English Past and Present Part 10

{Sidenote: _Strong Praeterites_}

Observe further that where verbs have not actually renounced their strong praeterites, 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. x.x.xi. 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 praeterites which I have named the first remains in use.

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 the strong; on the contrary the weak is carrying the day, is getting the better of its stronger compet.i.tor. Thus 'climbed' is gaining the upper hand of 'clomb', 'swelled' of 'swoll', 'hanged' of 'hung'. It is not too much to antic.i.p.ate that a time will come, although it may be still far off, when all English verbs will form their praeterites 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{193}.

{Sidenote: _Comparatives and Superlatives_}

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_er_', 'bright_est_', the other supplementary to this, by 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 'grievousest', '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 'flouris.h.i.+ngest', or 's.h.i.+ningest', 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.

In the manifest tendency of English at the present 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 a.n.a.logy, 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.

It will fare not otherwise, as I am bold to predict, with the flexional genitive, formed in 's' or 'es' (see p. 161). This too will finally disappear altogether from the language, or will survive only in poetry, and as much an archaic form there as the 'picta' of Virgil. A time will come when it will not any longer be free to say, as now, either, "_the king's sons_", or "_the sons of the king_", 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 _man's son_ shall come" (Wiclif), but "When _the Son of man_ shall come", nor yet, "_The hypocrite's hope_ shall perish" (Job viii. 13, Authorized Version), but, "_The hope of the hypocrite_ shall perish"; not with Barrow, "No man can be ignorant _of human life's brevity and uncertainty_", but "No man can be ignorant _of the brevity and uncertainty of human life_". The consummation which I antic.i.p.ate may be centuries off, but will a.s.suredly arrive{194}.

{Sidenote: _Lost Diminutives_}

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), 'G.o.dling', 'loveling', 'dwarfling', 'shepherdling' (all in Sylvester), 'chasteling' (Bacon), 'niceling' (Stubbs), 'fosterling' (Ben Johnson), and 'masterling'? Where now 'porelet' (=paupercula, Isai. x. 30, Vulg.), 'bundelet', (both in Wiclif); 'cus.h.i.+onet' (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 _small_ poke, nor a 'latchet' a _small_ lace, nor a 'trumpet' a small _trump_, as once they were.

{Sidenote: _Thou and Thee_}

Once more--in the entire dropping among the higher cla.s.ses of 'thou', except in poetry or in addresses to the Deity, and as a necessary consequence, the dropping also of the second singular of 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{195}. It was not unfrequently the latter. Thus at Sir Walter Raleigh's trial (1603), c.o.ke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term 'thou':--"All that Lord Cobham did was at _thy_ instigation, _thou_ viper, for I _thou_ thee, _thou_ traitor". And when Sir Toby Belch in _Twelfth Night_ 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 _thou'st_ 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 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{196}. 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.

{Sidenote: _Gender Words_}

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 ill.u.s.tration from its remoter periods, and bidding you to note a force not now waning and failing from it, but extinct long ago. I cannot well pa.s.s 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 _s.e.x_ of course remains, being inherent in all language; but grammatical _gender_, 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 _feminine_, but the person indicated who is _female_. So too 'daughter', 'queen', are in English not _feminine_ nouns, but nouns designating _female_ persons. Take on the contrary 'filia' or 'regina', 'fille' or 'reine'; there you have _feminine_ nouns as well as _female_ 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 a.s.serted itself in the rejection of a distinction, which in a vast proportion of words, that is, in all which are the signs of _inanimate_ objects, and as such incapable of s.e.x, 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 s.e.x, and thus gender, can be attributed to a table, a s.h.i.+p, 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{197}.

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 a.n.a.lytic. 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 a.n.a.lyse, 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.

{FOOTNOTES}

{128} [Apparently a slip for 'ebb']

{129} It is still used in prose as late as the age of Henry VIII; see the _State Papers_, 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; 'wanl.u.s.t', languor; 'wanwit', folly; 'w.a.n.grace', wickedness; 'wantrust' (Chaucer), distrust, [Also 'wan-ton', devoid of breeding (_towen_). Compare German _wahn-sinn_, insanity, and _wahn-witz_.]

{130} We must not suppose that this still survives in '_gir_falcon'; which wholly belongs to the Latin element of the language; being the later Latin 'gyrofalco', and that, "a _gyrando_, quia diu _gyrando_ acriter praedam insequitur".

{131} ['Heft', from 'heave' (_Winter's Tale_, ii. 1, 45), is widely diffused in the Three Kingdoms and in America. See E.D.D. _s.v._]

{132} "Some _hot-spurs_ 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 _Livy_, p. 922.)

{133} _State Papers_, vol. vi. p. 534.

{134} ['Malinger', French _malingre_ (mistakenly derived above), stands for old French _mal-heingre_ (maliciously or falsely ill, feigning sickness), which is from Latin _male aeger_, with an intrusive _n_--Scheler.]

{135} [To which the late Boer War contributed many more, such as 'kopje', 'trek', 'slim', 'veldt', etc.]

{136} 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 pa.s.sages are both quoted in Richardson's _Dictionary_. ['Bawn' stands for the Irish _ba-dhun_ (not _babhun_, as in N.E.D.), or _bo-dhun_, literally 'cow-fortress', a cattle enclosure (Irish _bo_, a cow). See P. W. Joyce, _Irish Names of Places_, 1st ser. p. 297.]

{137} There is an excellent account of this "refugee French" in Weiss'

_History of the Protestant Refugees of France_.

{138} [Thus the Shakespearian word _renege_ (Latin _renegare_), to deny (_Lear_ ii, 2) still lives in the mouths of the Irish peasantry. I have heard a farmer's wife denounce those who "_renege_ [_renaig_]

their religion".]

{139} 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 _persons_ plural" he says (_English Grammar_, c. 17), "keep the termination of the first _person_ singular. In former times, till about the reign of King Henry VIII, they were wont to be formed by adding _en_; thus, _loven_, _sayen_, _complainen_. 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 _time_ and _person_ 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"?

{140} [The two words are often popularly confounded. When a good woman said "I'm _afeerd_", Mr. Pickwick exclaimed "_Afraid_"! (_Pickwick Papers_, ch. v.). Chaucer, instructively, uses both in the one sentence, "This wyf was not _affered_ ne _affrayed_" (_s.h.i.+pman's Tale_, l. 400).]

{141} Genin (_Recreations Philologiques_, vol. i. p. 71) says to the same effect: "Il n'y a gueres de faute de Francais, je dis faute generale, accreditee, qui n'ait sa raison d'etre, et ne put au besoin produire ses lettres de n.o.blesse; et souvent mieux en regle que celles des locutions qui ont usurpe leur place au soleil".

{142} A single proof may in each case suffice:

"Our wills and fates do so _contrary_ run".--_Shakespeare._

"Ne let _mischievous_ witches with their charms".--_Spenser._

"O argument _blasphemous_, false and proud".--_Milton._

[These archaisms are still current in Ireland.]

{143} I cannot doubt that this form which our country people in Hamps.h.i.+re, as in many other parts, always employ, either retains the original p.r.o.nunciation, our received one being a modern corruption; or else, as is more probable, that _we_ have made a confusion between two originally different words, from which they have kept clear. Thus in Howell's _Vocabulary_, 1659, and in Cotgrave's _French and English Dictionary_ both words occur: "nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon's repast", (cf. _Hudibras_, i.

1, 346: "They took their breakfasts or their _nuncheons_"), 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':

"When hungry thou stood'st staring like an oaf, I sliced the _luncheon_ from the barley loaf";

and Miss Baker in her _Northamptons.h.i.+re Glossary_ explains 'lunch'

as "a large lump of bread, or other edible; 'He helped himself to a good _lunch_ 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 _Pastorals_, 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 _shunning_ of the heat of the middle _noon_: especially when in Lancas.h.i.+re 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 _none-schenche_, i.e. 'noon-skink' or noon-drink (see Skeat, _Etym. Dict._, _s.v._), 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 _luncheon_", 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.

{144} See it so written, Holland's _Pliny_, vol. ii. p. 428, and often.

{145} 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 _On English p.r.o.nouns Personal_ in _Transactions of the Philological Society_, vol. i. p. 277.

{146} [We now have the good fortune to possess a complete collection of this valuable cla.s.s 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.]

{147} 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 ill.u.s.trated by those who have lately written on the early history of the word 'its'; thus see Craik, _On the English of Shakespeare_, p. 91; Marsh, _Manual of the English Language_ (Eng. Edit.), p. 278; _Transactions of the Philological Society_, vol. 1. p. 280; and my book _On the Authorized Version of the New Testament_, p. 59.

{148} Thus Fuller (_Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, vol. ii. p. 190): "Sure I am this city [the New Jerusalem] as presented by the prophet, was fairer, finer, _slicker_, smoother, more exact, than any fabric the earth afforded".

{149} [In the United States 'plunder' is used for personal effects, baggage and luggage (Webster). This is not noticed in the E.D.D.]