list of words which, as he declares, +had been quite recently introduced into the +language. Some of them are Greek, a few French +and Italian, but very far the most are Latin. +I will not give you his whole catalogue, but some +specimens from it; it is difficult to understand +concerning some of these, how the language +should have managed to do without them so +long; ‘method’, ‘methodical’, ‘function’, ‘nu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>merous’, +‘penetrate’, ‘penetrable’, ‘indignity’, +‘savage’, ‘scientific’, ‘delineation’, ‘dimension’—all +which he notes to have recently come up; +so too ‘idiom’, ‘significative’, ‘compendious’, +‘prolix’, ‘figurative’, ‘impression’, ‘inveigle’, +‘metrical’. All these he adduces with praise; +others upon which he bestows equal commendation, +have not held their ground, as ‘placation’, +‘numerosity’, ‘harmonical’. Of those neologies +which he disallowed, he only anticipated in some +cases, as in ‘facundity’, ‘implete’, ‘attemptat’ +(‘attentat’), the decision of a later day; other +words which he condemned no less, as ‘audacious’, +‘compatible’, ‘egregious’, have maintained their +ground. These too have done the same; ‘despicable’, +‘destruction’, ‘homicide’, ‘obsequious’, +‘ponderous’, ‘portentous’, ‘prodigious’, all of +them by another writer a little earlier condemned +as “inkhorn terms, smelling too much of the +Latin”.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>French Neologies</i></div> + +<p>It is curious to observe the “words of art”, +as he calls them, which Philemon Holland, a +voluminous translator at the end of the sixteenth +and beginning of the seventeenth century, counts +it needful to explain in a sort of glossary which +he appends to his translation of Pliny’s <i>Natural +History</i><a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>. +One can hardly at the present day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +understand how any person who would care to +consult the book at all would find any difficulty +with words like the following, ‘acrimony’, +‘austere’, ‘bulb’, ‘consolidate’, ‘debility’, +‘dose’, ‘ingredient’, ‘opiate’, ‘propitious’, +‘symptom’, all which, however, as novelties he +carefully explains. Some of the words in his +glossary, it is true, are harder and more technical +than these; but a vast proportion of them present +no greater difficulty than those which I have +adduced<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>The period during which this naturalization of +Latin words in the English Language was going +actively forward, may be said to have continued +till about the Restoration of Charles the Second. +It first received a check from the coming up of +French tastes, fashions, and habits of thought +consequent on that event. The writers already +formed before that period, such as Cudworth +and Barrow, still continued to write their stately +sentences, Latin in structure, and Latin in diction, +but not so those of a younger generation. We +may say of this influx of Latin that it left +the language vastly more copious, with greatly +enlarged capabilities, but perhaps somewhat burdened, +and not always able to move gracefully +under the weight of its new acquisitions; for +as Dryden has somewhere truly said, it is easy +enough to acquire foreign words, but to know +what to do with them after you have acquired, +is the difficulty.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pedantic Words</i></div> + +<p>It might have received indeed most serious +injury, if <i>all</i> the words which the great writers +of this second Latin period of our language employed, +and so proposed as candidates for admission +into it, had received the stamp of popular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +allowance. But happily it was not so; it was +here, as it had been before with the French importations, +and with the earlier Latin of Lydgate +and Occleve. The re-active powers of the +language, enabling it to throw off that which +was foreign to it, did not fail to display themselves +now, as they had done on former occasions. +The number of unsuccessful candidates +for admission into, and permanent naturalization +in, the language during this period, is +enormous; and one may say that in almost all +instances where the Alien Act has been enforced, +the sentence of exclusion was a just one; it was +such as the circumstances of the case abundantly +bore out. Either the word was not idiomatic, +or was not intelligible, or was not needed, or +looked ill, or sounded ill, or some other valid +reason existed against it. A lover of his native +tongue will tremble to think what that tongue +would have become, if all the vocables from +the Latin and the Greek which were then introduced +or endorsed by illustrious names, had been +admitted on the strength of their recommendation; +if ‘torve’ and ‘tetric’ (Fuller), ‘cecity’ +(Hooker), ‘fastide’ and ‘trutinate’ (<i>State Papers</i>), +‘immanity’ (Shakespeare), ‘insulse’ and ‘insulsity’ +(Milton, prose), ‘scelestick’ (Feltham), +‘splendidious’ (Drayton), ‘pervicacy’ (Baxter), +‘stramineous’, ‘ardelion’ (Burton), ‘lepid’ and +‘sufflaminate’ (Barrow), ‘facinorous’ (Donne), +‘immorigerous’, ‘clancular’, ‘ferity’, ‘ustulation’, +‘stultiloquy’, ‘lipothymy’ (<span title="Greek: leipothymia">λειποθυμία</span>), +‘hyperaspist’ (all in Jeremy Taylor), if ‘mulierosity’, +‘subsannation’, ‘coaxation’, ‘ludibund<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>ness’, +‘delinition’, ‘septemfluous’, ‘medioxumous’, +‘mirificent’, ‘palmiferous’ (all in Henry +More), ‘pauciloquy’ and ‘multiloquy’ (Beaumont, +<i>Psyche</i>); if ‘dyscolous’ (Foxe), ‘ataraxy’ +(Allestree), ‘moliminously’ (Cudworth), ‘luciferously’ +(Sir Thomas Browne), ‘immarcescible’ +(Bishop Hall), ‘exility’, ‘spinosity’, ‘incolumity’, +‘solertiousness’, ‘lucripetous’, ‘inopious’, +‘eluctate’, ‘eximious’ (all in Hacket), ‘arride’<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +(ridiculed by Ben Johnson), with the hundreds +of other words like these, and even more monstrous +than are some of these, not to speak of such +Italian as ‘leggiadrous’ (a favourite word in +Beaumont’s <i>Psyche</i>), ‘amorevolous’ (Hacket), +had not been rejected and disallowed by the true +instinct of the national mind.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Naturalization of Words</i></div> + +<p>A great many too <i>were</i> allowed and adopted, +but not exactly in the shape in which they first +were introduced among us; they were made to +drop their foreign termination, or otherwise +their foreign appearance, to conform themselves +to English ways, and only so were finally incorporated +into the great family of English words<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>. +Thus of Greek words we have the following: +‘pyramis’ and ‘pyramides’, forms often employed +by Shakespeare, became ‘pyramid’ and +‘pyramids’; ‘dosis’ (Bacon) ‘dose’; ‘distichon’ +(Holland) ‘distich’; ‘hemistichion’ (North) +‘hemistich’; ‘apogæon’ (Fairfax) and ‘apogeum’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>(Browne) ‘apogee’; ‘sumphonia’ (Lodge) ‘symphony’; +‘prototypon’ (Jackson) ‘prototype’; +‘synonymon’ (Jeremy Taylor) or ‘synonymum’ +(Hacket), and ‘synonyma’ (Milton, prose), +became severally ‘synonym’ and ‘synonyms’; +‘syntaxis’ (Fuller) became ‘syntax’; ‘extasis’ +(Burton) ‘ecstasy’; ‘parallelogrammon’ (Holland) +‘parallelogram’; ‘programma’ (Warton) +‘program’; ‘epitheton’ (Cowell) ‘epithet’; +‘epocha’ (South) ‘epoch’; ‘biographia’ (Dryden) +‘biography’; ‘apostata’ (Massinger) ‘apostate’; +‘despota’ (Fox) ‘despot’; ‘misanthropos’ (Shakespeare) +if ‘misanthropi’ (Bacon) ‘misanthrope’; +‘psalterion’ (North) ‘psaltery’; ‘chasma’ (Henry +More) ‘chasm’; ‘idioma’ and ‘prosodia’ (both +in Daniel, prose) ‘idiom’ and ‘prosody’; ‘energia’, +‘energy’, and ‘Sibylla’, ‘Sibyl’ (both in +Sidney); ‘zoophyton’ (Henry More) ‘zoophyte’; +‘enthousiasmos’ (Sylvester) ‘enthusiasm’; ‘phantasma’ +(Donne) ‘phantasm’; ‘magnes’ (Gabriel +Harvey) ‘magnet’; ‘cynosura’ (Donne) ‘cynosure’; +‘galaxias’ (Fox) ‘galaxy’; ‘heros’ (Henry +More) ‘hero’; ‘epitaphy’ (Hawes) ‘epitaph’.</p> + +<p>The same process has gone on in a multitude +of Latin words, which testify by their terminations +that they were, and were felt to be, Latin at +their first employment; though now they are +such no longer. Thus Bacon uses generally, +I know not whether always, ‘insecta’ for ‘insects’; +and ‘chylus’ for ‘chyle’; Bishop Andrews ‘nardus’ +for ‘nard’; Spenser ‘zephyrus’, and not ‘zephyr’; +so ‘interstitium’ (Fuller) preceded ‘interstice’; +‘philtrum’ (Culverwell) ‘philtre’; ‘expansum’ +(Jeremy Taylor) ‘expanse’; ‘preludium’ (Beau<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>mont, +<i>Psyche</i>), ‘prelude’; ‘precipitium’ (Coryat) +‘precipice’; ‘aconitum’ (Shakespeare) ‘aconite’; +‘balsamum’ (Webster) ‘balsam’; ‘heliotropium’ +(Holland) ‘heliotrope’; ‘helleborum’ (North) +‘hellebore’; ‘vehiculum’ (Howe) ‘vehicle’; ‘trochæus’ +and ‘spondæus’ (Holland) ‘trochee’ +and ‘spondee’; and ‘machina’ (Henry More) +‘machine’. We have ‘intervalla’, not ‘intervals’, +in Chillingworth; ‘postulata’, not ‘postulates’, +in Swift; ‘archiva’, not ‘archives’, in +Baxter; ‘demagogi’, not ‘demagogues’, in +Hacket; ‘vestigium’, not ‘vestige’, in Culverwell; +‘pantomimus’ in Lord Bacon for ‘pantomime’; +‘mystagogus’ for ‘mystagogue’, in Jackson; +‘atomi’ in Lord Brooke for ‘atoms’; +‘ædilis’ (North) went before ‘ædile’; ‘effigies’ +and ‘statua’ (both in Shakespeare) before +‘effigy’ and ‘statue’; ‘abyssus’ (Jackson) before +‘abyss’; ‘vestibulum’ (Howe) before ‘vestibule’; +‘symbolum’ (Hammond) before ‘symbol’; +‘spectrum’ (Burton) before ‘spectre’; while only +after a while ‘quære’ gave place to ‘query’; +‘audite’ (Hacket) to ‘audit’; ‘plaudite’ (Henry +More) to ‘plaudit’; and the low Latin ‘mummia’ +(Webster) became ‘mummy’. The widely extended +change of such words as ‘innocency’, +‘indolency’, ‘temperancy’, and the large family +of words with the same termination, into ‘innocence’, +‘indolence’, ‘temperance’, and the like, +can only be regarded as part of the same process +of entire naturalization.</p> + +<p>The plural very often tells the secret of a word, +and of the light in which it is regarded by those +who employ it, when the singular, being less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +capable of modification, would have failed to +do so; thus when Holland writes ‘phalanges’, +‘bisontes’, ‘ideæ’, it is clear that ‘phalanx’, +‘bison’, ‘idea’, were still Greek words for him; +as ‘dogma’ was for Hammond, when he made its +plural not ‘dogmas’, but ‘dogmata’<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>; and +when Spenser uses ‘heroes’ as a trisyllable, it +plainly is not yet thoroughly English for him<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>. +‘Cento’ is not English, but a Latin word used +in English, so long as it makes its plural not +‘centos’, but ‘centones’, as in the old anonymous +translation of Augustin’s <i>City of God</i><a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a>; +and ‘specimen’, while it makes its plural +‘specimina’ (Howe). Pope making, as he does, +‘satellites’ a quadrisyllable in the line</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Why Jove’s <i>satellites</i> are less than Jove”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>must have felt that he was still dealing with it as +Latin; just as ‘terminus’, a word which the +necessities of railways have introduced among us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +will not be truly naturalized till we use ‘terminuses’, +and not ‘termini’ for its plural; nor +‘phenomenon’, till we have renounced ‘phenomena’. +Sometimes it has been found convenient +to retain both plurals, that formed according +to the laws of the classical language, and that +formed according to the laws of our own, only +employing them in different senses; thus is it with +‘indices’ and ‘indexes’, ‘genii’ and ‘geniuses’.</p> + +<p>The same process has gone on with words +from other languages, as from the Italian and +the Spanish; thus ‘bandetto’ (Shakespeare), +‘bandito’ (Jeremy Taylor), becomes ‘bandit’; +‘ruffiano’ (Coryat) ‘ruffian’; ‘concerto’, ‘concert’; +‘busto’ (Lord Chesterfield) ‘bust’; +‘caricatura’ (Sir Thomas Browne) ‘caricature’; +‘princessa’ (Hacket) ‘princess’; ‘scaramucha’ +(Dryden) ‘scaramouch’; ‘pedanteria’ (Sidney) +‘pedantry’; ‘impresa’ ‘impress’; ‘caprichio’ +(Shakespeare) becomes first ‘caprich’ (Butler), +then ‘caprice’; ‘duello’ (Shakespeare) ‘duel’; +‘alligarta’ (Ben Jonson), ‘alligator’; ‘parroquito’ +(Webster) ‘parroquet’; ‘scalada’ (Heylin) +or ‘escalado’ (Holland) ‘escalade’; ‘granada’ +(Hacket) ‘grenade’; ‘parada’ (J. Taylor) +‘parade’; ‘emboscado’ (Holland) ‘stoccado’, +‘barricado’, ‘renegado’, ‘hurricano’ (all in +Shakespeare), ‘brocado’ (Hackluyt), ‘palissado’ +(Howell), drop their foreign terminations, and +severally become ‘ambuscade’, ‘stockade’, +‘barricade’, ‘renegade’, ‘hurricane’, ‘brocade’, +‘palisade’; ‘croisado’ in like manner (Bacon) +becomes first ‘croisade’ (Jortin), and then +‘crusade’; ‘quinaquina’ or ‘quinquina’, ‘quinine’. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>Other slight modifications of spelling, not in +the termination, but in the body of a word, +will indicate in like manner its more entire +incorporation into the English language. +Thus ‘shash’, a Turkish word, becomes ‘sash’; +‘colone’ (Burton) ‘clown’<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>; ‘restoration’ was +at first spelt ‘rest<i>au</i>ration’; and so long as +‘vicinage’ was spelt ‘voisinage’<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> (Sanderson), +‘mirror’ ‘miroir’ (Fuller), ‘recoil’ ‘recule’, +or ‘career’ ‘carriere’ (both by Holland), they +could scarcely be considered those purely English +words which now they are<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a>.</p> + +<p>Here and there even at this comparatively late +period of the language awkward foreign words will +be recast in a more thoroughly English mould; +‘chirurgeon’ will become ‘surgeon’; ‘hemorrhoid’, +‘emerod’; ‘squinancy’ will become first +‘squinzey’ (Jeremy Taylor) and then ‘quinsey’; +‘porkpisce’ (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more +accurately hogfish<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> will be ‘porpesse’, and then +‘porpoise’, as it is now. In other words the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +attempt will be made, but it will be now too late +to be attended with success. ‘Physiognomy’ will +not give place to ‘visnomy’, however Spenser and +Shakespeare employ this briefer form; nor ‘hippopotamus’ +to ‘hippodame’, even at Spenser’s +bidding. In like manner the attempt to naturalize +‘avant-courier’ in the shape of ‘vancurrier’ +has failed. Other words also we meet which have +finally refused to take a more popular form, +although such was once more or less current; or, +if this is too much to say of all, yet hazarded by +good authors. Thus Holland wrote ‘cirque’, but +we ‘circus’; ‘cense’, but we ‘census’; ‘interreign’, +but we ‘interregnum’; Sylvester ‘cest’, +but we ‘cestus’; ‘quirry’, but we ‘equerry’; +‘colosse’, but we still ‘colossus’; Golding ‘ure’, +but we ‘urus’; ‘metropole’, but we ‘metropolis’; +Dampier ‘volcan’, but this has not superseded +‘volcano’; nor ‘pagod’ (Pope) ‘pagoda’; nor +‘skelet’ (Holland) ‘skeleton’; nor ‘stimule’ +(Stubbs) ‘stimulus’. Bolingbroke wrote ‘exode’, +but we hold fast to ‘exodus’; Burton ‘funge’, +but we ‘fungus’; Henry More ‘enigm’, but we +‘enigma’; ‘analyse’, but we ‘analysis’. ‘Superfice’ +(Dryden) has not put ‘superficies’, nor ‘sacrary’ +(Hacket) ‘sacrarium’, nor ‘limbeck’ +‘alembic’, out of use. Chaucer’s ‘potecary’ has +given way to a more Greek formation ‘apothecary’. +Yet these and the like must be regarded quite as +exceptions; the tendency of things is altogether +the other way.</p> + +<p>Looking at this process of the reception of +foreign words, with their after assimilation in +feature to our own, we may trace, as was to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +expected, a certain conformity between the genius +of our institutions and that of our language. It +is the very character of our institutions to repel +none, but rather to afford a shelter and a refuge +to all, from whatever quarter they come; and after +a longer or shorter while all the strangers and +incomers have been incorporated into the English +nation, within one or two generations have forgotten +that they were ever ought else than members +of it, have retained no other reminiscence of +their foreign extraction than some slight difference +of name, and that often disappearing or having +disappeared. Exactly so has it been with the +English language. No language has shown itself +less exclusive; none has stood less upon niceties; +none has thrown open its arms wider, with a fuller +confidence, a confidence justified by experience, +that it could make truly its own, assimilate and +subdue to itself, whatever it received into its +bosom; and in none has this experiment in a +larger number of instances been successfully +carried out.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>French at the Restoration</i></div> + +<p>Such are the two great enlargements from +without of our vocabulary. All other are minor +and subordinate. Thus the introduction of French +tastes by Charles the Second and his courtiers +returning from exile, to which I have just adverted, +though it rather modified the structure of our sentences +than the materials of our vocabulary, gave +us some new words. In one of Dryden’s plays, <i>Marriage +à la Mode</i>, a lady full of affectation is introduced, +who is always employing French idioms +in preference to English, French words rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +than native. It is not a little curious that of +these, thus put into her mouth to render her +ridiculous, not a few are excellent English now, +and have nothing far-sought or affected about +them: for so it frequently proves that what is +laughed at in the beginning, is by all admitted +and allowed at the last. For example, to speak +of a person being in the ‘good graces’ of another +has nothing in it ridiculous now; the words +‘repartee’, ‘embarrass’, ‘chagrin’, ‘grimace’, do +not sound novel and affected now as they all must +plainly have done at the time when Dryden wrote. +‘Fougue’ and ‘fraischeur’, which he himself employed—being, +it is true, no frequent offender in +this way—have not been justified by the same +success.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Greek Words Naturalized</i></div> + +<p>Nor indeed can it be said that this adoption +and naturalization of foreign words ever ceases in +a language. There are periods, as we have seen, +when this goes forward much more largely than at +others; when a language throws open, as it were, +its doors, and welcomes strangers with an especial +freedom; but there is never a time, when one +by one these foreigners and strangers are not +slipping into it. We do not for the most part +observe the fact, at least not while it is actually +doing. Time, the greatest of all innovators, +manages his innovations so dexterously, spreads +them over such vast periods, and therefore brings +them about so gradually, that often, while effecting +the mightiest changes, we have no suspicion that +he is effecting any at all. Thus how imperceptible +are the steps by which a foreign word is admitted +into the full rights of an English one; the process<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +of its incoming often eluding our notice altogether. +There are numerous Greek words, for example +which, quite unchanged in form, have in one +way or another ended in finding a home and +acceptance among us. We may in almost every +instance trace step by step the naturalization +of one of these; and the manner of this singularly +confirms what has just been said. We can note +it spelt for a while in Greek letters, and avowedly +employed as a Greek and not an English vocable; +then after it had thus obtained a certain allowance +among us, and become not altogether unfamiliar, +we note it exchanging its Greek for English letters, +and finally obtaining recognition as a word +which however drawn from a foreign source, is +yet itself English. Thus ‘acme’, ‘apotheosis’, +‘criterion’, ‘chrysalis’, ‘encyclopedia’, ‘metropolis’, +‘opthalmia’, ‘pathos’, ‘phenomena’, +are all now English words, while yet South with +many others always wrote <span title="Greek: akmê">ἀκμή</span>, Jeremy Taylor +<span title="Greek: apotheôsis">ἀποθέωσις</span> and +<span title="Greek: kritêrion">κριτήριον</span>, Henry More +<span title="Greek: chrysalis">χρυσαλίς</span>, +Ben Jonson speaks of ‘the knowledge of the +liberal arts, which the Greeks call +<span title="Greek: enkyklopadeian">ἐγκυκλοπαδείαν</span>’<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>, +Culverwell wrote <span title="Greek: mêtropolis">μητρόπολις</span> +and <span title="Greek: ophthalmia">ὀφθαλμία</span>, Preston, +<span title="Greek: phainomena">φαινόμενα</span>—Sylvester +ascribes to Baxter, +not ‘pathos’, but <span title="Greek: pathos">πάθος</span><a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>. +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: Êthos; +original reads ‘Ἡθος’">Ἠθος</ins> is a word at +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +present moment preparing for a like passage +from Greek characters to English, and certainly +before long will be acknowledged as an English +word<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>. +The only cause which has hindered +this for some time past is the misgiving whether +it will not be read ‘ĕthos,’ and not ‘ēthos,’ +and thus not be the word intended.</p> + +<p>Let us trace a like process in some French +word, which is at this moment becoming English. +I know no better example than the French ‘prestige’ +will afford. ‘Prestige’ has manifestly no +equivalent in our own language; it expresses +something which no single word in English, which +only a long circumlocution, could express; namely, +that magic influence on others, which past successes +as the pledge and promise of future ones, breed. +The word has thus naturally come to be of very +frequent use by good English writers; for they do +not feel that in employing it they are passing by +as good or a better word of their own. At first +all used it avowedly as French, writing it in italics +to indicate this. At the present moment some +write it so still, some do not; some, that is, regard +it still as foreign, others consider that it has now +become English, and obtained a settlement +among us<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a>. +Little by little the number of +those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +who write it in italics will become fewer and +fewer, till they cease altogether. It will then +only need that the accent should be shifted, in +obedience to the tendencies of the English language, +as far back in the word as it will go, that +instead of ‘prestíge’, it should be pronounced +‘préstige’ even as within these few years instead +of ‘depót’ we have learned to say ‘dépot’, and its +naturalization will be complete. I have little +doubt that in twenty years it will be so pronounced +by the majority of well educated +Englishmen<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>,—some +pronounce it so already,—and that our +present pronunciation will pass away in the +same manner as ‘obl<i>ee</i>ge’, once universal, has +past away, and everywhere given place to +‘obl<i>i</i>ge’<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Shifting of Accents</i></div> + +<p>Let me here observe in passing, that the process +of throwing the accent of a word back, by way +of completing its naturalization, is one which +we may note constantly going forward in our +language. Thus, while Chaucer accentuates sometimes +‘natúre’, he also accentuates elsewhere +‘náture’, while sometimes ‘virtúe’, at other times +‘<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘vìrtue’">vírtue</ins>’. +‘Prostrate’, ‘adverse’, ‘aspect’, ‘process’, +‘insult’, ‘impulse’, ‘pretext’, ‘contrite’, +‘uproar’, ‘contest’, had all their accent on the +last syllable in Milton; they have it now on the +first; ‘cháracter’ was +‘<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘hcáracter’">charácter</ins>’ with +Spenser;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +‘théatre’ was ‘theátre’ with Sylvester; while +‘acádemy’ was accented ‘académy’ by Cowley +and Butler<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>. ‘Essay’ was ‘essáy’ with Dryden +and with Pope; the first closes an heroic line +with the word; Pope does the same with ‘barrier’<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> +and ‘effort’; therefore pronounced ‘barríer’, +‘effórt’, by him.</p> + +<p>There are not a few other French words which +like ‘prestige’ are at this moment hovering on the +verge of English, hardly knowing whether they +shall become such, or no. Such are ‘ennui’, +‘exploitation’, ‘verve’, ‘persiflage’, ‘badinage’, +‘chicane’, ‘finesse’, and others; all of them often +employed by us,—and it is out of such frequent +employment that adoption proceeds,—because +expressing shades of meaning not expressed by any +words of our own<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>. Some of these, we may confidently +anticipate, will complete their naturalization; +others will after a time retreat again, and +become for us avowedly French. ‘Solidarity’, a +word which we owe to the French Communists, +and which signifies a fellowship in gain and loss, +in honour and dishonour, in victory and defeat, a +being, so to speak, all in the same bottom, is so +convenient, that unattractive as confessedly it is, +it will be in vain to struggle against its reception. +The newspapers already have it, and books will +not long exclude it; not to say that it has esta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>blished +itself in German, and probably in other +European languages as well.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Greek in English</i></div> + +<p>Greek and Latin words also we still continue to +adopt, although now no longer in troops and companies, +but only one by one. With the lively +interest which always has been felt in classical +studies among us, and which will continue to be +felt, so long as any greatness and nobleness survive +in our land, it must needs be that accessions +from these quarters would never cease altogether. +I do not refer here to purely scientific terms; +these, so long as they continue such, and do not +pass beyond the threshold of the science or sciences +for the use of which they were invented, being +never heard on the lips, or employed in the writings, +of any but the cultivators of these sciences, have +no right to be properly called words at all. They +are a kind of shorthand of the science, or algebraic +notation; and will not find place in a dictionary +of the language, constructed upon true principles, +but rather in a technical dictionary apart by themselves. +Of these, compelled by the advances of +physical science, we have coined multitudes out of +number in these later times, fashioning them +mainly from the Greek, no other language within +our reach yielding itself at all so easily to our +needs.</p> + +<p>Of non-scientific words, both Greek and Latin, +some have made their way among us quite in +these latter times. Burke in the House of Commons +is said to have been the first who employed +the word ‘inimical’<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a>. +He also launched the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +verb ‘to spheterize’ in the sense of to appropriate +or make one’s own; but this without success. +Others have been more fortunate; ‘æsthetic’ we +have got indeed <i>through</i> the Germans, but <i>from</i> +the Greeks. Tennyson has given allowance to +‘æon’<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>; +and ‘myth’ is a deposit which wide +and far-reaching controversies have left in the +popular language. ‘Photography’ is an example +of what I was just now speaking of—namely, a +scientific word which has travelled beyond the +limits of the science which it designates and which +gave it birth. ‘Stereotype’ is another word of +the same character. It was invented—not the +thing, but the word,—by Didot not very long since; +but it is now absorbed into healthy general circulation, +being current in a secondary and figurative +sense. Ruskin has given to ‘ornamentation’ +the sanction and authority of his name. ‘Normal’ +and ‘abnormal’, not quite so new, are yet of +recent introduction into the language<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>German Importations</i></div> + +<p>When we consider the near affinity between +the English and German languages, which, if not +sisters, may at least be regarded as first cousins, +it is somewhat remarkable that almost since the +day when they parted company, each to fulfil its +own destiny, there has been little further com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>merce +between them in the matter of giving or +taking. At any rate adoptions on our part +from the German have been till within this period +extremely rare. ‘Crikesman’ (Kriegsmann) and +‘brandschat’ (Brandschatz), with some other +German words common enough in the <i>State Papers</i> +of the sixteenth century, found no permanent place +in the language. The explanation lies in the +fact that the literary activity of Germany did +not begin till very late, nor our interest in it till +later still, not indeed till the beginning of the +present century. Yet ‘plunder’, as I have +mentioned elsewhere, was brought back from +Germany about the beginning of our Civil Wars, +by the soldiers who had served under Gustavus +Adolphus and his captains<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>. And ‘trigger’, +written ‘tricker’ in <i>Hudibras</i> is manifestly the +German ‘drücker’<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>, though none of our dictionaries +have marked it as such; a word first appearing +at the same period, it may have reached us through +the same channel. ‘Iceberg’ (eisberg) also we +must have taken whole from the German, as, had +we constructed the word for ourselves, we should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +have made it not ‘ice<i>berg</i>’, but ‘ice-<i>mountain</i>’. +I have not found it in our earlier voyagers, often +as they speak of the ‘icefield’, which yet is not +exactly the same thing. An English ‘swindler’ +is not exactly a German ‘schwindler’, yet the +notion of the ‘nebulo’, though more latent in +the German, is common to both; and we must +have drawn the word from Germany<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> (it is not +an old one in our tongue) during the course of the +last century. If ‘<i>life</i>-guard’ was originally, as +Richardson suggests, ‘<i>leib</i>-garde’, or ‘<i>body</i>-guard’, +and from that transformed, by the +determination of Englishmen to make it significant +in English, into ‘<i>life</i>-guard’, or guard +defending the <i>life</i> of the sovereign, this will +be another word from the same quarter. Yet +I have my doubts; ‘leibgarde’ would scarcely +have found its way hither before the accession of +the House of Hanover, or at any rate before the +arrival of Dutch William with his memorable +guards; while ‘lifeguard’, in its present shape, +is certainly an older word in the language; we +hear often of the ‘lifeguards’ in our Civil Wars; +as witness too Fuller’s words: “The Cherethites +were a kind of <i>lifegard</i> to king David”<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>.</p> + +<p>Of late our German importations have been +somewhat more numerous. With several German +compound words we have been in recent times +so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +well pleased, that we must needs adopt them into +English, or imitate them in it. We have not +always been very happy in those which we have +selected for imitation or adoption. Thus we might +have been satisfied with ‘manual’, and not called +back from its nine hundred years of oblivion that +ugly and unnecessary word ‘handbook’. And +now we are threatened with ‘word-building’, as +I see a book announced under the title of “Latin +<i>word-building</i>”, and, much worse than this, with +‘stand-point’. ‘Einseitig’ (itself a modern word, +if I mistake not, or at any rate modern in its +secondary application) has not, indeed, been +adopted, but is evidently the pattern on which we +have formed ‘onesided’—a word to which a few +years ago something of affectation was attached; +so that any one who employed it at once gave +evidence that he was more or less a dealer in +German wares; it has however its manifest conveniences, +and will hold its ground. ‘Fatherland’ +(Vaterland) on the contrary will scarcely establish +itself among us, the note of affectation will continue +to cleave to it, and we shall go on contented +with ‘native country’ to the +end<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>. The most +successful of these compounded words, borrowed +recently from the German, is ‘folk-lore’, and the +substitution of this for popular superstitions, must +be esteemed, I think, an unquestionable +gain<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> + +<p>To speak now of other sources from which the +new words of a language are derived. Of course +the period when absolutely new roots are generated +will have past away, long before men begin +by a reflective act to take any notice of processes +going forward in the language which they speak. +This pure productive energy, creative we might +call it, belongs only to the earlier stages of a +nation’s existence,—to times quite out of the ken +of history. It is only from materials already +existing either in its own bosom, or in the bosom +of other languages, that it can enrich itself in the +later, or historical stages of its life.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Compound Words</i></div> + +<p>And first, it can bring its own words into new +combinations; it can join two, and sometimes +even more than two, of the words which it already +has, and form out of them a new one. Much +more is wanted here than merely to attach two +or more words to one another by a hyphen; this +is not to make a new word: they must really +coalesce and grow together. Different languages, +and even the same language at different stages of +its existence, will possess this power of forming +new words by the combination of old in very +different degrees. The eminent felicity of the +Greek in this respect has been always acknowledged. +“The joints of her compounded words”, says +Fuller, “are so naturally oiled, that they run +nimbly on the tongue, which makes them though +long, never tedious, because +significant”<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>. +Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +Philip Sidney boasts of the capability of our +English language in this respect—that “it is particularly +happy in the composition of two or three +words together, near equal to the Greek”. No +one has done more than Milton to justify this +praise, or to make manifest what may be effected +by this marriage of words. Many of his compound +epithets, as ‘golden-tressed’, ‘tinsel-slippered’, +‘coral-paven’, ‘flowry-kirtled’, ‘violet-embroidered’, +‘vermeil-tinctured’, are themselves poems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +in miniature. Not unworthy to be set beside +these are Sylvester’s “<i>opal-coloured</i> morn”, Drayton’s +“<i>silver-sanded</i> shore”, and perhaps Marlowe’s +“<i>golden-fingered</i> Ind”<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>.</p> + +<p>Our modern inventions in the same kind are for +the most part very inferior: they could hardly +fail to be so, seeing that the formative, plastic +powers of a language are always waning and +diminishing more and more. It may be, and +indeed is, gaining in other respects, but in this +it is losing; and thus it is not strange if its later +births in this kind are less successful than its +earlier. Among the poets of our own time Shelley +has done more than any other to assert for the +language that it has not quite renounced this +power; while among writers of prose in these +later days Jeremy Bentham has been at once one +of the boldest, but at the same time one of the +most unfortunate, of those who have issued this +money from their mint. Still we ought not to +forget, while we divert ourselves with the strange +and formless progeny of his brain, that we owe +‘international’ to him—a word at once so convenient +and supplying so real a need, that it +was, and with manifest advantage, at once adopted +by all<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Adjectives ending in al</i></div> + +<p>Another way in which languages increase their +stock of vocables is by the forming of new words +according to the analogy of formations, which in +seemingly parallel cases have been already allowed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +Thus long since upon certain substantives such as +‘congregation’, ‘convention’, were formed their +adjectives, ‘congregational’, ‘conventional’; yet +these also at a comparatively modern period; ‘congregational’ +first rising up in the Assembly of +Divines, or during the time of the Commonwealth<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>. +These having found admission into the language, +it is attempted to repeat the process in the case of +other words with the same ending. I confess the +effect is often exceedingly disagreeable. We are +now pretty well used to ‘educational’, and the +word is sometimes serviceable enough; but I can +perfectly remember when some twenty years ago +an “<i>Educational</i> Magazine” was started, the +first impression on one’s mind was, that a work +having to do with education should not thus +bear upon its front an offensive, or to say the +best, a very dubious novelty in the English language<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a>. +These adjectives are now multiplying +fast. We have ‘inflexional’, ‘seasonal’, ‘denominational’, +and, not content with this, in dissenting +magazines at least, the monstrous birth, +‘denominationalism’; ‘emotional’ is creeping +into books<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a>, ‘sensational’, and others as well, +so that it is hard to say where this influx will stop, +or whether all our words with this termination +will not finally generate an adjective. Convenient +as you may sometimes find these, I would yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +certainly counsel you to abstain from all but the +perfectly well <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘recognised’">recognized</ins> +formations of this kind. +There may be cases of exception; but for the +most part Pope’s advice is good, as certainly it +is safe, that we be not among the last to use a +word which is going out, nor among the first to +employ one that is coming in.</p> + +<p>‘Starvation’ is another word of comparatively +recent introduction, formed in like manner on the +model of preceding formations of an apparently +similar character—its first formers, indeed, not +observing that they were putting a Latin termination +to a Saxon word. Some have supposed it to +have reached us from America. It has not however +travelled from so great a distance, being a +stranger indeed, yet not from beyond the Atlantic, +but only from beyond the Tweed. It is an old +Scottish word, but unknown in England, till used +by Mr. Dundas, the first Viscount Melville, in an +American debate in 1775. That it then jarred +strangely on English ears is evident from the nickname, +“<i>Starvation</i> Dundas”, which in consequence +he obtained<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Revival of Words</i></div> + +<p>Again, languages enrich themselves, our own has +done so, by recovering treasures which for a while +had been lost by them or forgone. I do not mean +that all which drops out of use <i>is</i> loss; there are +words which it is gain to be rid of; which it would +be folly to wish to revive; of which Dryden, +setting himself against an extravagant zeal in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +direction, says in an ungracious comparison—they +do “not deserve this redemption, any more than the +crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence +in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a +wish could revive them”<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>. There are others, +however, which it is a real gain to draw back +again from the temporary oblivion which had +overtaken them; and this process of their setting +and rising again, or of what, to use another image, +we might call their suspended animation, is not +so unfrequent as at first might be supposed.</p> + +<p>You may perhaps remember that Horace, tracing +in a few memorable lines the history of words, +while he notes that many once current have now +dropped out of use, does not therefore count that +of necessity their race is for ever run; on the +contrary he confidently anticipates a <i>palingenesy</i> +for many among them<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>; and I am convinced that +there has been such in the case of our English +words to a far greater extent than we are generally +aware. Words slip almost or quite as imperceptibly +back into use as they once slipped out of it. +Let me produce a few facts in evidence of this. In +the contemporary gloss which an anonymous +friend of Spenser’s furnished to his <i>Shepherd’s +Calendar</i>, first published in 1579, “for the exposition +of old words”, as he declares, he thinks +it expedient to include in his list, the following, +‘dapper’, ‘scathe’, ‘askance’, ‘sere’, ‘embellish’, +‘bevy’, ‘forestall’, ‘fain’, with not a few others +quite as familiar as these. In Speght’s <i>Chaucer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></i> +(1667), there is a long list of “old and obscure +words in Chaucer explained”; including ‘anthem’, +‘blithe’, ‘bland’, ‘chapelet’, ‘carol’, ‘deluge’, +‘franchise’, ‘illusion’, ‘problem’, ‘recreant’, +‘sphere’, ‘tissue’, ‘transcend’, with very many +easier than these. In Skinner’s <i>Etymologicon</i> (1671), +there is another list of obsolete, words<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a>, and +among these he includes ‘to dovetail’, ‘to interlace’, +‘elvish’, ‘encombred’, ‘masquerade’ (mascarade), +‘oriental’, ‘plumage’, ‘pummel’ (pomell), +and ‘stew’, that is, for fish. Who will +say of the verb ‘to hallow’ that it is now even +obsolescent? and yet Wallis two hundred years ago +observed—“It has almost gone out of use” (fer. +desuevit). It would be difficult to find an example +of the verb, ‘to advocate’, between Milton +and Burke<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>. +Franklin, a close observer in such +matters, as he was himself an admirable master +of English style, considered the word to have +sprung up during his own residence in Europe. +In this indeed he was mistaken; it had only +during this period revived<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>. Johnson says of +‘jeopardy’ that it is a “word not now in use”; +which certainly is not any longer true<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dryden and Chaucer’s English</i></div> + +<p>I am persuaded that in facility of being understood, +Chaucer is not merely as near, but much +nearer, to us than Dryden and his cotemporaries +felt him to be to them. He and the writers of his +time make exactly the same sort of complaints, +only in still stronger language, about his archaic +phraseology and the obscurities which it involves, +that are made at the present day. Thus in the +<i>Preface</i> to his <i>Tales from Chaucer</i>, having quoted +some not very difficult lines from the earlier poet +whom he was modernizing, he proceeds: “You +have here a specimen of Chaucer’s language, which +is so obsolete that his sense is scarce to be understood”. +Nor was it merely thus with respect of +Chaucer. These wits and poets of the Court of +Charles the Second were conscious of a greater +gulf between themselves and the Elizabethan era, +separated from them by little more than fifty +years, than any of which <i>we</i> are aware, separated +from it by nearly two centuries more. I do not +mean merely that they felt themselves more removed +from its tone and spirit; their altered circumstances +might explain this; but I am convinced +that they found a greater difficulty and +strangeness in the language of Spenser and +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Shakesspeare’">Shakespeare</ins> +than we find now; that it sounded in many +ways more uncouth, more old-fashioned, more +abounding in obsolete terms than it does in our +ears at the present. Only in this way can I explain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +the tone in which they are accustomed to speak +of these worthies of the near past. I must again +cite Dryden, the truest representative of literary +England in its good and in its evil during the last +half of the seventeenth century. Of Spenser, +whose death was separated from his own birth by +little more than thirty years, he speaks as of one +belonging to quite a different epoch, counting it +much to say, “Notwithstanding his obsolete language, +he is still intelligible”<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>. Nay, hear what +his judgment is of Shakespeare himself, so far as +language is concerned: “It must be allowed to +the present age that the tongue in general is +so much refined since Shakespeare’s time, that +many of his words and more of his phrases are +scarce intelligible. And of those which we understand, +some are ungrammatical, others coarse; +and his whole style is so pestered with figurative +expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure”<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Nugget</i>, <i>Ingot</i></div> + +<p>Sometimes a word will emerge anew from the +undercurrent of society, not indeed new, but yet +to most seeming as new, its very existence having +been altogether forgotten by the larger number of +those speaking the language; although it must +have somewhere lived on upon the lips of men. +Thus, for instance, since the Californian and Australian +discoveries of gold we hear often of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +‘nugget’ of gold; being a lump of the pure metal; +and there has been some discussion whether the +word has been born for the present necessity, or +whether it be a recent malformation of ‘ingot’, +I am inclined to think that it is neither one nor +the other. I would not indeed affirm that it may +not be a popular recasting of ‘ingot’; but only +that it is not a recent one; for ‘nugget’ very +nearly in its present form, occurs in our elder +writers, being spelt ‘niggot’ by them<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>. There +can be little doubt of the identity of ‘niggot’ and +‘nugget’; all the consonants, the <i>stamina</i> of a +word, being the same; while this early form +‘niggot’ makes more plausible their suggestion +that ‘nugget’ is only ‘ingot’ disguised, seeing +that there wants nothing but the very common +transposition of the first two letters to bring that +out of this<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words from Proper Names</i></div> + +<p>New words are often formed from the names +of persons, actual or mythical. Some one has observed +how interesting would be a complete collection, +or a collection approaching to completeness, +in any language of the names of <i>persons</i> which +have afterwards become names of <i>things</i>, from +‘nomina <i>appellativa</i>’ have become ‘nomina<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +<i>realia</i>’<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>. Let me without confining myself to +those of more recent introduction endeavour to +enumerate as many as I can remember of the +words which have by this method been introduced +into our language. To begin with mythical +antiquity—the Chimæra has given us ‘chimerical’, +Hermes ‘hermetic’, Tantalus ‘to tantalize’, +Hercules ‘herculean’, Proteus ‘protean’, Vulcan +‘volcano’ and ‘volcanic’, and Dædalus ‘dedal’, +if this word may on Spenser’s and Shelley’s authority +be allowed. Gordius, the Phrygian king who +tied that famous ‘gordian’ knot which Alexander +cut, will supply a natural transition from mythical +to historical. Here Mausolus, a king of Caria, +has left us ‘mausoleum’, Academus ‘academy’, +Epicurus ‘epicure’, Philip of Macedon a ‘philippic’, +being such a discourse as Demosthenes once +launched against the enemy of Greece, and Cicero +‘cicerone’. Mithridates, who had made himself +poison-proof, gave us the now forgotten word +‘mithridate’, for antidote; as from Hippocrates +we derived ‘hipocras’, or ‘ypocras’, a word often +occurring in our early poets, being a wine supposed +to be mingled after his receipt. Gentius, a king +of Illyria, gave his name to the plant ‘gentian’, +having been, it is said, the first to discover its +virtues. A grammar used to be called a ‘donnat’, +or ‘donet’ (Chaucer), from Donatus, a famous +grammarian. Lazarus, perhaps an actual person, +has given us ‘lazar’ and ‘lazaretto’; St. Vero<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>nica +and the legend connected with her name, +a ‘vernicle’; being a napkin with the Saviour’s +face portrayed on it; Simon Magus ‘simony’; Mahomet +a ‘mammet’ or ‘maumet’, meaning an +<ins class="correction" title="comma not visible in original">idol<a +name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a>,</ins> +and ‘mammetry’ or idolatry; ‘dunce’ is from +Duns Scotus; while there is a legend that the +‘knot’ or sandpiper is named from Canute or +Knute, with whom this bird was a special favourite. +To come to more modern times, and not +pausing at Ben Johnson’s ‘chaucerisms’, Bishop +Hall’s ‘scoganisms’, from Scogan, Edward the +Fourth’s jester, or his ‘aretinisms’, from +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘an,’">an</ins> +infamous writer, ‘a poisonous Italian ribald’ +as Gabriel Harvey calls him, named Aretine; +these being probably not intended even by their +authors to endure; a Roman cobbler named +Pasquin has given us the ‘pasquil’ or ‘pasquinade’; +‘patch’ in the sense of fool, and often so +used by Shakespeare, was originally the proper +name of a favourite fool of Cardinal Wolsey<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a>; +Colonel Negus in Queen Anne’s time first mixed +the beverage which goes by his name; Lord +Orrery was the first for whom an ‘orrery’ was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +constructed; and Lord Spencer first wore, or +at least first brought into fashion, a ‘spencer’. +Dahl, a Swede, introduced the cultivation of the +‘dahlia’, and M. Tabinet, a French Protestant +refugee, the making of the stuff called ‘tabinet’ in +Dublin; in ‘<i>tram</i>-road’, the second syllable of the +name of Ou<i>tram</i>, the inventor, +survives<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>. The +‘tontine’ was conceived by an Italian named +Tonti; and another Italian, Galvani, first noted +the phenomena of animal electricity or ‘galvanism’; +while a third Italian, ‘Volta’, gave a name +to the ‘voltaic’ battery. ‘Martinet’, ‘mackintosh’, +‘doyly’, ‘brougham’, ‘to macadamize’, +‘to burke’, are all names of persons or +from persons, and then transferred to things, on +the score of some connection existing between +the one and other<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again the names of popular characters in +literature, such as have taken strong hold on the +national mind, give birth to a number of new words. +Thus from Homer we have ‘mentor’ for a monitor; +‘stentorian’, for loud-voiced; and inasmuch as with +all of Hector’s nobleness there is a certain amount +of big talking about him, he has given us ‘to +hector’<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>; +while the medieval romances about +the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful +ministry out of which his name has past into +the words ‘to pandar’ and ‘pandarism’. ‘Rodomontade’ +is from Rodomont, a blustering and +boasting hero of Boiardo, adopted by Ariosto; +‘thrasonical’, from Thraso, the braggart of the +Roman comedy. Cervantes has given us ‘quixotic’; +Swift ‘lilliputian’; to Molière the French +language owes ‘tartuffe’ and ‘tartufferie’. ‘Reynard’ +too, which with us is a duplicate for fox, +while in the French ‘renard’ has quite excluded +the older ‘volpils’, was originally not the name +of a kind, but the proper name of the fox-hero, +the vulpine Ulysses, in that famous beast-epic of +the middle ages, <i>Reineke Fuchs</i>; the immense +popularity of which we gather from many evidences, +from none more clearly than from this. +‘Chanticleer’ is in like manner the proper name +of the cock, and ‘Bruin’ of the bear in the same +poem<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>. +These have not made fortune to +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +same extent of actually putting out in any language +the names which before existed, but still +have become quite familiar to us all.</p> + +<p>We must not count as new words properly so +called, although they may delay us for a minute, +those comic words, most often comic combinations +formed at will, and sometimes of enormous length, +in which, as plays and displays of power, great +writers ancient and modern have delighted. These +for the most part are meant to do service for the +moment, and then to pass away<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>. The inventors +of them had themselves no intention of fastening +them permanently on the language. Thus among +the Greeks Aristophanes coined <span title="Greek: mellonikiaô">μελλονικιάω</span>, to +loiter like Nicias, with allusion to the delays with +which this prudent commander sought to put off +the disastrous Sicilian expedition, with not a few +other familiar to every scholar. The humour of +them sometimes consists in their enormous length, +as in the <span title="Greek: amphiptolemopêdêsistratos">ἀμφιπτολεμοπηδησίστρατος</span> of Eupolis; +the <span title="Greek: spermagoraiolekitholachanopôlis">σπερμαγοραιολεκιθολαχανόπωλις</span> of Aristophanes; +sometimes in their mingled observance +and transgression of the laws of the language, as in +the ‘oculissimus’ of Plautus, a comic superlative +of ‘oculus’; ‘occisissimus’ of ‘occisus’; as in the +‘dosones’, ‘dabones’, which in Greek and in +medieval Latin were names given to those who +were ever promising, ever saying “I will give” +but never performing their promise. Plautus +with his exuberant wit, and exulting in his mastery +and command of the Latin language, will compose +four or five lines consisting entirely of comic com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>binations +thrown off for the occasion<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a>. Of the +same character is Butler’s ‘cynarctomachy’, or +battle of a dog and bear. Nor do I suppose that +Fuller, when he used ‘to avunculize’, to imitate +or follow in the steps of one’s uncle, or Cowper, +when he suggested ‘extraforaneous’ for out of +doors, in the least intended them as lasting additions +to the language.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>To Chouse</i>’</div> + +<p>Sometimes a word springs up in a very curious +way; here is one, not having, I suppose, any great +currency except among schoolboys; yet being no +invention of theirs, but a genuine English word, +though of somewhat late birth in the language, I +mean ‘to chouse’. It has a singular origin. The +word is, as I have mentioned already, a Turkish +one, and signifies ‘interpreter’. Such an interpreter +or ‘chiaous’ (written ‘chaus’ in Hackluyt, +‘chiaus’ in Massinger), being attached to the +Turkish embassy in England, committed in the +year 1609 an enormous fraud on the Turkish and +Persian merchants resident in London. He succeeded +in cheating them of a sum amounting to +£4000—a sum very much greater at that day +than at the present. From the vast dimensions of +the fraud, and the notoriety which attended it, +any one who cheated or defrauded was said ‘to +chiaous’, ‘chause’, or ‘chouse’; to do, that is, as +this ‘chiaous’ had done<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Different Spelling of Words</i></div> + +<p>There is another very fruitful source of new +words in a language, or perhaps rather another +way in which it increases its vocabulary, for a +question might arise whether the words thus produced +ought to be called new. I mean through +the splitting of single words into two or even more. +The impulse and suggestion to this is in general +first given by varieties in pronunciation, which +are presently represented by varieties in spelling; +but the result very often is that what at first +were only precarious and arbitrary differences in +this, come in the end to be regarded as entirely +different words; they detach themselves from one +another, not again to reunite; just as accidental +varieties in fruits or flowers, produced at hazard, +have yet permanently separated off, and settled +into different kinds. They have each its own distinct +domain of meaning, as by general agreement +assigned to it; dividing the inheritance between +them, <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘whith’">which</ins> +hitherto they held in common. No +one who has not had his attention called to this +matter, who has not watched and catalogued these +words as they have come under his notice, would +at all believe how numerous they are.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Doublets</i></div> + +<p>Sometimes as the accent is placed on one syllable +of a word or another, it comes to have different +significations, and those so distinctly marked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +that the separation may be regarded as complete. +Examples of this are the following: ‘dívers’, +and ‘divérse’; ‘cónjure’ and ‘conjúre’; ‘ántic’ +and ‘antíque’; ‘húman’ and ‘humáne’; ‘úrban’ +and ‘urbáne’; ‘géntle’ and ‘gentéel’; ‘cústom’ +and ‘costúme’; ‘éssay’ and ‘assáy’; ‘próperty’ +and ‘propríety’. Or again, a word is pronounced +with a full sound of its syllables, or somewhat +more shortly: thus ‘spirit’ and ‘sprite’; ‘blossom’ +and ‘bloom’<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>; ‘personality’ and ‘personalty’; +‘fantasy’ and ‘fancy’; ‘triumph’ and +‘trump’ (the <i>winning</i> +card<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a>); ‘happily’ and +‘haply’; ‘waggon’ and ‘wain’; ‘ordinance’ and +‘ordnance’; ‘shallop’ and ‘sloop’; ‘brabble’ and +‘brawl’<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>; +‘syrup’ and ‘shrub’; ‘balsam’ and +‘balm’; ‘eremite’ and ‘hermit’; ‘nighest’ and +‘next’; ‘poesy’ and ‘posy’; ‘fragile’ and ‘frail’; +‘achievement’ and ‘hatchment’; ‘manœuvre’ +and ‘manure’;—or with the dropping of the first +syllable: ‘history’ and ‘story’; ‘etiquette’ and +‘ticket’; ‘escheat’ and ‘cheat’; ‘estate’ and +‘state’; and, older probably than any of these, +‘other’ and ‘or’;—or with a dropping of the last +syllable, as ‘Britany’ and ‘Britain’; ‘crony’ and +‘crone’;—or without losing a syllable, with more +or less stress laid on the close: ‘regiment’ and +‘regimen’; ‘corpse’ and ‘corps’; ‘bite’ and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +‘bit’; ‘sire’ and ‘sir’; ‘land’ or ‘laund’ and +‘lawn’; ‘suite’ and ‘suit’; ‘swinge’ and ‘swing’; +‘gulph’ and ‘gulp’; ‘launch’ and ‘lance’; +‘wealth’ and ‘weal’; ‘stripe’ and ‘strip’; +‘borne’ and ‘born’; ‘clothes’ and ‘cloths’;—or +a slight internal vowel change finds place, as +between ‘dent’ and ‘dint’; ‘rant’ and ‘rent’ +(a ranting actor tears or <i>rends</i> a passion to +tatters)<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>; +‘creak’ and ‘croak’; ‘float’ and ‘fleet’; +‘sleek’ and ‘slick’; ‘sheen’ and ‘shine’; +‘shriek’ and ‘shrike’; ‘pick’ and ‘peck’; +‘peak’, ‘pique’, and ‘pike’; ‘weald’ and ‘wold’; +‘drip’ and ‘drop’; ‘wreathe’ and ‘writhe’; +‘spear’ and ‘spire’ (“the least <i>spire</i> of grass”, +South); ‘trist’ and ‘trust’; ‘band’, ‘bend’ and +‘bond’; ‘cope’, ‘cape’ and ‘cap’; ‘tip’ and +‘top’; ‘slent’ (now obsolete) and ‘slant’; ‘sweep’ +and ‘swoop’; ‘wrest’ and ‘wrist’; ‘gad’ (now +surviving only in gadfly) and ‘goad’; ‘complement’ +and ‘compliment’; ‘fitch’ and ‘vetch’; +‘spike’ and ‘spoke’; ‘tamper’ and ‘temper’; +‘ragged’ and ‘rugged’; ‘gargle’ and ‘gurgle’; +‘snake’ and ‘sneak’ (both crawl); ‘deal’ and +‘dole’; ‘giggle’ and ‘gaggle’ (this last is now +commonly spelt ‘cackle’); ‘sip’, ‘sop’, ‘soup’ +and ‘sup’; ‘clack’, ‘click’ and ‘clock’; ‘tetchy’ +and ‘touchy’; ‘neat’ and ‘nett’; ‘stud’ and +‘steed’; ‘then’ and ‘than’<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a>; ‘grits’ and +‘grouts’; ‘spirt’ and ‘sprout’; ‘cure’ and +‘care’<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>; +‘prune’ and ‘preen’; ‘mister’ and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +‘master’; ‘allay’ and ‘alloy’; ‘ghostly’ and +‘ghastly’<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>; +‘person’ and ‘parson’; ‘cleft’ +and ‘clift’, now written ‘cliff’; ‘travel’ and +‘travail’; ‘truth’ and ‘troth’; ‘pennon’ and +‘pinion’; ‘quail’ and ‘quell’; ‘quell’ and +‘kill’; ‘metal’ and ‘mettle’; ‘chagrin’ and +‘shagreen’; ‘can’ and ‘ken’; ‘Francis’ and +‘Frances’<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>; ‘chivalry’ and ‘cavalry’; ‘oaf’ +and ‘elf’; ‘lose’ and ‘loose’; ‘taint’ and ‘tint’. +Sometimes the difference is mainly or entirely +in the initial consonants, as between ‘phial’ and +‘vial’; ‘pother’ and ‘bother’; ‘bursar’ and +‘purser’; ‘thrice’ and ‘trice’<a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>; ‘shatter’ and +‘scatter’; ‘chattel’ and ‘cattle’; ‘chant’ +and ‘cant’; ‘zealous’ and ‘jealous’; ‘channel’ +and ‘kennel’; ‘wise’ and ‘guise’; ‘quay’ +and ‘key’; ‘thrill’, ‘trill’ and ‘drill’;—or +in the consonants in the middle of the word, +as between ‘cancer’ and ‘canker’; ‘nipple’ and +‘nibble’; ‘tittle’ and ‘title’; ‘price’ and ‘prize’; +‘consort’ and ‘concert’;—or there is a change in +both, as between ‘pipe’ and ‘fife’.</p> + +<p>Or a word is spelt now with a final <i>k</i> and now +with a final <i>ch</i>; out of this variation two different +words have been formed; with, it may be, other +slight differences superadded; thus is it with +‘poke’ and ‘poach’; ‘dyke’ and ‘ditch’; ‘stink’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>and ‘stench’; ‘prick’ and ‘pritch’ (now obsolete); +‘break’ and ‘breach’; to which may be +added ‘broach’; ‘lace’ and ‘latch’; ‘stick’ and +‘stitch’; ‘lurk’ and ‘lurch’; ‘bank’ and ‘bench’; +‘stark’ and ‘starch’; ‘wake’ and ‘watch’. +So too <i>t</i> and <i>d</i> are easily exchanged; as in ‘clod’ +and ‘clot’; ‘vend’ and ‘vent’; ‘brood’ and +‘brat’<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a>; +‘halt’ and ‘hold’; ‘sad’ and +‘set’<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a>; +‘card’ and ‘chart’; ‘medley’ and ‘motley’. +Or there has grown up, besides the rigorous and +accurate pronunciation of a word, a popular as +well; and this in the end has formed itself into +another word; thus is it with ‘housewife’ and +‘hussey’; ‘hanaper’ and ‘hamper’; ‘puisne’ +and ‘puny’; ‘patron’ and ‘pattern’; ‘spital’ +(hospital) and ‘spittle’ (house of correction); +‘accompt’ and ‘account’; ‘donjon’ and ‘dungeon’; +‘nestle’ and ‘nuzzle’<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> (now obsolete); +‘Egyptian’ and ‘gypsy’; ‘Bethlehem’ and +‘Bedlam’; ‘exemplar’ and ‘sampler’; ‘dolphin’ +and ‘dauphin’; ‘iota’ and ‘jot’.</p> + +<p>Other changes cannot perhaps be reduced exactly +under any of these heads; as between +‘ounce’ and ‘inch’; ‘errant’ and ‘arrant’; +‘slack’ and ‘slake’; ‘slow’ and +‘slough’<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>; +‘bow’ and ‘bough’; ‘hew’ and ‘hough’<a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>; +‘dies’ and ‘dice’ (both plurals of ‘die’); ‘plunge’ +and ‘flounce’<a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>; ‘staff’ and ‘stave’; ‘scull’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>and +‘shoal’; ‘benefit’ and +‘benefice’<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>. Or, it +may be, the difference which constitutes the two +forms of the word into two words is in the spelling +only, and of a character to be appreciable only by +the eye, escaping altogether the ear: thus it is +with ‘draft’ and ‘draught’; ‘plain’ and ‘plane’; +‘coign’ and ‘coin’; ‘flower’ and ‘flour’; ‘check’ +and ‘cheque’; ‘straight’ and ‘strait’; ‘ton’ and +‘tun’; ‘road’ and ‘rode’; ‘throw’ and ‘throe’; +‘wrack’ and ‘rack’; ‘gait’ and ‘gate’; ‘hoard’ +and ‘horde’<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a>; ‘knoll’ and ‘noll’; ‘chord’ and +‘cord’; ‘drachm’ and ‘dram’; ‘sergeant’ and +‘serjeant’; ‘mask’ and ‘masque’; ‘villain’ and +‘villein’.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words in Two Forms</i></div> + +<p>Now, if you will put the matter to proof, you +will find, I believe, in every case that there has +attached itself to the different forms of a word a +modification of meaning more or less sensible, that +each has won for itself an independent sphere of +meaning, in which it, and it only, moves. For +example, ‘divers’ implies difference only, but +‘diverse’ difference with opposition; thus the +several Evangelists narrate the same event in +‘divers’ manner, but not in ‘diverse’. ‘Antique’ +is ancient, but ‘antic’, is now the ancient +regarded as overlived, out of date, and so in our +days grotesque, ridiculous; and then, with a dropping +of the reference to age, the grotesque, the +ridiculous alone. ‘Human’ is what every man +is, ‘humane’ is what every man ought to be; for +Johnson’s suggestion that ‘humane’ is from the +French feminine, ‘humaine’, and ‘human’ from +the masculine, cannot for an instant be admitted. +‘Ingenious’ expresses a mental, ‘ingenuous’ a +moral, excellence<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a>. A gardener ‘prunes’, or +trims his trees, properly indeed his <i>vines</i> alone +(pro<i>vigner</i>), birds ‘preen’ or trim their feathers. +We ‘allay’ wine with water; we ‘alloy’ gold +with platina. ‘Bloom’ is a finer and more delicate +efflorescence even than ‘blossom’; thus the +‘bloom’, but not the ‘blossom’, of the cheek. +It is now always ‘clots’ of blood and ‘clods’ of +earth; a ‘float’ of timber, and a ‘fleet’ of ships; +men ‘vend’ wares, and ‘vent’ complaints. A +‘curtsey’ is one, and that merely an external,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +manifestation of ‘courtesy’. ‘Gambling’ may be, +as with a fearful irony it is called, <i>play</i>, but it is +nearly as distant from ‘gambolling’ as hell is +from heaven<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a>. Nor would it be hard, in almost +every pair or larger group of words which I have +adduced, as in others which no doubt might be +added to complete the list, to trace a difference of +meaning which has obtained a more or less distinct +recognition<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>.</p> + +<p>But my subject is inexhaustible; it has no +limits except those, which indeed may be often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +narrow enough, imposed by my own ignorance on +the one side; and on the other, by the necessity +of consulting your patience, and of only choosing +such matter as will admit a popular setting forth. +These necessities, however, bid me to pause, and +suggest that I should not look round for other +quarters from whence accessions of new words are +derived. Doubtless I should not be long without +finding many such. I must satisfy myself for the +rest with a very brief consideration of the <i>motives</i> +which, as they have been, are still at work among +us, inducing us to seek for these augmentations of +our vocabulary.</p> + +<p>And first, the desire of greater clearness is a +frequent motive and inducement to this. It has +been well and truly said: “Every new term, +expressing a fact or a difference not precisely or +adequately expressed by any other word in the +same language, is a new organ of thought for the +mind that has learned it”<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a>. The limits of their +vocabulary are in fact for most men the limits of +their knowledge; and in a great degree for us all. +Of course I do not affirm that it is absolutely impossible +to have our mental conceptions clearer +and more distinct than our words; but it is very +hard to have, and still harder to keep, them so. +And therefore it is that men, conscious of this, +so soon as ever they have learned to distinguish +in their minds, are urged by an almost irresistible +impulse to distinguish also in their words. They +feel that nothing is made sure till this is done.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dissimilation of Words</i></div> + +<p>The sense that a word covers too large a space +of meaning, is the frequent occasion of the intro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>duction +of another, which shall relieve it of a +portion of this. Thus, there was a time when +‘witch’ was applied equally to male and female +dealers in unlawful magical arts. Simon Magus, +for example, and Elymas are both ‘witches’, in +Wiclif’s <i>New Testament</i> (Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8), and +Posthumus in <i>Cymbeline</i>: but when the medieval +Latin ‘sortiarius’ (not ‘sortitor’ as in Richardson), +supplied another word, the French ‘sorcier’, and +thus our English ‘sorcerer’ (originally the “caster +of lots”), then ‘witch’ gradually was confined to +the hag, or female practiser of these arts, while +‘sorcerer’ was applied to the male.</p> + +<p>New necessities, new evolutions of society into +more complex conditions, evoke new words; which +come forth, because they are required now; but +did not formerly exist, because they were not +required in the period preceding. For example, +in Greece so long as the poet sang his own verses +‘singer’ (<span title="Greek: aoidos">ἀοιδὸς</span>) +sufficiently expressed the double +function; such a ‘singer’ was Homer, and such +Homer describes Demodocus, the bard of the +Phæacians; that double function, in fact, not +being in his time contemplated as double, but +each part of it so naturally completing the other, +that no second word was required. When, however, +in the division of labour one made the verses +which another chaunted, then ‘poet’ or ‘maker’, +a word unknown in the Homeric age, arose. In +like manner, when ‘physicians’ were the only +natural philosophers, the word covered this meaning +as well as that other which it still retains; +but when the investigation of nature and natural +causes detached itself from the art of healing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +became an independent study of itself, the name +‘physician’ remained to that which was as the +stock and stem of the art, while the new offshoot +sought out a new name for itself.</p> + +<p>Another motive to the invention of new words, +is the desire thereby to cut short +lengthy<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> explanations, +tedious circuits of language. Science is often +an immense gainer by words, which say singly +what it would have taken whole sentences otherwise +to have said. Thus ‘isothermal’ is quite of +modern invention; but what a long story it would +be to tell the meaning of ‘<i>isothermal</i> lines’, all +which is summed up in and saved by the word. +We have long had the word ‘assimilation’ in our +dictionaries; ‘dissimilation’ has not yet found its +way into them, but it speedily will. It will appear +first, if it has not already appeared, in our books +on language<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a>. +I express myself with this confidence, +because the advance of philological enquiry +has rendered it almost a matter of necessity +that we should possess a word to designate a certain +process, and no other word would designate +it at all so well. There is a process of ‘assimilation’ +going on very extensively in language; it +occurs where the organs of speech find themselves +helped by changing a letter for another which has +just occurred, or will just occur in a word; thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +we say not ‘<i>adf</i>iance’ but ‘<i>aff</i>iance’, not ‘re<i>n</i>ow<i>m</i>’, +as our ancestors did when the word +‘renommée’ was first naturalized, but ‘re<i>n</i>ow<i>n</i>’. +At the same time there is another opposite process, +where some letter would recur too often for euphony +or comfort in speaking, if the strict form of the +word were too closely held fast, and where consequently +this letter is exchanged for some other, +generally for some nearly allied; thus it is at +least a reasonable suggestion, that ‘cœ<i>r</i>uleum’ +was once ‘cœ<i>l</i>uleum’, from cœlum: so too the +Italians prefer ‘ve<i>l</i>e<i>n</i>o’ to ‘ve<i>n</i>e<i>n</i>o’; and we +‘cinnamo<i>n</i>’ to ‘cinnamo<i>m</i>’ (the earlier form); +in ‘turtle’ and ‘purple’ we have shrunk from +the double ‘<i>r</i>’ of ‘turtur’ and ‘purpura’; and +this process of <i>making unlike</i>, requiring a term to +express it, will create, or indeed has created, the +word ‘dissimilation’, which probably will in +due time establish itself among us in far wider +than its primary use.</p> + +<p>‘Watershed’ has only recently begun to appear +in books of geography; and yet how convenient +it must be admitted to be; how much more so +than ‘line of water parting’, which it has succeeded; +meaning, as I need hardly tell you it does, +not merely that which <i>sheds</i> the waters, but that +which <i>divides</i> them (‘wasserscheide’); and being +applied to that exact ridge and highest line in a +mountain region, where the waters of that region +separate off and divide, some to one side, and some +to the other; as in the Rocky Mountains of North +America there are streams rising within very few +miles of one another, which flow severally east and +west, and, if not in unbroken course, yet as afflu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>ents +to larger rivers, fall at least severally into the +Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It must be allowed, +I think, that not merely geographical terminology, +but geography itself, had a benefactor in +him who first endowed it with so expressive and +comprehensive a word, bringing before us a fact +which we should scarcely have been aware of +without it.</p> + +<p>There is another word which I have just employed, +‘affluent’, in the sense of a stream which +does not flow into the sea, but joins a larger stream, +as for instance, the Isis is an ‘affluent’ of the +Thames, the Moselle of the Rhine. It is itself an +example in the same kind of that whereof I have +been speaking, having been only recently constituted +a substantive, and employed in this sense, +while yet its utility is obvious. ‘Confluents’ +would perhaps be a fitter name, where the rivers, +like the Missouri and the +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Missisippi’">Mississippi</ins>, were of equal +or nearly equal importance up to the time of their +meeting<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Selfishness</i>’, ‘<i>Suicide</i>’</div> + +<p>Again, new words are coined out of the necessity +which men feel of filling up gaps in the language. +Thoughtful men, comparing their own language +with that of other nations, become conscious of +deficiencies, of important matters unexpressed in +their own, and with more or less success proceed +to supply the deficiency. For example, that sin +of sins, the undue love of self, with the postponing +of the interests of all others to our own, had for a +long time no word to express it in English. Help +was sought from the Greek, and from the Latin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +‘Philauty’ (<span title="Greek: philautia">φιλαυτία</span>) +had been more than once +attempted by our scholars; but found no popular +acceptance. This failing, men turned to the Latin; +one writer trying to supply the want by calling +the man a ‘suist’, as one seeking <i>his own</i> things +(‘sua’), and the sin itself, ‘suicism’. The gap, +however, was not really filled up, till some of the +Puritan writers, drawing on our Saxon, devised +‘selfish’ and ‘selfishness’, words which to us +seem obvious enough, but which yet are little more +than two hundred [and fifty] years +old<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Notices of New Words</i></div> + +<p>Before quitting this part of the subject, let me +say a few words in conclusion on this deliberate +introduction of words to supply felt omissions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +in a language, and the limits within which this +or any other conscious interference with the +development of a language is desirable or possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +By the time that a people begin to meditate upon +their language, to be aware by a conscious reflective +act either of its merits or deficiencies, by far the +greater and more important part of its work is +done; it is fixed in respect of its structure in +immutable forms; the region in which any alteration +or modification, addition to it, or +<ins class="correction" title="so in original">substraction</ins> +from it, deliberately devised and carried out, +may be possible, is very limited indeed. Its +great laws are too firmly established to admit of +this; so that almost nothing can be taken from +it, which it has got; almost nothing added to it, +which it has <i>not</i> got. It will travel indeed in +certain courses of change; but it would be as +easy almost to alter the career of a planet as for +man to alter these. This is sometimes a subject +of regret with those who see what they believe +manifest defects or blemishes in their language, +and such as appear to them capable of remedy. +And yet in fact this is well; since for once that +these redressers of real or fancied wrongs, these +suppliers of things lacking, would have +<ins class="correction" title="comma not visible in original">mended,</ins> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>we may be tolerably confident that ten times, +yea, a hundred times, they would have marred; +letting go that which would have been well retained; +retaining that which by a necessary law +the language now dismisses and lets go; and in +manifold ways interfering with those processes +of a natural logic, which are here evermore at +work. The genius of a language, unconsciously +presiding over all its transformations, and conducting +them to a definite issue, will have been +a far truer, far safer guide, than the artificial wit, +however subtle, of any single man, or of any association +of men. For the genius of a language is +the sense and inner conviction of all who speak it, +as to what it ought to be, and the means by which +it will best attain its objects; and granting that +a pair of eyes, or two or three pairs of eyes may +see much, yet millions of eyes will certainly see +more.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>German Purists</i></div> + +<p>It is only with the words, and not with the +forms and laws of a language, that any interference +such as I have just supposed is possible. +Something, indeed much, may here be done by +wise masters, in the way of rejecting that which +would deform, allowing and adopting that which +will strengthen and enrich. Those who would +purify or enrich a language, so long as they have +kept within this their proper sphere, have often +effected much, more than at first could have +seemed possible. The history of the German language +affords so much better illustration of this +than our own would do, that I shall make no +scruple in seeking my examples there. When the +patriotic Germans began to wake up to a conscious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>ness +of the enormous encroachments which foreign +languages, the Latin and French above all, had +made on their native tongue, the lodgements which +they had therein effected, and the danger which +threatened it, namely, that it should cease to be +German at all, but only a mingle-mangle, a variegated +patchwork of many languages, without any +unity or inner coherence at all, various societies +were instituted among them, at the beginning +and during the course of the seventeenth century, +for the recovering of what was lost of their own, +for the expelling of that which had intruded from +abroad; and these with excellent effect.</p> + +<p>But more effectual than these societies were +the efforts of single men, who in this merited well +of their country<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a>. In respect of words which +are now entirely received by the whole nation, +it is often possible to designate the writers who +first substituted them for some affected Gallicism +or unnecessary Latinism. Thus to Lessing his +fellow-countrymen owe the substitution of ‘zartgefühl’ +for ‘delicatesse’, of ‘empfindsamkeit’ +for ‘sentimentalität’, of ‘wesenheit’ for ‘essence’. +It was Voss (1786) who first employed ‘alterthümlich’ +for ‘antik’. Wieland too was the author +or reviver of a multitude of excellent words, for +which often he had to do earnest battle at the +first; such were ‘seligkeit’, ‘anmuth’, ‘entzückung’, +‘festlich’, ‘entwirren’, with many +more. For ‘maskerade’, Campe would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +fain substituted ‘larventanz’. It was a novelty +when Büsching called his great work on geography +‘erdbeschreibung’ instead of ‘geographie’; +while ‘schnellpost’ instead of ‘diligence’, ‘zerrbild’ +for ‘carricatur’ are also of recent introduction. +In regard of ‘wörterbuch’ itself, J. +Grimm tells us he can find no example of its use +dating earlier than 1719.</p> + +<p>Yet at the same time it must be acknowledged +that some of these reformers proceeded with +more zeal than knowledge, while others did whatever +in them lay to make the whole movement +absurd—even as there ever hang on the skirts +of a noble movement, be it in literature or politics +or higher things yet, those who contribute their +little all to bring ridicule and contempt upon it. +Thus in the reaction against foreign interlopers +which ensued, and in the zeal to purify the language +from them, some went to such extravagant +excesses as to desire to get rid of ‘testament’, +‘apostel’, which last Campe would have replaced +by ‘lehrbote’, with other words like these, consecrated +by longest use, and to find native substitutes +in their room; or they understood so little +what words deserved to be called foreign, or how +to draw the line between them and native, that +they would fain have gotten rid of ‘vater’, ‘mutter’, +‘wein’, ‘fenster’, ‘meister’, ‘kelch’<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a>; +the first three of which belong to the German +language by just as good a right as they do to the +Latin and the Greek; while the other three have +been naturalized so long that to propose to expel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +them now was as if, having passed an alien act +for the banishment of all foreigners, we should +proceed to include under that name, and as such +drive forth from the kingdom, the descendants of +the French Protestants who found refuge here at +the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or even of +the Flemings who settled among us in the time of +our Edwards. One notable enthusiast in this line +proposed to create an entirely new nomenclature +for all the mythological personages of the Greek +and the Roman pantheon, who, one would think, +might have been allowed, if any, to retain their +Greek and Latin names. So far however from +this, they were to exchange these for equivalent +German titles; Cupid was to be ‘Lustkind’, +Flora ‘Bluminne’, Aurora ‘Röthin’; instead +of Apollo schoolboys were to speak of ‘Singhold’; +instead of Pan of ‘Schaflieb’; instead of Jupiter of +‘Helfevater’, with much else of the same kind. +Let us beware (and the warning extends much +further than to the matter in hand) of making a +good cause ridiculous by our manner of supporting +it, of assuming that exaggerations on one +side can only be redressed by exaggerations as +great upon the other.</p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> +Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul’s +School, in his book, <i>Logonomia Anglica</i>, 1621, <i>Preface</i>: +Huc usque peregrinæ voces in linguâ Anglicâ inauditæ. +Tandem circa annum 1400 Galfridus Chaucerus, infausto +omine, vocabulis Gallicis et Latinis poësin suam famosam +reddidit. The whole passage, which is too long to +quote, as indeed the whole book, is curious. Gil was an +earnest advocate of phonetic spelling, and has adopted it +in all his English quotations in this book.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> +We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a +multitude of Greek words are used by him, which the +Latin language did not want, and therefore refused to +take up; thus ‘clepta’, ‘zamia’ (<span title="Greek: zêmia">ζημία</span>), ‘danista’, +‘harpagare’, ‘apolactizare’, ‘nauclerus’, ‘strategus’, +‘morologus’, ‘phylaca’, ‘malacus’, ‘sycophantia’, +‘euscheme’ (<span title="Greek: euschêmôs">εὐσχήμως</span>), +‘dulice’ (<span title="Greek: doulikôs">δουλικῶς</span>), [so ‘scymnus’ +by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are employed +except by him; ‘mastigias’ and ‘techna’ appear also +in Terence. Yet only experience could show that they +were superfluous; and at the epoch of Latin literature +in which Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on +trial.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> +[Modern poets have given ‘amort’ a new life; it is +used by Keats, by Bailey (<i>Festus</i>, xxx), and by Browning +(<i>Sordello</i>, vi).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> +[‘Bruit’ has been revived by Carlyle and Chas. +Merivale. Its verbal form is used by Cowper, Byron +and Dickens.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> +Let me here observe once for all that in adding the +name of an author, which I shall often do, to a word, I +do not mean to affirm the word in any way peculiar to +him; although in some cases it may be so; but only to +give one authority for its use. [Coleridge uses ‘eloign’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> +<i>Essay on English Poetry</i>, p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> +<i>Dedication of the Translation of the Æneid</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> +[i.e. the promoters of Classical learning.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> +We have notable evidence in some lines of Waller of +the sense which in his time scholars had of the rapidity +with which the language was changing under their hands. +Looking back at what the last hundred years had wrought +of alteration in it, and very naturally assuming that the +next hundred would effect as much, he checked with +misgivings such as these his own hope of immortality:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Who can hope his lines should long<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last in a daily changing tongue?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While they are new, envy prevails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as that dies, our language fails.<br /></span> +</div> + +<span class="spaced"> * * * * *</span> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Poets that lasting marble seek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must carve in Latin or in Greek:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We</i> write in sand; our language grows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like the tide our work o’erflows”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such were his misgivings as to the future, assuming that +the rate of change would continue what it had been. How +little they have been fulfilled, every one knows. In actual +fact two centuries, which have elapsed since he wrote, +have hardly antiquated a word or a phrase in his poems. +If we care very little for them now, that is to be explained +by quite other causes—by the absence of all moral earnestness +from them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> +In his <i>Art of English Poesy</i>, London, 1589, republished +in Haslewood’s <i>Ancient Critical Essays upon +English Poets and Poesy</i>, London, 1811, vol. i. pp. 122, +123; [and in Arber’s <i>English Reprints</i>, 1869].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> +London, 1601. Besides this work Holland translated +the whole of Plutarch’s <i>Moralia</i>, the <i>Cyropœdia</i> of +Xenophon, Livy, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and +Camden’s <i>Britannia</i>. His works make a part of the +“library of dullness” in Pope’s <i>Dunciad</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here the groaning shelves <i>Philemon</i> bends”—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>very unjustly; the authors whom he has translated are +all more or less important, and his versions of them a mine +of genuine idiomatic English, neglected by most of our +lexicographers, wrought to a considerable extent, and +with eminent advantage by Richardson; yet capable, as +it seems to me, of yielding much more than they hitherto +have yielded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> +And so too in French it is surprising to find of how +late introduction are many words, which it seems as if +the language could never have done without. ‘Désintéressement’, +‘exactitude’, ‘sagacité’, ‘bravoure’, were +not introduced till late in the seventeenth century. ‘Renaissance’, +‘emportement’, ‘sçavoir-faire’, ‘indélébile’, +‘désagrément’, were all recent in 1675 (Bouhours); +‘indévot’, ‘intolérance’, ‘impardonnable’, ‘irréligieux’, +were struggling into allowance at the end of the +seventeenth century, and were not established till the +beginning of the eighteenth. ‘Insidieux’ was invented +by Malherbe; ‘frivolité’ does not appear in the earlier +editions of the <i>Dictionary of the Academy</i>; the Abbé de +St. Pierre was the first to employ ‘bienfaisance’, the +elder Balzac ‘féliciter’, Sarrasin ‘burlesque’. Mad. +de Sevigné exclaims against her daughter for employing +‘effervescence’ in a letter (comment dites-vous cela, ma +fille? Voilà un mot dont je n’avais jamais ouï parler). +‘Demagogue’ was first hazarded by Bossuet, and was +counted so bold a novelty that it was long before any +ventured to follow him in its use. Somewhat earlier +Montaigne had introduced ‘diversion’ and ‘enfantillage’, +though not without being rebuked by cotemporaries +on the score of the last. Desfontaines was the first +who employed ‘suicide’; Caron gave to the language +‘avant-propos’, Ronsard ‘avidité’, Joachim Dubellay +‘patrie’, Denis Sauvage ‘jurisconsulte’, Menage ‘gracieux’ +(at least so Voltaire affirms) and ‘prosateur’, +Desportes ‘pudeur’, Chapelain ‘urbanité’, and Etienne +first brought in, apologizing at the same time for the +boldness of it, ‘analogie’ (si les oreilles françoises peuvent +porter ce mot). ‘Préliber’ (prælibare) is a word +of our own day; and it was Charles Nodier who, if he +did not coin, yet revived the obsolete ‘simplesse’.—See +Génin, <i>Variations du Langage Français</i>, pp. 308-19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> +[Resuscitated in vain by Charles Lamb.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> +J. Grimm (<i>Wörterbuch</i>, p. xxvi.): Fällt von ungefähr +ein fremdes wort in den brunnen einer sprache, so wird +es so lange darin umgetrieben, bis es ihre farbe annimmt, +und seiner fremden art zum trotze wie ein heimisches +aussieht.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> +Have we here an explanation of the ‘battalia’ of +Jeremy Taylor and others? Did they, without reflecting +on the matter, regard ‘battalion’ as a word with a Greek +neuter termination? It is difficult to think they should +have done so; yet more difficult to suggest any other +explanation. [‘Battalia’ was sometimes mistaken as a +plural, which indeed it was originally, the word being +derived through the Italian <i>battaglia</i>, from low Latin +<i>battalia</i>, which (like <i>biblia</i>, <i>gaudia</i>, etc.) was afterwards +regarded as a feminine singular (Skeat, <i>Principles</i>, ii, +230). But Shakespeare used it as a singular, “Our +<i>battalia</i> trebles that account” (<i>Rich. III</i>, v. 3, 11); and +so Sir T. Browne, “The Roman <i>battalia</i> was ordered after +this manner” (<i>Garden of Cyrus</i>, 1658, p. 113).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And old heroës, which their world did daunt”.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p class="citation"><i>Sonnet on Scanderbeg.</i></p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> +[By J. H(ealey), 1610, who has “centones ... of +diuerse colours”, p. 605.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> +[The identity of these two words, notwithstanding +the analogy of <i>corona</i> and <i>crown</i>, is denied by Skeat, +Kluge and Lutz.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> +Skinner (<i>Etymologicon</i>, 1671) protests against the +word altogether, as purely French, and having no right +to be considered English at all.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> +It is curious how effectually the nationality of a word +may by these slight alterations in spelling be disguised. +I have met an excellent French and English scholar, to +whom it was quite a surprise to learn that ‘redingote’ +was ‘riding-coat’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> +[Compare French <i>marsouin</i> (= German <i>meer-schwein</i>), +“sea-pig”, the dolphin; Breton <i>mor-houc’h</i>; Irish <i>mucc +mara</i>, “pig of the sea”, the dolphin (W. Stokes, <i>Irish +Glossaries</i>, p. 118); French <i>truye de mer</i> (Cotgrave); old +English <i>brun-swyne</i> (<i>Prompt. Parv.</i>), “brown-pig”, the +dolphin or seal.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> +He is not indeed perfectly accurate in this statement, +for the Greeks spoke of <span title="Greek: en kyklô paideia">ἐν κύκλῳ παιδεία</span> +and <span title="Greek: enkyklios paideia">ἐγκύκλιος +παιδεία</span>, but had no such composite word as +<span title="Greek: enkyklopadeia">ἐγκυκλοπαδεία</span>. +We gather however from these expressions, as from +Lord Bacon’s using the term ‘circle-learning’ (=‘orbis +doctrinæ’, Quintilian), that ‘encyclopædia’ did +not exist in their time. [But ‘encyclopedia’ occurs +in Elyot, <i>Governour</i>, 1531, vol. i, p. 118 (ed. Croft); +‘encyclopædie’ in J. Sylvester, <i>Workes</i>, 1621, p. 660.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> +See the passages quoted in my paper, <i>On some Deficiencies +in our English Dictionaries</i>, p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> +[This prediction has been verified. ‘Ethos’ is used +by Sir F. Palgrave, 1851, and in the ‘Encyclopædia +Britannica’, 1875. N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> +We may see the same progress in Greek words which +were being incorporated in the Latin. Thus Cicero writes +<span title="Greek: antipodes">ἀντίποδες</span> +(<i>Acad.</i> ii, 39, 123), but Seneca (<i>Ep.</i> 122), +‘antipodes’; that is, the word for Cicero was still Greek, +while in the period that elapsed between him and Seneca, +it had become Latin: so too Cicero wrote +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: eidôlon; +original reads ‘εἰδωλον’">εἴδωλον</ins>, the +Younger Pliny ‘idolon’, and Tertullian ‘idolum’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> +[This rash prophecy has not been fulfilled. English +speakers are still no more inclined to say ‘préstige’ than +‘pólice’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> +See in Coleridge’s <i>Table Talk</i>, p. 3, the amusing story +of John Kemble’s stately correction of the Prince of +Wales for adhering to the earlier pronunciation, ‘obl<i>ee</i>ge,’—“It +will become your royal mouth better to say obl<i>i</i>ge.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“In this great <i>académy</i> of mankind”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="citation">Butler, <i>To the Memory of Du Val</i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“‘Twixt that and reason what a nice <i>barrier</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> +[A fairly complete collection of these and similar +semi-naturalized foreign words will be found in <i>The +Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words</i>, edited by Dr. C. +A. M. Fennell, 1892.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> +[This is quite wrong. Mr. Fitzedward Hall shows +that ‘inimical’ was used by Gaule in 1652, as well as by +Richardson in 1758 (<i>Modern English</i>, p. 287). The +N.E.D. quotes an instance of it from Udall in 1643.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> +[The word had been already naturalized by H. More, +1647, Cudworth, 1678, Tucker 1765, and Carlyle, 1831.—N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> +[The earliest citation for ‘abnormal’ in the N.E.D. +is dated 1835. The older word was ‘abnormous’. +Curious to say it is unrelated to ‘normal’ to which it +has been assimilated, being merely an alteration of +‘anomal-ous’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> +[Fuller says of ‘plunder’, “we first heard thereof +in the Swedish wars”, and that it came into England +about 1642 (<i>Church History</i>, bk. xi, sec. 4, par. 33). It +certainly occurs under that date in <i>Memoirs of the Verney +Family</i>, “It is in danger of <i>plonderin</i>” (vol. i, p. 71, +also p. 151). It also occurs in a document dated 1643, +“We must <i>plunder</i> none but Roundheads” (<i>Camden +Soc. Miscellany</i>, iii, 31). Drummond (died 1649) has +“Go fight and <i>plunder</i>” (<i>Poems</i>, ed. Turnbull, p. 330). +It appears in a quotation from <i>The Bellman of London</i> +(no reference) given in Timbs, <i>London and Westminster</i>, +vol. i, p. 254.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> +[It is rather from the old Dutch <i>trecker</i>, a ‘puller’. +Very few English words come to us from German.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> +[So Skeat, <i>Etym. Dict.</i> But the Germans themselves +take their <i>schwindler</i> (in the sense of cheat) to have been +adopted from the English ‘swindler’. Dr. Dunger +asserts that it was introduced into their language by +Lichtenberg in his explanation of Hogarth’s engravings, +1794-99 (<i>Englanderei in der Deutschen Sprache</i>, 1899, p. 7).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> +<i>Pisgah Sight of Palestine</i>, 1650, p. 217.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> +[This word introduced as a ‘pure neologism’ by +D’Israeli (<i>Curiosities of Literature</i>, 1839, 11th ed. p. 384) +as a companion to ‘mother-tongue’, had been already +used by Sir W. Temple in 1672 (Hall, <i>Mod. English</i>, p. 44). +Nay, even by Tyndale, see T. L. K. Oliphant, <i>The New +English</i>, i, 439.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> +[‘Folk-lore’ was introduced by Mr. W. J. Thoms, +editor of <i>Notes and Queries</i>, in 1846. Still later came +‘Folk-etymology’, the earliest use of which in N.E.D. +is given as 1883, but the editor’s work bearing that title +appeared in 1882.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> +<i>Holy State</i>, b. 2, c. 6. There was a time when the +Latin promised to display, if not an equal, yet not a very +inferior, freedom in this forming of new words by the +happy marriage of old. But in this, as in so many respects, +it seemed possessed at the period of its highest +culture with a timidity, which caused it voluntarily to +abdicate many of its own powers. Where do we find +in the Augustan period of the language so grand a pair +of epithets as these, occurring as they do in a single line +of Catullus: Ubi cerva <i>silvicultrix</i>, ubi aper <i>nemorivagus</i>? +or again, as his ‘fluentisonus’? Virgil’s vitisator (<i>Æn.</i> +7, 179) is not his own, but derived from one of the earlier +poets. Nay, the language did not even retain those +compound epithets which it once had formed, but was +content to let numbers of them drop: ‘parcipromus’; +‘turpilucricupidus’, and many more, do not extend +beyond Plautus. On this matter Quintilian observes +(i. 5, 70): Res tota magis Græcos decet, nobis minus +succedit; nec id fieri naturâ puto, sed alienis favemus; +ideoque cum <span title="Greek: kyrtauchena">κυρταύχενα</span> mirati sumus, <i>incurvicervicum</i> +vix a risu defendimus. Elsewhere he complains, though +not with reference to compound epithets, of the little +<i>generative</i> power which existed in the Latin language, +that its continual losses were compensated by no equivalent +gains (viii. 6, 32): Deinde, +<ins class="correction" title="so in original; probable error for ‘tamquam consumpta’">tanquum consummata</ins> +sint omnia, nihil generare audemus ipsi, quum multa +quotidie ab antiquis ficta moriantur. Notwithstanding +this complaint, it must be owned that the silver age of +the language, which sought to recover, and did recover +to some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier times, +reasserted among other powers that of combining words +with a certain measure of success.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> +[For Shakespearian compounds see Abbott’s <i>Shakespearian +Grammar</i>, pp. 317-20.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> +[Writing in the year 1780 Bentham says: “The word +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘t’">it</ins> +must be acknowledged is a new one”.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> +<i>Collection of Scarce Tracts</i>, edited by Sir W. Scott, +vol. vii, p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> +[Hardly a novelty, as the word occurs in J. Gaule, +<span title="Greek: Pys-mantia">Πῦς-μαντια</span>, +1652, p. 30. See F. Hall, <i>Mod. English</i>, +p. 131.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> +[First used apparently by Grote, 1847, and Mrs. +Gaskell, 1857, N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> +See <i>Letters of Horace Walpole and Mann</i>, vol. ii. +p. 396, quoted in <i>Notes and Queries</i>, No. 225; and another +proof of the novelty of the word in Pegge’s <i>Anecdotes of +the English Language</i>, 1814, p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> +Postscript to his <i>Translation of the Æneid</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="citation"><i>De A. P.</i> 46-72; cf. <i>Ep.</i> 2, 2, 115.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> +<i>Etymologicon vocum omnium antiquarum quæ usque +a Wilhelmo Victore invaluerunt, et jam ante parentum +ætatem in usu esse desierunt.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> +[As a matter of fact the N.E.D. fails to give any +quotation for this word in the period named.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> +[The verb ‘to advocate’ had long before been employed +by Nash, 1598, Sanderson, 1624, and Heylin, 1657 +(F. Hall, <i>Mod. English</i>, p. 285).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> +In like manner La Bruyère, in his <i>Caractères</i>, c. 14, +laments the extinction of a large number of French words +which he names. At least half of these have now free +course in the language, as ‘valeureux’, ‘haineux’, +‘peineux’, ‘fructueux’, ‘mensonger’, ‘coutumier’, +‘vantard’, ‘courtois’, ‘jovial’, ‘fétoyer’, ‘larmoyer’, +‘verdoyer’. Two or three of these may be rarely used, +but every one would be found in a dictionary of the living +language.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> +<i>Preface to Juvenal.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> +<i>Preface to Troilus and Cressida.</i> In justice to Dryden, +and lest it should be said that he had spoken poetic +blasphemy, it ought not to be forgotten that ‘pestered’ +had not in his time at all so offensive a sense as it would +have now. It meant no more than inconveniently +crowded; thus Milton: “Confined and <i>pestered</i> in this +pinfold here”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> +Thus in North’s <i>Plutarch</i>, p. 499: “After the fire +was quenched, they found in <i>niggots</i> of gold and silver +mingled together, about a thousand talents”; and again, +p. 323: “There was brought a marvellous great mass of +treasure in <i>niggots</i> of gold”. The word has not found its +way into our dictionaries or glossaries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> +[‘Niggot’ rather stands for ‘ningot’, due to a coalescence +of the article in ‘an ingot’ (as if ‘a ningot’); +just as, according to some, in French <i>l’ingot</i> became +<i>lingot</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> +[Such collections were essayed in J. C. Hare’s <i>Two +Essays in English Philology</i>, 1873, “<i>Words derived +from Names of Persons</i>”, and in R. S. Charnock’s <i>Verba +Nominalia</i>, pp. 326.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> +[In a strangely similar way the stone-worshipper +in the Malay Peninsula gives to his sacred boulder the +title of Mohammed (Tylor, <i>Primitive Culture</i>, 3rd ed. ii. +254).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> +[But Wolsey’s jester was most probably so called +from his wearing a varicoloured or patchwork coat; +compare the Shakespearian use of ‘motley’. Similarly +the <i>maquereaux</i> of the old French comedy were clothed +in a mottled dress like our harlequin, just as the Latin +<i>maccus</i> or mime wore a <i>centunculus</i> or patchwork coat, +his name being perhaps connected with <i>macus</i> (in <i>macula</i>), +a spot (Gozzi, <i>Memoirs</i>, i, 38). In stage slang the harlequin +was called <i>patchy</i>, as his Latin counterpart was <i>centunculus</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> +[An error. Prof. Skeat shows that ‘tram’ was an +old word in Scottish and Northern English (<i>Etym. Dict.</i>, 655 +and 831).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> +Several of these we have in common with the +<ins class="correction" title="period (full stop) missing in original">French.</ins> +Of their own they have ‘sardanapalisme’, any piece of +profuse luxury, from Sardanapalus; while for ‘lambiner’, +to dally or loiter over a task, they are indebted to Denis +Lambin, a worthy Greek scholar of the sixteenth century, +whom his adversaries accused of sluggish movement and +wearisome diffuseness in style. Every reader of Pascal’s +<i>Provincial Letters</i> will remember Escobar, the great +casuist among the Jesuits, whose convenient subterfuges +for the relaxation of the moral law have there been made +famous. To the notoriety which he thus acquired he +owes his introduction into the French language; where +‘escobarder’ is used in the sense of to equivocate, and +‘escobarderie’ of subterfuge or equivocation. The name +of an unpopular minister of finance, M. de Silhouette, +unpopular because he sought to cut down unnecessary +expenses in the state, was applied to whatever was cheap, +and, as was implied, unduly economical; it has survived +in the black outline portrait which is now called a ‘silhouette’. +(Sismondi, <i>Histoire des Français</i>, tom. xix, +pp. 94, 95.) In the ‘mansarde’ roof we have the name +of Mansart, the architect who introduced it. I need +hardly add ‘guillotine’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> +See Col. Mure, <i>Language and Literature of Ancient +Greece</i>, vol. i, p. 350.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> +See Génin, <i>Des Variations du +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Language’">Langage</ins> Français</i>, +p. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> +[Dr. Murray in the N.E.D. calls these by the convenient +term ‘nonce-words’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> +<i>Persa</i>, iv. 6, 20-23. At the same time these words +may be earnest enough; such was the +<span title="Greek: elachistoteros">ἐλαχιστότερος</span> of +St. Paul (Ephes. iii, 8); just as in the Middle Ages some +did not account it sufficient to call themselves “fratres +minores, minimi, postremi”, but coined ‘postremissimi’ +to express the depth of their “voluntary humility”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> +It is curious that a correspondent of Skinner (<i>Etymologicon</i>, +1671), although quite ignorant of this story, and +indeed wholly astray in his application, had suggested +that ‘chouse’ might be thus connected with the Turkish +‘chiaus’. I believe Gifford, in his edition of Ben Jonson, +was the first to clear up the matter. A passage in <i>The +Alchemist</i> (Act i. Sc. 1) will have put him on the right +track. [But Dr. Murray notes that Gifford’s story, as +given above, has not hitherto been substantiated from +any independent source, and is so far open to doubt.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> +[These are quite distinct words, though perhaps distantly +related.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> +If there were any doubt about this matter, which +indeed there is not, a reference to Latimer’s famous +<i>Sermon on Cards</i> would abundantly remove it, where +‘triumph’ and ‘trump’ are interchangeably used.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> +[Dr. Murray does not regard these words as ultimately +identical.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> +[‘Rant’ (old Dutch <i>ranten</i>) has no connection with +‘rend’ (Anglo-Saxon <i>hrendan</i>) (Skeat).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> +On these words see a learned discussion in <i>English +Retraced</i>, Cambridge, 1862.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> +[These are quite unconnected (Skeat).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> +[Neither are these words to be confused with one +another.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> +The appropriating of ‘Franc<i>e</i>s’ to women and +‘Franc<i>i</i>s’ to men is quite of modern introduction; it was +formerly nearly as often Sir Franc<i>e</i>s Drake as Sir Franc<i>i</i>s, +while Fuller (<i>Holy State</i>, b. iv, c. 14) speaks of Franc<i>i</i>s +Brandon, eldest <i>daughter</i> of Charles Brandon, Duke of +Suffolk; and see Ben Jonson’s <i>New Inn</i>, Act. ii, Sc. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> +[Not connected.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> +[‘Sad’ akin to ‘sated’ bears no relationship to +‘set’; neither does ‘medley’ to ‘motley’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> +[On the connection of these words see my <i>Folk and +their Word-Lore</i>, p. 110.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> +[Not connected, see Skeat.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> +Were there need of proving that these both lie in +‘beneficium’, which there is not, for in Wiclif’s translation +of the Bible the distinction is still latent (1 Tim. vi. 2), +one might adduce a singularly characteristic little trait +of Papal policy, which once turned upon the double use +of this word. Pope Adrian the Fourth writing to the +Emperor Frederic the First to complain of certain conduct +of his, reminded the Emperor that he had placed the +imperial crown upon his head, and would willingly have +conferred even greater ‘beneficia’ upon him than this. +Had the word been allowed to pass, it would no doubt +have been afterwards appealed to as an admission on the +Emperor’s part, that he held the Empire as a feud or fief +(for ‘beneficium’ was then the technical word for this, +though the meaning had much narrowed since) from +the Pope—the very point in dispute between them. +The word was indignantly repelled by the Emperor and +the whole German nation, whereupon the Pope appealed +to the etymology, that ‘beneficium’ was but ‘bonum +factum’, and protested that he meant no more than to +remind the Emperor of the ‘benefits’ which he had done +him, and which he would have willingly multiplied still +more. [‘Benefice’ from Latin <i>beneficium</i>, and ‘benefit’ +from Latin <i>bene-factum</i>, are here confused.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> +[‘Hoard’ (Anglo-Saxon <i>hord</i>) cannot be equated with +‘horde’ (from Persian <i>órdú</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> +[These words have been differentiated in comparatively +modern times. ‘Ingenuity’ was once used for +‘ingenuousness’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> +[The words are really unconnected, ‘to gamble’ +being ‘to gamle’ or ‘game’, and ‘to gambol’ being akin +to French <i>gambiller</i>, to fling up the legs (<i>gambes</i> or <i>jambes</i>) +like a frisking lamb.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> +The same happens in other languages. Thus in +Greek ‘<ins class="correction" title="Greek: anathema; +original reads ‘ἀνάθέμα’">ἀνάθεμα</ins>’ and +‘<span title="Greek: anathêma">ἀνάθημα</span>’ both signify that which +is devoted, though in very different senses, to the gods; +‘<span title="Greek: tharsos">θάρσος</span>’, boldness, and +‘<span title="Greek: thrasos">θράσος</span>’, temerity, were no +more at first than different spellings of the same word; +not otherwise is it with +<span title="Greek: gripos">γρῖπος</span> and +<span title="Greek: griphos">γρῖφος</span>, +<span title="Greek: ethos">ἔθος</span> and +<span title="Greek: êthos">ἦθος</span>, +<span title="Greek: brykô">βρύκω</span> and +<span title="Greek: brychô">βρύχω</span>, while +<span title="Greek: obelos">ὀβελὸς</span> and +<span title="Greek: obolos">ὀβολὸς</span>, +<span title="Greek: soros">σορὸς</span> and +<span title="Greek: sôros">σωρὸς</span>, +are probably the same words. So too in Latin +‘penna’ and ‘pinna’ differ only in form, and signify +alike a ‘wing’; while yet ‘penna’ has come to be used +for the wing of a bird, ‘pinna’ (its diminutive ‘pinnaculum’, +has given us ‘pinnacle’) for that of a building. +So is it with ‘Thrax’ a Thracian, and ‘Threx’ a gladiator; +with ‘codex’ and ‘caudex’; ‘forfex’ and ‘forceps’; +‘anticus’ and ‘antiquus’; ‘celeber’ and ‘creber’; ‘infacetus’ +and ‘inficetus’; ‘providentia’, ‘prudentia’, +and ‘provincia’; ‘columen’ and ‘culmen’; ‘coitus’ and +‘cœtus’; ‘ægrimonia’ and ‘ærumna’; ‘Lucina’ and +‘luna’; ‘navita’ and ‘nauta’; in German with ‘rechtlich’ +and ‘redlich’; ‘schlecht’ and ‘schlicht’; ‘ahnden’ +and ‘ahnen’; ‘biegsam’ and ‘beugsam’; +‘<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘fursehung’">fürsehung</ins>’ +and ‘vorsehung’; ‘deich’ and ‘teich’; ‘trotz’ and +‘trutz’; ‘born’ and ‘brunn’; ‘athem’ and ‘odem’; +in French with ‘harnois’ the armour, or ‘harness’, of +a soldier, ‘harnais’ of a horse; with ‘Zéphire’ and +‘zéphir’, and with many more.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> +Coleridge, <i>Church and State</i>, p. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> +[One hardly expects to find this otiose Americanism +(first used by J. Adams in 1759) in the work of a verbal +purist, when ‘longish’ or the old ‘longsome’ were at +hand. No one, as yet, has ventured on ‘strengthy’ or +‘breadthy’ for somewhat strong or broad.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> +[This prediction was correct. ‘Dissimilation’ is +first found in philological works published in the decade +1874-85. See N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> +[Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine +(from <i>Confluentes</i>), reminds us that the word was so used.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> +A passage from Hacket’s <i>Life of Archbishop Williams</i>, +part 2, p. 144, marks the first rise of this word, and the +quarter from whence it arose: “When they [the Presbyterians] +saw that he was not <i>selfish</i> (it is a word of their +own new mint), etc”. In Whitlock’s <i>Zootomia</i> (1654) +there is another indication of it as a novelty, p. 364: +“If constancy may be tainted with this <i>selfishness</i> (to +use our <i>new wordings</i> of old and general actings)”—It +is he who in his striking essay, <i>The Grand Schismatic, or +Suist Anatomized</i>, puts forward his own words, ‘suist’, +and ‘suicism’, in lieu of those which have ultimately been +adopted. ‘Suicism’, let me observe, had not in his time +the obvious objection of resembling another word +nearly, and being liable to be confused with it; for ‘suicide’ +did not then exist in the language, nor indeed till +some twenty years later. The coming up of ‘suicide’ is +marked by this passage in Phillips’ <i>New World of Words</i>, +1671, 3rd ed.: “Nor less to be exploded is the word +‘<i>suicide</i>’, which may as well seem to participate of <i>sus</i> +a sow, as of the pronoun <i>sui</i>”. In the <i>Index</i> to Jackson’s +Works, published two years later, it is still ‘<i>suicidium</i>’—“the +horrid <i>suicidium</i> of the Jews at York”. +‘Suicide’ is apparently of much later introduction into +French. Génin (<i>Récréations Philol.</i> vol. i, p. 194) places +it about the year 1728, and makes the Abbé Desfontaines +its first sponsor. He is wrong, as the words just quoted +show, in supposing that we borrowed it from the French, +or that the word did not exist in English till the middle +of last century. The French sometimes complain that +the fashion of suicide was borrowed from England. It +would seem at all events probable that the word was so +borrowed.</p> + +<p>Let me urge here the advantage of a complete collection, +or one as nearly complete as the industry of the collectors +would allow, of all the notices in our literature, which +mark, and would serve as dates for, the first incoming +of new words into the language. These notices are of +the most various kinds. Sometimes they are protests +and remonstrances, as that just quoted, against a new +word’s introduction; sometimes they are gratulations +at the same; while many hold themselves neuter as to +approval or disapproval, and merely state, or allow us to +gather, the fact of a word’s recent appearance. There +are not a few of these notices in Richardson’s <i>Dictionary</i>: +thus one from Lord Bacon under ‘essay’; from Swift +under ‘banter’; from Sir Thomas Elyot under ‘mansuetude’; +from Lord Chesterfield under ‘flirtation’; +from Davies and Marlowe’s <i>Epigrams</i> under ‘gull’; from +Roger North under ‘sham’ (Appendix); the third quotation +from Dryden under ‘mob’; one from the same under +‘philanthropy’, and again under ‘witticism’, in which +he claims the authorship of the word; that from Evelyn +under ‘miss’; and from Milton under ‘demagogue’. +There are also notices of the same kind in <i>Todd’s Johnson</i>. +The work, however, is one which no single scholar could +hope to accomplish, which could only be accomplished +by many lovers of their native tongue throwing into a +common stock the results of their several studies. The +sources from which these illustrative passages might +be gathered cannot beforehand be enumerated, inasmuch +as it is difficult to say in what unexpected quarter they +would not sometimes be found, although some of these +sources are obvious enough. As a very slight sample +of what might be done in this way by the joint contributions +of many, let me throw together references to a few +passages of the kind which I do not think have found +their way into any of our dictionaries. Thus add to that +which Richardson has quoted on ‘banter’, another from +<i>The Tatler</i>, No. 230. On ‘plunder’ there are two instructive +passages in Fuller’s <i>Church History</i>, b. xi, § 4, 33; +and b. ix, § 4; and one in Heylin’s <i>Animadversions</i> thereupon, +p. 196. On ‘admiralty’ see a note in Harington’s +<i>Ariosto</i>, book 19; on ‘maturity’ Sir Thomas Elyot’s +<i>Governor</i>, b. i, c. 22; and on ‘industry’ the same, b. i, +c. 23; on ‘neophyte’ a notice in Fulke’s <i>Defence of the +English Bible</i>, Parker Society’s edition, p. 586; and on +‘panorama’, and marking its recent introduction (it is +not in Johnson), a passage in Pegge’s <i>Anecdotes of the +English Language</i>, first published in 1803, but my reference +is to the edition of 1814, p. 306; on ‘accommodate’, +and supplying a date for its first coming into popular +use, see Shakespeare’s <i>2 Henry IV.</i> Act 3, Sc. 2; on +‘shrub’, Junius’ <i>Etymologicon</i>, s. v. ‘syrup’; on ‘sentiment’ +and ‘cajole’ Skinner, s. vv., in his <i>Etymologicon</i> +(‘vox nuper civitate donata’); and on ‘opera’ Evelyn’s +<i>Memoirs and Diary</i>, 1827, vol. i, pp. 189, 190. In such +a collection should be included those passages of our +literature which supply implicit evidence for the non-existence +of a word up to a certain moment. It may be +urged that it is difficult, nay impossible, to prove a negative; +and yet a passage like this from Bolingbroke makes +certain that when it was written the word ‘isolated’ did +not exist in our language: “The events we are witnesses +of in the course of the longest life, appear to us very often +original, unprepared, signal and <i>unrelative</i>: if I may use +such a word for want of a better in English. In French +I would say <i>isolés</i>” (<i>Notes and Queries</i>, No. 226). Compare +Lord Chesterfield in a letter to Bishop Chenevix, +of date March 12, 1767: “I have survived almost all +my cotemporaries, and as I am too old to make new +acquaintances, I find myself <i>isolé</i>”. So, too, it is pretty +certain that ‘amphibious’ was not yet English, when one +writes (in 1618): “We are like those creatures called +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: amphibia; +original reads ‘ἀμφιβια’">ἀμφίβια</ins>, who live in +water or on land”. <span title="Greek: Zôologia">Ζωολογία</span>, the +title of a book published in 1649, makes it clear that +‘zoology’ was not yet in our vocabulary, as +<span title="Greek: zôophyton">ζωόφυτον</span> (Jackson) +proves the same for ‘zoophyte’, and +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: polytheismos; +original reads ‘πολυθεισμος’">πολυθεϊσμος</ins> (Gell) +for ‘polytheism’. One precaution, let me observe, +would be necessary in the collecting, or rather in the +adopting of any statements about the newness of a word—for +the passages themselves, even when erroneous, ought +not the less to be noted—namely, that, where there is +the least motive for suspicion, no one’s affirmation ought +to be accepted simply and at once as to the novelty of a +word; for all here are liable to error. Thus more than +one which Sir Thomas Elyot indicates as new in his time, +‘magnanimity’ for example (<i>The Governor</i>, 2, 14), are to +be met in Chaucer. When Skinner affirmed of ‘sentiment’ +that it had only recently obtained the rights of +English citizenship from the translators of French books, +he was altogether mistaken, this word being also one of +continual recurrence in Chaucer. An intelligent correspondent +gives in <i>Notes and Queries</i>, No. 225, a useful +catalogue of recent neologies in our speech, which yet +would require to be used with caution, for there are at least +half a dozen in the list which have not the smallest right +to be so considered.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> +There is an admirable Essay by Leibnitz with this +view (<i>Opera</i>, vol. vi, part 2, pp. 6-51) in French and +German, with this title, <i>Considérations sur la Culture +et la Perfection de la Langue Allemande</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> +<i>Zur Geschichte und Beurtheilung der Fremdwörter +im Deutschen</i>, von. Aug. Fuchs, Dessau, 1842, pp. 85-91.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p></div> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE</h3> + + +<p>I took occasion to observe at the commencement +of my last lecture that it is the essential +character of a living language to be in flux<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> and +flow, to be gaining and losing; the words which +constitute it as little continuing exactly the same, +or in the same relations to one another, as do +the atoms which at any one moment make up our +bodies remain for ever without subtraction or addition. +As I then undertook for my especial +subject to trace some of the acquisitions which our +own language had made, I shall consider in the +present some of the losses, or at any rate diminutions, +which during the same period it has endured. +But it will be well here, by one or two remarks +going before, to avert any possible misapprehensions +of my meaning.</p> + +<p>It is certain that all languages must, or at least +all languages do in the end, perish. They run their +course; not at all at the same rate, for the tendency +to change is different in different languages, both +from internal causes (mechanism and the like), and +also from causes external to the language, laid in +the varying velocities of social progress and social +decline; but so it is, that whether of shorter or +longer life, they have their youth, their manhood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +their old age, their decrepitude, their final dissolution. +Not indeed that, even when this last hour +has arrived, they disappear, leaving no traces behind +them. On the contrary, out of their death +a new life comes forth; they pass into new forms, +the materials of which they were composed more +or less survive, but these now organized in new +shapes and according to other laws of life. Thus +for example, the Latin perishes as a living language, +but a chief part of the words that composed +it live on in the four daughter languages, French, +Italian, Spanish, Portuguese; or the six, if we +count the Provençal and Wallachian; not a few +in our own. Still in their own proper being languages +perish and pass away; there are dead +records of what they were in books; not living +men who speak them any more. Seeing then +that they thus die, they must have had the germs +of a possible decay and death in them from the +beginning.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Languages Gain and Lose</i></div> + +<p>Nor is this all; but in such mighty strong built +fabrics as these, the causes which thus bring about +their final dissolution must have been actually at +work very long before the results began to be +visible. Indeed, very often it is with them as +with states, which, while in some respects they +are knitting and strengthening, in others are +already unfolding the seeds of their future and, it +may be, still remote overthrow. Equally in these +and those, in states and in languages, it would be a +serious mistake to assume that all up to a certain +point and period is growth and gain, while all after +is decay and loss. On the contrary, there are long +periods during which growth in some directions is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +going hand in hand with decay in others; losses +in one kind are being compensated, or more than +compensated, by gains in another; during which +a language changes, but only as the bud changes +into the flower, and the flower into the fruit. A +time indeed arrives when the growth and gains, +becoming ever fewer, cease to constitute any +longer a compensation for the losses and the +decay; which are ever becoming more; when the +forces of disorganization and death at work are +stronger than those of life and order. It is from +this moment the decline of a language may properly +be dated. But until that crisis and turning +point has arrived, we may be quite justified in +speaking of the losses of a language, and may +esteem them most real, without in the least thereby +implying that the period of its commencing degeneracy +has begun. This may yet be far distant, +and therefore when I dwell on certain losses and +diminutions which our own has undergone, or is +undergoing, you will not conclude that I am seeking +to present it to you as now travelling the +downward course to dissolution and death. This +is very far from my intention. If in some respects +it is losing, in others it is gaining. Nor is everything +which it lets go, a loss; for this too, the +parting with a word in which there is no true +help, the dropping of a cumbrous or superfluous +form, may itself be sometimes a most real gain. +English is undoubtedly becoming different from +what it has been; but only different in that it is +passing into another stage of its development; +only different, as the fruit is different from the +flower, and the flower from the bud; having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +changed its merits, but not having renounced +them; possessing, it may be, less of beauty, but +more of usefulness; not, perhaps, serving the poet +so well, but serving the historian and philosopher +and theologian better than before.</p> + +<p>One observation more let me make, before entering +on the special details of my subject. It is +this. The losses and diminutions of a language differ +in one respect from its gains and acquisitions—namely, +that they are of <i>two</i> kinds, while its gains +are only of <i>one</i>. Its gains are only in <i>words</i>; it +never puts forth in the course of its evolution +a new <i>power</i>; it never makes for itself a new case, +or a new tense, or a new comparative. But its +losses are both in words and in <i>powers</i>—in words +of course, but in powers also: it leaves behind it, +as it travels onwards, cases which it once possessed; +renounces the employment of tenses which it once +used; forgets its dual; is content with one termination +both for masculine and feminine, and so +on. Nor is this a peculiar feature of one language, +but the universal law of all. “In all languages”, +as has been well said, “there is a constant +tendency to relieve themselves of that precision +which chooses a fresh symbol for every shade of +meaning, to lessen the amount of nice distinction, +and detect as it were a royal road to the interchange +of opinion”. For example, a vast number +of languages had at an early period of their development, +besides the singular and plural, a dual number, +some even a trinal, which they have let go at +a later. But what I mean by a language renouncing +its powers will, I trust, be more clear to you +before my lecture is concluded. This much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +I have here said on the matter, to explain and justify +a division which I shall make, considering first +the losses of the English language in <i>words</i>, and +then in <i>powers</i>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words become Extinct</i></div> + +<p>And first, there is going forward a continual +extinction of the words in our language—as indeed +in every other. When I speak of this, the dying +out of words, I do not refer to mere <i>tentative</i>, +experimental words, not a few of which I adduced +in my last lecture, words offered to the language, +but not accepted by it; I refer rather to such as +either belonged to the primitive stock of the language, +or if not so, which had been domiciled +in it long, that they might have been supposed to +have found in it a lasting home. Thus not a few +pure Anglo-Saxon words which lived on into the +times of our early English, have subsequently +dropped out of our vocabulary, sometimes leaving +a gap which has never since been filled, but their +places oftener taken by others which have come up +in their room. Not to mention those of Chaucer +and Wiclif, which are very numerous, many held +their ground to far later periods, and yet have +finally given way. That beautiful word ‘wanhope’ +for despair, hope which has so <i>waned</i> that now +there is an entire <i>want</i> of it, was in use down to +the reign of Elizabeth; it occurs so late as in the +poems of Gascoigne<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>. +‘Skinker’ for +cupbearer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +(an ungraceful word, no doubt) is used by Shakespeare +and lasted till Dryden’s time and beyond.</p> + +<p>Spenser uses often ‘to welk’ (welken) in the sense +of to fade, ‘to sty’ for to mount, ‘to hery’ as to +glorify or praise, ‘to halse’ as to embrace, ‘teene’ +as vexation or grief: Shakespeare ‘to tarre’ as to +provoke, ‘to sperr’ as to enclose or bar in; ‘to +sag’ for to droop, or hang the head downward. +Holland employs ‘geir’<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> for vulture (“vultures or +<i>geirs</i>”), ‘specht’ for woodpecker, ‘reise’ for journey, +‘frimm’ for lusty or strong. ‘To schimmer’ +occurs in Bishop Hall; ‘to tind’, that is, to kindle, +and surviving in ‘tinder’, is used by Bishop Sanderson; +‘to nimm’, or take, as late as by Fuller. +A rogue is a ‘skellum’ in Sir Thomas Urquhart. +‘Nesh’ in the sense of soft through moisture, ‘leer’ +in that of empty, ‘eame’ in that of uncle, <i>mother’s</i> +brother (the German ‘oheim’), good Saxon-English +once, still live on in some of our provincial +dialects; so <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘dose’">does</ins> +‘flitter-mouse’ or ‘flutter-mouse’ +(mus volitans), where we should use bat. Indeed +of those above named several do the same; it is +so with ‘frimm’, with ‘to sag’, ‘to nimm’. +‘Heft’ employed by Shakespeare in the sense of +weight, is still employed in the same sense by our +peasants in Hampshire<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> +<div class="sidenote"><i>Vigorous Compound Words</i></div> + +<p>A number of vigorous compounds we have +dropped and let go. ‘Earsports’ for entertainments +of song or music (<span title="Greek: akroamata">ἀκροάματα</span>) is a constantly +recurring word in Holland’s <i>Plutarch</i>. +Were it not for Shakespeare, we should have quite +forgotten that young men of hasty fiery valour +were called ‘hotspurs’; and even now we regard +the word rather as the proper name of one than +that which would have been once alike the designation +of all<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a>. Fuller warns men that they should +not ‘witwanton’ with God. Severe austere old +men, such as, in Falstaff’s words would “hate us +youth”, were ‘grimsirs’, or ‘grimsires’ once (Massinger). +‘Realmrape’ (= usurpation), occurring +in <i>The Mirror for Magistrates</i>, is a vigorous +word. ‘Rootfast’ and ‘rootfastness’<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> were ill +lost, being worthy to have lived; so too was Lord +Brooke’s ‘bookhunger’; and Baxter’s ‘word-warriors’, +with which term he noted those whose +strife was only about words. ‘Malingerer’ is +familiar enough to military men, but I do not find +it in our dictionaries; being the soldier who, out +of <i>evil will</i> (malin gré) to his work, shams and +shirks and is not found in the ranks<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a>.</p> + +<p>Those who would gladly have seen the Anglo-Saxon +to have predominated over the Latin ele<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>ment +in our language, even more than it actually has +done, must note with regret that in many instances +a word of the former stock had been dropped, and +a Latin coined to supply its place; or where the +two once existed side by side, the Saxon has died, +and the Latin lived on. Thus Wiclif employed +‘soothsaw’, where we now use proverb; ‘sourdough’, +where we employ leaven; ‘wellwillingness’ +for benevolence; ‘againbuying’ for redemption; +‘againrising’ for resurrection; ‘undeadliness’ for +immortality; ‘uncunningness’ for ignorance; +‘aftercomer’ for descendant; ‘greatdoingly’ for +magnificently; ‘to afterthink’ (still in use in Lancashire) +for to repent; ‘medeful’, which has given +way to meritorious; ‘untellable’ for ineffable; +‘dearworth’ for precious; Chaucer has ‘forword’ +for promise; Sir John Cheke ‘freshman’ for proselyte; +‘mooned’ for lunatic; ‘foreshewer’ for prophet; +‘hundreder’ for centurion; Jewel ‘foretalk’, +where we now employ preface; Holland ‘sunstead’ +where we use solstice; ‘leechcraft’ instead +of medicine; and another, ‘wordcraft’ for logic; +‘starconner’ (Gascoigne) did service once, if not +instead of astrologer, yet side by side with it; +‘halfgod’ (Golding) had the advantage over ‘demigod’, +that it was all of one piece; ‘to eyebite’ +(Holland) told its story at least as well as to +fascinate; ‘shriftfather’ as confessor; ‘earshrift’ +(Cartwright) is only two syllables, while ‘auricular +confession’ is eight; ‘waterfright’ is a better word +than our awkward Greek hydrophobia. The lamprey +(lambens petram) was called once the ‘suckstone’ +or the ‘lickstone’; and the anemone the +‘windflower’. ‘Umstroke’, if it had lived on (it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +appears as late as Fuller, though our dictionaries +know nothing of it), might have made ‘circumference’ +and ‘periphery’ unnecessary. ‘Wanhope’, +as we saw just now, has given place to despair, +‘middler’ to mediator; and it would be easy to +increase this list.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Local and Provincial English</i></div> + +<p>I had occasion just now to notice the fact that +many words survive in our provincial dialects, +long after they have died out from the main body +of the speech. The fact is one connected with so +much of deep interest in the history of language +that I cannot pass it thus slightly over. It is one +which, rightly regarded, may assist to put us in a +just point of view for estimating the character of +the local and provincial in speech, and rescuing it +from that unmerited contempt and neglect with +which it is often regarded. I must here go somewhat +further back than I could wish; but only so, +only by looking at the matter in connexion with +other phenomena of speech, can I hope to explain +to you the worth and significance which local and +provincial words and usages must oftentimes +possess.</p> + +<p>Let us then first suppose a portion of those +speaking a language to have been separated off +from the main body of its speakers, either through +their forsaking for one cause or other of their +native seats, or by the intrusion of a hostile people, +like a wedge, between them and the others, forcibly +keeping them asunder, and cutting off their +communications one with the other, as the Saxons +intruded between the Britons of Cornwall and of +Wales. In such a case it will inevitably happen +that before very long differences of speech will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +begin to reveal themselves between those to whom +even dialectic distinctions may have been once +unknown. The divergences will be of various +kinds. Idioms will come up in the separated body, +which, not being recognized and allowed by those +who remain the arbiters of the language, will be +esteemed by them, should they come under their +notice, violations of its law, or at any rate departures +from its purity. Again, where a colony has +gone forth into new seats, and exists under new +conditions, it is probable that the necessities, physical +and moral, rising out of these new conditions, +will give birth to words, which there will be nothing +to call out among those who continue in the old +haunts of the nation. Intercourse with new tribes +and people will bring in new words, as, for instance, +contact with the Indian tribes of North +America has given to American English a certain +number of words hardly or not at all allowed or +known by us; or as the presence of a large Dutch +population at the Cape has given to the English +spoken there many words, as ‘inspan’, ‘outspan’<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>, +‘spoor’, of which our home English knows nothing.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Antiquated English</i></div> + +<p>There is another cause, however, which will probably +be more effectual than all these, namely, +that words will in process of time be dropped by +those who constitute the original stock of the +nation, which will not be dropped by the offshoot; +idioms which those have overlived, and have stored +up in the unhonoured lumber-room of the past, will +still be in use and currency among the smaller and +separated section which has gone forth; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +thus it will come to pass that what seems and in +fact is the newer swarm, will have many older +words, and very often an archaic air and old-world +fashion both about the words they use, their +way of pronouncing, their order and manner of +combining them. Thus after the Conquest we +know that our insular French gradually diverged +from the French of the Continent. The Prioress +in Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury Tales</i> could speak her +French “full faire and fetishly”, but it was French, +as the poet slyly adds,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“After the scole of Stratford atte bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For French of Paris was to hire unknowe”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One of our old chroniclers, writing in the reign of +Elizabeth, informs us that by the English colonists +within the Pale in Ireland numerous words were +preserved in common use, “the dregs of the old +ancient Chaucer English”, as he contemptuously +calls it, which had become quite obsolete and forgotten +in England itself. For example, they still +called a spider an ‘attercop’—a word, by the way, +still in popular use in the North;—a physician a +‘leech’, as in poetry he still is called; a dunghill +was still for them a ‘mixen’; (the word is still +common all over England in this sense;) a quadrangle +or base court was a ‘bawn’<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>; +they em<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>ployed +‘uncouth’ in the earlier sense of unknown. +Nay more, their general manner of speech was so +different, though containing English still, that +Englishmen at their first coming over often found +it hard or impossible to comprehend. We have +another example of the same in what took place +after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and +the consequent formation of colonies of Protestant +French emigrants in various places, especially in +Amsterdam and other chief cities of Holland. +There gradually grew up among these what came to +be called ‘refugee French’, which within a generation +or two diverged in several particulars from +the classical language of France; its divergence +being mainly occasioned by this, that it remained +stationary, while the classical language was in +motion; it retained usages and words, which the +latter had dismissed<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Provincial English</i></div> + +<p>Nor is it otherwise in respect of our English +provincialisms. It is true that our country people +who in the main employ them, have not been +separated by distance of space, nor yet by insurmountable +obstacles intervening, from the main +body of their fellow-countrymen; but they have +been quite as effectually divided by deficient +education. They have been, if not locally, yet +intellectually, kept at a distance from the onward +march of the nation’s mind; and of them also it +is true that many of their words, idioms, turns +of speech, which we are ready to set down as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +vulgarisms, solecisms of speech, violations of the +primary rules of grammar, do merely attest that +those who employ them have not kept abreast +with the advance of the language and nation, but +have been left behind by it. The usages are only +local in the fact that, having once been employed +by the whole body of the English people, they +have now receded from the lips of all except those +in some certain country districts, who have been +more faithful than others to the tradition of the +past<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a>.</p> + +<p>It is thus in respect of a multitude of isolated +words, which were excellent Anglo-Saxon, which +were excellent early English, and which only are +not excellent present English, because use, which +is the supreme arbiter in these matters, has +decided against their further employment. +Several of these I enumerated just now. It is +thus also with several grammatical forms and +flexions. For instance, where we decline the plural +of “I sing”, “we sing”, “ye sing”, “they sing”, +there are parts of England in which they would +decline, “we sin<i>gen</i>”, “ye sin<i>gen</i>”, “they sin<i>gen</i>”. +This is not indeed the original form of the plural, +but it is that form of it which, coming up about +Chaucer’s time, was just going out in Spenser’s; +he, though we must ever keep in mind +that he does not fairly represent the language of +his time, or indeed of any time, affecting a certain +artificial archaism both in words and forms, +con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>tinually +uses it<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>. +After him it becomes ever +rarer, the last of whom I am aware as occasionally +using it being Fuller, until it quite disappears.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Earlier and Later English</i></div> + +<p>Of such as may now employ forms like these +we must say, not that they violate the laws of the +language, but only that they have taken their +<i>permanent</i> stand at a point which was only a +point of transition, and which it has now left behind, +and overlived. Thus, to take examples which +you may hear at the present day in almost any part +of England—a countryman will say, “He made +me <i>afeard</i>”; or “The price of corn <i>ris</i> last +market day”; or “I will <i>axe</i> him his name”; or +“I tell <i>ye</i>”. You would probably set these phrases +down for barbarous English. They are not so at +all; in one sense they are quite as good English +as “He made me <i>afraid</i>”; or “The price of corn +<i>rose</i> last market day”; or “I will <i>ask</i> him his +name”. ‘Afeard’, used by Spenser, is the regular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +participle of the old verb to ‘affear’, still existing +as a law term, as ‘afraid’ is of to ‘affray’, and +just as good English<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a>; ‘ris’ or ‘risse’ is an old +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘preterite’">præterite</ins> +of ‘to rise’; to ‘axe’ is not a mispronunciation +of ‘to ask’, but a genuine English form +of the word, the form which in the earlier English +it constantly assumed; in Wiclif’s Bible almost +without exception; and indeed ‘axe’ occurs continually, +I know not whether invariably, in Tyndale’s +translation of the Scriptures; there was +a time when ‘ye’ was an accusative, and to have +used it as a nominative or vocative, the only permitted +uses at present, would have been incorrect. +Even such phrases as “Put <i>them</i> things away”; or +“The man <i>what</i> owns the horse” are not bad, +but only antiquated English<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a>. Saying this, I +would not in the least imply that these forms are +open to you to employ, or that they would be good +English for <i>you</i>. They would not; inasmuch as +they are contrary to present use and custom, and +these must be our standards in what we speak, and +in what we write; just as in our buying and selling +we are bound to employ the current coin of +the realm, must not attempt to pass that which +long since has been called in, whatever merits +or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘instrinsic’">intrinsic</ins> +value it may possess. All which I +affirm is that the phrases just brought forward +represent past stages of the language, and are not +barbarous violations of it.</p> + +<p>The same may be asserted of certain ways of +pronouncing words, which are now in use among +the lower classes, but not among the higher; as, +for example, ‘contrāry’, ‘mischiēvous’, ‘blasphēmous’, +instead of ‘contrăry’, ‘mischiĕvous’, ‘blasphĕmous’. +It would be abundantly easy to show +by a multitude of quotations from our poets, and +those reaching very far down, that these are merely +the retention of the earlier pronunciation by the +people, after the higher classes have abandoned +it<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a>. +And on the strength of what has just been spoken, +let me here suggest to you how well worth your +while it will prove to be on the watch for provincial +words and inflexions, local idioms and +modes of pronunciation, and to take note of these. +Count nothing in this kind beneath your notice. + +<span class="sidenote"><i>Luncheon</i>, <i>Nuncheon</i></span> + +Do not at once ascribe anything which you hear +to the ignorance or stupidity of the speaker. Thus +if you hear ‘nuncheon’, do not at once set it +down for a malformation of +‘luncheon’<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a>, +nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +‘yeel’<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a>, +of ‘eel’. Lists and collections of provincial +usage, such as I have suggested, always have their +value. If you are not able to turn them to any +profit yourselves, and they may not stand in close +enough connexion with your own studies for this, +yet there always are those who will thank you for +them; and to whom the humblest of these collec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>tions, +carefully and intelligently made, will be in +one way or another of real assistance<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a>. And there +is the more need to urge this at the present, +because, notwithstanding the tenacity with which +our country folk cling to their old forms and +usages, still these forms and usages must now be +rapidly growing fewer; and there are forces, moral +and material, at work in England, which will +probably cause that of those which now survive +the greater part will within the next fifty years have +disappeared<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘Its’ of Late Introduction</i></div> + +<p>Before quitting this subject, let me instance one +example more of that which is commonly accounted +ungrammatical usage, but which is really the retention +of old grammar by some, where others +have substituted new; I mean the constant application +by our rustic population in the south, and +I dare say through all parts of England, of ‘his’ to +inanimate objects, and to these not personified, no +less than to persons; where ‘its’ would be employed +by others. This was once the manner of speech +among all; for ‘its’ is a word of very recent +introduction, many would be surprised to learn +of how recent introduction, into the language. +You will look for it in vain through the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +of our Authorized Version of the Bible; the office +which it now fulfils being there accomplished, as +our rustics accomplish it at the present, by ‘his’ +(Gen. i. 11; Exod. xxxvii. 17; Matt. v. 15) or +‘her’ (Jon. i. 15; Rev. xxii. 2) applied as freely +to inanimate things as to persons, or else by +‘thereof’ (Ps. lxv. 10) or ‘of it’ (Dan. vii. 5). Nor +may Lev. xx. 5 be urged as invalidating this assertion; +for reference to the exemplar edition of 1611, +or indeed to any earlier editions of King James’ +Bible, will show that in them the passage stood, +“of <i>it</i> own accord”<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a>. ‘Its’ occurs very rarely +in Shakespeare, in many of his plays it will not +once be found. Milton also for the most part +avoids it, and this, though in his time others freely +allowed it. How soon all this was forgotten we +have striking evidence in the fact that when +Dryden, in one of his fault-finding moods with +the great men of the preceding generation, is +taking Ben Jonson to task for general inaccuracy +in his English diction, among other counts of his +indictment, he quotes this line from <i>Catiline</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Though heaven should speak with all <i>his</i> wrath at once”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and proceeds, “<i>heaven</i> is ill syntax with <i>his</i>”;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +while in fact up to within forty or fifty years of +the time when Dryden began to write, no other +syntax was known; and to a much later date was +exceedingly rare. Curious also, is it to note that +in the earnest controversy which followed on Chatterton’s +publication of the poems ascribed by him +to a monk Rowlie, who should have lived in the +fifteenth century, no one appealed to such lines +as the following,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Life and all <i>its</i> goods I scorn”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as at once deciding that the poems were not of the +age which they pretended. Warton, who denied, +though with some hesitation, the antiquity of +the poems, giving many and sufficient reasons for +this denial, failed to take note of this little word; +while yet there needed no more than to point it +out, for the disposing of the whole question; the +forgery at once was betrayed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>American English</i></div> + +<p>What has been here affirmed concerning our +provincial English, namely that it is often <i>old</i> +English rather than <i>bad</i> English, may be affirmed +with equal right of many so-called Americanisms. +There are parts of America where ‘het’ is used, +or was used a few years since, as the perfect of +‘to heat’; ‘holp’ as the perfect of ‘to help’; +‘stricken’ as the participle of ‘to strike’. Again +there are the words which have become obsolete +during the last two hundred years, which have not +become obsolete there, although many of them +probably retain only a provincial existence. Thus +‘slick’, which indeed is only another form of +‘sleek’, was employed by our good writers of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +seventeenth century<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a>. Other words again, which +have remained current on both sides of the +Atlantic, have yet on our side receded from their +original use, while they have remained true to it +on the other. ‘Plunder’ is a word in point<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a>.</p> + +<p>In the contemplation of facts like these it has +been sometimes asked, whether a day will ever +arrive when the language spoken on this side of +the Atlantic and on the other, will divide into two +languages, an old English and a new. We may +confidently answer, No. Doubtless, if those who +went out from us to people and subdue a new +continent, had left our shores two or three centuries +earlier than they did, when the language was +very much farther removed from that ideal after +which it was unconsciously striving, and in which, +once reached, it has in great measure acquiesced; +if they had not carried with them to their distant +homes their English Bible, and what else of +worth had been already uttered in the English +tongue; if, having once left us, the intercourse +between Old and New England had been entirely +broken off, or only rare and partial; there would +then have unfolded themselves differences between +the language spoken here and there, which in +tract of time accumulating and multiplying, might +in the end have justified the regarding of the languages +as no longer one and the same. It could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +not have failed but that such differences should +have displayed themselves; for while there is a +law of <i>necessity</i> in the evolution of languages, +while they pursue certain courses and in certain +directions, from which they can be no more turned +aside by the will of men than one of the heavenly +bodies could be pushed from its orbit by any engines +of ours, there is a law of <i>liberty</i> no less; and this +liberty must inevitably have made itself in many +ways felt. In the political and social condition +of America, so far removed from our own, in the +many natural objects which are not the same with +those which surround us here, in efforts independently +carried out to rid the language of imperfections, +or to unfold its latent powers, even in the +different effects of soil and climate on the organs +of speech, there would have been causes enough to +have provoked in the course of time not immaterial +<ins class="correction" title="so in original">divergencies</ins> of language.</p> + +<p>As it is, however, the joint operation of those +three causes referred to already, namely, that the +separation did not take place in the infancy or +youth of the language, but only in its ripe manhood, +that England and America owned a body of +literature, to which they alike looked up and appealed +as containing the authoritative standards +of the language, that the intercourse between the +one people and the other has been large and frequent, +hereafter probably to be larger and more +frequent still, has effectually wrought. It has been +strong enough so to traverse, repress, and check +all those causes which tended to divergence, that +the <i>written</i> language of educated men on both +sides of the water remains precisely the same,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +their <i>spoken</i> manifesting a few trivial differences of +idiom; while even among those classes which do +not consciously acknowledge any ideal standard of +language, there are scarcely greater differences, in +some respects far smaller, than exist between +inhabitants of different provinces in this one island +of England; and in the future we may reasonably +anticipate that these differences, so far from multiplying, +will rather diminish and disappear.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Extinct English</i></div> + +<p>But I must return from this long digression. +It seems often as if an almost unaccountable +caprice presided over the fortunes of words, and +determined which should live and which die. +Thus in instances out of number a word lives on +as a verb, but has ceased to be employed as a +noun; we say ‘to embarrass’, but no longer an +‘embarrass’; ‘to revile’, but not, with Chapman +and Milton, a ‘revile’; ‘to dispose’, but not a +‘dispose’<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a>; ‘to retire’ but not a ‘retire’; ‘to +wed’, but not a ‘wed’; we say ‘to infest’, but use +no longer the adjective ‘infest’. Or with a reversed +fortune a word lives on as a noun, but has perished +as a verb—thus as a noun substantive, a ‘slug’, +but no longer ‘to slug’ or render slothful; a +‘child’, but no longer ‘to child’, (“<i>childing</i> +autumn”, Shakespeare); a ‘rape’, but not ‘to +rape’ (South); a ‘rogue’, but not ‘to rogue’; +‘malice’, but not ‘to malice’; a ‘path’, but not +‘to path’; or as a noun adjective, ‘serene’, but +not ‘to serene’, a beautiful word, which we have +let go, as the French have ‘sereiner’<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a>; ‘meek’, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>but not ‘to meek’ (Wiclif); ‘fond’, but not ‘to +fond’ (Dryden); ‘dead’, but not ‘to dead’; ‘intricate’, +but ‘to intricate’ (Jeremy Taylor) no longer.</p> + +<p>Or again, the affirmative remains, but the negative +is gone; thus ‘wisdom’, ‘bold’, ‘sad’, but +not any more ‘unwisdom’, ‘unbold’, ‘unsad’ (all +in Wiclif); ‘cunning’, but not ‘uncunning’; +‘manhood’, ‘wit’, ‘mighty’, ‘tall’, but not ‘unmanhood’, +‘unwit’, ‘unmighty’, ‘untall’ (all in +Chaucer); ‘buxom’, but not ‘unbuxom’ (Dryden); +‘hasty’, but not ‘unhasty’ (Spenser); ‘blithe’, +but not ‘unblithe’; ‘ease’, but not ‘unease’ +(Hacket); ‘repentance’, but not ‘unrepentance’; +‘remission’, but not ‘irremission’ (Donne); +‘science’, but not ‘nescience’ (Glanvill)<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a>; ‘to know’, +but not ‘to unknow’ (Wiclif); ‘to give’, but not +‘to ungive’. Or once more, with a curious variation +from this, the negative survives, while the +affirmative is gone; thus ‘wieldy’ (Chaucer) survives +only in ‘unwieldy’; ‘couth’ and ‘couthly’ +(both in Spenser), only in ‘uncouth’ and ‘uncouthly’; +‘rule’ (Foxe) only in ‘unruly’; ‘gainly’ +(Henry More) in ‘ungainly’; these last two were +both of them serviceable words, and have been ill +lost<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>; +‘gainly’ is indeed still common in the +West<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +Riding of Yorkshire; ‘exorable’ (Holland) and +‘evitable’ only in ‘inexorable’ and ‘inevitable’; +‘faultless’ remains, but hardly ‘faultful’ (Shakespeare). +In like manner ‘semble’ (Foxe) has, except +as a technical law term, disappeared; while +‘dissemble’ continues. So also of other pairs one +has been taken and one left; ‘height’, or ‘highth’, +as Milton better spelt it, remains, but ‘lowth’ +(Becon) is gone; ‘righteousness’, or ‘rightwiseness’, +as it would once more accurately have +been written, for ‘righteous’ is a corruption of +‘rightwise’, remains, but its correspondent ‘wrongwiseness’ +has been taken; ‘inroad’ continues, but +‘outroad’ (Holland) has disappeared; ‘levant’ +lives, but ‘ponent’ (Holland) has died; ‘to extricate’ +continues, but, as we saw just now, ‘to +intricate’ does not; ‘parricide’, but not ‘filicide’ +(Holland). Again, of whole groups of words +formed on some particular scheme it may be +only a single specimen will survive. Thus ‘gainsay’, +that is, again say, survives; but ‘gainstrive’ +(Foxe), ‘gainstand’, ‘gaincope’ (Golding), and +other similarly formed words exist no longer. It +is the same with ‘foolhardy’, which is but one, +though now indeed the only one remaining, of at +least five adjectives formed on the same principle; +thus ‘foollarge’, quite as expressive a word as +prodigal, occurs in Chaucer, and ‘foolhasty’, found +also in him, lived on to the time of Holland; +while ‘foolhappy’ is in Spencer; and ‘foolbold’ +in Bale. ‘Steadfast’ remains, but ‘shamefast’, +‘rootfast’, ‘bedfast’ (= bedridden), ‘homefast’, +‘housefast’, ‘masterfast’ (Skelton), with others, +are all gone. ‘Exhort’ remains; but ‘dehort’ a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +word whose place neither ‘dissuade’ nor any other +exactly supplies, has escaped us<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a>. We have ‘twilight’, +but ‘twibill’ = bipennis (Chapman) is +extinct.</p> + +<p>Let me mention another real loss, where in like +manner there remains in the present language +something to remind us of that which is gone. +The comparative ‘rather’ stands alone, having +dropped on one side its positive ‘rathe’<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a>, and on the +other its superlative ‘rathest’. ‘Rathe’, having +the sense of early, though a graceful word, and not +fallen quite out of popular remembrance, inasmuch +as it is embalmed in the <i>Lycidas</i> of Milton,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And the <i>rathe</i> primrose, which forsaken dies”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>might still be suffered without remark to share the +common lot of so many words which have perished, +though worthy to have lived; but the disuse +of ‘rathest’ has left a real gap in the language, +and the more so, seeing that ‘liefest’ is +gone too. ‘Rather’ expresses the Latin ‘potius’; +but ‘rathest’ being out of use, we have no word, +unless ‘soonest’ may be accepted as such, to +express ‘potissimum’, or the preference not of one +way over another or over certain others, but of +one over all; which we therefore effect by aid of +various circumlocutions. Nor has ‘rathest’ been +so long out of use, that it would be playing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +antic to attempt to revive it. It occurs in the +<i>Sermons</i> of Bishop Sanderson, who in the opening +of that beautiful sermon from the text, “When my +father and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh +me up”, puts the consideration, “why these”, +that is, father and mother, “are named the <i>rathest</i>, +and the rest to be included in them”<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a>.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes easy enough, but indeed oftener +hard, and not seldom quite impossible, to trace +the causes which have been at work to bring about +that certain words, little by little, drop out of the +language of men, come to be heard more and more +rarely, and finally are not heard any more at all—to +trace the motives which have induced a whole +people thus to arrive at a tacit consent not to employ +them any longer; for without this tacit consent +they could never have thus become obsolete. +That it is not accident, that there is a law here at +work, however hidden it may be from us, is plain +from the fact that certain families of words, words +formed on certain patterns, have a tendency thus +to fall into desuetude.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words in ‘-some’</i></div> + +<p>Thus, I think, we may trace a tendency in words +ending in ‘some’, the Anglo-Saxon and early English +‘sum’, the German ‘sam’ (‘friedsam’, ‘seltsam’) +to fall out of use. It is true that a vast number +of these survive, as ‘gladsome’, ‘handsome’, +‘wearisome’, ‘buxom’ (this last spelt better +‘bucksome’, by our earlier writers, for its present +spelling altogether disguises its true character, and +the family to which it +<ins class="correction" title="missing ‘)’ in original">belongs);</ins> being the same +word as the German ‘beugsam’ or ‘biegsam’, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>bendable, +compliant<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a>; +but a larger number of these +words than can be ascribed to accident, many +more than the due proportion of them, are either +quite or nearly extinct. Thus in Wiclif’s Bible +alone you might note the following, ‘lovesum’, +‘hatesum’, ‘lustsum’, ‘gilsum’ (guilesome), ‘wealsum’, +‘heavysum’, ‘lightsum’, ‘delightsum’; of +these ‘lightsome’ long survived, and indeed still +survives in provincial dialects; but of the others +all save ‘delightsome’ are gone; and that, although +used in our Authorized Version (Mal. iii, 12), is +now only employed in poetry. So too ‘mightsome’ +(see Coleridge’s <i>Glossary</i>), ‘brightsome’ +(Marlowe), ‘wieldsome’, and ‘unwieldsome’ +(Golding), ‘unlightsome’ (Milton), ‘healthsome’ +(<i>Homilies</i>), ‘ugsome’ and ‘ugglesome’ (both in +Foxe), ‘laboursome’ (Shakespeare), ‘friendsome’, +‘longsome’ (Bacon), ‘quietsome’, ‘mirksome’ +(both in Spenser), ‘toothsome’ (Beaumont and +Fletcher), ‘gleesome’, ‘joysome’ (both in Browne’s +<i>Pastorals</i>), ‘gaysome’ (<i>Mirror for Magistrates</i>), +‘roomsome’, ‘bigsome’, ‘awesome’, ‘timersome’, +‘winsome’, ‘viewsome’, ‘dosome’ (= prosperous), +‘flaysome’ (= fearful), ‘auntersome’ (= adventurous), +‘clamorsome’ (all these still surviving in +the North), ‘playsome’ (employed by the historian +Hume), ‘lissome’<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a>, have nearly or quite disappeared +from our English speech. They seem to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +held their ground in Scotland in considerably +larger numbers than in the south of the Island<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words in ‘-ard’</i></div> + +<p>Neither can I esteem it a mere accident that of +a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words +ending in ‘ard’, at least one half should have +dropped out of use; I refer to that group of +which ‘dotard’, ‘laggard’, ‘braggard’, now spelt +‘braggart’, ‘sluggard’, ‘buzzard’, ‘bastard’, +‘wizard’, may be taken as surviving specimens; +‘blinkard’ (<i>Homilies</i>), ‘dizzard’ (Burton), ‘dullard’ +(Udal), ‘musard’ (Chaucer), ‘trichard’ +(<i>Political Songs</i>), ‘shreward’ (Robert of Gloucester), +‘ballard’ (a bald-headed man, Wiclif); +‘puggard’, ‘stinkard’ (Ben Jonson), ‘haggard’, +a worthless hawk, as extinct.</p> + +<p>Thus too there is a very curious province of our +language, in which we were once so rich, that +extensive losses here have failed to make us poor; +so many of its words still surviving, even after as +many or more have disappeared. I refer to those +double words which either contain within themselves +a strong rhyming modulation, such for example +as ‘willy-nilly’, ‘hocus-pocus’, ‘helter-skelter’, +‘tag-rag’, ‘namby-pamby’, ‘pell-mell’, +‘hodge-podge’; or with a slight difference from this, +though belonging to the same group, those of +which the characteristic feature is not this internal +likeness with initial unlikeness, but initial +likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a +change of the interior vowel from a weak into a +strong, generally from <i>i</i> into <i>a</i> or <i>o</i>; as ‘shilly-shally’, +‘mingle-mangle’, ‘tittle-tattle’, ‘prittle-prattle’, +‘riff-raff’, ‘see-saw’, ‘slip-slop’. +No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier +yet more vigorous portions of the language, +but will acknowledge the life and strength which +there is often in these and in others still current +among us. But of the same sort what vast numbers +have fallen out of use, some so fallen out of all +remembrance that it may be difficult almost to +find credence for them. Thus take of rhyming +the following: ‘hugger-mugger’, ‘hurly-burly’, +‘kicksy-wicksy’ (all in Shakespeare); ‘hibber-gibber’, +‘rusty-dusty’, ‘horrel-lorrel’, ‘slaump +paump’ (all in Gabriel Harvey), ‘royster-doyster’ +(Old Play), ‘hoddy-doddy’ (Ben Jonson); while +of alliterative might be instanced these: ‘skimble-skamble’, +‘bibble-babble’ (both in Shakespeare), +‘twittle-twattle’, ‘kim-kam’ (both in Holland), +‘hab-nab’ (Lilly), ‘trim-tram’, ‘trish-trash’, +‘swish-swash’ (all in Gabriel Harvey), ‘whim-wham’ +(Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘mizz-mazz’ +(Locke), ‘snip-snap’ (Pope), ‘flim-flam’ (Swift), +‘tric-trac’, and others<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words under Ban</i></div> + +<p>Again, there was once a whole family of words +whereof the greater number are now under ban; +which seemed at one time to have been formed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +almost at pleasure, the only condition being that +the combination should be a happy one—I mean +all those singularly expressive words formed by a +combination of verb and substantive, the former +governing the latter; as ‘telltale’, ‘scapegrace’, +‘turncoat’, ‘turntail’, ‘skinflint’, ‘spendthrift’, +‘spitfire’, ‘lickspittle’, ‘daredevil’ (= wagehals), +‘makebate’ (= störenfried), ‘marplot’, ‘killjoy’. +These with a certain number of others, have held +their ground, and may be said to be still more or +less in use; but what a number more are forgotten; +and yet, though not always elegant, they +constituted a very vigorous portion of our language, +and preserved some of its most genuine +idioms<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a>. It could not well be otherwise; they +are almost all words of abuse, and the abusive +words of a language are always among the most +picturesque and vigorous and imaginative which +it possesses. The whole man speaks out in them, +and often the man under the influence of passion +and excitement, which always lend force and fire +to his speech. Let me remind you of a few of +them; ‘smellfeast’, if not a better, is yet a more +graphic, word than our foreign parasite; as gra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>phic +indeed for us as <span title="Greek: trechedeipnos">τρεχέδειπνος</span> +to Greek ears; +‘clawback’ (Hackett) is a stronger, if not a more +graceful, word than flatterer or sycophant; ‘tosspot’ +(Fuller), or less frequently ‘reel-pot’ (Middleton), +tells its own tale as well as drunkard; and +‘pinchpenny’ (Holland), or ‘nipfarthing’ (Drant), +as well as or better than miser. And then what +a multitude more there are in like kind; ‘spintext’, +‘lacklatin’, ‘mumblematins’, all applied +to ignorant clerics; ‘bitesheep’ (a favourite word +with Foxe) to such of these as were rather wolves +tearing, than shepherds feeding, the flock; ‘slip-string’ += pendard (Beaumont and Fletcher), +‘slip-gibbet’, ‘scapegallows’; all names given to +those who, however they might have escaped, were +justly owed to the gallows, and might still “go +upstairs to bed”.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Obsolete Compounds</i></div> + +<p>How many of these words occur in Shakespeare. +The following list makes no pretence to completeness; +‘martext’, ‘carrytale’, ‘pleaseman’, +‘sneakcup’, ‘mumblenews’, ‘wantwit’, ‘lackbrain’, +‘lackbeard’, ‘lacklove’, ‘ticklebrain’, +‘cutpurse’, ‘cutthroat’, ‘crackhemp’, ‘breedbate’, +‘swinge-buckler’, ‘pickpurse’, ‘pickthank’, +‘picklock’, ‘scarecrow’, ‘breakvow’, +‘breakpromise’, ‘makepeace’—this last and ‘telltruth’ +(Fuller) being the only ones in the whole +collection wherein reprobation or contempt is +not implied. Nor is the list exhausted yet; there +are further ‘dingthrift’ = prodigal (Herrick), +‘wastegood’ (Cotgrave), ‘stroygood’ (Golding), +‘wastethrift’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘scapethrift’, +‘swashbuckler’ (both in Holinshed), +‘shakebuckler’, ‘rinsepitcher’ (both in Bacon),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +‘crackrope’ (Howell), ‘waghalter’, ‘wagfeather’ +(both in Cotgrave), ‘blabtale’ (Racket), ‘getnothing’ +(Adams), ‘findfault’ (Florio), ‘tearthroat’ +(Gayton), ‘marprelate’, ‘spitvenom’, +‘nipcheese’, ‘nipscreed’, ‘killman’ (Chapman), +‘lackland’, ‘pickquarrel’, ‘pickfaults’, ‘pickpenny’ +(Henry More), ‘makefray’ (Bishop Hall), +‘make-debate’ (Richardson’s <i>Letters</i>), ‘kindlecoal’ +(attise feu), ‘kindlefire’ (both in Gurnall), ‘turntippet’ +(Cranmer), ‘swillbowl’ (Stubbs), ‘smell-smock’, +‘cumberwold’ (Drayton), ‘curryfavor’, +‘pinchfist’, ‘suckfist’, ‘hatepeace’ (Sylvester), +‘hategood’ (Bunyan), ‘clutchfist’, ‘sharkgull’ +(both in Middleton), ‘makesport’ (Fuller), ‘hangdog’ +(“Herod’s <i>hangdogs</i> in the tapestry”, Pope), +‘catchpoll’, ‘makeshift’ (used not impersonally +as now), ‘pickgoose’ (“the bookworm was never +but a <i>pickgoose</i>”)<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>, +‘killcow’ (these three last +in Gabriel Harvey), ‘rakeshame’ (Milton, prose), +with others which it will be convenient to omit. +‘Rakehell’, which used to be spelt ‘rakel’ or +‘rakle’ (Chaucer), a good English word, would be +only through an error included in this list, although +Cowper, when he writes ‘rakehell’ (“<i>rake-hell</i> +baronet”) evidently regarded it as belonging to this +group<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words become Vulgar</i></div> + +<p>Perhaps one of the most frequent causes which +leads to the disuse of words is this: in some inexplicable +way there comes to be attached something +of ludicrous, or coarse, or vulgar to them, +out of a feeling of which they are no longer used +in earnest serious writing, and at the same time +fall out of the discourse of those who desire to +speak elegantly. Not indeed that this degradation +which overtakes words is in all cases inexplicable. +The unheroic character of most men’s +minds, with their consequent intolerance of that +heroic which they cannot understand, is constantly +at work, too often with success, in taking +down words of nobleness from their high pitch; +and, as the most effectual way of doing this, in +casting an air of mock-heroic about them. Thus +‘to dub’, a word resting on one of the noblest +usages of chivalry, has now something of ludicrous +about it; so too has ‘doughty’; they belong to +that serio-comic, mock-heroic diction, the multiplication +of which, as of all parodies on greatness, +and the favour with which it is received, is always +a sign of evil augury for a nation, is at present a +sign of evil augury for our own.</p> + +<p>‘Pate’ in the sense of head is now comic or +ignoble; it was not so once; as is plain from its +occurrence in the Prayer Book Version of the +Psalms (Ps. vii. 17); as little was ‘noddle’, which +occurs in one of the few poetical passages in Hawes. +The same may be said of ‘sconce’, in this sense +at least; of ‘nowl’ or ‘noll’, which Wiclif uses; +of ‘slops’ for trousers (Marlowe’s <i>Lucan</i>); of +‘cocksure’ (Rogers), of ‘smug’, which once +meant no more than adorned (“the <i>smug</i> bride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>groom”, +Shakespeare). ‘To nap’ is now a word +without dignity; while yet in Wiclif’s Bible it +is said, “Lo he schall not <i>nappe</i>, nether slepe that +kepeth Israel” (Ps. cxxi. 4). ‘To punch’, ‘to +thump’, both of which, and in serious writing, occur +in Spenser, could not now obtain the same use, +nor yet ‘to wag’, or ‘to buss’. Neither would +any one now say that at Lystra Barnabas and +Paul “rent their clothes and <i>skipped out</i> among +the people” (Acts xiv. 14), which is the language +that Wiclif employs; nor yet that “the Lord +<i>trounced</i> Sisera and all his host” as it stands in +the Bible of 1551. “A <i>sight</i> of angels”, for which +phrase see Cranmer’s Bible (Heb. xii. 22), would +be felt as a vulgarism now. We should scarcely +call now a delusion of Satan a “<i>flam</i> of the devil” +(Henry More). It is not otherwise in regard of +phrases. “Through thick and thin”, occurring +in Spenser, “cheek by jowl” in Dubartas<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>, do not +now belong to serious poetry. In the glorious +ballad of <i>Chevy Chase</i>, a noble warrior whose legs +are hewn off, is described as being “in doleful +dumps”; just as, in Holland’s <i>Livy</i>, the Romans +are set forth as being “in the dumps” as a consequence +of their disastrous defeat at Cannæ. In +Golding’s <i>Ovid</i>, one fears that he will “go to pot”. +In one of the beautiful letters of John Careless, +preserved in Foxe’s <i>Martyrs</i>, a persecutor, who +expects a recantation from him, is described as +“in the wrong box”. And in the sermons of +Barrow, who certainly intended to write an elevated +style, and did not seek familiar, still less vulgar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +expressions, we constantly meet such terms as ‘to +rate’, ‘to snub’, ‘to gull’, ‘to pudder’, ‘dumpish’, +and the like; which we may confidently +affirm were not vulgar when he used them.</p> + +<p>Then too the advance of refinement causes words +to be forgone, which are felt to speak too plainly. +It is not here merely that one age has more delicate +ears than another; and that matters are +freely spoken of at one time which at another +are withdrawn from conversation. This is something; +but besides this, and even if this delicacy +were at a standstill, there would still be a continual +process going on, by which the words, +which for a certain while have been employed to +designate coarse or disagreeable facts or things, +would be disallowed, or at all events relinquished +to the lower class of society, and others adopted in +their place. The former by long use being felt +to have come into too direct and close relation +with that which they designate, to summon it up +too distinctly before the mind’s eye, they are +thereupon exchanged for others, which, at first at +least, indicate more lightly and allusively the +offensive thing, rather hint and suggest than paint +and describe it: although by and by these new +will also in their turn be discarded, and for exactly +the same reasons which brought about the dismissal +of those which they themselves superseded. +It lies in the necessity of things that I must leave +this part of my subject, very curious as it is, without +illustration<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a>. +But no one, even moderately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +acquainted with the early literature of the Reformation, +can be ignorant of words freely used in it, +which now are not merely coarse and as such +under ban, but which no one would employ who +did not mean to speak impurely and vilely.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lost Powers of a Language</i></div> + +<p>Thus much in respect of the words, and the +character of the words, which we have lost or let +go. Of these, indeed, if a language, as it travels +onwards, loses some, it also acquires others, and +probably many more than it loses; they are leaves +on the tree of language, of which if some fall +away, a new succession takes their place. But +it is not so, as I already observed, with the <i>forms</i> +or <i>powers</i> of a language, that is, with the various +inflections, moods, duplicate or triplicate formation +of tenses; which the speakers of a language come +gradually to perceive that they can do without, +and therefore cease to employ; seeking to suppress +grammatical intricacies, and to obtain grammatical +simplicity and so far as possible a pervading +uniformity, sometimes even at the hazard of letting +go what had real worth, and contributed to the +more lively, if not to the clearer, setting forth of +the inner thought or feeling of the mind. Here +there is only loss, with no compensating gain; or, +at all events, diminution only, and never addition. +In regard of these inner forces and potencies of a +language, there is no creative energy at work in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +its later periods, in any, indeed, but quite the +earliest. They are not as the leaves, but may be +likened to the stem and leading branches of a +tree, whose shape, mould and direction are determined +at a very early stage of its growth; and +which age, or accident, or violence may diminish, +but which can never be multiplied. I have already +slightly referred to a notable example of this, +namely, to the dropping of the dual number in the +Greek language. Thus in all the New Testament +it does not once occur, having quite fallen out of +the common dialect in which that is composed. +Elsewhere too it has been felt that the dual was +not worth preserving, or at any rate, that no +serious inconvenience would follow on its loss. +There is no such number in the modern German, +Danish or Swedish; in the old German and Norse +there was.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Extinction of Powers</i></div> + +<p>How many niceties, delicacies, subtleties of +language, <i>we</i>, speakers of the English tongue, +in the course of centuries have got rid of; how +bare (whether too bare is another question) we +have stripped ourselves; what simplicity for +better or for worse reigns in the present English, +as compared with the old Anglo-Saxon. That +had six declensions, our present English but one; +that had three genders, English, if we except +one or two words, has none; that formed the +genitive in a variety of ways, we only in one; +and the same fact meets us, wherever we compare +the grammars of the two languages. At the +same time, it can scarcely be repeated too often, +that in the estimate of the gain or loss thereupon +ensuing, we must by no means put certainly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +loss everything which the language has dismissed, +any more than everything to gain which it has +acquired. It is no real wealth in a language to +have needless and superfluous forms. They are +often an embarrassment and an encumbrance +to it rather than a help. The Finnish language +has fourteen cases. Without pretending to know +exactly what it is able to effect, I yet feel confident +that it cannot effect more, nor indeed so much, +with its fourteen as the Greek is able to do with +its five. It therefore seems to me that some +words of Otfried Müller, in many ways admirable, +do yet exaggerate the losses consequent on the +reduction of the forms of a language. “It may +be observed”, he says, “that in the lapse of ages, +from the time that the progress of language can +be observed, grammatical forms, such as the +signs of cases, moods and tenses have never been +increased in number, but have been constantly +diminishing. The history of the Romance, as +well as of the Germanic, languages shows in the +clearest manner how a grammar, once powerful +and copious, has been gradually weakened and +impoverished, until at last it preserves only a +few fragments of its ancient inflections. Now +there is no doubt that this luxuriance of grammatical +forms is not an essential part of a language, +considered merely as a vehicle of thought. It +is well known that the Chinese language, which +is merely a collection of radical words destitute +of grammatical forms, can express even philosophical +ideas with tolerable precision; and the +English, which, from the mode of its formation +by a mixture of different tongues, has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +stripped of its grammatical inflections more +completely than any other European language, +seems, nevertheless, even to a foreigner, to be +distinguished by its energetic eloquence. All +this must be admitted by every unprejudiced +inquirer; but yet it cannot be overlooked, that +this copiousness of grammatical forms, and the +fine shades of meaning which they express, evince +a nicety of observation, and a faculty of distinguishing, +which unquestionably prove that the +race of mankind among whom these languages +arose was characterized by a remarkable correctness +and subtlety of thought. Nor can any +modern European, who forms in his mind a lively +image of the classical languages in their ancient +grammatical luxuriance, and compares them +with his mother tongue, conceal from himself +that in the ancient languages the words, with +their inflections, clothed as it were with muscles +and sinews, come forward like living bodies, +full of expression and character, while in the +modern tongues the words seem shrunk up into +mere skeletons”<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words in ‘-ess’</i></div> + +<p>Whether languages are as much impoverished +by this process as is here assumed, may, I think, +be a question. I will endeavour to give you +some materials which shall assist you in forming +your own judgment in the matter. And here +I am sure that I shall do best in considering not +forms which the language has relinquished long +ago, but mainly such as it is relinquishing now; +which, touching us more nearly, will have a +far more lively interest for us all. For example,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +the female termination which we employ in certain +words, such as from ‘heir’ ‘heiress’, from +‘prophet’ ‘prophetess’, from ‘sorcerer’ ‘sorceress’, +was once far more widely extended than +at present; the words which retain it are daily +becoming fewer. It has already fallen away in +so many, and is evidently becoming of less frequent +use in so many others, that, if we may augur of +the future from the analogy of the past, it will +one day altogether vanish from our tongue. +Thus all these occur in Wiclif’s Bible; ‘techeress’ +as the female teacher (2 Chron. xxxv. 25); +‘friendess’ (Prov. vii. 4); ‘servantess’ (Gen. +xvi. 2); ‘leperess’ (= saltatrix, Ecclus. ix. +4); ‘daunceress’ (Ecclus. ix. 4); ‘neighbouress’ +(Exod. iii. 22); ‘sinneress’ (Luke vii. 37); +‘purpuress’ (Acts xvi. 14); ‘cousiness’ (Luke i. +36); ‘slayeress’ (Tob. iii. 9); ‘devouress’ +(Ezek. xxxvi. 13); ‘spousess’ (Prov. v. 19); +‘thralless’ (Jer. xxxiv. 16); ‘dwelleress’ (Jer. +xxi. 13); ‘waileress’ (Jer. ix. 17); ‘cheseress’ +(= electrix, Wisd. viii. 4); ‘singeress’, ‘breakeress’, +‘waiteress’, this last indeed having recently +come up again. Add to these ‘chideress’, the +female chider, ‘herdess’, ‘constabless’, ‘moveress’, +‘jangleress’, ‘soudaness’ (= sultana), +<ins class="correction" title="original has semicolon instead of comma">‘guideress’,</ins> +‘charmeress’ (all in Chaucer); and +others, which however we may have now let +them fall, reached to far later periods of +the language; thus ‘vanqueress’ (Fabyan); +‘poisoneress’ (Greneway); ‘knightess’ (Udal); +‘pedleress’, ‘championess’, ‘vassaless’, ‘avengeress’, +‘warriouress’, ‘victoress’, ‘creatress’ +(all in Spenser); ‘fornicatress’, ‘cloistress’, ‘join<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>tress’ +(all in Shakespeare); ‘vowess’ (Holinshed); +‘ministress’, ‘flatteress’ (both in Holland); +‘captainess’ (Sidney); ‘saintess’ (Sir T. Urquhart); +‘heroess’, ‘dragoness’, ‘butleress’, +‘contendress’, ‘waggoness’, ‘rectress’ (all in +Chapman); ‘shootress’ (Fairfax); ‘archeress’ +(Fanshawe); ‘clientess’, ‘pandress’ (both in +Middleton); ‘papess’, ‘Jesuitess’ (Bishop Hall); +‘incitress’ (Gayton); ‘soldieress’, ‘guardianess’, +‘votaress’ (all in Beaumont and Fletcher); +‘comfortress’, ‘fosteress’ (Ben Jonson); ‘soveraintess’ +(Sylvester); ‘preserveress’ (Daniel); +‘solicitress’, ‘impostress’, ‘buildress’, ‘intrudress’ +(all in Fuller); ‘favouress’ (Hakewell); +‘commandress’ (Burton); ‘monarchess’, ‘discipless’ +(Speed); ‘auditress’, ‘cateress’, ‘chantress’, +‘tyranness’ (all in Milton); ‘citess’, +‘divineress’ (both in Dryden); ‘deaness’ +(Sterne); ‘detractress’ (Addison); ‘hucksteress’ +(Howell); ‘tutoress’ (Shaftesbury); ‘farmeress’ +(Lord Peterborough, <i>Letter to Pope</i>); ‘laddess’, +which however still survives in the contracted +form of ‘lass’<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a>; with more which, I doubt not, +it would not be very hard to bring +together<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words in ‘-ster’</i></div> + +<p>Exactly the same thing has happened with +another feminine affix. I refer to ‘ster’, taking +the place of ‘er’ where a feminine doer is +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>tended<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a>. +‘Spinner’ and ‘spinster’ are the +only pair of such words, which still survive. +There were formerly many such; thus ‘baker’ +had ‘bakester’, being the female who baked: +‘brewer’ ‘brewster’; ‘sewer’ ‘sewster’; ‘reader’ +‘readster’; ‘seamer’ ‘seamster’; ‘fruiterer’ +‘fruitester’; ‘tumbler’ ‘tumblester’; ‘hopper’ +‘hoppester’ (these last three in Chaucer; “the +shippes <i>hoppesteres</i>”, about which so much +difficulty has been made, are the ships <i>dancing</i>, +i.e., on the +waves)<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a>, +‘knitter’ ‘knitster’ (a word, +I am told, still alive in Devon). Add to these +‘whitster’ (female bleacher, Shakespeare), ‘kempster’ +(pectrix), ‘dryster’ (siccatrix), ‘brawdster’, +(I suppose +embroideress)<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a>, +and ‘salster’ +(salinaria)<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>. +It is a singular example of the richness +of a language in forms at the earlier stages of its +existence, that not a few of the words which had, +as we have just seen, a feminine termination in +‘ess’, had also a second in ‘ster’. Thus ‘daunser’, +beside ‘daunseress’, had also ‘daunster’ +(Ecclus. ix. 4); ‘wailer’, beside ‘waileress’, +had ‘wailster’ (Jer. ix. 17); ‘dweller’ ‘dwelster’ +(Jer. xxi. 13); and ‘singer’ ‘singster’ (2 Kin. +xix. 35); so too, ‘chider’ had ‘chidester’ +(Chaucer), as well as ‘chideress’, ‘slayer’ ‘slayster’ +(Tob. iii. 9), as well as ‘slayeress’, ‘chooser’ +‘chesister’, (Wisd. viii. 4), as well as ‘cheseress’, +with others that might be named.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is difficult to understand how Marsh, with +these examples before him should affirm, “I +find no positive evidence to show that the termination +‘ster’ was ever regarded as a feminine +termination in English”. It may be, and indeed +has been, urged that the existence of such words +as ‘seamstr<i>ess</i>’, ‘songstr<i>ess</i>’, is decisive proof +that the ending ‘ster’ of itself was not counted +sufficient to designate persons as female; for if, +it has been said, ‘seam<i>ster</i>’ and ‘song<i>ster</i>’ had +been felt to be already feminine, no one would +have ever thought of doubling on this, and adding +a second female termination; ‘seam<i>stress</i>’, ‘song<i>stress</i>’. +But all which can justly be concluded +from hence is, that when this final ‘ess’ was +added to these already feminine forms, and examples +of it will not, I think, be found till a comparatively +late period of the language, the true principle +and law of the words had been lost sight of and +forgotten<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a>. +The same may be affirmed of such +other of these feminine forms as are now applied +to men, such as ‘gamester’, ‘youngster’, ‘oldster’, +‘drugster’ (South), ‘huckster’, ‘hackster’, +(= swordsman, Milton, prose), ‘teamster’, +‘throw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>ster’, +‘rhymester’, ‘punster’ (<i>Spectator</i>), ‘tapster’, +‘whipster’ (Shakespeare), ‘trickster’. +Either, like ‘teamster’, and ‘punster’, the +words first came into being, when the true significance +of this form was altogether +lost<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a>; or like +‘tapster’, which was female in Chaucer (“the +gay <i>tapstere</i>”), as it is still in Dutch and Frisian, +and distinguished from ‘tapper’, the <i>man</i> who +keeps the inn, or has charge of the tap, or as +‘bakester’, at this day used in Scotland for +‘baker’, as ‘dyester’ for ‘dyer’, the word +did originally belong of right and exclusively +to women; but with the gradual transfer of the +occupation to men, and an increasing forgetfulness +of what this termination implied, there +went also a transfer of the +name<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a>, +just as in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +other words, and out of the same causes, the +exact converse has found place; and ‘baker’ or +‘brewer’, not ‘bakester’ or +‘brewster’<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a>, would +be now in England applied to the woman baking +or brewing. So entirely has this power of the +language died out, that it survives more apparently +than really even in ‘spinner’ and ‘spinster’; +seeing that ‘spinster’ has obtained now quite +another meaning than that of a woman spinning, +whom, as well as the man, we should call not a +‘spinster’, but a ‘spinner’<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a>. + +<span class="sidenote"><i>Deceptive Analogies</i></span> + +It would indeed +be hard to believe, if we had not constant experience +of the fact, how soon and how easily the true +law and significance of some form, which has +never ceased to be in everybody’s mouth, may +yet be lost sight of by all. No more curious +chapter in the history of language could be +written than one which should trace the violations +of analogy, the transgressions of the most primary +laws of a language, which follow hereupon; +the plurals like ‘welkin’ +(= wolken, the clouds)<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a>, +‘chicken’<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a>, +which are dealt with as +singulars,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +the singulars, like ‘riches’ +(richesse)<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a>, ‘pease’ +(pisum, pois)<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a>, +‘alms’, ‘eaves’<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a>, +which are +assumed to be plurals.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Genitival Inflexion ‘-s’</i></div> + +<p>There is one example of this, familiar to us all; +probably so familiar that it would not be worth +while adverting to it, if it did not illustrate, as no +other word could, this forgetfulness which may +overtake a whole people, of the true meaning +of a grammatical form which they have never +ceased to employ. I refer to the mistaken assumption +that the ‘s’ of the genitive, as ‘the king’s +countenance’, was merely a more rapid way of +pronouncing ‘the king <i>his</i> countenance’, and +that the final ‘s’ in ‘king’s’ was in fact an +elided ‘his’. This explanation for a long time +prevailed almost universally; I believe there +are many who accept it still. It was in vain +that here and there a deeper knower of our tongue +protested against this “monstrous syntax”, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>as +Ben Jonson in his <i>Grammar</i> justly calls +it<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a>. +It was in vain that Wallis, another English +scholar of the seventeenth century, pointed +out in <i>his</i> Grammar that the slightest examination +of the facts revealed the untenable +character of this explanation, seeing that we +do not merely say “the <i>king’s</i> countenance”, +but “the <i>queen’s</i> countenance”; and in this case +the final ‘s’ cannot stand for ‘his’, for “the +queen <i>his</i> countenance” cannot be intended<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a>; +we do not say merely “the <i>child’s</i> bread”, but +“the <i>children’s</i> bread”, where it is no less impossible +to resolve the phrase into “the children <i>his</i> +bread”<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a>. Despite of these protests the error +held its ground. This much indeed of a plea it +could make for itself, that such an actual employ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>ment +of ‘his’ <i>had</i> found its way into the language, +as early as the fourteenth century, and had been +in occasional, though rare use, from that time +downward<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a>. Yet this, which has only been +elicited by the researches of recent scholars, +does not in the least justify those who assumed +that in the habitual ‘s’ of the genitive were to +be found the remains of ‘his’—an error from +which the books of scholars in the seventeenth, +and in the early decades of the eighteenth, century +are not a whit clearer than those of others. Spenser, +Donne, Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, all fall into +it; I cannot say confidently whether Milton does. +Dryden more than once helps out his verse +with an additional syllable gained by its aid. +It has even forced its way into our Prayer Book +itself, where in the “Prayer for all sorts and +conditions of men”, added by Bishop Sanderson +at the last revision of the Liturgy in 1661, +we are bidden to say, “And this we beg for Jesus +Christ <i>his</i> sake”<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a>. I need hardly tell you that +this ‘s’ is in fact the one remnant of flexion +surviving in the singular number of our English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +noun substantives; it is in all the Indo-Germanic +languages the original sign of the genitive, or +at any rate the earliest of which we can take +cognizance; and just as in Latin ‘lapis’ makes +‘lapidis’ in the genitive, so ‘king’, ‘queen’, +‘child’, make severally ‘kings’, ‘queens’, +‘childs’, the comma, an apparent note of elision, +being a mere modern expedient, “a late refinement”, +as Ash calls it<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a>, to distinguish the genitive +singular from the plural cases<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Adjectives in ‘-en’</i></div> + +<p>Notice another example of this willingness to +dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the +part of the speakers of a language to reduce its +forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the +accurate communication of thought. Of our +adjectives in ‘en’, formed on substantives, and +expressing the material or substance of a thing, +some have gone, others are going, out of use; +while we content ourselves with the bare +juxtaposition of the substantive itself, as sufficiently +expressing our meaning. Thus instead of +“<i>golden</i> pin” we say “<i>gold</i> pin”; instead of +“<i>earthen</i> works” we say “<i>earth</i> works”. ‘Golden’ +and ‘earthen’, it is true, still belong to our +living speech, though mainly as part of our poetic +diction, or of the solemn and thus stereotyped +language of Scripture; but a whole company of +such words have nearly or quite disappeared; +some lately, some long ago. ‘Steelen’ and +‘flowren’ belong only to the earliest period of +the language; ‘rosen’ also went early. Chaucer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +is my latest authority for it (“<i>rosen</i> chapelet”). +‘Hairen’ is in Wiclif and in Chaucer; ‘stonen’ +in the former (John iii. 6)<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a>. ‘Silvern’ stood +originally in Wiclif’s Bible (“<i>silverne</i> housis to +Diane”, Acts xix. 24); but already in the second +recension of this was exchanged for ‘silver’; +‘hornen’, still in provincial use, he also employs, +and ‘clayen’ (Job iv. 19) no less. ‘Tinnen’ +occurs in Sylvester’s <i>Du Bartas</i>; where also +we meet with “Jove’s <i>milken</i> alley”, as a name +for the <i>Via Lactea</i>, in Bacon also not “the +<i>Milky</i>”, but “the <i>Milken</i> Way”. In the coarse +polemics of the Reformation the phrase, “<i>breaden</i> +god”, provoked by the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, +was of frequent employment, and +occurs as late as in Oldham. “<i>Mothen</i> parchments” +is in Fulke; “<i>twiggen</i> bottle” in +Shakespeare; ‘<i>yewen</i>’, or, according to earlier +spelling, “<i>ewghen</i> bow”, in Spenser; “<i>cedarn</i> +alley”, and “<i>azurn</i> sheen” are both in Milton; +“<i>boxen</i> leaves” in Dryden; “a <i>treen</i> cup” in +Jeremy Taylor; “<i>eldern</i> popguns” in Sir Thomas +Overbury; “a <i>glassen</i> breast”, in Whitlock; +“a <i>reeden</i> hat” in Coryat; ‘yarnen’ occurs in +Turberville; ‘furzen’ in Holland; ‘threaden’ +in Shakespeare; and ‘bricken’, ‘papern’ appear +in our provincial glossaries as still in use.</p> + +<p>It is true that many of these adjectives still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +hold their ground; but it is curious to note how +the roots which sustain even these are being +gradually cut away from beneath them. Thus +‘brazen’ might at first sight seem as strongly +established in the language as ever; it is far from +so being; its supports are being cut from beneath +it. Even now it only lives in a tropical and +secondary sense, as ‘a <i>brazen</i> face’; or if in a +literal, in poetic diction or in the consecrated +language of Scripture, as ‘the <i>brazen</i> serpent’; +otherwise we say ‘a <i>brass</i> farthing’, ‘a <i>brass</i> +candlestick’. It is the same with ‘oaten’, +‘birchen’, ‘beechen’, ‘strawen’, and many more, +whereof some are obsolescent, some obsolete, +the language manifestly tending now, as it has +tended for a long time past, to the getting quit +of these, and to the satisfying of itself with an +adjectival apposition of the substantive in their +stead.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Weak and Strong Præterites</i></div> + +<p>Let me illustrate by another example the way +in which a language, as it travels onward, simplifies +itself, approaches more and more to a grammatical +and logical uniformity, seeks to do the same +thing always in the same manner; where it +has two or three ways of conducting a single +operation, lets all of them go but one; and thus +becomes, no doubt, easier to be mastered, more +handy, more manageable; for its very riches +were to many an embarrassment and a perplexity; +but at the same time imposes limits and restraints +on its own freedom of action, and is in danger +of forfeiting elements of strength, variety and +beauty, which it once possessed. I refer to +the tendency of our verbs to let go their strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +præterites, and to substitute weak ones in their +room; or, where they have two or three præterites, +to retain only one of them, and that invariably +the weak one. Though many of us no doubt are +familiar with the terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ +præterites, which in all our better grammars have +put out of use the wholly misleading terms, +‘irregular’ and ‘regular’, I may perhaps as well +remind you of the exact meaning of the terms. +A strong præterite is one formed by an internal +vowel change; for instance the verb ‘to <i>drive</i>’ +forms the præterite ‘<i>drove</i>’ by an internal change +of the vowel ‘i’ into ‘o’. But why, it may be +asked, called ‘strong’? In respect of the vigour +and indwelling energy in the word, enabling it +to form its past tense from its own resources, and +with no calling in of help from without. On the +other hand ‘lift’ forms its præterite ‘lift<i>ed</i>’, +not by any internal change, but by the addition +of ‘ed’; ‘grieve’ in like manner has ‘griev<i>ed</i>’. +Here are weak tenses; as strength was ascribed +to the other verbs, so weakness to these, which +can form their præterites only by external aid +and addition. You will see at once that these +strong præterites, while they witness to a vital +energy in the words which are able to put them +forth, do also, as must be allowed by all, contribute +much to the variety and charm of a +language<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> + +<p>The point, however, which I am urging now is +this,—that these are becoming fewer every day; +multitudes of them having disappeared, while +others are in the act of disappearing. Nor is +the balance redressed and compensation found +in any new creations of the kind. The power +of forming strong præterites is long ago extinct; +probably no verb which has come into the language +since the Conquest has asserted this power, while +a whole legion have let it go. For example, +‘shape’ has now a weak præterite, ‘shaped’, +it had once a strong one, ‘shope’; ‘bake’ has +now a weak præterite, ‘baked’, it had once a +strong one, ‘boke’; the præterite of ‘glide’ +is now ‘glided’, it was once ‘glode’ or ‘glid’; +‘help’ makes now ‘helped’, it made once ‘halp’ +and ‘holp’. ‘Creep’ made ‘crope’, still current +in the north of England; ‘weep’ ‘wope’; +‘yell’ ‘yoll’ (both in Chaucer); ‘seethe’ ‘soth’ +or ‘sod’ (Gen. xxv. 29); ‘sheer’ in like manner +once made ‘shore’; as ‘leap’ made ‘lope’; +‘wash’ ‘wishe’ (Chaucer); ‘snow’ ‘snew’; +‘sow’ ‘sew’; ‘delve’ ‘dalf’ and ‘dolve’; +‘sweat’ ‘swat’; ‘yield’ ‘yold’ (both in +Spenser); ‘mete’ ‘mat’ (Wiclif); ‘stretch’ +‘straught’; ‘melt’ ‘molt’; ‘wax’ ‘wex’ and +‘wox’; ‘laugh’ ‘leugh’; with others more +than can be enumerated +here<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Strong Præterites</i></div> + +<p>Observe further that where verbs have not +actually renounced their strong præterites, and +contented themselves with weak in their room, +yet, once possessing two, or, it might be three of +these strong, they now retain only one. The +others, on the principle of dismissing whatever can +be dismissed, they have let go. Thus ‘chide’ had +once ‘chid’ and ‘chode’, but though ‘chode’ +is in our Bible (Gen. xxxi. 36), it has not maintained +itself in our speech; ‘sling’ had ‘slung’ and +‘slang’ (1 Sam. xvii. 49); only ‘slung’ remains; +‘fling’ had once ‘flung’ and ‘flang’; ‘strive’ +had ‘strove’ and ‘strave’; ‘stick’ had ‘stuck’ +and ‘stack’; ‘hang’ had ‘hung’ and ‘hing’ +(Golding); ‘tread’ had ‘trod’ and ‘trad’; +‘choose’ had ‘chose’ and ‘chase’; ‘give’ +had ‘gave’ and ‘gove’; ‘lead’ had ‘led’ ‘lad’ +and ‘lode’; ‘write’ had ‘wrote’ ‘writ’ and +‘wrate’. In all these cases, and more might +easily be cited, only [of] the præterites which I +have named the first remains in use.</p> + +<p>Observe too that in every instance where a conflict +is now going on between weak and strong +forms, which shall continue, the battle is not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +the strong; on the contrary the weak is carrying +the day, is getting the better of its stronger competitor. +Thus ‘climbed’ is gaining the upper hand +of ‘clomb’, ‘swelled’ of ‘swoll’, ‘hanged’ of +‘hung’. It is not too much to anticipate that a +time will come, although it may be still far off, +when all English verbs will form their præterites +weakly; not without serious damage to the fulness +and force which in this respect the language even +now displays, and once far more eminently displayed<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Comparatives and Superlatives</i></div> + +<p>Take another proof of this tendency in our own +language to drop its forms and renounce its own +inherent powers; though here also the renunciation, +threatening one day to be complete, is only +partial at the present. I refer to the formation +of our comparatives and superlatives; and I will +ask you again to observe here that curious law +of language, namely, that wherever there are two +or more ways of attaining the same result, there +is always a disposition to drop and dismiss all of +these but one, so that the alternative or choice of +ways once existing, shall not exist any more. If +only it can attain a greater simplicity, it seems +to grudge no self-impoverishment by which this +result may be brought about. We have two ways +of forming our comparatives and superlatives, one +dwelling in the word itself, which we have inherited +from our old Gothic stock, as ‘bright’, ‘bright<i>er</i>’, +‘bright<i>est</i>’, the other supplementary to this, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +prefixing the auxiliaries ‘more’ and ‘most’. The +first, organic we might call it, the indwelling power +of the word to mark its own degrees, must needs +be esteemed the more excellent way; which yet, +already disallowed in almost all adjectives of more +than two syllables in length, is daily becoming of +narrower and more restrained application. Compare +in this matter our present with our past. +Wiclif for example forms such comparatives as +‘grievouser’, ‘gloriouser’, ‘patienter’, ‘profitabler’, +such superlatives as +‘<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘griveousest’">grievousest</ins>’, ‘famousest’; +this last occurring also in Bacon. We meet +in Tyndale, ‘excellenter’, ‘miserablest’; in +Shakespeare, ‘violentest’; in Gabriel Harvey, +‘vendiblest’, ‘substantialest’, ‘insolentest’; in +Rogers, ‘insufficienter’, ‘goldener’; in Beaumont +and Fletcher, ‘valiantest’. Milton uses ‘virtuosest’, +and in prose ‘vitiosest’, ‘elegantest’, ‘artificialest’, +‘servilest’, ‘sheepishest’, ‘resolutest’, +‘sensualest’; Fuller has ‘fertilest’; Baxter +‘tediousest’; Butler ‘preciousest’, ‘intolerablest’; +Burnet ‘copiousest’, Gray ‘impudentest’. +Of these forms, and it would be easy to adduce +almost any number, we should hardly employ any +now. In participles and adverbs in ‘ly’, these +organic comparatives and superlatives hardly +survive at all. We do not say ‘willinger’ or +‘lovinger’, and still less ‘flourishingest’, or +‘shiningest’, or ‘surmountingest’, all which +Gabriel Harvey, a foremost master of the English +of his time, employs; ‘plenteouslyer’, ‘fulliest’ +(Wiclif), ‘easiliest’ (Fuller), ‘plainliest’ (Dryden), +would be all inadmissible at present.</p> + +<p>In the manifest tendency of English at the pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>sent +moment to reduce the number of words in +which this more vigorous scheme of expressing +degrees is allowed, we must recognize an evidence +that the energy which the language had in its +youth is in some measure abating, and the stiffness +of age overtaking it. Still it is with us here +only as it is with all languages, in which at a +certain time of their life auxiliary words, leaving +the main word unaltered, are preferred to inflections +of this last. Such preference makes itself +ever more strongly felt; and, judging from analogy, +I cannot doubt that a day, however distant +now, will arrive, when the only way of forming +comparatives and superlatives in the English +language will be by prefixing ‘more’ and ‘most’; +or, if the other survive, it will be in poetry alone.</p> + +<p>It will fare not otherwise, as I am bold to predict, +with the flexional genitive, formed in ‘s’ or ‘es’ +(see <a href="#Page_161">p. 161</a>). This too will finally disappear altogether +from the language, or will survive only in poetry, +and as much an archaic form there as the ‘pictaï’ +of Virgil. A time will come when it will not any +longer be free to say, as now, either, “<i>the king’s +sons</i>”, or “<i>the sons of the king</i>”, but when the +latter will be the only admissible form. Tokens +of this are already evident. The region in which +the alternative forms are equally good is +narrowing. We should not now any more write, +“When <i>man’s son</i> shall come” (Wiclif), but “When +<i>the Son of man</i> shall come”, nor yet, “<i>The hypocrite’s +hope</i> shall perish” (Job viii. 13, Authorized +Version), but, “<i>The hope of the hypocrite</i> +shall perish”; not with Barrow, “No man can +be ignorant <i>of human life’s brevity and uncer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>tainty</i>”, +but “No man can be ignorant <i>of the +brevity and uncertainty of human life</i>”. The consummation +which I anticipate may be centuries +off, but will assuredly arrive<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lost Diminutives</i></div> + +<p>Then too diminutives are fast disappearing +from the language. If we desire to express smallness, +we prefer to do it by an auxiliary word; +thus a little fist, and not a ‘fistock’ (Golding), a +little lad, and not a ‘ladkin’, a little worm, rather +than a ‘wormling’ (Sylvester). It is true that of +diminutives very many still survive, in all our four +terminations of such, as ‘hillock’, ‘streamlet’, +‘lambkin’, ‘gosling’; but those which have +perished are many more. Where now is ‘kingling’ +(Holland), ‘whimling’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), +‘godling’, ‘loveling’, ‘dwarfling’, +‘<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘sherperdling’">shepherdling</ins>’ +(all in Sylvester), ‘chasteling’ (Bacon), +‘niceling’ (Stubbs), ‘fosterling’ (Ben Johnson), +and ‘masterling’? Where now ‘porelet’ +(= paupercula, Isai. x. 30, Vulg.), ‘bundelet’, +(both in Wiclif); ‘cushionet’ (Henry More), +‘havenet’, or little ‘haven’, ‘pistolet’, ‘bulkin’ +(Holland), and a hundred more? Even of those +which remain many are putting off, or have long +since put off, their diminutive sense; a ‘pocket’ +being no longer a <i>small</i> poke, nor a ‘latchet’ a +<i>small</i> lace, nor a ‘trumpet’ a small <i>trump</i>, as +once they were.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Thou and Thee</i></div> + +<p>Once more—in the entire dropping among the +higher classes of ‘thou’, except in poetry or in +addresses to the Deity, and as a necessary consequence, +the dropping also of the second singular of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +the verb with its strongly marked flexion, as +‘lovest’, ‘lovedst’, we have another example of a +force once existing in the language, which has been, +or is being, allowed to expire. In the seventeenth +century ‘thou’ in English, as at the present ‘du’ +in German, ‘tu’ in French, was the sign of familiarity, +whether that familiarity was of love, or of +contempt and scorn<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a>. It was not unfrequently +the latter. Thus at Sir Walter Raleigh’s trial +(1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed +him, insulted the defendant by applying to him +the term ‘thou’:—“All that Lord Cobham did +was at <i>thy</i> instigation, <i>thou</i> viper, for I <i>thou</i> thee, +<i>thou</i> traitor”. And when Sir Toby Belch in +<i>Twelfth Night</i> is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek +to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to +Viola, he suggests to him that he “taunt him +with the licence of ink; if thou <i>thou’st</i> him some +thrice, it shall not be amiss”. To keep this in +mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of +the Quakers, and give a certain dignity to it, as +once maintained, which at present it is very far +from possessing. However needless and unwise +their determination to ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ the whole +world was, yet this had a significance. It was not, +as now to us it seems, and, through the silent +changes which language has undergone, as now it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +indeed is, a gratuitous departure from the ordinary +usage of society. Right or wrong, it meant something, +and had an ethical motive: being indeed +a testimony upon their parts, however misplaced, +that they would not have high or great or rich +men’s persons in admiration; nor give the observance +to some which they withheld from others. +It was a testimony too which cost them something; +at present we can very little understand the amount +of courage which this ‘thou-ing’ and ‘thee-ing’ of +all men must have demanded on their parts, nor +yet the amount of indignation and offence which +it stirred up in them who were not aware of, or +would not allow for, the scruples which obliged +them to it<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a>. It is, however, in its other aspect that +we must chiefly regret the dying out of the use of +‘thou’—that is, as the pledge of peculiar intimacy +and special affection, as between husband and +wife, parents and children, and such other as +might be knit together by bands of more than +common affection.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gender Words</i></div> + +<p>I have preferred during this lecture to find my +theme in changes which are now going forward +in English, but I cannot finish it without drawing +one illustration from its remoter periods, and +bidding you to note a force not now waning and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +failing from it, but extinct long ago. I cannot +well pass it by; being as it is by far the boldest +step which in this direction of simplification the +English language has at any time taken. I refer to +the renouncing of the distribution of its nouns +into masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in German, +or even into masculine and feminine, as in French; +and with this, and as a necessary consequence of +this, the dropping of any flexional modification in +the adjectives connected with them. Natural <i>sex</i> +of course remains, being inherent in all language; +but grammatical <i>gender</i>, with the exception of ‘he’, +‘she’, and ‘it’, and perhaps one or two other +fragmentary instances, the language has altogether +forgone. An example will make clear the distinction +between these. Thus it is not the word +‘poetess’ which is <i>feminine</i>, but the person indicated +who is <i>female</i>. So too ‘daughter’, ‘queen’, +are in English not <i>feminine</i> nouns, but nouns +designating <i>female</i> persons. Take on the contrary +‘filia’ or ‘regina’, ‘fille’ or ‘reine’; there +you have <i>feminine</i> nouns as well as <i>female</i> persons. +I need hardly say to you that we did not inherit +this simplicity from others, but, like the Danes, in +so far as they have done the like, have made it for +ourselves. Whether we turn to the Latin, or, +which is for us more important, to the old Gothic, +we find gender; and in all daughter languages which +have descended from the Latin, in most of those +which have descended from the ancient Gothic +stock, it is fully established to this day. The +practical, business-like character of the English +mind asserted itself in the rejection of a distinction, +which in a vast proportion of words, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +is, in all which are the signs of <i>inanimate</i> objects, +and as such incapable of sex, rested upon a fiction, +and had no ground in the real nature of things. +It is only by an act and effort of the imagination +that sex, and thus gender, can be attributed to a +table, a ship, or a tree; and there are aspects, this +being one, in which the English is among the least +imaginative of all languages even while it has been +employed in some of the mightiest works of imagination +which the world has ever seen<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a>.</p> + +<p>What, it may be asked, is the meaning and explanation +of all this? It is that at certain earlier +periods of a nation’s life its genius is synthetic, +and at later becomes analytic. At earlier periods +all is by synthesis; and men love to contemplate +the thing, and the mode of the thing, together, as +a single idea, bound up in one. But a time arrives +when the intellectual obtains the upper hand of +the imaginative, when the tendency of those +that speak the language is to analyse, to distinguish +between these two, and not only to distinguish +but to divide, to have one word for the +thing itself, and another for the quality of the +thing; and this, as it would appear, is true not of +some languages only, but of all.</p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> +[Apparently a slip for ‘ebb’]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> +It is still used in prose as late as the age of Henry +VIII; see the <i>State Papers</i>, vol. viii. p. 247. It was the +latest survivor of a whole group or family of words which +continued much longer in Scotland than with us; of which +some perhaps continue there still; these are but a few of +them; ‘wanthrift’ for extravagance; ‘wanluck’, misfortune; +‘wanlust’, languor; ‘wanwit’, folly; ‘wangrace’, +wickedness; ‘wantrust’ (Chaucer), distrust, +[Also ‘wan-ton’, devoid of breeding (<i>towen</i>). Compare +German <i>wahn-sinn</i>, insanity, and <i>wahn-witz</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> +We must not suppose that this still survives in ‘<i>gir</i>falcon’; +which wholly belongs to the Latin element of +the language; being the later Latin ‘gyrofalco’, and that, +“a <i>gyrando</i>, quia diu <i>gyrando</i> acriter prædam insequitur”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> +[‘Heft’, from ‘heave’ (<i>Winter’s Tale</i>, ii. 1, 45), is +widely diffused in the Three Kingdoms and in America. +See E.D.D. <i>s.v.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> +“Some <i>hot-spurs</i> there were that gave counsel to go +against them with all their forces, and to fright and +terrify them, if they made slow haste”. (Holland’s +<i>Livy</i>, p. 922.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> +<i>State Papers</i>, vol. vi. p. 534.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> +[‘Malinger’, French <i>malingre</i> (mistakenly derived +above), stands for old French <i>mal-heingre</i> (maliciously +or falsely ill, feigning sickness), which is from Latin <i>male +aeger</i>, with an intrusive <i>n</i>—Scheler.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> +[To which the late Boer War contributed many more, +such as ‘kopje’, ‘trek’, ‘slim’, ‘veldt’, etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> +The only two writers of whom I am aware as subsequently +using this word are, both writing in Ireland and +of Irish matters, Spenser and Swift. The passages are +both quoted in Richardson’s <i>Dictionary</i>. [‘Bawn’ stands +for the Irish <i>ba-dhun</i> (not <i>bábhun</i>, as in N.E.D.), or <i>bo-dhun</i>, +literally ‘cow-fortress’, a cattle enclosure (Irish +<i>bo</i>, a cow). See P. W. Joyce, <i>Irish Names of Places</i>, +1st ser. p. 297.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> +There is an excellent account of this “refugee +French” in Weiss’ <i>History of the Protestant Refugees of +France</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> +[Thus the Shakespearian word <i>renege</i> (Latin <i>renegare</i>), +to deny (<i>Lear</i> ii, 2) still lives in the mouths of the Irish +peasantry. I have heard a farmer’s wife denounce those +who “<i>renege</i> [<i>renaig</i>] their religion”.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> +With all its severity, there is some truth in Ben +Johnson’s observation: “Spenser, in affecting the ancients, +writ no language”. In this matter, however, Ben Jonson +was at one with him; for he does not hesitate to express +his strong regret that this form has not been retained. +“The <i>persons</i> plural” he says (<i>English Grammar</i>, c. 17), +“keep the termination of the first <i>person</i> singular. In +former times, till about the reign of King Henry VIII, +they were wont to be formed by adding <i>en</i>; thus, <i>loven</i>, +<i>sayen</i>, <i>complainen</i>. But now (whatsoever is the cause) +it hath quite grown out of use, and that other so generally +prevailed, that I dare not presume to set this afoot again; +albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am persuaded that the +lack hereof, well considered, will be found a great blemish +to our tongue. For seeing <i>time</i> and <i>person</i> be as it were +the right and left hand of a verb, what can the maiming +bring else, but a lameness to the whole body”?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> +[The two words are often popularly confounded. +When a good woman said “I’m <i>afeerd</i>”, Mr. Pickwick +exclaimed “<i>Afraid</i>”! (<i>Pickwick Papers</i>, ch. v.). Chaucer, +instructively, uses both in the one sentence, “This wyf +was not <i>affered</i> ne <i>affrayed</i>” (<i>Shipman’s Tale</i>, l. 400).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> +Génin (<i>Récréations Philologiques</i>, vol. i. p. 71) says to +the same effect: “Il n’y a guères de faute de Français, je +dis faute générale, accréditée, qui n’ait sa raison d’être, +et ne pût au besoin produire ses lettres de noblesse; et +souvent mieux en règle que celles des locutions qui ont +usurpé leur place au soleil”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> +A single proof may in each case suffice:</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Our wills and fates do so <i>contráry</i> +<ins class="correction" title="period (full stop) missing in original">run”.</ins>—<i>Shakespeare.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Ne let <i>mischiévous</i> witches with their +charms”.—<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Spenser,’"><i>Spenser.</i></ins><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“O argument <i>blasphémous</i>, false and proud”.—<i>Milton.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>[These archaisms are still current in Ireland.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> +I cannot doubt that this form which our country +people in Hampshire, as in many other parts, always +employ, either retains the original pronunciation, our +received one being a modern corruption; or else, as is +more probable, that <i>we</i> have made a confusion between +two originally different words, from which they have +kept clear. Thus in Howell’s <i>Vocabulary</i>, 1659, and in +Cotgrave’s <i>French and English Dictionary</i> both words +occur: “nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon’s repast”, +(cf. <i>Hudibras</i>, i. 1, 346: “They took their breakfasts or +their <i>nuncheons</i>”), and “lunchion, a big piece” i.e. of +bread; for both give the old French ‘caribot’, which has +this meaning, as the equivalent of ‘luncheon’. It is +clear that in this sense of lump or ‘big piece’ Gay uses +‘luncheon’:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“When hungry thou stood’st staring like an oaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sliced the <i>luncheon</i> from the barley loaf”;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and Miss Baker in her <i>Northamptonshire Glossary</i> explains +‘lunch’ as “a large lump of bread, or other edible; ‘He +helped himself to a good <i>lunch</i> of cake’”. We may note +further that this ‘nuntion’ may possibly put us on the +right track for arriving at the etymology of the word. +Richardson has called attention to the fact that it is spelt +“noon-shun” in Browne’s <i>Pastorals</i>, which must at least +suggest as possible and plausible that the ‘nuntion’ +was originally applied to the labourer’s slight meal, to +which he withdrew for the <i>shunning</i> of the heat of the +middle <i>noon</i>: especially when in Lancashire we find a +word of similar formation, ‘noon-scape’, and in Norfolk +‘noon-miss’, for the time when labourers rest after +dinner. [It really stands for the older English <i>none-schenche</i>, +i.e. ‘noon-skink’ or noon-drink (see Skeat, +<i>Etym. Dict.</i>, <i>s.v.</i>), correlative to ‘noon-meat’ or ‘nam-met’.] +It is at any rate certain that the dignity to which +‘lunch’ or ‘luncheon’ has now arrived, as when we +read in the newspapers of a “magnificent <i>luncheon</i>”, is +altogether modern; the word belonged a century ago to +rustic life, and in literature had not travelled beyond +the “hobnailed pastorals” which professed to describe +that life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> +See it so written, Holland’s <i>Pliny</i>, vol. ii. p. 428, +and often.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> +As a proof of the excellent service which an accurate +acquaintance with provincial usages may render in the +investigation of the innumerable perplexing phenomena +of the English language, I would refer to the admirable +article <i>On English Pronouns Personal</i> in <i>Transactions +of the Philological Society</i>, vol. i. p. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> +[We now have the good fortune to possess a complete +collection of this valuable class of words in the splendid +“English Dialect Dictionary”, edited by Professor +Joseph Wright of Oxford, which is an essential supplement +to all existing dictionaries of our language.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> +This last very curious usage, which served as a kind +of stepping-stone to ‘its’, and of which another example +occurs in the Geneva Version (Acts xii. 10), and three or +four in Shakespeare, has been abundantly illustrated by +those who have lately written on the early history of the +word ‘its’; thus see Craik, <i>On the English of Shakespeare</i>, +p. 91; Marsh, <i>Manual of the English Language</i> (Eng. Edit.), +p. 278; <i>Transactions of the Philological Society</i>, vol. 1. +p. 280; and my book <i>On the Authorized Version of the +New Testament</i>, p. 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> +Thus Fuller (<i>Pisgah Sight of Palestine</i>, vol. ii. p. +190): “Sure I am this city [the New Jerusalem] as presented +by the prophet, was fairer, finer, <i>slicker</i>, smoother, +more exact, than any fabric the earth afforded”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> +[In the United States ‘plunder’ is used for personal +effects, baggage and luggage (Webster). This is not noticed +in the E.D.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> +[But we have acquired, in some quarters, the abomination +‘an invite’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> +How many words modern French has lost which are +most vigorous and admirable, the absence of which can +only now be supplied by a circumlocution or by some less +excellent word—‘Oseur’, ‘affranchisseur’ (Amyot), ‘mépriseur’, +‘murmurateur’, ‘blandisseur’ (Bossuet), ‘abuseur’ +(Rabelais), ‘désabusement’, ‘rancœur’, are all +obsolete at the present. So ‘désaimer’, to cease to love +(‘disamare’ in Italian), ‘guirlander’, ‘stériliser’, ‘blandissant’, +‘ordonnément’ (Montaigne), with innumerable +others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> +[It has now attained a fair currency.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> +[‘Gainly’ is still used by nineteenth century writers, +1855-86; see N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> +[‘Dehort’ has been used in modern times by Southey +(<i>Letters</i>, 1825, iii, 462), and Cheyne (<i>Isaiah, introd.</i> 1882, +xx.)—N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> +[Tennyson has endeavoured to resuscitate the word—“<i>Rathe</i> +she rose”—<i>Lancelot and Elaine</i>—but with no +great success.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> +For other passages in which ‘rathest’ occurs, see +the <i>State Papers</i>, vol. ii. pp. 92, 170.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> +[‘Buxom’ for old English <i>buc-sum</i> or +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘bu h-sum’"><i>buch-sum</i></ins>, i.e. +‘bow-some’, yielding, compliant, obedient. “Sara was +<i>buxom</i> to Abraham”, 1 Pet. iii, 6 (xiv. Cent. Version, ed. +Pawes, p. 216).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> +[‘Lissome’ for <i>lithe-some</i>, like Wessex <i>blissom</i> for +<i>blithe-some</i>. Tennyson has “as <i>lissome</i> as a hazel wand”—<i>The +Brook</i>, l. 70.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> +Jamieson’s <i>Dictionary</i> gives a large number of words +with this termination which I should suppose were always +peculiar to Scotland, as ‘bangsome’, i.e. quarrelsome, +‘freaksome’, ‘drysome’, ‘grousome’ (the German +‘grausam’) [Now in common use as ‘gruesome’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> +[A list of some of these reduplicated words was given +by Dr. Booth in his “Analytical Dictionary of the English +Language”, 1835; but a full collection of nearly six +hundred was published by Mr. H. B. Wheatley in the +<i>Transactions of the Philological Society</i> for 1865.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> +Many languages have groups of words formed upon +the same scheme, although, singularly enough, they are +altogether absent from the Anglo-Saxon. (J. Grimm, +<i>Deutsche Gramm.</i>, vol. ii. p. 976). The Spaniards have +a great many very expressive words of this formation. +Thus with allusion to the great struggle in which Christian +Spain was engaged for so many centuries, a vaunting +braggart is a ‘matamoros’, a ‘slaymoor’; he is a ‘matasiete’, +a ‘slayseven’; a ‘perdonavidas’, a ‘sparelives’. +Others may be added to these, as ‘azotacalles’, ‘picapleytos’, +‘saltaparedes’, ‘rompeesquinas’, ‘ganapan’, +‘cascatreguas’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> +[This stands for ‘peak-goose’ (<i>peek goos</i> in Ascham, +<i>Scholemaster</i>, 1570, p. 54, ed. Arber), a <i>goose</i> that <i>peaks</i> +or pines, used for a sickly, delicate person, and a simpleton. +In Chapman, Cotgrave and others it appears as ‘pea-goose’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> +The mistake is far earlier; long before Cowper wrote +the sound suggested first this sense, and then this spelling. +Thus Stanihurst, <i>Description of Ireland</i>, p. 28: “They +are taken for no better than <i>rakehels</i>, or <i>the devil’s black +guard</i>”; and often elsewhere.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> +[i.e. in Joshua Sylvester’s translation of “Du Bartas, +his Diuine Weekes and Workes”, 1621.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> +As not, however, turning on a <i>very</i> coarse matter, +and illustrating the subject with infinite wit and humour, +I might refer the Spanish scholar to the discussion between +Don Quixote and his squire on the dismissal of +‘regoldar’, from the language of good society, and the +substitution of ‘erutar’ in its room (<i>Don Quixote</i>, 4. 7. +43). In a letter of Cicero to Pætus (<i>Fam.</i> ix. 22) there +is a subtle and interesting disquisition on forbidden words, +and their philosophy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> +<i>Literature of Greece</i>, p. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> +[Notwithstanding the analogous instance of ‘abbess’ +for ‘abbatess’ this account of ‘lass’ must be abandoned. +It is the old English <i>lasce</i> (akin to Swedish <i>lösk</i>), meaning +(1) one free or disengaged, (2) an unmarried girl (N.E.D.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> +In Cotgrave’s <i>Dictionary</i> I find ‘praiseress’, ‘commendress’, +‘fluteress’, ‘possesseress’, ‘loveress’, but +have never met them in use.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> +On this termination see J. Grimm, <i>Deutsche Gramm.</i>, +vol. ii. p. 134; vol. iii. p. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> +[<i>The Knightes Tale</i>, ed. Skeat, l. 2017.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> +[Yes; so in N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> +I am indebted for these last four to a <i>Nominale</i> in +the <i>National Antiquities</i>, vol. i. p. 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> +The earliest example which Richardson gives of +‘seamstress’ is from Gay, of ‘songstress’, from Thomson. +I find however ‘sempstress’ in the translation of +Olearius’ <i>Voyages and Travels</i>, 1669, p. 43. It is quite +certain that as late as Ben Jonson, ‘seamster’ and +‘songster’ expressed the <i>female</i> seamer and singer; a +single passage from his <i>Masque of Christmas</i> is evidence +to this. One of the children of Christmas there is +“Wassel, like a neat <i>sempster</i> and <i>songster</i>; <i>her</i> page +bearing a brown bowl”. Compare a passage from +<i>Holland’s Leaguer</i>, 1632: “A <i>tyre-woman</i> of phantastical +ornaments, a <i>sempster</i> for ruffes, cuffes, smocks and +waistcoats”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> +This was about the time of Henry VIII. In proof +of the confusion which reigned on the subject in Shakespeare’s +time, see his use of ‘spinster’ as—‘spinner’, +the <i>man</i> spinning, <i>Henry VIII</i>, Act. i. Sc. 2; and I have +no doubt that it is the same in <i>Othello</i>, Act i. Sc. 1. And +a little later, in Howell’s <i>Vocabulary</i>, 1659, ‘spinner’ and +‘spinster’ are <i>both</i> referred to the male sex, and the +barbarous ‘spinstress’ invented for the female.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> +I have included ‘huckster’, as will be observed, in +this list. I certainly cannot produce any passage in +which it is employed as the <i>female</i> pedlar. We have only, +however, to keep in mind the existence of the verb ‘to +huck’, in the sense of to peddle (it is used by Bishop +Andrews), and at the same time not to let the present +spelling of ‘hawker’ mislead us, and we shall confidently +recognize ‘hucker’ (the German ‘höker’ or ‘höcker’), +in hawker, that is, the <i>man</i> who ‘hucks’, ‘hawks’, or +peddles, as in ‘huckster’ the <i>female</i> who does the same. +When therefore Howell and others employ ‘hucksteress’, +they fall into the same barbarous excess of expression, +whereof we are all guilty, when we use ‘seamstress’ and +‘songstress’.—The note stood thus in the third edition. +Since that was published, I have met in the <i>Nominale</i> +referred to p. 155, the following, “hæc auxiatrix, a +<i>hukster</i>”. [Huckster, xiii. cent. <i>huccster</i>, it may be noted +is an older word in the language than <i>hukker</i> (hucker) and +<i>to huck</i>, both first appearing in the xiv. cent. N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> +[Preserved in the surnames Baxter and Brewster. +See C. W. Bardsley, <i>English Surnames</i>, 2nd ed. 364, 379.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> +<i>Notes and Queries</i>, No. 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> +[‘Welkin’ is possibly a plural, but in Anglo-Saxon +<i>wolcen</i> is a cloud, and the plural <i>wolcnu</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> +When Wallis wrote, it was only beginning to be +forgotten that ‘chick’ was the singular, and ‘chicken’ +the plural: “<i>Sunt qui dicunt</i> in singulari ‘chicken’, et +in plurali ‘chickens’”; and even now the words are in +many country parts correctly employed. In Sussex, +a correspondent writes, they would as soon think of saying +‘oxens’ as ‘chickens’. [‘Chicken’ is properly a +singular, old English <i>cicen</i>, the <i>-en</i> being a diminutival, +not a plural, suffix (as in ‘kitten’, ‘maiden’). Thus +‘chicken’ was originally ‘a little chuck’ (or cock), out +of which ‘chick’ was afterwards developed.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> +See Chaucer’s <i>Romaunt of the Rose</i>, 1032, where +Richesse, “an high lady of great noblesse”, is one of +the persons of the allegory; and compare Rev. xviii. 17, +Authorized Version. This has so entirely escaped the +knowledge of Ben Jonson, English scholar as he was, +that in his <i>Grammar</i> he cites ‘riches’ as an example of +an English word wanting a singular.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Set shallow brooks to surging seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An orient pearl to a white <i>pease</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="citation"><i>Puttenham.</i></p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> +[‘Eaves’ (old English <i>efes</i>) from which an imaginary +singular ‘eave’ has sometimes been evolved, as when +Tennyson speaks of a ‘cottage-eave’ (<i>In Memoriam</i>, +civ.), and Cotgrave of ‘an house-eave’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> +It is curious that despite of this protest, one of his +plays has for its name, <i>Sejanus his Fall</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> +Even this does not startle Addison, or cause him any +misgiving; on the contrary he boldly asserts (<i>Spectator</i>, +No. 135), “The same single letter ‘s’ on many occasions +does the office of a whole word, and represents the ‘his’ +<i>or ‘her’</i> of our forefathers”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> +Nothing can be better than the way in which Wallis +disposes of this scheme, although less successful in showing +what this ‘s’ does mean than in showing what it cannot +mean (<i>Gramm. Ling. Anglic.</i>, c. 5); Qui autem arbitrantur +illud s, loco <i>his</i> adjunctum esse (priori scilicet parte per +aphæresim abscissâ), ideoque apostrophi notam semper vel +pingendam esse, vel saltem subintelligendam, omnino +errant. Quamvis enim non negem quin apostrophi nota +commode nonnunquam affigi possit, ut ipsius litteræ +s usus distinctius, ubi opus est, percipiatur; ita tamen +semper fieri debere, aut etiam ideo fieri quia vocem <i>his</i> +innuat, omnino nego. Adjungitur enim et fœminarum +nominibus propriis, et substantivis pluralibus, ubi vox +<i>his</i> sine solœcismo locum habere non potest: atque etiam +in possessivis <i>ours</i>, <i>yours</i>, <i>theirs</i>, <i>hers</i>, ubi vocem <i>his</i> +innui nemo somniaret.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> +See the proofs in Marsh’s <i>Manual of the English +Language</i>, English Edit., pp. 280, 293.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> +I cannot think that it would exceed the authority +of our University Presses, if this were removed from the +Prayer Books which they put forth, as certainly it is supprest +by many of the clergy in the reading. Such a liberty +they have already assumed with the Bible. In all earlier +editions of the Authorized Version it stood at 1 Kin. xv. +24: “Nevertheless <i>Asa his</i> heart was perfect with the +Lord”; it is “<i>Asa’s</i> heart” now. In the same way +“<i>Mordecai his</i> matters” (Esth. iii. 4) has been silently +changed into “<i>Mordecai’s</i> matters”; and in some modern +editions, but not in all, “<i>Holofernes his</i> head” (Judith +xiii. 9) into “<i>Holofernes’</i> head”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> +In a good note on the matter, p. 6, in the <i>Comprehensive +Grammar</i> prefixed to his <i>Dictionary</i>, London, 1775.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> +See Grimm. <i>Deut. Gramm.</i>, vol. ii. pp. 609, 944.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> +The existence of ‘stony’—‘lapidosus’, ‘steinig’, +does not make ‘stonen’—‘lapideus’, ‘steinern’, +superfluous, any more than ‘earthy’ makes ‘earthen’. +That part of the field in which the good seed withered so +quickly (Matt. xiii. 5) was ‘stony’. The vessels which +held the water that Christ turned into wine (John iii. 6) +were ‘stonen’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> +J. Grimm (<i>Deutsche Gramm.</i> vol. i, p. 1040): Dass +die starke form die ältere, kräftigere, innere; die schwache +die spätere, gehemmtere und mehr äusserliche sey, leuchtet +ein. Elsewhere, speaking generally of inflections by +internal vowel change, he characterizes them as a ‘chief +beauty’ (hauptschönheit) of the Teutonic languages. +Marsh (<i>Manual of the English Language</i>, p. 233, English +ed.) protests, though, as it seems to me, on no sufficient +grounds, against these terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’, as +themselves fanciful and inappropriate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> +The entire ignorance as to the past historic evolution +of the language, with which some have undertaken to +write about it, is curious. Thus the author of <i>Observations +upon the English Language</i>, without date, but published +about 1730, treats all these strong præterites as of +recent introduction, counting ‘knew’ to have lately +expelled ‘knowed’, ‘rose’ to have acted the same part +toward ‘rised’, and of course esteeming them as so many +barbarous violations of the laws of the language; and +concluding with the warning that “great care must be +taken to prevent their increase”!!—p. 24. Cobbett +does not fall into this absurdity, yet proposes in his +<i>English Grammar</i>, that they should all be abolished as +inconvenient. [Now many others are rapidly becoming +obsolescent. How seldom do we hear ‘drank’, ‘shrank’, +‘sprang’, ‘stank’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> +J. Grimm (<i>Deutsche Gramm.</i> vol. i. p. 839): “Die +starke flexion stufenweise versinkt und ausstirbt, die +schwache aber um sich greift”. Cf. i. 994, 1040; ii. 5; +iv. 509.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> +[See also J. C. Hare, <i>Two Essays in Eng. Philology</i> +i. 47-56.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> +Thus Wallis (<i>Gramm. Ling. Anglic.</i>, 1654): Singulari +numero siquis alium compellet, vel dedignantis illud +esse solet, vel familiariter blandientis. [For a good discussion +of the old use of ‘thou’, see the Hares, <i>Guesses at +Truth</i>, 1847, pp. 169-90. Even at the present day a +Wessex matron has been known to resent the too familiar +address of an inferior with the words, “Who bist thou +<i>a-theein’</i> of”? (<i>The Spectator</i>, 1904, Sept. 3, p. 319).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> +What the actual position of the compellation ‘thou’ +was at that time, we may perhaps best learn from this +passage in Fuller’s <i>Church History, Dedication of Book</i> +vii.: “In opposition whereunto [i.e. to the Quaker +usage] we maintain that <i>thou</i> from superiors to inferiors +is proper, as a sign of command; from equals to equals is +passable, as a note of familiarity; but from inferiors to +superiors, if proceeding from ignorance, hath a smack of +clownishness; if from affectation, a tone of contempt”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> +See on this subject of the dropping of grammatical +gender, Pott, <i>Etymologische Forschungen</i>, part 2, pp. 404, +<i>sqq.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p></div> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS</h3> + + +<p>I propose, according to the plan sketched out +in my first lecture, to take for my subject in the +present those changes which in the course of time +have found place, or now are finding place, in +the meaning of many among our English words; +so that, whether we are aware of it or not, we +employ them at this day in senses very different +from those in which our forefathers employed +them of old. You observe that it is not <i>obsolete</i> +words, words quite fallen out of present use, +which I propose to consider; but such, rather, as +are still on the lips of men, but with meanings +more or less removed from those which once they +possessed. My subject is far more practical, +has far more to do with your actual life, than if +I had taken obsolete words, and considered them. +These last have an interest indeed, but it is an +interest of an antiquarian character. They constituted +a part of the intellectual money with +which our ancestors carried on the business of +their life; but now they are rather medals for the +cabinets and collections of the curious than current +money for the needs and pleasures of all. +Their wings are clipped, so that they are “<i>winged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></i> +words” no more; the spark of thought or feeling, +kindling from mind to mind, no longer runs along +them, as along the electric wires of the soul.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Obsolete Words</i></div> + +<p>And then, besides this, there is little or no danger +that any should be misled by them. A reader +lights for the first time on one of these obsolete +English words, as ‘frampold’, or ‘garboil’, or +‘brangle’<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a>; he is at once conscious of his ignorance; +he has recourse to a glossary, of if he guesses +from the context at the word’s signification, still +his guess is as a guess to him, and no more. But +words that have changed their meaning have +often a deceivableness about them; a reader not +once doubts but that he knows their intention, has +no misgiving but that they possess for him the +same force which they possessed for their writer, +and conveyed to <i>his</i> contemporaries, when indeed +it is quite otherwise. The old life has gone out +of them and a new life entered in.</p> + +<p>Thus, for example, a reader of our day lights +upon such a passage as the following (it is from +the <i>Preface</i> to Howell’s <i>Lexicon</i>, 1660): “Though +the root of the English language be <i>Dutch</i><a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>, yet +it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards +on a French stock”. He may know that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +Dutch is a sister language or dialect to our own; +but this that it is the mother or root of it will +certainly perplex him, and he will hardly know +what to make of the assertion; perhaps he ascribes +it to an error in his author, who is thereby unduly +lowered in his esteem. But presently in the +course of his reading he meets with the following +statement, this time in Fuller’s <i>Holy War</i>, being +a history of the Crusades: “The French, <i>Dutch</i>, +Italian, and English were the four elemental +nations, whereof this army [of the Crusaders] was +compounded”. If the student has sufficient +historical knowledge to know that in the time of +the Crusades there were no Dutch in our use of +the word, this statement would merely startle +him; and probably before he had finished the +chapter, having his attention once aroused, he +would perceive that Fuller with the writers of his +time used ‘Dutch’ for German; even as it was +constantly so used up to the end of the seventeenth +century; and as the Americans use it to this +present day; what we call now a Dutchman +being then a Hollander. But a young student +might very possibly want that amount of previous +knowledge, which should cause him to receive +this announcement with misgiving and surprise; +and thus he might carry away altogether a wrong +impression, and rise from a perusal of the book, +persuaded that the Dutch, as we call them, played +an important part in the Crusades, while the +Germans took little or no part in them at all.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Miscreant</i></div> + +<p>And as it is here with an historic fact, so still +more often will it happen with the subtler changes +which words have undergone. Out of this it +will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +continually happen that they convey now much +more blame and condemnation, or convey now +much less, than formerly they did; or of a different +kind; and a reader not aware of the altered value +which they now possess, may be in continual +danger of misreading his author, of misunderstanding +his intentions, while he has no doubt +whatever that he perfectly apprehends and takes +it in. Thus when Shakespeare in +<i><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘I’">1</ins> Henry VI</i> +makes the gallant York address Joan of Arc as +a ‘miscreant’, how coarse a piece of invective +this sounds; how unlike what the chivalrous +soldier would have uttered; or what one might +have supposed Shakespeare, even with his unworthy +estimate of the holy warrior Maid, would +have put into his mouth. But a ‘miscreant’ +in Shakespeare’s time had nothing of the meaning +which now it has. It was simply, in agreement +with its etymology, a misbeliever, one who did +not believe rightly the Articles of the Catholic +Faith. And I need not remind you that this +was the constant charge which the English brought +against Joan,—namely, that she was a dealer +in hidden magical arts, a witch, and as such had +fallen from the faith. On this plea they burnt +her, and it is this which York means when he +calls her a ‘miscreant’, and not what we should +intend by the name.</p> + +<p>In reading of poetry above all what beauties +are often missed, what forces lost, through this +assumption that the present of a word is always +equivalent to its past. How often the poet is +wronged in our estimation; that seeming to us +now flat and pointless, which at once would +lose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +this character, did we know how to read into some +word the emphasis which it once had, but which +now has departed from it. For example, Milton +ascribes in <i>Comus</i> the “<i>tinsel-slippered</i> feet” to +Thetis, the goddess of the sea. How comparatively +poor an epithet this ‘tinsel-slippered’ +sounds for those who know of ‘tinsel’ only in its +modern acceptation of mean and tawdry finery, +affecting a splendour which it does not really possess. +But learn its earlier use by learning its derivation, +bring it back to the French ‘étincelle’, and the +Latin ‘scintillula’; see in it, as Milton and the +writers of his time saw, ‘the sparkling’, and how +exquisitely beautiful a title does this become applied +to a goddess of the sea; how vividly does it call up +before our mind’s eye the quick glitter and sparkle +of the waves under the light of sun or +moon<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a>. +It is Homer’s ‘silver-footed’ (<span title="Greek: argyropeza">ἀργυρόπεζα</span>), not +servilely transferred, but reproduced and made +his own by the English poet, dealing as one +great poet will do with another; who will not +disdain to borrow, but to what he borrows will +add often a further grace of his own.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Influence</i>’</div> + +<p>Or, again, do we keep in mind, or are we even +aware, that whenever the word ‘influence’ occurs +in our English poetry, down to comparatively a +modern date, there is always more or less remote +allusions to invisible illapses of power, skyey, +planetary effects, supposed to be exercised by the +heavenly luminaries upon the lives of +men<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a>? +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +How many a passage starts into new life and +beauty and fulness of allusion, when this is present +with us; even Milton’s</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">“store of ladies, whose bright eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rain <i>influence</i>”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as spectators of the tournament, gain something, +when we regard them—and using this language, +he intended we should—as the luminaries of this +lower sphere, shedding by their propitious presence +strength and valour into the hearts of their +knights.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Baffle</i>’</div> + +<p>The word even in its present acceptation may +yield, as here, a convenient and even a correct +sense; we may fall into no positive misapprehension +about it; and still, through ignorance of its +past history and of the force which it once possessed, +we may miss a great part of its significance. +We are not <i>beside</i> the meaning of our author, +but we are <i>short</i> of it. Thus in Beaumont and +Fletcher’s <i>King and no King</i>, (Act iii. Sc. 2,) a +cowardly braggart of a soldier describes the treatment +he experienced, when like Parolles he was at +length found out, and stripped of his lion’s skin:—“They +hung me up by the heels and beat me with +hazel sticks, ... that the whole kingdom took +notice of me for a <i>baffled</i>, whipped fellow”. The +word to which I wish here to call your attention +is ‘baffled’. Were you reading this passage, there +would probably be nothing here to cause you to +pause; you would attach to ‘baffled’ a sense +which sorts very well with the context—“hung up +by the heels and beaten, all his schemes of being +thought much of were <i>baffled</i> and defeated”. But +“baffled” implies far more than this; it contains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +allusion to a custom in the days of chivalry, +according to which a perjured or recreant knight +was either in person, or more commonly in effigy, +hung up by the heels, his scutcheon blotted, his +spear broken, and he himself or his effigy made +the mark and subject of all kinds of indignities; +such a one being said to be ‘baffled’<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a>. Twice +in Spenser recreant knights are so dealt with. I +can only quote a portion of the shorter passage, +in which this infamous punishment is described:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And after all, for greater infamy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He by the heels him hung upon a tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And <i>baffled</i> so, that all which passéd by<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The picture of his punishment might +see”<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Probably when Beaumont and Fletcher wrote, men +were not so remote from the days of chivalry, +or at any rate from the literature of chivalry, but +that this custom was still fresh in their minds. +How much more to them than to us, so long as +we are ignorant of the same, would those words +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘justI’">I just</ins> +quoted have conveyed?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Religion</i>’</div> + +<p>There are several places in the Authorized Version +of Scripture where those who are not aware +of the changes which have taken place during the +last two hundred and fifty years in our language, +can hardly fail of being to a certain extent misled +as to the intention of our Translators; or, if they +are better acquainted with Greek than with early +English, will be tempted to ascribe to them, though +unjustly, an inexact rendering of the original. +Thus the altered meaning of a word involves a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +serious misunderstanding in that well known +statement of St. James, “Pure <i>religion</i> and undefiled +before God and the Father is this, to visit +the fatherless and widows in their affliction”. +“There”, exclaims one who wishes to set up St. +James against St. Paul, that so he may escape +the necessity of obeying either, “listen to what +St. James says; there is nothing mystical in what +he requires; instead of harping on faith as a condition +necessary to salvation, he makes all religion +to consist in practical deeds of kindness from one +to another”. But let us pause for a moment. +Did ‘religion’, when our translation was made, +mean godliness? did it mean the <i>sum total</i> of our +duties towards God? for, of course, no one would +deny that deeds of charity are a necessary part of +our Christian duty, an evidence of the faith which +is in us. There is abundant evidence to show +that ‘religion’ did not mean this; that, like the +Greek <span title="Greek: thrêskeia">θρησκεία</span>, +for which it here stands, like the +Latin ‘religio’, it meant the outward forms and +embodiments in which the inward principle of +piety arrayed itself, the <i>external service</i> of God; +and St. James is urging upon those to whom he +is writing something of this kind: “Instead of +the ceremonial services of the Jews, which consisted +in divers washings and in other elements of +this world, let our service, our +<span title="Greek: thrêskeia">θρησκεία</span>, take a +nobler shape, let it consist in deeds of pity and +of love”—and it was this which our Translators +intended, when they used ‘religion’ here and +‘religious’ in the verse preceding. How little +‘religion’ once meant godliness, how predominantly +it was used for the <i>outward</i> service of God, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +plain from many passages in our <i>Homilies</i>, and +from other contemporary literature.</p> + +<p>Again, there are words in our Liturgy which +I have no doubt are commonly misunderstood. +The mistake involves no serious error; yet still in +our own language, and in words which we have +constantly in our mouths, and at most solemn +times, it is certainly better to be right than wrong. +In the Litany we pray God that it would please +Him, “to give and preserve to our use the <i>kindly</i> +fruits of the earth”. What meaning do we +attach to this epithet, “the <i>kindly</i> fruits of the +earth”? Probably we understand by it those +fruits in which the <i>kindness</i> of God or of nature +towards us finds its expression. This is no unworthy +explanation, but still it is not the right +one. The “<i>kindly</i> fruits” are the “<i>natural</i> +fruits”, those which the earth according to its +<i>kind</i> should naturally bring forth, which it is appointed +to produce. To show you how little +‘kindly’ meant once benignant, as it means now, +I will instance an employment of it from Sir Thomas +More’s <i>Life of Richard the Third</i>. He tells us that +Richard calculated by murdering his two nephews +in the Tower to make himself accounted “a +<i>kindly</i> king”—not certainly a ‘kindly’ one in +our present usage of the word<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a>; but, having put +them out of the way, that he should then be lineal +heir of the Crown, and should thus be reckoned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +as king <i>by kind</i> or natural descent; and such was +of old the constant use of the word.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Worship</i>’</div> + +<p>A phrase in one of our occasional Services +“with my body I thee <i>worship</i>”, has sometimes +offended those who are unacquainted with the +early use of English words, and thus with the +intention of the actual framers of that Service. +Clearly in our modern sense of ‘worship’, this +language would be unjustifiable. But ‘worship’ +or ‘worthship’ meant ‘honour’ in our early +English, and ‘to worship’ to honour, this meaning +of ‘worship’ still very harmlessly surviving in the +title of “your worship”, addressed to the magistrate +on the bench. So little was it restrained of +old to the honour which man is bound to pay to +God, that it was employed by Wiclif to express +the honour which God will render to his faithful +servants and friends. Thus our Lord’s declaration +“If any man serve Me, him will my Father <i>honour</i>”, +in Wiclif’s translation reads thus, “If any man +serve Me, my Father shall <i>worship</i> him”. I do +not say that there is not sufficient reason to change +the words, “with my body I thee <i>worship</i>”, if +only there were any means of changing anything +which is now antiquated and out of date in our +services or arrangements. I think it would be +very well if they were changed, liable as they are +to misunderstanding and misconstruction now; +but still they did not mean at the first, and therefore +do not now really mean, any more than, “with +my body I thee <i>honour</i>”, and so you may reply to +any fault-finder here.</p> + +<p>Take another example of a very easy misapprehension, +although not now from Scripture or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +Prayer Book, Fuller, our Church historian, having +occasion to speak of some famous divine that was +lately dead, exclaims, “Oh the <i>painfulness</i> of his +preaching!” If we did not know the former uses +of ‘painfulness’, we might take this for an exclamation +wrung out at the recollection of the tediousness +which he inflicted on his hearers. Far from +it; the words are a record not of the <i>pain</i> which +he caused to others, but of the <i>pains</i> which he +bestowed himself: and I am persuaded, if we had +more ‘painful’ preachers in the old sense of the +word, that is, who <i>took</i> pains themselves, we should +have fewer ‘painful’ ones in the modern sense, +who <i>cause</i> pain to their hearers. So too Bishop +Grosthead is recorded as “the <i>painful</i> writer of +two hundred books”—not meaning hereby that +these books were painful in the reading, but that +he was laborious and painful in their composing.</p> + +<p>Here is another easy misapprehension. Swift +wrote a pamphlet, or, as he called it, a <i>Letter to the +Lord Treasurer</i>, with this title, “A proposal for +correcting, improving, and <i>ascertaining</i> the English +Tongue”. Who that brought a knowledge +of present English, and no more, to this passage, +would doubt that “<i>ascertaining</i> the English +Tongue” meant arriving at a certain knowledge +of what it was? Swift, however, means something +quite different from this. “<i>To ascertain</i> the English +tongue” is not with him to arrive at a subjective +certainty in our own minds of what that +tongue is, but to give an objective certainty to +that tongue itself, so that henceforth it shall +not alter nor change. For even Swift himself, +with all his masculine sense, entertained a dream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +of this kind, as is more fully declared in the work +itself<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Treacle</i>’</div> + +<p>In other places unacquaintance with the changes +in a word’s usage will not so much mislead as +leave you nearly or altogether at a loss in respect +of the intention of an author whom you may be +reading. It is evident that he has a meaning, but +what it is you are unable to divine, even though +all the words he employs are words in familiar +employment to the present day. For example, +the poet Waller is congratulating Charles the +Second on his return from exile, and is describing +the way in which all men, even those formerly +most hostile to him, were now seeking his favour, +and he writes:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To strive for grace, and expiate their sin:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All winds blow fair that did the world embroil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Your vipers treacle yield</i>, and scorpions oil”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Many a reader before now has felt, as I cannot +doubt, a moment’s perplexity at the now courtly +poet’s assertion that “<i>vipers treacle yield</i>”—who +yet has been too indolent, or who has not had the +opportunity, to search out what his meaning might +be. There is in fact allusion here to a curious +piece of legendary lore. ‘Treacle’, or ‘triacle’, +as Chaucer wrote it, was originally a Greek word, +and wrapped up in itself the once popular belief +(an anticipation, by the way, of homœopathy), that +a confection of the viper’s flesh was the most +potent antidote against the viper’s +bite<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a>. +Waller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +goes back to this the word’s old meaning, familiar +enough in his time, for Milton speaks of “the +sovran <i>treacle</i> of sound +doctrine”<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a>, while “Venice +treacle”, or “viper wine”, as it sometimes was +called, was a common name for a supposed antidote +against all poisons; and he would imply that +regicides themselves began to be loyal, vipers not +now yielding hurt any more, but rather healing +for the old hurts which they themselves had +inflicted. To trace the word down to its present +use, it may be observed that, designating first +this antidote, it then came to designate any +antidote, then any medicinal confection or sweet +syrup; and lastly that particular syrup, namely, +the sweet syrup of molasses, to which alone it is +now restricted.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Blackguard</i>’</div> + +<p>I will draw on the writings of Fuller for one +more example. In his <i>Holy War</i>, having enumerated +the rabble rout of fugitive debtors, runaway +slaves, thieves, adulterers, murderers, of men +laden for one cause or another with heaviest censures +of the Church, who swelled the ranks, and +helped to make up the army, of the Crusaders, +he exclaimed, “A lamentable case that the +devil’s <i>black guard</i> should be God’s soldiers”! +What does he mean, we may ask, by “the devil’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +<i>black guard</i>”? Nor is this a solitary mention of the +“black guard”. On the contrary, the phrase is +of very frequent recurrence in the early dramatists +and others down to the time of Dryden, +who gives as one of his stage directions in <i>Don +Sebastian</i>, “Enter the captain of the rabble, with +the <i>Black guard</i>”. What is this “black guard”? +Has it any connexion with a word of our homeliest +vernacular? We feel that probably it has so; +yet at first sight the connexion is not very apparent, +nor indeed the exact force of the phrase. +Let me trace its history. In old times, the palaces +of our kings and seats of our nobles were not so +well and completely furnished as at the present +day: and thus it was customary, when a royal +progress was made, or when the great nobility +exchanged one residence for another, that at such +a removal all kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and +even coals, should be also carried with them +where they went. Those who accompanied and +escorted these, the lowest, meanest, and dirtiest +of the retainers, were called ‘the black guard’<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a>; +then any troop or company of ragamuffins; and +lastly, when the origin of the word was lost sight +of, and it was forgotten that it properly implied +a company, a rabble rout, and not a single person, +one would compliment another, not as belonging +to, but as himself being, the ‘blackguard’.</p> + +<p>The examples which I have adduced are, I am +persuaded, sufficient to prove that it is not a use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>less +and unprofitable study, nor yet one altogether +without entertainment, to which I invite you; +that on the contrary any one who desires to read +with accuracy, and thus with advantage and +pleasure, our earlier classics, who would avoid +continual misapprehension in their +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘persual’">perusal</ins>, and +would not often fall short of, and often go astray +from, their meaning, must needs bestow some +attention on the altered significance of English +words. And if this is so, we could not more +usefully employ what remains of this present +lecture than in seeking to indicate those changes +which words most frequently undergo; and to +trace as far as we can the causes, mental and +moral, at work in the minds of men to bring these +changes about, with the good and evil out of +which they have sprung, and to which they bear +witness.</p> + +<p>For indeed these changes to which words in +the progress of time are submitted are not changes +at random, but for the most part are obedient to +certain laws, are capable of being distributed into +certain classes, being the outward transcripts and +witnesses of mental and moral processes inwardly +going forward in those who bring them about. +Many, it is true, will escape any classification of +ours, the changes which have taken place in their +meaning being, or at least seeming to us, the +result of mere caprice; and not explicable by any +principle which we can appeal to as habitually at +work in the mind. But, admitting all this, a +majority will still remain which are reducible to +some law or other, and with these we will occupy +ourselves now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Duke</i>’, ‘<i>Corpse</i>’, ‘<i>Weed</i>’</div> + +<p>And first, the meaning of a word oftentimes +is gradually narrowed. It was once as a generic +name, embracing many as yet unnamed species +within itself, which all went by its common designation. +By and bye it is found convenient that +each of these should have its own more special +sign allotted to it<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a>. It is here just as in some +newly enclosed country, where a single household +will at first loosely occupy a whole district; while, +as cultivation proceeds, this district is gradually +parcelled out among a dozen or twenty, and under +more accurate culture employs and sustains them +all. Thus, for example, all food was once called +‘meat’; it is so in our Bible, and ‘horse-meat’ for +fodder is still no unusual phrase; yet ‘meat’ is +now a name given only to flesh. Any little book +or writing was a ‘libel’ once; now only such a +one as is scurrilous and injurious. Any leader +was a ‘duke’ (dux); thus “<i>duke</i> Hannibal” (Sir +Thomas Eylot), “<i>duke</i> Brennus” (Holland), +“<i>duke</i> Theseus” (Shakespeare), “<i>duke</i> Amalek”, +with other ‘dukes’ (Gen. xxxvi.). Any journey, +by land as much as by sea, was a +<ins class="correction" title="comma instead of period (full stop) in original">‘voyage’.</ins> +‘Fairy’ was not a name restricted, as now, to the +<i>Gothic</i> mythology; thus “the <i>fairy</i> Egeria” (Sir +J. Harrington). A ‘corpse’ might be quite as well +living as dead<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a>. ‘Weeds’ were whatever covered +the earth or the person; while now as respects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +the earth, those only are ‘weeds’ which are +noxious, or at least self-sown; as regards the +person, we speak of no other ‘weeds’ but the +widow’s<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>. In each of these cases, the same contraction +of meaning, the separating off and assigning +to other words of large portions of this, has +found place. ‘To starve’ (the German ‘sterben’, +and generally spelt ‘sterve’ up to the middle of +the seventeenth century), meant once to die any +manner of death; thus Chaucer says, Christ “<i>sterved</i> +upon the cross for our redemption”; it now is +restricted to the dying by cold or by hunger. +Words not a few were once applied to both sexes +alike, which are now restricted to the female. +It is so even with ‘girl’, which was once a young +person of either sex<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a>; while other words in this +list, such for instance as ‘hoyden’<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> (Milton, prose), +‘shrew’ (Chaucer), ‘coquet’ (Phillips, <i>New World +of Words</i>), ‘witch’ (Wiclif), ‘termagant’ (Bale), +‘scold’, ‘jade’, ‘slut’ (Gower), must be regarded +in their present exclusive appropriation to the +female sex as evidences of men’s rudeness, and +not of women’s deserts.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words used more accurately</i></div> + +<p>The necessities of an advancing civilization<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +demand a greater precision and accuracy in the +use of words having to do with weight, measure, +number, size. Almost all such words as ‘acre’, +‘furlong’, ‘yard’, ‘gallon’, ‘peck’, were once of a +vague and unsettled use, and only at a later day, +and in obedience to the requirements of commerce +and social life, exact measures and designations. +Thus every field was once an ‘acre’; and this +remains so still with the German ‘acker’, and in +our “God’s acre”, as a name for a churchyard<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>; +it was not till about the reign of Edward the First +that ‘acre’ was commonly restricted to a determined +measure and portion of land. Here and +there even now a glebeland will be called “the +acre”; and this, even while it contains not one +but many of our measured acres. A ‘furlong’ +was a ‘furrowlong’, or length of a furrow<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a>. +Any pole was a ‘yard’, and this vaguer use survives +in ‘sail<i>yard</i>’, ‘hal<i>yard</i>’, and in other sea-terms. +Every pitcher was a ‘galon’ (Mark xiv. 13, +Wiclif), while a ‘peck’ was no more than a ‘poke’ +or bag<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a>. And the same has no doubt taken place +in all other languages. I will only remind you +how the Greek ‘drachm’ was at first a handful +(<span title="Greek: drachmê">δραχμή</span> = ‘manipulus’, from +<span title="Greek: drassô">δράσσω</span>, to +grasp);<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +its later word for ‘ten thousand’ +(<span title="Greek: myrioi">μύριοι</span>) implied +in Homer’s time any great multitude; and with +the accent on a different syllable always retained +this meaning.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words used less accurately</i></div> + +<p>Opposite to this is a counter-process by which +words of narrower intention gradually enlarge the +domain of their meaning, becoming capable of +much wider application than any which once they +admitted. Instances in this kind are fewer than +in that which we have just been considering. The +main stream and course of human thoughts and +human discourse tends the other way, to discerning, +distinguishing, dividing; and then to the permanent +fixing of the distinctions gained, by the +aid of designations which shall keep apart for ever +in word that which has been once severed and sundered +in thought. Nor is it hard to perceive why +this process should be the more frequent. Men +are first struck with the likenesses between those +things which are presented to them, with their +points of resemblance; on the strength of which +they bracket them under a common term. Further +acquaintance reveals their points of unlikeness, +the real dissimilarities which lurk under superficial +resemblances, the need therefore of a different +notation for objects which are essentially different. +It is comparatively much rarer to discover real +likeness under what at first appeared as unlikeness; +and usually when a word moves forward, and from +a specialty indicates now a generality, it is not in +obedience to any such discovery of the true inner +likeness of things,—the steps of successful generalizations +being marked and secured in other +ways. But this widening of a word’s meaning is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +too often a result of those elements of disorganization +and decay which are at work in a language. +Men forget a word’s history and etymology; its +distinctive features are obliterated for them, with +all which attached it to some thought or fact which +by right was its own. Appropriated and restricted +once to some striking specialty which it vigorously +set out, it can now be used in a wider, vaguer, +more unsettled way. It can be employed twenty +times for once when it would have been possible +formerly to employ it. Yet this is not gain, but +pure loss. It has lost its place in the disciplined +<i>army</i> of words, and become one of a loose and +disorderly <i>mob</i>.</p> + +<p>Let me instance the word ‘preposterous’. It is +now no longer of any practical service at all in the +language, being merely an ungraceful and slipshod +synonym for absurd. But restore and confine it to +its old use; let it designate that one peculiar +branch of absurdity which it designated once, +namely the reversing of the true order of things, +the putting of the last first, and, by consequence, of +the first last, and of what excellent service the +word would be capable. Thus it is ‘preposterous’, +in the most accurate use of the word, to put the cart +before the horse, to expect wages before the work is +done, to hang a man first and try him afterwards; +and in this strict and accurate sense the word was +always used by our elder writers<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>In like manner ‘to prevaricate’ was never +employed by good writers of the seventeenth +century without nearer or more remote allusion +to the uses of the word in the Roman law courts, +where a ‘prævaricator’ (properly a straddler with +distorted legs) did not mean generally and loosely, +as now with us, one who shuffles, quibbles, and +evades; but one who plays false in a particular +manner; who, undertaking, or being by his office +bound, to prosecute a charge, is in secret collusion +with the opposite party; and, betraying the cause +which he affects to support, so manages the accusation +as to obtain not the condemnation, but the +acquittal, of the accused; a “feint pleader”, as, +I think, in our old law language he would have +been termed. How much force would the keeping +of this in mind add to many passages in our +elder divines.</p> + +<p>Or take ‘equivocal’, ‘equivocate’, ‘equivocation’. +These words, which belonged at first to +logic, have slipped down into common use, and in +so doing have lost all the precision of their first +employment. ‘Equivocation’ is now almost any +such dealing in ambiguous words with the intention +of deceiving, as falls short of an actual lie; +but according to its etymology and in its primary +use ‘equivocation’, this fruitful mother of so much +error, is the calling by the same name, of things +essentially diverse, hiding intentionally or otherwise +a real difference under a verbal +resemblance<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +Nor let it be urged in defence of its present looser +use, that only so could it have served the needs +of our ordinary conversation; on the contrary, +had it retained its first use, how serviceable an +implement of thought would it have been in detecting +our own fallacies, or those of others; all which +it can be now no longer.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Idea</i>’</div> + +<p>What now is ‘idea’ for us? How infinite the +fall of this word since the time when Milton sang +of the Creator contemplating his newly created +world,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">“how it showed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Answering his great <i>idea</i>”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to its present use when this person “has an <i>idea</i> +that the train has started”, and the other “had +no <i>idea</i> that the dinner would be so bad”. But +this word ‘idea’ is perhaps the worst case in the +English language. Matters have not mended +here since the times of Dr. Johnson; of whom +Boswell tells us: “He was particularly indignant +against the almost universal use of the word <i>idea</i> +in the sense of <i>notion</i> or <i>opinion</i>, when it is clear +that <i>idea</i> can only signify something of which an +image can be formed in the mind”. There is +perhaps no word in the whole compass of English, +so seldom used with any tolerable correctness; +in none is the distance so immense between the +frequent sublimity of the word in its proper use, +and the triviality of it in its slovenly and its +popular.</p> + +<p>This tendency in words to lose the sharp, rigidly +defined outline of meaning which they once possessed, +to become of wide, vague, loose application +instead of fixed, definite, and precise, to mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +almost anything, and so really to mean nothing, +is among the most fatally effectual which are at +work for the final ruin of a language, and, I do not +fear to add, for the demoralization of those that +speak it. It is one against which we shall all do +well to watch; for there is none of us who cannot +do something in keeping words close to their own +proper meaning, and in resisting their encroachment +on the domain of others.</p> + +<p>The causes which bring this mischief about are +not hard to trace. We all know that when a +piece of our silver money has long fulfilled its +part, as “pale and common drudge ’tween man and +man”, whatever it had at first of sharper outline +and livelier impress is in the end wholly obliterated +from it. So it is with words, above all with words +of science and theology. These getting into general +use, and passing often from mouth to mouth, lose +the “image and superscription” which they had, +before they descended from the school to the +market-place, from the pulpit to the street. Being +now caught up by those who understand imperfectly +and thus incorrectly their true value, +who will not be at the pains of understanding +that, or who are incapable of doing so, they are +obliged to accommodate themselves to the lower +sphere in which they circulate, by laying aside +much of the precision and accuracy and depth +which once they had; they become weaker, shallower, +more indefinite; till in the end, as exponents +of thought and feeling, they cease to be of +any service at all.</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Bombast</i>’, ‘<i>Garble</i>’</div> + +<p>Sometimes a word does not merely narrow or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> +extend its meaning, but altogether changes it; +and this it does in more ways than one. Thus a +secondary figurative sense will quite put out of +use and extinguish the literal, until in the entire +predominance of that it is altogether forgotten +that it ever possessed any other. I may instance +‘bombast’ as a word about which this forgetfulness +is nearly complete. What ‘bombast’ now +means is familiar to us all, namely inflated words, +“full of sound and fury”, but “signifying nothing”. +This, at present its sole meaning, was once +only the secondary and superinduced; ‘bombast’ +being properly the cotton plant, and then the cotton +wadding with which garments were stuffed out +and lined. You remember perhaps how Prince +Hal addresses Falstaff, “How now, my sweet +creature of <i>bombast</i>”; using the word in its literal +sense; and another early poet has this line:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Thy body’s bolstered out with <i>bombast</i> and with bags”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>‘Bombast’ was then transferred in a vigorous +image to the big words without strength or solidity +wherewith the discourses of some were stuffed +out, and has now quite forgone any other meaning. +So too ‘to garble’ was once “to cleanse +from dross and dirt, as grocers do their spices, to +pick or cull out”<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a>. It is never used now in this +its primary sense, and has indeed undergone this +further change, that while once ‘to garble’ was to +sift for the purpose of selecting the best, it is now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +to sift with a view of picking out the worst<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a>. +‘Polite’ is another word which in the figurative +sense has quite extinguished the literal. We still +speak of ‘polished’ surfaces; but not any more, +with Cudworth, of “<i>polite</i> bodies, as looking +glasses”. Neither do we now ‘exonerate’ a ship +(Burton); nor ‘stigmatize’, at least otherwise +than figuratively, a ‘malefactor’ (the same); nor +‘corroborate’ our health (Sir Thomas Elyot).</p> + +<p>Again, a word will travel on by slow and regularly +progressive courses of change, itself a faithful +index of changes going on in society and in the +minds of men, till at length everything is changed +about it. The process of this it is often very +curious to observe; capable as not seldom it is of +being watched step by step in its advances to the +final consummation. There may be said to be +three leading phases which the word successively +presents, three steps in its history. At first it +grows naturally out of its own root, is filled with +its own natural meaning. Presently the word +allows another meaning, one superinduced on the +former, and foreign to its etymology, to share +with the other in the possession of it, on the +ground that where the former exists, the latter +commonly co-exists with it. At the third step, +the newly introduced meaning, not satisfied with +its moiety, with dividing the possession of the +word, has thrust out the original and rightful possessor +altogether, and remains in sole and exclu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>sive +possession. The three successive stages may +be represented by <i>a</i>, <i>ab</i>, <i>b</i>; in which series <i>b</i>, +which was wanting altogether at the first stage, +and was only admitted as secondary at the second, +does at the third become primary and indeed +alone.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gradual Change of Meaning</i></div> + +<p>We are not to suppose that in actual fact the +transitions from one signification to another are so +strongly and distinctly marked, as I have found it +convenient to mark them here. Indeed it is hard +to imagine anything more gradual, more subtle and +imperceptible, than the process of change. The +manner in which the new meaning first insinuates +itself into the old, and then drives out the old, can +only be compared to the process of petrifaction, as +rightly understood—the water not gradually turning +what is put into it to stone, as we generally +take the operation to be; but successively displacing +each several particle of that which is +brought within its power, and depositing a stony +particle, in its stead, till, in the end, while all +appears to continue the same, all has in fact been +thoroughly changed. It is precisely thus, by such +slow, gradual, and subtle advances that the new +meaning filters through and pervades the word, +little by little displacing entirely that which it +before possessed.</p> + +<p>No word would illustrate this process better than +that old example, familiar probably to us all, of +‘villain’. The ‘villain’ is, first, the serf or peasant, +‘villanus’, because attached to the ‘villa’ or +farm. He is, secondly, the peasant who, it is +further taken for granted, will be churlish, selfish, +dishonest, and generally of evil moral conditions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +these having come to be assumed as always belonging +to him, and to be permanently associated +with his name, by those higher classes of society +who in the main commanded the springs of language. +At the third step, nothing of the meaning +which the etymology suggests, nothing of +‘villa’, survives any longer; the peasant is wholly +dismissed, and the evil moral conditions of him +who is called by this name alone remain; so that +the name would now in this its final stage be applied +as freely to peer, if he deserved it, as to +peasant. ‘Boor’ has had exactly the same history; +being first the cultivator of the soil; then +secondly, the cultivator of the soil who, it is assumed, +will be coarse, rude, and unmannerly; +and then thirdly, any one who is coarse, rude, and +unmannerly<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>. So too ‘pagan’; which is first villager, +then heathen villager, and lastly heathen. +You may trace the same progress in ‘churl’, +‘clown’, ‘antic’, and in numerous other words. +The intrusive meaning might be likened in all +these cases to the egg which the cuckoo lays in the +sparrow’s nest; the young cuckoo first sharing +the nest with its rightful occupants, but not resting +till it has dislodged and ousted them altogether.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Gossip</i>’</div> + +<p>I will illustrate by the aid of one word more +this part of my subject. I called your attention +in my last lecture to the true character of several +words and forms in use among our country people, +and claimed for them to be in many instances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +genuine English, though English now more or +less antiquated and overlived. ‘Gossip’ is a word +in point. I have myself heard this name given +by our Hampshire peasantry to the sponsors in +baptism, the godfathers and godmothers. I do +not say that it is a usual word; but it is occasionally +employed, and well understood. This is +a perfectly correct employment of ‘gossip’, in fact +its proper and original one, and involves moreover +a very curious record of past beliefs. ‘Gossip’, +or ‘gossib’, as Chaucer spelt it, is a compound +word, made up of the name of ‘God’, and of an old +Anglo-Saxon word, ‘sib’, still alive in Scotland, as +all readers of Walter Scott will remember, and in +some parts of England, and which means, akin; +they were said to be ‘sib’, who are related to one +another. But why, you may ask, was the name +given to sponsors? Out of this reason;—in the +middle ages it was the prevailing belief (and the +Romish Church still affirms it), that those who +stood as sponsors to the same child, besides contracting +spiritual obligations on behalf of that child, +also contracted spiritual affinity one with another; +they became <i>sib</i>, or akin, in <i>God</i>; and thus ‘gossips’; +hence ‘gossipred’, an old word, exactly +analogous to ‘kindred’. Out of this faith the +Roman Catholic Church will not allow (unless +indeed by dispensations procured for money), +those who have stood as sponsors to the same +child, afterwards to contract marriage with one +another, affirming them too nearly related for this +to be lawful.</p> + +<p>Take ‘gossip’ however in its ordinary present +use, as one addicted to idle tittle-tattle, and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +seems to bear no relation whatever to its etymology +and first meaning. The same three steps, however, +which we have traced before will bring us to +its present use. ‘Gossips’ are, first, the sponsors, +brought by the act of a common sponsorship into +affinity and near familiarity with one another; +secondly, these sponsors, who being thus brought +together, allow themselves one with the other in +familiar, and then in trivial and idle talk; thirdly, +any who allow themselves in this trivial and idle +talk,—called in French ‘commérage’, from the +fact that ‘commére’ has run through exactly the +same stages as its English equivalent.</p> + +<p>It is plain that words which designate not things +and persons only, but these as they are contemplated +more or less in an ethical light, words which +tinge with a moral sentiment what they designate, +are peculiarly exposed to change; are constantly +liable to take a new colouring, or to lose an old. +The gauge and measure of praise or blame, honour +or dishonour, admiration or abhorrence, which they +convey, is so purely a mental and subjective one, +that it is most difficult to take accurate note of +its rise or of its fall, while yet there are causes +continually at work leading it to the one or the +other. There are words not a few, but ethical +words above all, which have so imperceptibly +drifted away from their former moorings, that +although their position is now very different from +that which they once occupied, scarcely one in a +hundred of casual readers, whose attention has +not been specially called to the subject, will have +observed that they have moved at all. Here too +we observe some words conveying less of praise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +or blame than once, and some more; while some +have wholly shifted from the one to the other. +Some were at one time words of slight, almost of +offence, which have altogether ceased to be so +now. Still these are rare by comparison with +those which once were harmless, but now are +harmless no more; which once, it may be, were +terms of honour, but which now imply a slight or +even a scorn. It is only too easy to perceive +why these should exceed those in number.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Imp</i>’, ‘<i>Brat</i>’</div> + +<p>Let us take an example or two. If any were +to speak now of royal children as “royal <i>imps</i>”, +it would sound, and with our present use of the +word would be, impertinent and unbecoming +enough; and yet ‘imp’ was once a name of dignity +and honour, and not of slight or of undue +familiarity. Thus Spenser addresses the Muses +in this language,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Ye sacred <i>imps</i> that on Parnasso dwell”;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and ‘imp’ was especially used of the scions of +royal or illustrious houses. More than one epitaph, +still existing, of our ancient nobility might +be quoted, beginning in such language as this, +“Here lies that noble <i>imp</i>”. Or what should we +say of a poet who commenced a solemn poem in +this fashion,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh Israel, oh household of the Lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh Abraham’s <i>brats</i>, oh brood of blessed seed”?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Could we conclude anything else but that he meant, +by using low words on lofty occasions, to turn +sacred things into ridicule? Yet this was very +far from the intention of Gascoigne, the poet +whose lines I have just quoted. “Abraham’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +<i>brats</i>” was used by him in perfect good faith, and +without the slightest feeling that anything ludicrous +or contemptuous adhered to the word +‘brat’, as indeed in his time there did not, any +more than adheres to ‘brood’, which is another +form of the same word now<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a>.</p> + +<p>Call a person ‘pragmatical’, and you now imply +not merely that he is busy, but <i>over</i>-busy, +officious, self-important, and pompous to boot. +But it once meant nothing of the kind, and ‘pragmatical’ +(like <span title="Greek: pragmatikos">πραγματικός</span>) was one engaged +in affairs, being an honourable title, given to a +man simply and industriously accomplishing +the business which properly concerned him<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a>. +So too to say that a person ‘meddles’ or is a +‘meddler’ implies now that he interferes unduly +in other men’s matters, without a call mixing himself +up with them. This was not insinuated in +the earlier uses of the word. On the contrary +three of our earlier translations of the Bible have, +“<i>Meddle</i> with your own business” (1 Thess. iv. +11); and Barrow in one of his sermons draws at +some length the distinction between ‘meddling’ +and “being <i>meddlesome</i>”, and only condemns +the latter.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Proser</i>’</div> + +<p>Or take again the words, ‘to prose’ or a ‘proser’. +It cannot indeed be affirmed that they convey +any <i>moral</i> condemnation, yet they certainly con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>vey +no compliment now; and are almost among +the last which any one would desire should with +justice be applied either to his talking or his +writing. For ‘to prose’, as we all now know too +well, is to talk or write heavily and tediously, +without spirit and without animation; but once +it was simply the antithesis of to versify, and +a ‘proser’ the antithesis of a versifier or a poet. +It will follow that the most rapid and liveliest +writer who ever wrote, if he did not write in verse +would have ‘prosed’ and been a ‘proser’, in +the language of our ancestors. Thus Drayton +writes of his contemporary Nashe:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And surely Nashe, though he a <i>proser</i> were,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear”;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>that is, the ornament not of a ‘proser’, but of a +poet. The tacit assumption that vigour, animation, +rapid movement, with all the precipitation +of the spirit, belong to verse rather than to prose, +and are the exclusive possession of it, is that +which must explain the changed uses of the word.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Knave</i>’</div> + +<p>Still it is according to a word’s present signification +that we must apply it now. It would be +no excuse, having applied an insulting epithet to +any, if we should afterwards plead that, tried by +its etymology and primary usage, it had nothing +offensive or insulting about it; although indeed +Swift assures us that in his time such a plea was +made and was allowed. “I remember”, he says, +“at a trial in Kent, where Sir George Rooke was +indicted for calling a gentleman ‘knave’ and +‘villain’, the lawyer for the defendant brought off +his client by alleging that the words were not +injurious; for ‘knave’ in the old and true signi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>fication +imported only a servant<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a>; and ‘villain’ +in Latin is villicus, which is no more than a man +employed in country labour, or rather a baily”. +The lawyer may have deserved his success for +his ingenuity and his boldness; though, if Swift +reports him aright, not certainly on the ground +of the strict accuracy either of his Anglo-Saxon +or his Latin.</p> + +<p>The moral sense and conviction of men is often +at work upon their words, giving them new turns +in obedience to these convictions, of which their +changed use will then remain a permanent record. +Let me illustrate this by the history of our word +‘sycophant’. You probably are acquainted with +the story which the Greek scholiasts invented by +way of explaining a word of which they knew +nothing, namely that the ‘sycophant’ was a +“manifester of figs”, one who detected others in +the act of exporting figs from Attica, an act forbidden, +they asserted, by the Athenian law; and +accused them to the people. Be this explanation +worth what it may, the word obtained in Greek +a more general sense; any accuser, and then any +<i>false</i> accuser, was a ‘sycophant’; and when the +word was first adopted into the English language, +it was in this meaning: thus an old English poet +speaks of “the railing route of <i>sycophants</i>”; +and Holland: “The poor man that hath nought +to lose, is not afraid of the <i>sycophant</i>”. But it +has not kept this meaning; a ‘sycophant’ is +now a fawning flatterer; not one who speaks +ill of you behind your back; rather one who +speaks good of you before your face, but good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +which he does not in his heart believe. Yet how +true a moral instinct has presided over the changed +signification of the word. The calumniator +and the flatterer, although they seem so opposed +to one another, how closely united they really +are. They grow out of the same root. The +same baseness of spirit which shall lead one to +speak evil of you behind your back, will lead him +to fawn on you and flatter you before your face; +there is a profound sense in that Italian proverb, +“Who flatters me before, spatters me behind”.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Weakening of Words</i></div> + +<p>But it is not the moral sense only of men which +is thus at work, modifying their words; but +the immoral as well. If the good which men +have and feel, penetrates into their speech, and +leaves its deposit there, so does also the evil. +Thus we may trace a constant tendency—in too +many cases it has been a successful one—to empty +words employed in the condemnation of evil, +of the depth and earnestness of the moral reprobation +which they once conveyed. Men’s too +easy toleration of sin, the feebleness of their +moral indignation against it, brings about that +the blame which words expressed once, has in +some of them become much weaker now than once, +has from others vanished altogether. “To do a +<i>shrewd</i> turn”, was once to do a <i>wicked</i> turn; +and Chaucer, using ‘shrewdness’ by which to +translate the Latin ‘improbitas’, shows that it +meant wickedness for him; nay, two murderers +he calls two ‘shrews’,—for there were, as already +noticed, male shrews once as well as female. +But “a <i>shrewd</i> turn” now, while it implies a certain +amount of sharp dealing, yet implies nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +more; and ‘shrewdness’ is applied to men rather +in their praise than in their dispraise. And not +‘shrewd’ and ‘shrewdness’ only, but a multitude +of other words,—I will only instance ‘prank’ +‘flirt’, ‘luxury’, ‘luxurious’, ‘peevish’, ‘wayward’, +‘loiterer’, ‘uncivil’,—conveyed once a +much more earnest moral disapproval than now +they do.</p> + +<p>But I must bring this lecture to a close. I +have but opened to you paths, which you, if you +are so minded, can follow up for yourselves. We +have learned lately to speak of men’s +‘antecedents’<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a>; +the phrase is newly come up; and it +is common to say that if we would know what +a man really now is, we must know his ‘antecedents’, +that is, what he has been in time past. +This is quite as true about words. If we would +know what they now are, we must know what +they have been; we must know, if possible, the +date and place of their birth, the successive stages +of their subsequent history, the company which +they have kept, all the road which they have +travelled, and what has brought them to the point +at which now we find them; we must know, in +short, their antecedents.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Changes of Meaning</i></div> + +<p>And let me say, without attempting to bring +back school into these lectures which are out of +school, that, seeking to do this, we might add an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +interest to our researches in the lexicon and the +dictionary which otherwise they could never have; +that taking such words, for example, as +<span title="Greek: ekklêsia">ἐκκλησία</span>, +or <span title="Greek: palingenesia">παλιγγενεσία</span>, or +<span title="Greek: eutrapelia">εὐτραπελία</span>, or +<span title="Greek: sophistês">σοφιστής</span>, or +<span title="Greek: scholastikos">σχολαστικός</span>, in Greek; +as ‘religio’, or ‘sacramentum’, +or ‘urbanitas’, or ‘superstitio’, in +Latin; as ‘libertine’, or +‘casuistry’<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a>, or ‘humanity’, +or ‘humorous’, or ‘danger’, or ‘romance’, +in English, and endeavouring to trace the manner +in which one meaning grew out of and superseded +another, and how they arrived at that use in +which they have finally rested (if indeed before +our English words there is not a future still), we +shall derive, I believe, amusement, I am sure, +instruction; we shall feel that we are really getting +something, increasing the moral and intellectual +stores of our minds; furnishing ourselves +with that which may hereafter be of service to +ourselves, may be of service to others—than +which there can be no feeling more pleasurable, +none more delightful. I shall be glad and +thankful, if you can feel as much in regard of +that lecture, which I now bring to its +end<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a>.</p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> +[‘Frampold’, peevish, perverse (<i>Merry Wives of +Windsor</i>, 1598, ii, 2, 94) is supposed to be another form +of ‘from-polled’, as if ‘wrong-headed’. ‘Garboil’, a +tumult or hubbub, was originally <i>garboyl</i>, and came from +old French <i>garbouil</i> (Italian <i>garbuglio</i>). ‘Brangle’, a +brawl, stands for ‘brandle’ from Old Fr. <i>brandeler</i>, +akin to ‘brandish’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> +[‘Dutch’ i.e. Teutonic, Mid. High-German <i>diutsch</i>, +old High-German <i>diut-isk</i> from <i>diot</i>, people, and so the +people-ish or popular language the mother-tongue, founded +on a primitive <i>teuta</i>, ‘people’. See Kluge <i>s.v. Deutsch</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> +So in Herrick’s <i>Electra</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“More white than are the whitest creams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or moonlight <i>tinselling</i> the streams”.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> +[Hence also the epidemic of malefic power supposed +to be air-borne, ‘influenza’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> +See Holinshed’s <i>Chronicles</i>, vol. iii, pp. 827, 1218; +Ann. 1513, 1570.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> +<i>Fairy Queen</i>, vi, 7, 27; cf. v. 3, 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> +[The two words are intimately related, ‘king’, contracted +for <i>kining</i> (Anglo-Saxon <i>cyn-ing</i>), ‘son of the +kin’ or ‘tribe’, one of the people, cognate with <i>cynde</i>, +true-born, native, ‘kind’, and <i>cynd</i>, nature ‘kind’, +whence ‘kindly’, natural.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> +See Sir W. Scott’s edition of Swift’s <i>Works</i>, vol. ix, +p. 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> +<span title="Greek: thêriakê">θηριακή</span>, from +<span title="Greek: thêrion">θηρίον</span>, a designation given to the +viper, see Acts xxviii, 4. ‘Theriac’ is only the more +rigid form of the same word, the scholarly, as distinguished +from the popular, adoption of it. Augustine (<i>Con. duas +Epp. Pelag.</i> iii, 7): Sicut fieri consuevit antidotum etiam +de serpentibus contra venena serpentum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> +And Chaucer, more solemnly still:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Christ, which that is to every harm <i>triacle</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The <i>antidotal</i> character of treacle comes out yet more in +these lines of Lydgate:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">“There is no <i>venom</i> so parlious in sharpnes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As whan it hath of <i>treacle</i> a likenes”.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> +“A slave that within these twenty years rode with +the <i>black guard</i> in the Duke’s carriage, ’mongst spits and +dripping pans”. (Webster’s <i>White Devil</i>.) [First ed. +1612. “The Black Guard of the King’s Kitchen” is +mentioned in a State Paper of 1535 (N.E.D.).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> +Génin (<i>Lexique de la Langue de Molière</i>, p. 367) +says well: “En augmentant le nombre des mots, il a +fallu restreindre leur signification, et faire aux nouveaux +un apanage aux dépens des anciens”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> +[Accordingly there is nothing tautological in the +“dead corpses” of 2 Kings xix, 35, in the A.V.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> +[‘Weed’, vegetable growth, Anglo-Saxon <i>weód</i>, is +here confounded with a perfectly distinct word ‘weed’, +clothing, which is the Anglo-Saxon <i>waéd</i>, a garment.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> +And no less so in French with ‘dame’, by which +form not ‘domina’ only, but ‘dominus’, was represented. +Thus in early French poetry, “<i>Dame</i> Dieu” for “<i>Dominus</i> +Deus” continually occurs. We have here the key to +the French exclamation, or oath, as we now perceive it +to be, ‘Dame’! of which the dictionaries give no account. +See Génin’s <i>Variations du Langage +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Francais’">Français</ins></i>, p. 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> +[‘Hoyden’ seems to be derived from the old Dutch +<i>heyden</i>, a heathen, then a clownish, boorish fellow.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> +[This “ancient Saxon phrase”, as Longfellow calls +it, has not been found in any old English writer, but has +been adopted from the Modern German. Neither is it +known in the dialects, E.D.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> +“A <i>furlong</i>, quasi <i>furrowlong</i>, being so much as a +team in England plougheth going forward, before they +return back <ins class="correction" title="missing quote mark in original">again”.</ins> +(Fuller, <i>Pisgah Sight of Palestine</i>, +p. 42.) [‘Furlong’ in St. Luke xxiv, 13, already occurs +in the Anglo-Saxon version of that passage as <i>furlanga</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> +[Recent etymologists cannot see any connexion +between ‘peck’ and ‘poke’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> +[e. g. “One said thus <i>preposterously</i>: ‘when we had +climbed the clifs and were a shore’” (Puttenham, <i>Arte of +Eng. Poesie</i>, 1589, p. <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘181 (ed.’">181, ed.</ins> +Arber). “It is a <i>preposterous</i> +order to teach first and to learn after” (<i>Preface +to Bible</i>, <ins class="correction" title="missing ‘)’ in original">1611).</ins> +“Place not the coming of the wise men, +<i>preposterously</i>, before the appearance of the star” (Abp. +Secker, <i>Sermons</i>, iii, +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘85 (ed.’">85, ed.</ins> 1825).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> +Thus Barrow: “Which [courage and constancy] +he that wanteth is no other than <i>equivocally</i> a gentleman, +as an image or a carcass is a man”.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> +Phillips, <i>New World of Words</i>, 1706. [‘Garble’ comes +through old French <i>garbeler</i>, <i>grabeler</i> (Italian <i>garbellare</i>) +from Latin <i>cribellare</i>, to sift, and that from <i>cribellum</i>, a +sieve, diminutive of <i>cribrum</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> +“But his [Gideon’s] army must be <i>garbled</i>, as too +great for God to give victory thereby; all the fearful +return home by proclamation” (Fuller, <i>Pisgah Sight +of Palestine</i>, b. ii, c. 8).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> +[Compare the transitions of meaning in French +<i>manant</i> = (1) a dweller (where he was born—from <i>manoir</i> +to dwell), the inhabitant of a homestead, (2) a countryman, +(3) a clown or boor, a coarse fellow.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> +[These words lie totally apart. ‘Brat’, an infant, +seems a figurative use of ‘brat’, a rag or pinafore, just +as ‘bantling’ comes from ‘band’, a swathe.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> +“We cannot always be contemplative, or <i>pragmatical</i> +abroad: but have need of some delightful intermissions, +wherein the enlarged soul may leave off awhile +her severe schooling”. (Milton, <i>Tetrachordon</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> +[Anglo-Saxon <i>cnafa</i>, or <i>cnapa</i>, a boy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> +[Mr. Fitzedward Hall in 1873 says ‘antecedents’ is +“not yet a generation old” (<i>Mod. English</i>, 303). Landor +in 1853 says “the French have lately taught (it to) us” +(<i>Last Fruit of an Old Tree</i>, 176). De Quincey, in 1854 +calls it “modern slang” (<i>Works</i> xiv, 449); and the +earliest quotation, 1841, given in the N.E.D., introduces +it as “what the French call their antecedents”.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> +See Whewell, <i>History of Moral Philosophy in England</i>, +pp. xxvii.-xxxii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> +For a fuller treatment of the subject of this lecture, +see my <i>Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in +senses different from their present</i>, 2nd ed. London, 1859.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p></div> + + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS</h3> + + +<p>When I announce to you that the subject of my +lecture to-day will be English orthography, or +the spelling of the words in our native language, +with the alterations which this has undergone, +you may perhaps think with yourselves that a +weightier, or, if not a weightier, at all events a +more interesting subject might have occupied +this our concluding lecture. I cannot admit it to +be wanting either in importance or in interest. +Unimportant it certainly is not, but might well +engage, as it often has engaged, the attention of +those with far higher acquirements than any +which I possess. Uninteresting it may be, by +faults in the manner of treating it; but I am sure +it ought as little to be this; and would never +prove so in competent hands<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a>. Let us then +address ourselves to this matter, not without +good hope that it may yield us both profit and +pleasure.</p> + +<p>I know not who it was that said, “The inven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>tion +of printing was very well; but, as compared +to the invention of writing, it was no such great +matter after all”. Whoever it was who made +this observation, it is clear that for him use and +familiarity had not obliterated the wonder which +there is in that, whereat we probably have long +ceased to wonder at all—the power, namely, of +representing sounds by written signs, of reproducing +for the eye that which existed at first only +for the ear: nor was the estimate which he formed +of the relative value of these two inventions other +than a just one. Writing indeed stands more +nearly on a level with speaking, and deserves +rather to be compared with it, than with printing; +which, with all its utility, is yet of altogether +another and inferior type of greatness: or, if +this is too much to claim for writing, it may at +any rate be affirmed to stand midway between +the other two, and to be as much superior to the +one as it is inferior to the other.</p> + +<p>The intention of the written word, that which +presides at its first formation, the end whereunto +it is a mean, is by aid of symbols agreed on +beforehand, to represent to the eye with as much +accuracy as possible the spoken word.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Imperfection of Writing</i></div> + +<p>It never fulfils this intention completely, and +by degrees more and more imperfectly. Short as +man’s spoken word often falls of his thought, his +written word falls often as short of his spoken. +Several causes contribute to this. In the first +place, the marks of imperfection and infirmity +cleave to writing, as to every other invention of +man. All alphabets have been left incomplete. +They have superfluous letters, letters, that is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +which they do not want, because other letters +already represent the sound which they represent; +they have dubious letters, letters, that is, which +say nothing certain about the sounds they stand +for, because more than one sound is represented +by them—our ‘c’ for instance, which sometimes +has the sound of ‘s’, as in ‘<i>c</i>ity’, sometimes of +‘k’, as in ‘<i>c</i>at’; they are deficient in letters, +that is, the language has elementary sounds which +have no corresponding letters appropriated to +them, and can only be represented by combinations +of letters. All alphabets, I believe, have some +of these faults, not a few of them have all, and more. +This then is one reason of the imperfect reproduction +of the spoken word by the written. But +another is, that the human voice is so wonderfully +fine and flexible an organ, is able to mark +such subtle and delicate distinctions of sound, so +infinitely to modify and vary these sounds, that +were an alphabet complete as human art could +make it, did it possess eight and forty instead of +four and twenty letters, there would still remain +a multitude of sounds which it could only approximately +give back<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Alphabets Inadequate</i></div> + +<p>But there is a further cause for the divergence +which comes gradually to find place between men’s +spoken and their written words. What men +do often, they will seek to do with the least possible +trouble. There is nothing which they do +oftener than repeat words; they will seek here +then to save themselves pains; they will contract<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +two or more syllables into one; (‘toto opere’ +will become ‘topper’; ‘vuestra merced’, ‘usted’; +and ‘topside the other way’, ‘topsy-turvey’<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a>); +they will slur over, and thus after a while cease +to pronounce, certain letters; for hard letters +they will substitute soft; for those which require +a certain effort to pronounce, they will substitute +those which require little or none. Under the +operation of these causes a gulf between the +written and spoken word will not merely exist; +but it will have the tendency to grow ever wider +and wider. This tendency indeed will be partially +counterworked by approximations which from +time to time will by silent consent be made of the +written word to the spoken; here and there a +letter dropped in speech will be dropped also in +writing, as the ‘s’ in so many French words, +where its absence is marked by a circumflex; a +new shape, contracted or briefer, which a word has +taken on the lips of men, will find its representation +in their writing; as ‘chirurgeon’ will not +merely be pronounced, but also spelt, ‘surgeon’, +and ‘synodsman’ ‘sidesman’. Still for all this, +and despite of these partial readjustments of the +relations between the two, the anomalies will be +infinite; there will be a multitude of written +letters which have ceased to be sounded letters; +a multitude of words will exist in one shape upon +our lips, and in quite another in our books.</p> + +<p>It is inevitable that the question should arise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>—Shall +these anomalies be meddled with? shall it +be attempted to remove them, and bring writing +and speech into harmony and consent—a harmony +and consent which never indeed in actual fact at +any period of the language existed, but which yet +may be regarded as the object of written speech, +as the idea which, however imperfectly realized, +has, in the reduction of spoken sounds to written, +floated before the minds of men? If the attempt +is to be made, it is clear that it can only be made +in one way. The alternative is not open, whether +Mahomet shall go to the mountain, <i>or</i> the mountain +to Mahomet. The spoken word is the mountain; +it will not stir; it will resist all interference. It +feels its own superior rights, that it existed +the first, that it is, so to say, the elder brother; +and it will never be induced to change itself for +the purpose of conforming and complying with the +written word. Men will not be persuaded to pronounce +‘wou<i>l</i>d’ and ‘de<i>b</i>t’, because they write +‘would’ and ‘debt’ severally with an ‘l’ and with +a ‘b’: but what if they could be induced to write +‘woud’ and ‘det’, because they pronounce so; +and to deal in like manner with all other words, in +which there exists at present a discrepancy between +the word as it is spoken, and the word as it is +written?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Phonetic Systems</i></div> + +<p>Here we have the explanation of that which in +the history of almost all literatures has repeated +itself more than once, namely, the endeavour to +introduce phonetic writing. It has certain plausibilities +to rest on; it has its appeal to the unquestionable +fact that the written word was intended +to picture to the eye what the spoken word sounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +in the ear. At the same time I believe that it +would be impossible to introduce it; and, even +if it <i>were</i> possible, that it would be most undesirable, +and this for two reasons; the first being +that the losses consequent upon its introduction, +would far outweigh the gains, even supposing those +gains as great as the advocates of the scheme promise; +the second, that these promised gains would +themselves be only very partially realized, or not +at all.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Alphabets Imperfect</i></div> + +<p>In the first place, I believe it to be impossible. +It is clear that such a scheme must begin with +the reconstruction of the alphabet. The first +thing that the phonographers have perceived is +the necessity for the creation of a vast number of +new signs, the poverty of all existing alphabets, +at any rate of our own, not yielding a several sign +for all the several sounds in the language. Our +English phonographers have therefore had to +invent ten of these new signs or letters, which are +henceforth to take their place with our <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>c</i>, and +to enjoy equal rights with them. Rejecting two +(<i>q</i>, <i>x</i>), and adding ten, they have raised their alphabet +from twenty-six letters to thirty-four. But +to procure the reception of such a reconstructed +alphabet is simply an impossibility, as much an +impossibility as would be the reconstitution of +the structure of the language in any points where +it was manifestly deficient or illogical. Sciolists +or scholars may sit down in their studies, and devise +these new letters, and prove that we need them, +and that the introduction of them would be a great +gain, and a manifest improvement; and this +may be all very true; but if they think they can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +induce a people to adopt them, they know little of +the ways in which its alphabet is entwined with +the whole innermost life of a people. One may +freely own that all present alphabets are redundant +here, are deficient there; our English perhaps +is as greatly at fault as any, and with that +we have chiefly to do. Unquestionably it has +more letters than one to express one and the same +sound; it has only one letter to express two or +three sounds; it has sounds which are only capable +of being expressed at all by awkward and roundabout +expedients. Yet at the same time we must +accept the fact, as we accept any other which it +is out of our power to change—with regret, indeed, +but with a perfect acquiescence: as one accepts +the fact that Ireland is not some thirty or forty +miles nearer to England—that it is so difficult to +get round Cape Horn—that the climate of Africa +is so fatal to European life. A people will no more +quit their alphabet than they will quit their language; +they will no more consent to modify the +one <i>ab extra</i> than the other. Cæsar avowed that +with all his power he could not introduce a new +word, and certainly Claudius could not introduce +a new letter. Centuries may sanction the bringing +in of a new one, or the dropping of an old. +But to imagine that it is possible to suddenly +introduce a group of ten new letters, as these +reformers propose—they might just as feasibly +propose that the English language should form +its comparatives and superlatives on some entirely +new scheme, say in Greek fashion, by the terminations +‘oteros’ and ‘otatos’; or that we should +agree to set up a dual; or that our substantives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +should return to our Anglo-Saxon declensions. +Any one of these or like proposals would not +betray a whit more ignorance of the eternal laws +which regulate human language, and of the limits +within which deliberate action upon it is possible, +than does this of increasing our alphabet by ten +entirely novel signs.</p> + +<p>But grant it possible, grant our six and twenty +letters to have so little sacredness in them that +Englishmen would endure a crowd of upstart +interlopers to mix themselves on an equal footing +with them, still this could only be from a sense of +the greatness of the advantage to be derived from +this introduction. Now the vast advantage +claimed by the advocates of the system is, that it +would facilitate the learning to read, and wholly +save the labour of learning to spell, which “on the +present plan occupies”, as they assure us, “at +the very lowest calculation from three to five +years”. Spelling, it is said, would no longer need +to be learned at all; since whoever knew the +sound, would necessarily know also the spelling, +this being in all cases in perfect conformity with +that. The anticipation of this gain rests upon two +assumptions which are tacitly taken for granted, +but both of them erroneous.</p> + +<p>The first of these assumptions is, that all men +pronounce all words alike, so that whenever they +come to spell a word, they will exactly agree as to +what the outline of its sound is. Now we are sure +men will not do this from the fact that, before +there was any fixed and settled orthography in our +language, when therefore everybody was more or +less a phonographer, seeking to write down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +word as it sounded to <i>him</i>, (for he had no other +law to guide him,) the variations of spelling were +infinite. Take for instance the word ‘sudden’; +which does not seem to promise any great scope +for variety. I have myself met with this word spelt +in the following fifteen ways among our early +writers: ‘sodain’, ‘sodaine’, ‘sodan’, ‘sodayne’, +‘sodden’, ‘sodein’, ‘sodeine’, ‘soden’, ‘sodeyn’, +‘suddain’, ‘suddaine’, ‘suddein’, ‘suddeine’, +‘sudden’, ‘sudeyn’. Again, in how many +ways was Raleigh’s name spelt, or Shakespeare’s? +The same is evident from the spelling +of uneducated persons in our own day. They +have no other rule but the sound to guide them. +How is it that they do not all spell alike; erroneously, +it may be, as having only the sound for their guide, +but still falling all into exactly the same errors? +What is the actual fact? They not merely spell +wrong, which might be laid to the charge of our +perverse system of spelling, but with an inexhaustible +diversity of error, and that too in the +case of simplest words. Thus the little town of +Woburn would seem to give small room for caprice +in spelling, while yet the postmaster there has +made, from the superscription of letters that have +passed through his hands, a collection of two +hundred and forty-four varieties of ways in which +the place has been spelt<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a>. It may be replied that +these were all or nearly all from the letters of the +ignorant and uneducated. Exactly so;—but it is +for their sakes, and to place them on a level with +the educated, or rather to accelerate their education +by the omission of a useless yet troublesome dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>cipline, +that the change is proposed. I wish to +show you that after the change they would be just +as much, or almost as much, at a loss in their +spelling as now.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pronouncing Dictionaries</i></div> + +<p>And another reason which would make it quite +as necessary then to learn orthography as now, is +the following. Pronunciation, as I have already +noticed, is far too fine and subtle a thing to be +more than approximated to, and indicated in the +written letter. In a multitude of cases the difficulties +which pronunciation presented would be +sought to be overcome in different ways, and thus +different spelling, would arise; or if not so, one +would have to be arbitrarily selected, and would +have need to be learned, just as much as the +spelling of a word now has need to be learned. I +will only ask you, in proof of this which I affirm, +to turn to any Pronouncing Dictionary. That +greatest of all absurdities, a Pronouncing Dictionary, +may be of some service to you in this +matter; it will certainly be of none in any other. +When you mark the elaborate and yet ineffectual +artifices by which it toils after the finer distinctions +of articulation, seeks to reproduce in letters +what exists, and can only exist, as the spoken +tradition of pronunciation, acquired from lip to +lip by the organ of the ear, capable of being +learned, but incapable of being taught; or when +you compare two of these dictionaries with one +another, and mark the entirely different schemes +and combinations of letters which they employ for +representing the same sound to the eye; you +will then perceive how idle the attempt to make +the written in language commensurate with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +sounded; you will own that not merely out of +human caprice, ignorance, or indolence, the former +falls short of and differs from the later; but that +this lies in the necessity of things, in the fact +that man’s <i>voice</i> can effect so much more than +ever his <i>letter</i> +can<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a>. +You will then perceive that +there would be as much, or nearly as much, of +the <ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘arbitary’">arbitrary</ins> +in spelling which calls itself phonetic +as in our present, that spelling would have +to be learned just as really then as now. We +should be unable to dismiss the spelling card even +after the arrival of that great day, when, for example, +those lines of Pope which hitherto we have +thus spelt and read,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“But errs not nature from this gracious end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From burning suns when livid deaths descend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep”?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>when I say, instead of this they should present +themselves to our eyes in the following attractive +form:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<a name="poem" id="poem"></a> +<span class="i0">“But ¿ erz not n<span title="e symbol">ɛ</span>tiur + from ðis gr<span title="e symbol">ɛ</span>cus end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">from burni<span title="ng symbol">ŋ</span> sunz when + livid deθs d<span title="i symbol">ɨ</span>send,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">when erθkw<span title="e symbol">ɛ</span>ks + swol<span title="o symbol">ɵ</span>, or when tempests sw<span title="i symbol">ɨ</span>p<br /></span> +<span class="i0">tounz tu wun gr<span title="e symbol">ɛ</span>v, + h<span title="o symbol">ɵ</span>l n<span title="e symbol">ɛ</span>conz + tu ðe d<span title="i symbol">ɨ</span>p”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="tnote2"> +<p style="text-align:left;"><a href="#phonetic">Transcriber’s note +regarding phonetic symbols</a></p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Losses of Phonetic Spelling</i></div> + +<p>The scheme would not then fulfil its promises. +Its vaunted gains, when we come to look closely +at them, disappear. And now for its losses. There +are in every language a vast number of words, +which the ear does not distinguish from one +another, but which are at once distinguishable to +the eye by the spelling. I will only instance a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +few which are the same parts of speech; thus +‘sun’ and ‘son’; ‘virge’ (‘virga’, now obsolete) +and ‘verge’; ‘reign’, ‘rain’, and ‘rein’; ‘hair’ and +‘hare’; ‘plate’ and ‘plait’; ‘moat’ and ‘mote’; +‘pear’ and ‘pair’; ‘pain’ and ‘pane’; ‘raise’ and +‘raze’; ‘air’ and ‘heir’; ‘ark’ and ‘arc’; ‘mite’ +and ‘might’; ‘pour’ and ‘pore’; ‘veil’ and ‘vale’; +‘knight’ and ‘night’; ‘knave’ and ‘nave’; ‘pier’ +and ‘peer’; ‘rite’ and ‘right’; ‘site’ and ‘sight’; +‘aisle’ and ‘isle’; ‘concent’ and ‘consent’; +‘signet’ and ‘cygnet’. Now, of course, it is a real +disadvantage, and may be the cause of serious +confusion, that there should be words in spoken +languages of entirely different origin and meaning +which yet cannot in sound be differenced from one +another. The phonographers simply propose to +extend this disadvantage already cleaving to our +spoken languages, to the written languages as well. +It is fault enough in the French language, that +‘mère’ a mother, ‘mer’ the sea, ‘maire’ a mayor +of a town, should have no perceptible difference +between them in the spoken tongue; or again that +in some there should be nothing to distinguish +‘sans’, ‘sang’, ‘sent’, ‘sens’, ‘s’en’, ‘cent’; nor +yet between ‘ver’, ‘vert’, ‘verre’ and +<ins class="correction" title="comma instead of period (full stop) in original">‘vers’.</ins> +Surely it is not very wise to propose gratuitously to +extend the same fault to the written languages as +well.</p> + +<p>This loss in so many instances of the power to +discriminate between words, which however liable +to confusion now in our spoken language, are +liable to none in our written, would be serious +enough; but far more serious than this would be +the loss which would constantly ensue, of all which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +visibly connects a word with the past, which tells +its history, and indicates the quarter from which +it has been derived. In how many English words +a letter silent to the ear, is yet most eloquent to +the eye—the <i>g</i> for instance in ‘deign’, ‘feign’, +‘reign’, ‘impugn’, telling as it does of ‘dignor’, +‘fingo’, ‘regno’, ‘impugno’; even as the <i>b</i> in +‘debt’, ‘doubt’, is not idle, but tells of ‘debitum’ +and ‘dubium’<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pronunciation Alters</i></div> + +<p>At present it is the written word which is in all +languages their conservative element. In it is the +abiding witness against the mutilations or other +capricious changes in their shape which affectation, +folly, ignorance, and half-knowledge would introduce. +It is not indeed always able to hinder the +final adoption of these corrupter forms, but does +not fail to oppose to them a constant, and very +often a successful, resistance. With the adoption +of phonetic spelling, this witness would exist no +longer; whatever was spoken would have also to +be written, let it be never so barbarous, never so +great a departure from the true form of the word. +Nor is it merely probable that such a barbarizing +process, such an adopting and sanctioning of a +vulgarism, might take place, but among phonographers +it already has taken place. We all probably +are aware that there is a vulgar pronunciation of +the word ‘Eu<i>rope</i>’, as though it were ‘Eu<i>rup</i>’. +Now it is quite possible that numerically more +persons in England may pronounce the word +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +this manner than in the right; and therefore the +phonographers are only true to their principles +when they spell it in the fashion which they do, +‘Eurup’, or indeed omitting the E at the beginning, +‘Urup’<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> +with thus the life of the first syllable +assailed no less than that of the second. What +are the consequences? First its relations with +the old mythology are at once and entirely broken +off; secondly, its most probable etymology from +two Greek words, signifying ‘broad’ and ‘face’, +Europe being so called from the <i>Broad</i> line or <i>face</i> +of coast which our continent presented to the +Asiatic Greek, is totally obscured. But so far from +the spelling servilely following the pronunciation, I +should be bold to affirm that if ninety-nine out of +every hundred persons in England chose to call +Europe ‘Urup’, this would be a vulgarism still, +against which the written word ought to maintain +its protest, not sinking down to their level, but +rather seeking to elevate them to its own<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Changes of Pronunciation</i></div> + +<p>And if there is much in orthography which is +unsettled now, how much more would be unsettled +then. Inasmuch as the pronunciation of words is +continually altering, their spelling would of course +have continually to alter too. For the fact that +pronunciation is undergoing constant changes, +although changes for the most part unmarked, or +marked only by a few, would be abundantly easy +to prove. Take a Pronouncing Dictionary of fifty +or a hundred years ago; turn to almost any page, +and you will observe schemes of pronunciation +there recommended, which are now merely vulgarisms, +or which have been dropped altogether. +We gather from a discussion in Boswell’s <i>Life of +Johnson</i><a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a>, +that in his time ‘great’ was by some +of the best speakers of the language pronounced +‘gr<i>ee</i>t’, not ‘gr<i>a</i>te’: Pope usually rhymes it with +‘cheat’, ‘complete’, and the like; thus in the +<i>Dunciad</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the <i>great</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines com<i>plete</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Spenser’s constant use of the word a century and +a half earlier, leaves no doubt that such was the +invariable pronunciation of his +time<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a>. Again, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +Pope rhymes ‘obliged’ with ‘beseiged’; and it +has only ceased to be ‘obl<i>ee</i>ged’ almost in our own +time. Who now drinks a cup of ‘tay’? yet there +is abundant evidence that this was the fashionable +pronunciation in the first half of the last century; +the word, that is, was still regarded as French: +Locke writes it ‘thé’; and in Pope’s time, though +no longer written, it was still pronounced so. +Take this couplet of his in proof:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms <i>obey</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes <i>tea</i>”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So too a pronunciation which still survives, +though scarcely among well-educated persons, +I mean ‘Room’ for ‘Rome’, must have been in +Shakespeare’s time the predominant one, else +there would have been no point in that play on +words where in <i>Julius Cæsar</i> Cassius, complaining +that in all <i>Rome</i> there was not <i>room</i> for a single +man, exclaims,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Now is it <i>Rome</i> indeed, and <i>room</i> enough”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Samuel Rogers too assures us that in his youth +“everybody said ‘Lonnon’<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> not ‘London’; that +Fox said ‘Lonnon’ to the last”.</p> + +<p>The following quotation from Swift will prove +to you that I have been only employing here an +argument, which he employed long ago against +the phonographers of his time. He exposes thus +the futility of their scheme<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a>: “Another cause +which has contributed not a little to the maiming +of our language, is a foolish opinion advanced of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +late years that we ought to spell exactly as we +speak: which, besides the obvious inconvenience +of utterly destroying our etymology, would be a +thing we should never see an end of. Not only +the several towns and counties of England have +a different way of pronouncing, but even here in +London they clip their words after one manner +about the court, another in the city, and a third +in the suburbs; and in a few years, it is probable, +will all differ from themselves, as fancy or fashion +shall direct; all which, reduced to writing, would +entirely confound orthography”.</p> + +<p>This much I have thought good to say in respect +of that entire revolution in English orthography, +which some rash innovators have proposed. +Let me, dismissing them and their innovations, +call your attention now to those changes in spelling +which are constantly going forward, at some +periods more rapidly than at others, but which +never wholly cease out of a language; while at +the same time I endeavour to trace, where this is +possible, the motives and inducements which bring +them about. It is a subject which none can +neglect, who desire to obtain even a tolerably accurate +acquaintance with their native tongue. +Some principles have been laid down in the course +of what has been said already, that may help us +to judge whether the changes which have found +place in our own have been for better or for worse. +We shall find, if I am not mistaken, of both kinds.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Grogram</i>’</div> + +<p>There are alterations in spelling which are for +the worse. Thus an altered spelling will sometimes +obscure the origin of a word, concealing it +from those who, but for this, would at once have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +known whence and what it was, and would have +found both pleasure and profit in this knowledge. +I need not say that in all those cases where the +earlier spelling revealed the secret of the word, +told its history, which the latter defaces or conceals, +the change has been injurious, and is to be +regretted; while, at the same time, where it has +thoroughly established itself, there is nothing to +do but to acquiesce in it: the attempt to undo +it would be absurd. Thus, when ‘gro<i>c</i>er’ was +spelt ‘gro<i>ss</i>er’, it was comparatively easy to see +that he first had his name, because he sold his +wares not by retail, but in the <i>gross</i>. ‘Co<i>x</i>comb’ +tells us nothing now; but it did when spelt, as +it used to be, ‘co<i>cks</i>comb’, the <i>comb</i> of a <i>cock</i> +being then an ensign or token which the fool was +accustomed to wear. In ‘grogra<i>m</i>’ we are +<ins class="correction" title="so in original">entirely</ins> +to seek for the derivation; but in ‘grogra<i>n</i>’ +or ‘grogra<i>in</i>’, as earlier it was spelt, one could +scarcely miss ‘grosgrain’, the stuff of a <i>coarse +grain</i> or woof. How many now understand ‘woodbin<i>e</i>’? +but who could have helped understanding +‘woodbin<i>d</i>’ (Ben Jonson)? What a mischievous +alteration in spelling is ‘d<i>i</i>vest’ instead +of ‘d<i>e</i>vest’<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a>. This change is so recent that +I am tempted to ask whether it would not here +be possible to return to the only intelligible spelling +of this word.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Pigmy</i>’</div> + +<p>‘P<i>i</i>gmy’ used formerly to be spelt ‘p<i>y</i>gmy’, +and so long as it was so, no Greek scholar could +see the word, but at once he knew that by it were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +indicated manikins whose measure in height was +no greater than that of a man’s arm from the +elbow to the closed <i>fist</i><a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a>. Now he may know +this in other ways; but the word itself, so long +as he assumes it to be rightly spelt, tells him +nothing. Or again, the old spelling, ‘diam<i>ant</i>’, +was preferable to the modern ‘diam<i>ond</i>’. It +was preferable, because it told more of the quarter +whence the word had reached us. ‘Diamant’ +and ‘adamant’ are in fact only two different +adoptions on the part of the English tongue, of +one and the same Greek, which afterwards became +a Latin word. The primary meaning of ‘adamant’ +is, as you know, the indomitable, and it +was a name given at first to steel as the hardest +of metals; but afterwards transferred<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> to the most +precious among all the precious stones, as that +which in power of resistance surpassed everything +besides.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Cozen</i>’, ‘<i>Bless</i>’</div> + +<p>Neither are new spellings to be commended, +which obliterate or obscure the relationship of a +word with others to which it is really allied; separating +from one another, for those not thoroughly +acquainted with the subject, words of the same +family. Thus when ‘<i>j</i>aw’ was spelt ‘<i>ch</i>aw’, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +ne could miss its connexions with the verb ‘to +chew’<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a>. Now probably ninety-nine out of a +hundred who use both words, are entirely unaware +of any relationship between them. It is the same +with ‘cousin’ (consanguineus), and ‘to cozen’ or +to deceive. I do not propose to determine which +of these words should conform itself to the spelling +of the other. There was great irregularity in +the spelling of both from the first; yet for all this, +it was then better than now, when a permanent +distinction has established itself between them, +keeping out of sight that ‘to cozen’ is in all likelihood +to deceive under show of kindred and affinity; +which if it be so, Shakespeare’s words,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“<i>Cousins</i> indeed, and by their uncle <i>cozened</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of +comfort”<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a>,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>will be found to contain not a pun, but an +etymology<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a>. +The real relation between ‘bliss’ and +‘to bless’ is in like manner at present +obscured<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a>.</p> + +<p>The omission of a letter, or the addition of a +letter, may each effectually do its work in keeping +out of sight the true character and origin of +a word. Thus the omission of a letter. When +the first syllable of ‘bran-new’ was spelt ‘bran<i>d</i>’ +with a final ‘d’, ‘bran<i>d</i>-new’, how vigorous an +image did the word contain. The ‘brand’ is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +fire, and ‘brand-new’ equivalent to ‘fire-new’ +(Shakespeare), is that which is fresh and bright, +as being newly come from the forge and fire. As +now spelt, ‘bran-new’ conveys to us no image at all. +Again, you have the word ‘scrip’—as a ‘scrip’ +of paper, government ‘scrip’. Is this the same +word with the Saxon ‘scrip’, a wallet, having in +some strange manner obtained these meanings so +different and so remote? Have we here only two +different applications of one and the same word, +or two homonyms, wholly different words, though +spelt alike? We have only to note the way in +which the first of these ‘scrips’ used to be written, +namely with a final ‘t’, not ‘scrip’ but ‘scrip<i>t</i>’, +and we are at once able to answer the question. +This ‘script’ is a Latin, as the other is an Anglo-Saxon, +word, and meant at first simply a <i>written</i> +(scripta) piece of paper—a circumstance which +since the omission of the final ‘t’ may easily escape +our knowledge. ‘Afraid’ was spelt much better +in old times with the double ‘ff’, than with the +single ‘f’ as now. It was then clear that it was +not another form of ‘afeared’, but wholly separate +from it, the participle of the verb ‘to affray’, +‘affrayer’, or, as it is now written, ‘effrayer’<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Whole</i>’, ‘<i>Hale</i>’, ‘<i>Heal</i>’</div> + +<p>In the cases hitherto adduced, it has been the +omission of a letter which has clouded and concealed +the etymology. The intrusion of a letter +sometimes does the same. Thus in the early editions +of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, and in all writers of that +time, you will find ‘scent’, an odour, spelt ‘sent’. +It was better so; there is no other noun sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>stantive +‘sent’, with which it is in danger of +being confounded; while its relation with ‘sentio’, +with ‘re<i>sent</i>’<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a>, +‘dis<i>sent</i>’, and the like, is put out +of sight by its novel spelling; the intrusive ‘<i>c</i>’, +serves only to mislead. The same thing was +attempted with ‘site’, ‘situate’, ‘situation’, +spelt for a time by many, ‘s<i>c</i>ite’, ‘s<i>c</i>ituate’, +‘s<i>c</i>ituation’; but it did not continue with these. +Again, ‘whole’, in Wiclif’s Bible, and indeed much +later, occasionally as far down as Spenser, is spelt +‘hole’, without the ‘w’ at the beginning. The +present orthography may have the advantage of at +once distinguishing the word to the eye from any +other; but at the same time the initial ‘w’, now +prefixed, hides its relation to the verb ‘to heal’, +with which it is closely allied. The ‘whole’ man +is he whose hurt is ‘healed’ or +covered<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> (we say +of the convalescent that he +‘recovers’)<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a>; ‘whole’ +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>being closely allied to ‘hale’ (integer), from which +also by its modern spelling it is divided. ‘Wholesome’ +has naturally followed the fortunes of +‘whole’; it was spelt ‘holsome’ once.</p> + +<p>Of ‘island’ too our present spelling is inferior to +the old, inasmuch as it suggests a hybrid formation, +as though the word were made up of the +Latin ‘insula’, and the Saxon ‘land’. It is quite +true that ‘isle’ <i>is</i> in relation with, and descent +from, ‘insula’, ‘isola’, ‘île’; and hence probably +the misspelling of ‘island’. This last however has +nothing to do with ‘insula’, being identical with +the German ‘eiland’, the Anglo-Saxon ‘ealand’<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> +and signifying the sea-land, or land girt, round +with the sea. And it is worthy of note that this +‘s’ in the first syllable of ‘island’ is quite of +modern introduction. In all the earlier versions +of the Scriptures, and in the Authorized Version +as at first set forth, it is ‘iland’; while in proof +that this is not accidental, it may be observed +that, while ‘iland’ has not the ‘s’, ‘isle’ has it +(see Rev. i. 9). ‘Iland’ indeed is the spelling +which we meet with far down into the seventeenth +century.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Folk-etymologies</i></div> + +<p>What has just been said of ‘island’ leads me as +by a natural transition to observe that one of the +most frequent causes of alteration in the spelling +of a word is a wrongly assumed derivation. It is +then sought to bring the word into harmony with,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +and to make it by its spelling suggest, this derivation, +which has been erroneously thrust upon it. +Here is a subject which, followed out as it deserves, +would form an interesting and instructive chapter +in the history of language<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a>. +Let me offer one or +two small contributions to it; noting first by the +way how remarkable an evidence we have in this +fact, of the manner in which not the learned only, +but all persons learned and unlearned alike, crave +to have these words not body only, but +body and soul. What an attestation, I say, of +this lies in the fact that where a word in its proper +derivation is unintelligible to them, they will shape +and mould it into some other form, not enduring +that it should be a mere inert sound without sense +in their ears; and if they do not know its right +origin, will rather put into it a wrong one, than +that it should have for them no meaning, and +suggest no derivation at all<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a>.</p> + +<p>There is probably no language in which such a +process has not been going forward; in which it is +not the explanation, in a vast number of instances, +of changes in spelling and even in form, which +words have undergone. I will offer a few examples +of it from foreign tongues, before adducing +any from our own. ‘Pyramid’ is a word, the +spelling of which was affected in the Greek by an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +erroneous assumption of its derivation; the +consequences of this error surviving in our own +word to the present day. It is spelt by us with +a ‘y’ in the first syllable, as it was spelt with the +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: y; +original reads ‘v’">υ</ins> corresponding in the Greek. But why was this? +It was because the Greeks assumed that the pyramids +were so named from their having the appearance +of <i>flame</i> going up into a +point<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a>, and so they +spelt ‘pyramid’, that they might find <span title="Greek: pyr">πῦρ</span> or +‘pyre’ in it; while in fact ‘pyramid’ has nothing +to do with flame or fire at all; being, as those best +qualified to speak on the matter declare to us, an +Egyptian word of quite a different +signification<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a>, +and the Coptic letters being much better represented +by the diphthong ‘ei’ than by the letter ‘y’, +as no doubt, but for this mistaken notion of what +the word was intended to mean, they would have +been.</p> + +<p>Once more—the form ‘Hierosolyma’, wherein +the Greeks reproduced the Hebrew ‘Jerusalem’, +was intended in all probability to express that the +city so called was the <i>sacred</i> city of the +<i>Solymi</i><a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>. +At all events the intention not merely of reproducing +the Hebrew word, but also of making it +significant in Greek, of finding <span title="Greek: hieron">ἱερόν</span> in it, is +plainly discernible. For indeed the Greeks were +exceedingly intolerant of foreign words, till +they had laid aside their foreign appearance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>—of +all words which they could not thus quicken +with a Greek soul; and, with a very characteristic +vanity, an ignoring of all other tongues but their +own, assumed with no apparent misgivings that +all words, from whatever quarter derived, were +to be explained by Greek +etymologies<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>.</p> + +<p>‘Tartar’ is another word, of which it is at least +possible that a wrongly assumed derivation has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +modified the spelling, and indeed not the spelling +only, but the very shape in which we now possess +it. To many among us it may be known that the +people designated by this appellation are not properly +‘Tartars’, but ‘Tatars’; and you sometimes +perhaps have noted the omission of the ‘r’ on the +part of those who are curious in their spelling. +How, then, it may be asked, did the form ‘Tartar’ +arise? When the terrible hordes of middle Asia +burst in upon civilized Europe in the thirteenth +century, many beheld in the ravages of their innumerable +cavalry a fulfilment of that prophetic word +in the Revelation (chap. ix.) concerning the opening +of the bottomless pit; and from this belief +ensued the change of their name from ‘Tatars’ to +‘Tartars’, which was thus put into closer relation +with ‘Tartarus’ or hell, out of which their multitudes +were supposed to have proceeded<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a>.</p> + +<p>Another good example in the same kind is the +German word ‘sündflut’, the Deluge, which is +now so spelt as to signify a ‘sinflood’, the plague +or <i>flood</i> of waters brought on the world by the +<i>sins</i> of mankind; and probably some of us have +before this admired the pregnant significance of +the word. Yet the old High German word had +originally no such intention; it was spelt ‘sinfluot’, +that is, the great flood; and as late as Luther, +indeed in Luther’s own translation of the Bible, +is so spelt as to make plain that the notion of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +‘<i>sin</i>-flood’ had not yet found its way into, even +as it had not affected the spelling of, the +word<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Currants</i>’</div> + +<p>But to look now nearer home for our examples. +The little raisins brought from Greece, which play +so important a part in one of the national dishes +of England, the Christmas plum-pudding, used to +be called ‘corinths’; and so you would find them +in mercantile lists of a hundred years ago: either +that for the most part they were shipped from +Corinth, the principal commercial city in Greece, +or because they grew in large abundance in the +immediate district round about it. Their likeness +in shape and size and general appearance to our +own currants, working together with the ignorance +of the great majority of English people about any +such place as Corinth, soon brought the name +‘corinths’ into ‘currants’, which now with a +certain unfitness they bear; being not currants at +all, but dried grapes, though grapes of diminutive +size<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Court-cards</i>’</div> + +<p>‘<i>Court</i>-cards’, that is, the king, queen, and +knave in each suit, were once +‘coat-cards’<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a>; +having their name from the long splendid ‘coat’ +(vestis talaris) with which they were arrayed. +Probably ‘coat’ after a while did not perfectly +convey its original meaning and intention; being +no more in common use for the long garment +reach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>ing +down to the heels; and then ‘coat’ was easily +exchanged for ‘court’, as the word is now both +spelt and pronounced, seeing that nowhere so +fitly as in a Court should such splendidly arrayed +personages be found. A public house in the +neighbourhood of London having a few years +since for its sign “The George <i>Canning</i>” is already +“The George and <i>Cannon</i>”,—so rapidly do these +transformations proceed, so soon is that forgotten +which we suppose would never be forgotten. +“Welsh <i>rarebit</i>” becomes +“Welsh <i>rabbit</i>”<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a>; +and ‘<i>farced</i>’ or stuffed ‘meat’ becomes “forced +meat”. Even the mere determination to make a +word <i>look</i> English, to put it into an English shape, +without thereby so much as seeming to attain +any result in the way of etymology, this is very +often sufficient to bring about a change in its +spelling, and even in its +form<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a>. It is thus that +‘sipahi’ has become ‘sepoy’; and only so could +‘weissager’ have taken its present form of +‘wiseacre’<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Transformation of Words</i></div> + +<p>It is not very uncommon for a word, while it is +derived from one word, to receive a certain impulse +and modification from another. This extends +sometimes beyond the spelling, and in cases where +it does so, would hardly belong to our present +theme. Still I may notice an instance or two. +Thus our ‘obsequies’ is the Latin ‘exequiæ’, +but formed under a certain impulse of ‘obsequium’, +and seeking to express and include the observant +honour of that word. ‘To refuse’ is ‘recusare’, +while yet it has derived the ‘f’ of its second +syllable from ‘refutare’; it is a medley of the +two<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a>. The French ‘rame’, an oar, is ‘remus’, +but that modified by an unconscious recollection +of ‘ramus’. ‘Orange’ is no doubt a Persian +word, which has reached us through the Arabic, +and which the Spanish ‘naranja’ more nearly +represents than any form of it existing in the +other languages of Europe. But what so natural +as to think of the orange as the <i>golden</i> fruit, +especially when the “<i>aurea</i> mala” of the Hesperides +were familiar to all antiquity? There +cannot be a doubt that ‘aurum’, ‘oro’, ‘or’, +made themselves felt in the shapes which the +word assumed in the languages of the West, and +that here we have the explanation of the change +in the first syllable, as in the low Latin ‘aurantium’, +‘orangia’, and in the French ‘orange’, +which has given us our own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is foreign words, or words adopted from +foreign languages, as might beforehand be expected, +which are especially subjected to such +transformations as these. The soul which the +word once had in its own language, having, for as +many as do not know that language, departed +from it, or at least not being now any more to be +recognized by such as employ the word, these are +not satisfied till they have put another soul into it, +and it has thus become alive to them again. Thus—to +take first one or two very familiar instances, +but which serve as well as any other to illustrate +my position—the Bellerophon becomes for our +sailors the ‘Billy Ruffian’, for what can they know +of the Greek mythology, or of the slayer of Chimæra? +an iron steamer, the Hirondelle, now or +lately plying on the Tyne, is the ‘Iron Devil’. +‘<i>Contre</i> danse’, or dance in which the parties +stand <i>face to face</i> with one another, and which +ought to have appeared in English as ‘<i>counter</i> +dance’, does become +‘<i>country</i> dance’<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a>, as though +it were the dance of the country folk and rural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +districts, as distinguished from the quadrille +and waltz and more artificial dances of the +town<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a>. +A well known rose, the “rose <i>des quatre saisons</i>”, +or of the four seasons, becomes on the lips of +some of our gardeners, the “rose of the <i>quarter +sessions</i>”, though here it is probable that the eye +has misled, rather than the ear. ‘Dent de lion’, +(it is spelt ‘dentdelyon’ in our early writers) +becomes ‘dandylion’, “<i>chaude</i> melée”, or an +affray in <i>hot</i> blood, +“<i>chance</i>-medley”<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a>, ‘causey’ +(chaussée) becomes +‘causeway’<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a>, ‘rachitis’ +‘rickets’<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a>, +and in French ‘mandragora’ ‘main +de gloire’<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Necromancy</i>’</div> + +<p>‘Necromancy’ is another word which, if not +now, yet for a long period was erroneously spelt, +and indeed assumed a different shape, under the +influence of an erroneous derivation; which, +curiously enough, even now that it has been dismissed, +has left behind it the marks of its presence, +in our common phrase, “the <i>Black</i> Art”. +I need hardly remind you that ‘necromancy’ is a +Greek word, which signifies, according to its +proper meaning, a prophesying by aid of the dead,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +or that it rests on the presumed power of raising +up by potent spells the dead, and compelling +them to give answers about things to come. We +all know that it was supposed possible to exercise +such power; we have a very awful example of it +in the story of the witch of Endor, and a very +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘horried’">horrid</ins> +one in Lucan<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a>. +But the Latin medieval +writers, whose Greek was either little or none, +spelt the word, ‘nigromantia’, as if its first syllables +had been Latin: at the same time, not wholly +forgetting the original meaning, but in fact getting +round to it though by a wrong process, they +understood the dead by these ‘nigri’, or blacks, +whom they had brought into the word<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a>. Down +to a rather late period we find the forms, ‘<i>negro</i>mancer’ +and ‘<i>negro</i>mancy’ frequent in English.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words Misspelt</i></div> + +<p>‘Pleurisy’ used often to be spelt, (I do not +think it is so now,) without an ‘e’ in the first +syllable, evidently on the tacit assumption that +it was from <i>plus pluris</i><a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a>. When Shakespeare +falls into an error, he “makes the offence gracious”; +yet, I think, he would scarcely have written,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“For goodness growing to a <i>plurisy</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dies of his own <i>too much</i>”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but that <i>he</i> too derived ‘plurisy’ from <i>pluris</i>. +This, even with the “small Latin and less Greek”, +which Ben Jonson allows him, he scarcely would +have done, had the word presented itself in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +form, which by right of its descent from <span title="Greek: pleura">πλευρά</span> +(being a pain, stitch, or sickness <i>in the side</i>) it +ought to have possessed. Those who for ‘crucible’ +wrote ‘chrysoble’ (Jeremy Taylor does so) +must evidently have done this under the assumption +that the Greek for <i>gold</i>, and not the Latin +for <i>cross</i>, lay at the foundation of this word. +‘Anthymn’ instead of ‘anthem’ (Barrow so spells +the word), rests plainly on a wrong etymology, +even as this spelling clearly betrays what that +wrong etymology is. ‘Rhyme’ with a ‘y’ is a +modern misspelling; and would never have been +but for the undue influence which the Greek +‘rhythm’ has exercised upon it. Spenser and his +cotemporaries spell it ‘rime’. ‘Abominable’ was +by some etymologists of the seventeenth century +spelt ‘abhominable’, as though it were that which +departed from the human (ab homine) into the +bestial or devilish.</p> + +<p>In all these words which I have adduced last, +the correct spelling has in the end resumed its +sway. It is not so with ‘frontisp<i>ie</i>ce’, which +ought to be spelt ‘frontisp<i>i</i>ce’ (it was so by +Milton and others), being the low Latin ‘frontispicium’, +from ‘frons’ and ‘aspicio’, the forefront +of the building, that part which presents +itself to the view. It was only the entirely +ungrounded notion that the word ‘piece’ constitutes +the last syllable, which has given rise to +our present orthography<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wrong Spelling</div> + +<p>You may, perhaps, wonder that I have dwelt +so long on these details of spelling; that I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +bestowed on them so much of my own attention, +that I have claimed for them so much of yours; +yet in truth I cannot regard them as unworthy +of our very closest heed. For indeed of how +much beyond itself is accurate or inaccurate +spelling the certain indication. Thus when we +meet ‘s<i>y</i>ren’, for ‘s<i>i</i>ren’, as so strangely often +we do, almost always in newspapers, and often +where we should hardly have expected (I met +it lately in the <i>Quarterly Review</i>, and again in +Gifford’s <i>Massinger</i>), how difficult it is not to be +“judges of evil thoughts”, and to take this +slovenly misspelling as the specimen and evidence +of an inaccuracy and ignorance which reaches +very far wider than the single word which is +before us. But why is it that so much significance +is ascribed to a wrong spelling? Because ignorance +of a word’s spelling at once argues ignorance +of its origin and derivation. I do not mean +that one who spells rightly may not be ignorant +of it too, but he who spells wrongly is certainly +so. Thus, to recur to the example I have just +adduced, he who for ‘s<i>i</i>ren’ writes ‘s<i>y</i>ren’, +certainly knows nothing of the magic <i>cords</i> +(<span title="Greek: seirai">σειραί</span>) of song, +by which those fair enchantresses +were supposed to draw those that heard them +to their ruin<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a>.</p> + +<p>Correct or incorrect orthography being, then, +this note of accurate or inaccurate knowledge, +we may confidently conclude where two spellings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +of a word exist, and are both employed by persons +who generally write with precision and scholarship, +that there must be something to account for this. +It will generally be worth your while to inquire +into the causes which enable both spellings to +hold their ground and to find their supporters, +not ascribing either one or the other to mere +carelessness or error. It will in these cases often +be found that two spellings exist, because two +views of the word’s origin exist, and each of those +spellings is the correct expression of one of these. +The question therefore which way of spelling +should continue, and wholly supersede the other, +and which, while the alternative remains, we +should ourselves employ, can only be settled by +settling which of these etymologies deserves the +preference. So is it, for example, with ‘ch<i>y</i>mist’ +and ‘ch<i>e</i>mist’, neither of which has obtained in +our common use the complete mastery over the +other<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a>. It is not here, as in some other cases, +that one is certainly right, the other as certainly +wrong: but they severally represent two different +etymologies of the word, and each is correct +according to its own. If we are to spell ‘ch<i>y</i>mist’ +and ‘ch<i>y</i>mistry’, it is because these words are +considered to be derived from the Greek word, +<ins class="correction" title="Greek: chymos; +original reads ‘χ υμο’">χυμός</ins>, +sap; and the chymic art will then have +occupied itself first with distilling the juice and +sap of plants, and will from this have derived its +name. I have little doubt, however, that the +other spelling, ‘ch<i>e</i>mist’, not ‘ch<i>y</i>mist’, is the +correct one. It was not with the distillation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +herbs, but with the amalgamation of metals, +that chemistry occupied itself at its rise, and +the word embodies a reference to Egypt, the land +of Ham or ‘Cham’<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a>, in which this art was first +practised with success.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Satyr</i>’, ‘<i>Satire</i>’</div> + +<p>Of how much confusion the spelling which used +to be so common, ‘satyr’ for ‘satire’, is at once +the consequence, the expression, and again the +cause; not indeed that this confusion first began +with us<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a>; for the same already found place in +the Latin, where ‘satyricus’ was continually +written for ‘satiricus’ out of a false assumption +of the identity between the Roman <i>satire</i> and +the Greek <i>satyric</i> drama. The Roman ‘satira’,—I +speak of things familiar to many of my hearers,—is +properly a <i>full</i> dish (lanx being understood)—a +dish heaped up with various ingredients, a ‘farce’ +(according to the original signification of that +word), or hodge-podge; and the word was +transferred from this to a form of poetry which +at first admitted the utmost variety in the mate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>rials +of which it was composed, and the shapes +into which these materials were wrought up; +being the only form of poetry which the Romans +did <i>not</i> borrow from the Greeks. Wholly different +from this, having no one point of contact with +it in its form, its history, or its intention, is the +‘satyric’ drama of Greece, so called because +Silenus and the ‘Satyrs’ supplied the chorus; +and in their naïve selfishness, and mere animal +instincts, held up before men a mirror of what +they would be, if only the divine, which is also +the truly human, element of humanity, were withdrawn; +what man, all that properly made him +man being withdrawn, would prove.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Mid-wife</i>’, ‘<i>Nostril</i>’</div> + +<p>And then what light, as we have already seen, +does the older spelling of a word often cast upon +its etymology; how often does it clear up the +mystery, which would otherwise have hung about +it, or which <i>had</i> hung about it till some one had +noticed and turned to profit this its earlier spelling. +Thus ‘dirge’ is always spelt ‘dirige’ in early +English. This ‘dirige’ may be the first word in +a Latin psalm or prayer once used at funerals; +there is a reasonable probability that the explanation +of the word is here; at any rate, if it is not +here, it is nowhere<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a>. +The derivation of ‘mid-wife’ +is uncertain, and has been the subject of +discussion; but when we find it spelt ‘medewife’ +and ‘meadwife’, in Wiclif’s Bible, this leaves +hardly a doubt that it is the <i>wife</i> or woman who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +acts for a <i>mead</i> or +reward<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a>. +In cases too where +there was no mystery hanging about a word, +how often does the early spelling make clear +to all that which was before only known to those +who had made the language their study. For +example, if an early edition of Spenser should +come into your hands, or a modern one in which +the early spelling is retained, what continual +lessons in English might you derive from it. Thus +‘nostril’ is always spelt by him and his cotemporaries +‘nosethrill’; a little earlier it was +‘nosethirle’. Now ‘to thrill’ is the same as +to drill or pierce; it is plain then here at once +that the word signifies the orifice or opening +with which the <i>nose</i> is <i>thrilled</i>, drilled, or pierced. +We might have read the word for ever in our +modern spelling without being taught this. +‘Ell’ tells us nothing about itself; but in ‘eln’ +used in Holland’s translation of Camden, we +recognize ‘ulna’ at once.</p> + +<p>Again, the ‘morris’ or ‘morrice-dance’, which +is alluded to so often by our early poets, as it is +now spelt informs us nothing about itself; but +read ‘<i>moriske</i> dance’, as it is generally spelt by +Holland and his cotemporaries, and you will +scarcely fail to perceive that of which indeed +there is no manner of doubt; namely, that it +was so called either because it was really, or was +supposed to be, a dance in use among the <i>moriscoes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></i> +of Spain, and from thence introduced into +England<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a>.</p> + +<p>Again, philologers tell us, and no doubt rightly, +that our ‘cray-fish’, or ‘craw-fish’, is the +French ‘écrevisse’. This is true, but certainly +it is not self-evident. Trace however the word +through these successive spellings, ‘krevys’ (Lydgate), +‘crevish’ (Gascoigne), ‘craifish’ (Holland), +and the chasm between ‘cray-fish’ or ‘craw-fish’ +and ‘écrevisse’ is by aid of these three intermediate +spellings bridged over at once; and in +the fact of our Gothic ‘fish’ finding its way into +this French word we see only another example +of a law, which has been already abundantly +illustrated in this lecture<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Emmet</i>’, ‘<i>Ant</i>’</div> + +<p>In other ways also an accurate taking note of +the spelling of words, and of the successive changes +which it has undergone, will often throw light +upon them. Thus we may know, others having +assured us of the fact, that ‘ant’ and ‘emmet’ +were originally only two different spellings of one +and the same word; but we may be perplexed +to understand how two forms of a word, now so +different, could ever have diverged from a single +root. When however we find the different spellings, +‘emmet’, ‘emet’, ‘amet’, ‘amt’, ‘ant’, +the gulf which appeared to separate ‘emmet’ +from ‘ant’ is bridged over at once, and we do +not merely know on the assurance of others +that these two are in fact identical, their differences +being only superficial, but we perceive +clearly in what manner they are so<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a>. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + +<p>Even before any close examination of the +matter, it is hard not to suspect that ‘runagate’ +is in fact another form of ‘renegade’, slightly +transformed, as so many words, to put an English +signification into its first syllable; and then the +meaning gradually modified in obedience to the +new derivation which was assumed to be its +original and true one. Our suspicion of this is +very greatly strengthened (for we see how very +closely the words approach one another), by the +fact that ‘renega<i>d</i>e’ is constantly spelt ‘renega<i>t</i>e’ +in our old authors, while at the same time the +denial of <i>faith</i>, which is now a necessary element +in ‘renegade’, and one differencing it inwardly +from ‘runagate’, is altogether wanting in early +use—the denial of <i>country</i> and of the duties thereto +owing being all that is implied in it. Thus it is +constantly employed in Holland’s <i>Livy</i> as a +rendering of ‘perfuga’<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a>; +while in the one passage +where ‘runagate’ occurs in the Prayer Book +Version of the Psalms (Ps. lxviii. 6), a reference +to the original will show that the translators +could only have employed it there on the ground +that it also expressed rebel, revolter, and not +runaway merely<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Assimilating Power of English</i></div> + +<p>I might easily occupy your attention much +longer, so little barren or unfruitful does this +subject of spelling appear likely to prove; but +all things must have an end; and as I concluded +my first lecture with a remarkable testimony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> +borne by an illustrious German scholar to the +merits of our English tongue, I will conclude my +last with the words of another, not indeed a +German, but still of the great Germanic stock; +words resuming in themselves much of which +we have been speaking upon this and upon +former occasions: “As our bodies”, he says, +“have hidden resources and expedients, to remove +the obstacles which the very art of the physician +puts in its way, so language, ruled by an indomitable +inward principle, triumphs in some degree +over the folly of grammarians. Look at the +English, polluted by Danish and Norman conquests, +distorted in its genuine and noble features +by old and recent endeavours to mould it after +the French fashion, invaded by a hostile entrance +of Greek and Latin words, threatening by increasing +hosts to overwhelm the indigenous terms. +In these long contests against the combined power +of so many forcible enemies, the language, it is +true, has lost some of its power of inversion in +the structure of sentences, the means of denoting +the difference of gender, and the nice distinctions +by inflection and termination—almost every +word is attacked by the spasm of the accent and +the drawing of consonants to wrong positions; +yet the old English principle is not overpowered. +Trampled down by the ignoble feet of strangers, +its springs still retain force enough to restore +itself. It lives and plays through all the veins +of the language; it impregnates the innumerable +strangers entering its dominions with its temper, +and stains them with its colour, not unlike the +Greek which in taking up oriental words, stripped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +them of their foreign costume, and bid them to +appear as native Greeks”<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a>.</p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> +In proof that it need not be so, I would only refer to +a paper, <i>On Orthographical Expedients</i>, by Edwin Guest, +Esq., in the <i>Transactions of the Philological Society</i>, +vol. iii. p. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> +[The scientific treatises on Phonetics of Mr. Alexander +J. Ellis and Dr. Henry Sweet have surmounted the difficulty +of registering sounds with great accuracy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> +I have not observed this noticed in our dictionaries +as the original form of the phrase. There is no doubt +however of the fact; see <i>Stanihurst’s Ireland</i>, p. 33, in +Holinshed’s <i>Chronicles</i>. [Rather from <i>torvien</i>, to throw,—Skeat].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> +<i>Notes and Queries</i>, No. 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> +See Boswell’s <i>Life of Johnson</i>, Croker’s edit. 1848, +p. 233.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> +[The <i>b</i> was purposely foisted into these words by +bookmen to suggest their Latin derivation; it did not +belong to them in earlier English. The same may be +said of the <i>g</i>, intruded into ‘deign’ and ‘feign’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> +A chief phonographer writes to me to deny that this +is the present spelling (1856) of ‘Europe’. It was so +when this paragraph was written. [Most people would +now consider [Yeuroap] as American pronunciation.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> +Quintilian has expressed himself with the true dignity +of a scholar on this matter (<i>Inst.</i> 1, 6, 45): Consuetudinem +sermonis vocabo <i>consensum eruditorum</i>; sicut vivendi +consensum bonorum.—How different from innovations +like this the changes in the spelling of German which +J. Grimm, so far as his own example may reach, <i>has</i> +introduced; and the still bolder and more extensive ones +which in the <i>Preface</i> to his <i>Deutsches Wörterbuch</i>, pp. +liv.-lxii., he avows his desire to see introduced;—as the +employment of <i>f</i>, not merely where it is at present used, +but also wherever <i>v</i> is now employed; the substituting +of the <i>v</i>, which would be thus disengaged, for <i>w</i>, and the +entire dismissal of <i>w</i>. They may be advisable, or they +may not; it is not for strangers to offer an opinion; but +at any rate they are not a seizing of the fluctuating, +superficial accidents of the present, and a seeking to give +permanent authority to these, but they all rest on a deep +historic study of the language, and of the true genius of +the language.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> +Croker’s edit. 1848, pp. +<ins class="correction" title="‘5’ is unclear in original">57</ins>, +61, 233.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> +[An incorrect conclusion. Almost all ‘ea’ words +were pronounced ‘ai’ down to the eighteenth century. +Thus ‘great’ was a true rhyme to ‘cheat’ and ‘complete’, +their ordinary pronunciation being ‘grait’, +‘chait’, ‘complait’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> +[i.e. ‘Lunnun’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> +<i>A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining +the English Tongue</i>, 1711, Works, vol. ix, pp. 139-59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> +[‘Devest’ was still in use till the end of the eighteenth +century, but ‘divest’ is already found in <i>King +Lear</i>, 1605, i, 1, 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> +Pygmæi, quasi <i>cubitales</i> (Augustine).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> +First so used by Theophrastus in Greek, and by Pliny +in Latin.—The real identity of the two words explains +Milton’s use of ‘diamond’ in <i>Paradise Lost</i>, b. 7; and +also in that sublime passage in his <i>Apology for Smectymnuus</i>: +“Then zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming +in complete <i>diamond</i>”.—Diez (<i>Wörterbuch d. Roman. +Sprachen</i>, p. 123) supposes, not very probably, that it +was under a certain influence of ‘<i>dia</i>fano’, the translucent, +that ‘adamante’ was in the Italian, whence we +have derived the word, changed into ‘<i>dia</i>mante’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> +[Similarly <i>jowl</i> for <i>chowl</i> or <i>chavel</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> +<i>Richard III</i>, Act iv, Sc. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> +[For another account of this word, approved by Dr. +Murray, see <i>The Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, p. 156.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> +[‘Bliss’ representing the old English <i>bliths</i> or <i>blidhs</i>, +blitheness, is really a quite distinct word from ‘bless’, +standing for <i>blets</i>, old English <i>blétsian</i> (=<i>blóedsian</i>, to +consecrate with blood, <i>blód</i>), although the latter was by +a folk-etymology very frequently spelt ‘bliss’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> +[But ‘afraied’ is the earliest form of the word (1350), +the verb itself being at first spelt ‘afray’ (1325). N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> +How close this relationship was once, not merely in +respect of etymology, but also of significance, a passage +like this will prove: “Perchance, as vultures are said to +smell the earthiness of a dying corpse; so this bird of +prey [the evil spirit which personated Samuel, 1 Sam. +xxviii. 41] <i>resented</i> a worse than earthly savor in the soul +of Saul, as evidence of his death at hand”. (Fuller, +<i>The Profane State</i>, b. 5, c. 4.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> +[There is an unfortunate confusion here between +‘heal’ to make ‘hale’ or ‘[w]hole’ (Anglo-Saxon <i>hælan</i>) +and the old (and Provincial) English <i>hill</i>, to cover, <i>hilling</i>, +covering, <i>hellier</i>, a slater, akin to ‘hell’, the covered +place, ‘helm’; Icelandic <i>hylja</i>, to cover.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> +[By a curious slip Dr. Trench here confounds ‘recover’, +to recuperate or regain health (derived through +old French <i>recovrer</i> from Latin <i>recuperare</i>), with a totally +distinct word <i>re-cover</i>, to cover or clothe over again, +which comes from old French <i>covrir</i>, Latin <i>co-operire</i>. +It is just the difference between ‘recovering’ a lost +umbrella through the police and ‘recovering’ a torn one +at a shop. I pointed this out to the author in 1869, and +I think he altered the passage in his later editions.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> +[‘Island’, though cognate with Anglo-Saxon <i>eá-land</i> +“water-land” (German <i>ei-land</i>), is really identical with +Anglo-Saxon <i>íg-land</i>, i.e. “isle-land”, from <i>íg</i>, an island, +the diminutive of which survives in <i>eyot</i> or <i>ait</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> +[The editor essayed to make a complete collection +of this class of words in his <i>Folk-etymology, a Dictionary +of Words corrupted by False Derivation or Mistaken Analogy</i>, +1882, and more recently in a condensed form in <i>The +Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, 1904.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> +Diez looks with much favour on this process, and +calls it, ein sinnreiches mittel fremdlinge ganz heimisch +zu machen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> +Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii, 15, 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> +[The Greek <i>pyramis</i> probably represents the Egyptian +<i>piri-m-ûisi</i> (Maspero, <i>Dawn of Civilization</i>, 358), or +<i>pir-am-us</i> (Brugsch, <i>Egypt under the Pharaohs</i>, i, 73), +rather than <i>pi-ram</i>, ‘the height’ (Birch, <i>Bunsen’s Egypt</i>, +v, 763).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> +Tacitus, <i>Hist.</i> v. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> +Let me illustrate this by further instances in a note. +Thus <span title="Greek: boutyron">βούτυρον</span>, from which, through the Latin, our +‘butter’ has descended to us, is borrowed (Pliny, <i>H.N.</i> +xxviii. 9) from a Scythian word, now to us unknown: +yet it is sufficiently plain that the Greeks so shaped and +spelt it as to contain apparent allusion to <i>cow</i> and <i>cheese</i>; +there is in <span title="Greek: boutyron">βούτυρον</span> an evident +feeling after <span title="Greek: bous">βοῦς</span> and +<span title="Greek: tyron">τυρόν</span>. Bozra, meaning citadel in Hebrew and Phœnician, +and the name, no doubt, which the citadel of Carthage +bore, becomes <span title="Greek: Byrsa">Βύρσα</span> on Greek lips; and then the well +known legend of the ox-hide was invented upon the +name; not having suggested it, but being itself suggested +by it. Herodian (v. 6) reproduces the name of the +Syrian goddess Astarte in a shape that is significant also +for Greek ears—<span title="Greek: Astroarchê">Ἀστροάρχη</span>, +The Star-ruler, or Star-queen. +When the apostate and hellenizing Jews assumed +Greek names, ‘Eliakim’ or “Whom God has set”, +became ‘Alcimus’ (<span title="Greek: alkimos">ἄλκιμος</span>) or The Strong (1 Macc. +vii. 5). Latin examples in like kind are ‘com<i>i</i>ssatio’, +spelt continually ‘com<i>e</i>ssatio’, and ‘com<i>e</i>ssation’ by +those who sought to naturalize it in England, as though +it were connected with ‘cŏmedo’, to eat, being indeed +the substantive from the verb ‘cōmissari’ +(—<span title="Greek: kômazein">κωμάζειν</span>), +to revel, as Plutarch, whose Latin is in general not very +accurate, long ago correctly observed; and ‘orichalcum’, +spelt often ‘<i>au</i>richalcum’, as though it were a +composite metal of mingled <i>gold</i> and brass; being indeed +the <i>mountain</i> brass (<span title="Greek: oreichalkos">ὀρείχαλκος</span>). The miracle play, +which is ‘mystère’, in French, whence our English +‘mystery’ was originally written ‘mistère’, being properly +derived from ‘ministère’, and having its name +because the clergy, the <i>ministri</i> Ecclesiæ, conducted it. +This was forgotten, and it then took its present form of +‘mystery’, as though so called because the mysteries +of the faith were in it set out.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> +We have here, in this bringing of the words by their +supposed etymology together, the explanation of the fact +that Spenser (<i>Fairy Queen</i>, i, 7, 44), Middleton (<i>Works</i>, +vol. 5, pp. 524, 528, 538), and others employ ‘Tartary’ +as equivalent to ‘Tartarus’ or hell.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> +For a full discussion of this matter and fixing of the +period at which ‘sinfluot’ became ‘sündflut’, see the +<i>Theol. Stud. u. Krit.</i> vol. ii, p. 613; and Delitzsch, <i>Genesis</i>, +2nd ed. vol. ii, p. 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> +[The name of the small grape, originally <i>raisins de +Corauntz</i>, was transferred to the <i>ribes</i> in the sixteenth +century.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> +Ben Jonson, <i>The New Inn</i>, Act i, Sc. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> +[On the contrary, it is the modern “Welsh <i>rarebit</i>” +which has been mistakenly evolved out of the older +“Welsh <i>rabbit</i>” as I have shown in <i>Folk-Etymology</i>, +p. 431. Grose has both forms in his <i>Dictionary of the +Vulgar Tongue</i>, 1785.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> +‘Leghorn’ is sometimes quoted as an example of +this; but erroneously; for, as Admiral Smyth has shown +(<i>The Mediterranean</i>, p. 409) ‘Livorno’ is itself rather the +modern corruption, and ‘Ligorno’ the name found on the +earlier charts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> +Exactly the same happens in other languages; thus +‘armbrust’, a crossbow, <i>looks</i> German enough, and yet +has nothing to do with ‘arm’ or ‘brust’, being a contraction +of ‘arcubalista’, but a contraction under these +influences. As little has ‘abenteuer’ anything to do +with ‘abend’ or ‘theuer’, however it may seem to be +connected with them, being indeed the +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘Provencal’">Provençal</ins> ‘adventura’. +And ‘weissagen’ in its earlier forms had nothing +in common with ‘sagen’.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> +[So Diez. But Prof. Skeat and Scheler see no reason +why it should not be direct from French <i>refuser</i> and +Low Latin <i>refusare</i>, from <i>refusus</i>, rejected.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> +It is upon this word that De Quincey (<i>Life and +Manners</i>, p. 70, American Ed.) says excellently well: +“It is in fact by such corruptions, by off-sets upon an +old stock, arising through ignorance or mispronunciation +originally, that every language is frequently enriched; +and new modifications of thought, unfolding themselves +in the progress of society, generate for themselves concurrently +appropriate expressions.... It must not +be allowed to weigh against a word once fairly naturalized +by all, that originally it crept in upon an abuse or a +corruption. Prescription is as strong a ground of legitimation +in a case of this nature, as it is in law. And the +old axiom is applicable—Fieri non debuit, factum valet. +Were it otherwise, languages would be robbed of much +of their wealth”. [<i>Works</i>, vol. xiv., p. 201.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> +[The direct opposite is the fact. The French <i>contredanse</i> +was borrowed from the English ‘country-dance’. +See <i>The Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, p. 153.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> +[These words are not identical. They were in use as +distinct words in the fifteenth century. See N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> +[Dr. Murray has shown that ‘causeway’ is not a +corruption of ‘causey’ but a compound of that word with +‘way’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> +[Prof. Skeat has demonstrated that the supposed +Greek ‘rachitis’, inflammation of the back, is an ætiological +invention to serve as etymon of ‘rickets’, the +condition of being rickety, a purely native word. See +also <i>Folk-Etymology</i>, 312.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> +[See <i>The Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, p. 124.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> +<i>Phars.</i> vi. 720-830.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> +Thus in a <i>Vocabulary</i>, 1475: Nigromansia dicitur +divinatio facta <i>per nigros</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> +[Dyce believed that it was really thus derived and +distinct from <i>pleurisy</i>, but it was evidently modelled +upon that word (<i>Remarks on Editions of Shakespeare</i>, +p. 218).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> +As ‘orthography’ itself means properly “<i>right</i> +spelling”, it might be a curious question whether it is +permissible to speak of an <i>incorrect</i> <i>ortho</i>graphy, that is +of a <i>wrong</i> <i>right</i>-spelling. The question which would be +thus started is one of not unfrequent recurrence, and it +is very worthy of observation how often, so soon as we +take note of etymologies, this <i>contradictio in adjecto</i> is +found to occur. I will here adduce a few examples from +the Greek, the Latin, the German, and from our own +tongue. Thus the Greeks having no convenient word +to express a rider, apart from a rider <i>on a horse</i>, did not +scruple to speak of the <i>horse</i>man (<span title="Greek: hippeus">ἱππεύς</span>) upon an <i>elephant</i>. +They often allowed themselves in a like inaccuracy, where +certainly there was no necessity; as in using <span title="Greek: andrias">ἀνδριάς</span> of +the statue of a <i>woman</i>; where it would have been quite +as easy to have used <span title="Greek: heikôn">εἱκών</span> or +<span title="Greek: agalma">ἄγαλμα</span>. So too their +‘table’ (<span title="Greek: trapeza">τράπεζα</span> = +<span title="Greek: tetrapeza">τετράπεζα</span>) involved probably the +<i>four</i> feet which commonly support one; yet they did not +shrink from speaking of a <i>three</i>-footed table +(<span title="Greek: tripous trapeza">τρίπους τράπεζα</span>), +in other words, a “<i>three</i>-footed <i>four</i>-footed”; much as +though we should speak of a “<i>three</i>-footed <i>quadru</i>ped”. +Homer writes of a ‘hecatomb’ not of a <i>hundred</i>, but of +twelve, oxen; and elsewhere of Hebe he says, in words +not reproducible in English, +<span title="Greek: nektar eônochoei">νέκταρ ἐωνοχόει</span>. ‘Tetrarchs’ +were often rulers of quite other than <i>fourth</i> parts of a +land. <span title="Greek: Akratos">Ἀκρατος</span> +had so come to stand for wine, without +any thought more of its signifying originally the <i>unmingled</i>, +that St. John speaks of +<span title="Greek: akratos kekerasmenos">ἄκρατος κεκερασμένος</span> (Rev. +xiv. 10), or the unmingled mingled. Boxes in which +precious ointments were contained were so commonly of +alabaster, that the name came to be applied to them +whether they were so or not; and Theocritus celebrates +“<i>golden</i> alabasters”. Cicero having to mention a water-clock +is obliged to call it a <i>water</i> <i>sun</i>dial (solarium ex +aquâ). Columella speaks of a “<i>vintage</i> of honey” (vindemia +mellis), and Horace invites his friend to im<i>pede</i>, not +his <i>foot</i>, but his head, with myrtle (<i>caput</i> im<i>ped</i>ire myrto). +Thus too a German writer who desired to tell of the golden +shoes with which the folly of Caligula adorned his horse +could scarcely avoid speaking of <i>golden</i> hoof-<i>irons</i>. The +same inner contradiction is involved in such language as +our own, a “<i>false</i> <i>ver</i>dict”, a “<i>steel</i> <i>cuirass</i>” (‘coriacea’ +from corium, leather), “antics new” (Harrington’s +<i>Ariosto</i>), an “<i>erroneous</i> <i>etymo</i>logy”, a “<i>corn</i> <i>chandler</i>”; +that is, a “<i>corn</i> <i>candle</i>-maker”, “<i>rather</i> <i>late</i>”, ‘rather’ +being the comparative of ‘rathe’, early, and thus “rather +late” being indeed “more early late”; and in others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> +[‘Siren’ is now generally understood to have meant +originally a songstress, from the root <i>svar</i>, to sing or +sound, seen in <i>syrinx</i>, a flute, <i>su(r)-sur-us</i>, etc. See J. E. +Harrison, <i>Myths of the Odyssey</i>, p. 175.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> +[‘Chymist’ seems to be the oldest form of the word +in English; see N.E.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> +<span title="Greek: chêmia">χημία</span>, the name of Egypt; see Plutarch, <i>De Is. et +Os.</i> c. 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> +We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this +error was, how long this confusion endured, of the way in +which it was shared by the learned as well as the +unlearned, in Milton’s <i>Apology for Smectymnuus</i>, sect. 7, +which everywhere presumes the identity of the ‘satyr’ +and the ‘satirist’. It was Isaac Casaubon who first +effectually dissipated it even for the learned world. The +results of his investigations were made popular for the +unlearned reader by Dryden, in the very instructive +<i>Discourse on Satirical Poetry</i>, prefixed to his translations +of Juvenal; but the confusion still survives, and ‘satyrs’ +and ‘satires’, the Greek ‘satyric’ drama, the Latin +‘satirical’ poetry, are still assumed by most to have +something to do with one another.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> +[‘Dirige’ was the first word of the antiphon at matins +in the Office for the Dead, taken from Psalm v, 9 (Vulg.), +in which occur the words “<i>dirige</i> in conspectu tuo vitam +meam”. See Skeat, <i>Piers Plowman</i>, ii, 52. Hence also +Scotch <i>dregy</i>, a dirge.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> +[Incorrect: the ‘mid-wife’ is etymologically she +that is <i>with</i> (old English <i>mid</i>) a woman to help her in her +hour of need, like German <i>bei-frau</i>, Spanish <i>co-madre</i>, +Icelandic <i>naer-kona</i>, “near-woman”, Latin <i>ob-stetrix</i>, +“by-stander”, all words for the lying-in nurse. Compare +German <i>mit-bruder</i>, a comrade.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">“I have seen him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caper upright, like a wild <i>Môrisco</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells”.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="citation">Shakespeare, <i>2 Henry VI</i> Act iii, Sc. 1.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> +In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult +to determine how far the old shape in which words present +themselves should be retained, how far they should be +conformed to present usage. It is comparatively easy +to lay down as a rule that in books intended for popular +use, wherever the form of the word is not affected by the +modernizing of the spelling, as where this modernizing +consists merely in the dropping of superfluous letters, +there it shall take place; as who would wish our Bibles +to be now printed letter for letter after the edition of +1611, or Shakespeare with the orthography of the first +folio; but wherever more than the spelling, the actual +shape, outline, and character of the word has been +affected by the changes which it has undergone, that in +all such cases the earlier form shall be held fast. The +rule is a judicious one; but when it is attempted to carry +it out, it is not always easy to draw the line, and to +determine what affects the form and essence of a word, +and what does not. About some words there can be no +doubt; and therefore when a modern editor of Fuller’s +<i>Church History</i> complacently announces that he has +allowed himself in such changes as ‘dirige’ into ‘dirge’, +‘barreter’ into ‘barrister’, ‘synonymas’ into ‘synonymous’, +‘extempory’ into ‘extemporary’, ‘scited’ +into ‘situated’, ‘vancurrier’ into ‘avant-courier’; he +at the same time informs us that for all purposes of the +study of the English language (and few writers are for +this more important than Fuller), he has made his edition +utterly worthless. Or again, when modern editors of +Shakespeare print, and that without giving any intimation +of the fact,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Like quills upon the fretful <i>porcupine</i>”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the +words standing,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Like quills upon the fretful <i>porpentine</i>”,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare’s time the more +common form of the word [e.g. “the <i>purpentines</i> nature” +(Puttenham, <i>Eng. Poesie</i>, 1589, p. 118, ed. Arber)], they +must be considered as taking a very unwarrantable liberty +with his text; and no less, when they substitute ‘Kenilworth’ +for ‘Killingworth’, which he wrote, and which was +his, Marlowe’s, and generally the earlier form of the name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> +[Compare Latin <i>amita</i>, yielding old French <i>ante</i>, +<ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘oua’">our</ins> ‘aunt’.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> +“The Carthaginians shall restore and deliver back all +the <i>renegates</i> [perfugas] and fugitives that have fled to +their side from us”.—p. 751.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> +[See further in <i>The Folk and their Word-Lore</i>, p. 80.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> +Halbertsma quoted by Bosworth, <i>Origin of the +English and Germanic Languages</i>, p. 39.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p></div> + + +<hr class="chapter" /> +<h2><a name="Index" id="Index"></a>INDEX OF WORDS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Index"> +<tr><td></td> + <td class="right"><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Abenteuer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_264_264">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Abnormal</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Abominable</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Academy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Accommodate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Acre</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Adamant</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Admiralty</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Advocate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Æon</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Æsthetic</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Afeard</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Affluent</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Afraid</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Afterthink</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Alcimus</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Alcove</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘15’"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Amphibious</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Analogie</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ant</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Antecedents</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Anthem</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Antipodes</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_62_62">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Apotheosis</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>-ard</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Armbrust</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_264_264">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Arride</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ascertain</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ask</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Astarte</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Attercop</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Aurantium</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Aurichalcum</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Avunculize</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Axe</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Baffle</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Baker, bakester</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Banter</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Barrier</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Battalion</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_52_52">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bawn</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Benefice, benefit</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bitesheep</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Black art</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Blackguard</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Blasphemous</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bless</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bombast</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Book</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘20’"><a href="#Footnote_24_24">21</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Boor</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bozra</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Brangle</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bran-new</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Brat</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Brazen</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Breaden</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bruin</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Buffalo</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Butter</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Buxom</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> +Chagrin</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chance-medley</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chanticleer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chemist, chemistry</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chicken</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chouse</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Chymist, chymistry</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Clawback</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Comissatio</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Commérage</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Confluent</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Congregational</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Contrary</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Corpse</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Country dance</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Court card</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Coxcomb</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Cozen</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Crawfish</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Creansur</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘46’"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Criterion</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Crone, crony</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Crucible</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Crusade</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Cuirass</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_275_275">246</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Currant</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Cynarctomachy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Dahlia</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dame</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_212_212">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dandylion</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dearworth</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dedal</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dehort</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Demagogue</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Denominationalism</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Depot</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Diamond</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dirge</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dissimilation</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Divest</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Donat</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dorter</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dosones</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Doughty</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Drachm</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dragoman</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dub</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Duke</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dumps</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dutch</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Eame</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Earsport</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Eaves</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Educational</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Effervescence</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Einseitig</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Eliakim</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ell</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Emet</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Emotional</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Encyclopedia</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Enfantillage</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Equivocation</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Erutar</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_165_165">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Escobarder</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_98_98">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>-ess</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Europe</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Eyebite</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Fairy</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Farfalla</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Fatherland</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Flitter-mouse</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Flota</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘16’"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Folklore</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Foolhappy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Foolhardy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Foolhasty</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Foollarge</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Foretalk</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Fougue</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Fraischeur</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Frances</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Francis</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Frimm</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Frivolité</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Frontispiece</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Furlong</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Gainly</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Gallon</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Galvanism</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘9’"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Garble</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Geir</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Gentian</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Girdle</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘20’"><a href="#Footnote_24_24">21</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Girfalcon</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_130_130">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Girl</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Glassen</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Gordian</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Gossip</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Great</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Grimsire</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Grocer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Grogram</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Halfgod</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hallow</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Handbook</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hangdog</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hector</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Heft</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hermetic</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hery</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hierosolyma</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hipocras</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hippodame</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>His</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hooker</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘15’"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hoppester</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hotspur</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hoyden</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Huck</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_175_175">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Huckster, huckstress</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_175_175">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Hurricane</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Iceberg</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Icefield</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘73’"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Idea</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Imp</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘215’"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Influence</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>International</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Island</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Isle</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Isolated</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Isothermal</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Its</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Jaw</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Jeopardy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Kenilworth</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Footnote_283_283">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Kindly</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Kirtle</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘20’"><a href="#Footnote_24_24">21</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Knave</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Knitster</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Knot</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Lambiner</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Footnote_98_98">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lass</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lazar</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Leer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Leghorn</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_263_263">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Libel</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lifeguard</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lissome</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>London</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lunch, luncheon</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Malingerer</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mammet, mammetry</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mandragora</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mansarde</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_98_98">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Matachin</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘16’"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Matamoros</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_161_161">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mausoleum</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Meat</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Meddle, meddlesome</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Middler</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mid-wife</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Milken</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘162’"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mischievous</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Miscreant</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mithridate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mixen</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Morris dance</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_251">251</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mystery, mystère</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Myth</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Nap</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Necromancy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Negus</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nemorivagus</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_77_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Neophyte</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nesh</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Niggot</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nimm</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Noonscape</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_143_143">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Noonshun</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_143_143">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Normal</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nostril</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nugget</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Nuncheon</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Oblige</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Obsequies</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Oculissimus</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Orange</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Orichalcum</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_257_257">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ornamentation</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Orrery</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Orthography</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_275_275">245</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Pagan</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Painful, painfulness</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pandar, pandarism</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Panorama</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pasquinade</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Patch</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pease</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Peck</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pester</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_91_91">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Philauty</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Photography</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Physician</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pigmy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pinchpenny</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pleurisy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Plunder</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Footnote_125_125">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Poet</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Polite</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Polytheism</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Porcupine</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_283_283">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Porpoise</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Postremissimus</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘90’"><a href="#Footnote_102_102">91</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Potecary</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Prævaricator</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pragmatical</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Préliber</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_49_49">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Preposterous</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Prestige</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Prevaricate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Privado</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Prose, proser</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Punctilio</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Punto</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Pyramid</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Quellio</td> + <td class="right section"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘16’"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Quinsey</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Quirpo</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Quirry</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Rakehell</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rame</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rathe, rathest</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Realmrape</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Recover</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Redingote</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_57_57">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Refuse</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Regoldar</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_165_165">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Religion</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Renegade</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Renown</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Resent</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Reynard</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rhyme</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Riches</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rickets</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Righteousness</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rodomontade</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rome</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rootfast</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rosen</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘161’"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ruly</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Runagate</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Sag</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sardanapalisme</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_98_98">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sash</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Satellites</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Satire, satirical</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Satyr, satyric</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Scent</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Schimmer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Scrip</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Seamster, seamstress</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Selfish, selfishness</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sentiment</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sepoy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Serene</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Shrewd, shrewdness</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Silhouette</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_98_98">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Silvern</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘162’"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Silvicultrix</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_77_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Siren</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Skinker</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Skip</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Slick</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Smellfeast</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Smug</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Solidarity</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Songster, songstress</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sorcerer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Spencer</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sperr</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Spheterize</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Spinner, spinster</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Starconner</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Starvation</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Starve</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Stereotype</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Stonen</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘162’"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Suckstone</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sudden</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Suicide</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Suicism, suist</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sündflut</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sunstead</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Swindler</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sycophant</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Tabinet</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tapster</td> + <td class="right"><ins class="correction" title="original reads ‘156’"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></ins></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tarre</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tartar</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tartary</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_258_258">238</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tea</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Theriac</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_206_206">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Thou</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Thrasonical</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tind</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tinnen</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tinsel</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tinsel-slippered</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tontine</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Topsy-turvy</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tosspot</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Tram</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Treacle</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Trigger</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Trounce</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Turban</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Umstroke</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Uncouth</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Vancurrier</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Vicinage</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Villain</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Volcano</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Voltaic</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Voyage</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Wanhope</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Waterfright</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Watershed</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Weed</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Welk</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Welkin</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Welsh rabbit</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Whole</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Windflower</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wiseacre</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Witch</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Witticism</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Witwanton</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Woburn</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Woodbine</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Worship</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wörterbuch</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Yard</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Youngster</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="section">Zoology</td> + <td class="right section"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Zoophyte</td> + <td class="right"><a href="#Footnote_125_125">107</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + + +<p class="center">Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.</p> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3><a name="phonetic" id="phonetic"></a>Transcription of Phonetic Symbols</h3> + +<p>In the phonetic passage on page 222, the symbols <span title="e symbol">ɛ</span> +and <span title="ng symbol">ŋ</span> are as in +the original. For the other symbols, the following transcription +scheme has been used:</p> + +<table cellspacing="5" summary="phonetic symbols"> +<tr><td class="center"><b>Symbol:</b></td> + <td class="center"><b>Transcribed as:</b></td></tr> +<tr><td class="center"> + <img src="images/ques.png" alt="backwards question mark" title="question symbol" /></td> + <td class="center">¿</td></tr> +<tr><td class="center"> + <img src="images/i.png" alt="upside-down r with a dot over it" title="i symbol" /></td> + <td class="center"><span title="i symbol">ɨ</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="center"><img src="images/o.png" + alt="o with a loop" title="o symbol" /></td> + <td class="center"><span title="o symbol">ɵ</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="center"><img src="images/th.png" + alt="theta with a flattened left side" title="th symbol" /></td> + <td class="center">θ</td></tr> +<tr><td class="center"><img src="images/dh.png" + alt="theta with a flattened right side" title="dh symbol" /></td> + <td class="center">ð</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a href="#poem">Return to text</a></p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Past and Present, by +Richard Chevenix Trench + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT *** + +***** This file should be named 20900-h.htm or 20900-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/9/0/20900/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Amy Cunningham, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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