English Past and Present Part 11

{150} [But we have acquired, in some quarters, the abomination 'an invite'.]

{151} How many words modern French has lost which are most vigorous and admirable, the absence of which can only now be supplied by a circ.u.mlocution or by some less excellent word--'Oseur', 'affranchisseur' (Amyot), 'mepriseur', 'murmurateur', 'blandisseur' (Bossuet), 'abuseur' (Rabelais), 'desabus.e.m.e.nt', 'rancur', are all obsolete at the present. So 'desaimer', to cease to love ('disamare' in Italian), 'guirlander', 'steriliser', 'blandissant', 'ordonnement' (Montaigne), with innumerable others.

{152} [It has now attained a fair currency.]

{153} ['Gainly' is still used by nineteenth century writers, 1855-86; see N.E.D.]

{154} ['Dehort' has been used in modern times by Southey (_Letters_, 1825, iii, 462), and Cheyne (_Isaiah, introd._ 1882, xx.)--N.E.D.]

{155} [Tennyson has endeavoured to resuscitate the word--"_Rathe_ she rose"--_Lancelot and Elaine_--but with no great success.]

{156} For other pa.s.sages in which 'rathest' occurs, see the _State Papers_, vol. ii. pp. 92, 170.

{157} ['Buxom' for old English _buc-sum_ or _buch-sum_, i.e. 'bow-some', yielding, compliant, obedient. "Sara was _buxom_ to Abraham", 1 Pet. iii, 6 (xiv. Cent. Version, ed. Pawes, p. 216).]

{158} ['Lissome' for _lithe-some_, like Wess.e.x _blissom_ for _blithe-some_. Tennyson has "as _lissome_ as a hazel wand"--_The Brook_, l. 70.]

{159} Jamieson's _Dictionary_ 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'.]

{160} [A list of some of these reduplicated words was given by Dr. Booth in his "a.n.a.lytical Dictionary of the English Language", 1835; but a full collection of nearly six hundred was published by Mr. H. B.

Wheatley in the _Transactions of the Philological Society_ for 1865.]

{161} Many languages have groups of words formed upon the same scheme, although, singularly enough, they are altogether absent from the Anglo-Saxon. (J. Grimm, _Deutsche Gramm._, 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'.

{162} [This stands for 'peak-goose' (_peek goos_ in Ascham, _Scholemaster_, 1570, p. 54, ed. Arber), a _goose_ that _peaks_ or pines, used for a sickly, delicate person, and a simpleton. In Chapman, Cotgrave and others it appears as 'pea-goose'.]

{163} The mistake is far earlier; long before Cowper wrote the sound suggested first this sense, and then this spelling. Thus Stanihurst, _Description of Ireland_, p. 28: "They are taken for no better than _rakehels_, or _the devil's black guard_"; and often elsewhere.

{164} [i.e. in Joshua Sylvester's translation of "Du Bartas, his Diuine Weekes and Workes", 1621.]

{165} As not, however, turning on a _very_ coa.r.s.e matter, and ill.u.s.trating 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 subst.i.tution of 'erutar' in its room (_Don Quixote_, 4. 7. 43). In a letter of Cicero to Paetus (_Fam._ ix. 22) there is a subtle and interesting disquisition on forbidden words, and their philosophy.

{166} _Literature of Greece_, p. 5.

{167} [Notwithstanding the a.n.a.logous instance of 'abbess' for 'abbatess'

this account of 'la.s.s' must be abandoned. It is the old English _lasce_ (akin to Swedish _losk_), meaning (1) one free or disengaged, (2) an unmarried girl (N.E.D.)]

{168} In Cotgrave's _Dictionary_ I find 'praiseress', 'commendress', 'fluteress', 'possesseress', 'loveress', but have never met them in use.

{169} On this termination see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Gramm._, vol. ii. p.

134; vol. iii. p. 339.

{170} [_The Knightes Tale_, ed. Skeat, l. 2017.]

{171} [Yes; so in N.E.D.]

{172} I am indebted for these last four to a _Nominale_ in the _National Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 216.

{173} The earliest example which Richardson gives of 'seamstress' is from Gay, of 'songstress', from Thomson. I find however 'sempstress' in the translation of Olearius' _Voyages and Travels_, 1669, p. 43. It is quite certain that as late as Ben Jonson, 'seamster' and 'songster' expressed the _female_ seamer and singer; a single pa.s.sage from his _Masque of Christmas_ is evidence to this. One of the children of Christmas there is "Wa.s.sel, like a neat _sempster_ and _songster_; _her_ page bearing a brown bowl". Compare a pa.s.sage from _Holland's Leaguer_, 1632: "A _tyre-woman_ of phantastical ornaments, a _sempster_ for ruffes, cuffes, smocks and waistcoats".

{174} 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 _man_ spinning, _Henry VIII_, Act.

i. Sc. 2; and I have no doubt that it is the same in _Oth.e.l.lo_, Act i. Sc. 1. And a little later, in Howell's _Vocabulary_, 1659, 'spinner' and 'spinster' are _both_ referred to the male s.e.x, and the barbarous 'spinstress' invented for the female.

{175} I have included 'huckster', as will be observed, in this list. I certainly cannot produce any pa.s.sage in which it is employed as the _female_ 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 'hoker' or 'hocker'), in hawker, that is, the _man_ who 'hucks', 'hawks', or peddles, as in 'huckster' the _female_ 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 _Nominale_ referred to p. 155, the following, "haec auxiatrix, a _hukster_".

[Huckster, xiii. cent. _huccster_, it may be noted is an older word in the language than _hukker_ (hucker) and _to huck_, both first appearing in the xiv. cent. N.E.D.]

{176} [Preserved in the surnames Baxter and Brewster. See C. W.

Bardsley, _English Surnames_, 2nd ed. 364, 379.]

{177} _Notes and Queries_, No. 157.

{178} ['Welkin' is possibly a plural, but in Anglo-Saxon _wolcen_ is a cloud, and the plural _wolcnu_.]

{179} When Wallis wrote, it was only beginning to be forgotten that 'chick' was the singular, and 'chicken' the plural: "_Sunt qui dic.u.n.t_ in singulari 'chicken', et in plurali 'chickens'"; and even now the words are in many country parts correctly employed.

In Suss.e.x, a correspondent writes, they would as soon think of saying 'oxens' as 'chickens'. ['Chicken' is properly a singular, old English _cicen_, the _-en_ being a diminutival, not a plural, suffix (as in 'kitten', 'maiden'). Thus 'chicken' was originally 'a little chuck' (or c.o.c.k), out of which 'chick' was afterwards developed.]

{180} See Chaucer's _Romaunt of the Rose_, 1032, where Richesse, "an high lady of great n.o.blesse", 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 _Grammar_ he cites 'riches' as an example of an English word wanting a singular.

{181} "Set shallow brooks to surging seas, An orient pearl to a white _pease_".

_Puttenham._

{182} ['Eaves' (old English _efes_) from which an imaginary singular 'eave' has sometimes been evolved, as when Tennyson speaks of a 'cottage-eave' (_In Memoriam_, civ.), and Cotgrave of 'an house-eave'.]

{183} It is curious that despite of this protest, one of his plays has for its name, _Seja.n.u.s his Fall_.

{184} Even this does not startle Addison, or cause him any misgiving; on the contrary he boldly a.s.serts (_Spectator_, No. 135), "The same single letter 's' on many occasions does the office of a whole word, and represents the 'his' _or 'her'_ of our forefathers".

{185} 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 (_Gramm. Ling.

Anglic._, c. 5); Qui autem arbitrantur illud s, loco _his_ adjunctum esse (priori scilicet parte per aphaeresim abscissa), 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 litterae s usus distinctius, ubi opus est, percipiatur; ita tamen semper fieri debere, aut etiam ideo fieri quia vocem _his_ innuat, omnino nego. Adjungitur enim et fminarum nominibus propriis, et substantivis pluralibus, ubi vox _his_ sine solcismo loc.u.m habere non potest: atque etiam in possessivis _ours_, _yours_, _theirs_, _hers_, ubi vocem _his_ innui nemo somniaret.

{186} See the proofs in Marsh's _Manual of the English Language_, English Edit., pp. 280, 293.

{187} 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 a.s.sumed with the Bible. In all earlier editions of the Authorized Version it stood at 1 Kin. xv. 24: "Nevertheless _Asa his_ heart was perfect with the Lord"; it is "_Asa's_ heart" now. In the same way "_Mordecai his_ matters" (Esth. iii. 4) has been silently changed into "_Mordecai's_ matters"; and in some modern editions, but not in all, "_Holofernes his_ head" (Judith xiii. 9) into "_Holofernes'_ head".

{188} In a good note on the matter, p. 6, in the _Comprehensive Grammar_ prefixed to his _Dictionary_, London, 1775.

{189} See Grimm. _Deut. Gramm._, vol. ii. pp. 609, 944.

{190} 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'.

{191} J. Grimm (_Deutsche Gramm._ vol. i, p. 1040): Da.s.s die starke form die altere, kraftigere, innere; die schwache die spatere, gehemmtere und mehr ausserliche sey, leuchtet ein. Elsewhere, speaking generally of inflections by internal vowel change, he characterizes them as a 'chief beauty' (hauptschonheit) of the Teutonic languages. Marsh (_Manual of the English Language_, 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.

{192} 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 _Observations upon the English Language_, without date, but published about 1730, treats all these strong praeterites 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 _English Grammar_, that they should all be abolished as inconvenient. [Now many others are rapidly becoming obsolescent. How seldom do we hear 'drank', 'shrank', 'sprang', 'stank'.]

{193} J. Grimm (_Deutsche Gramm._ 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.