English Past and Present Part 4

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'{68}. He also launched the verb 'to spheterize' in the sense of to appropriate or make one's own; but this without success. Others have been more fortunate; 'aesthetic' we have got indeed _through_ the Germans, but _from_ the Greeks. Tennyson has given allowance to 'aeon'{69}; 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{70}.

{Sidenote: _German Importations_}

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 commerce 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 _State Papers_ 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{71}. And 'trigger', written 'tricker' in _Hudibras_ is manifestly the German 'drucker'{72}, 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 have made it not 'ice_berg_', but 'ice-_mountain_'. 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{73} (it is not an old one in our tongue) during the course of the last century. If '_life_-guard' was originally, as Richardson suggests, '_leib_-garde', or '_body_-guard', and from that transformed, by the determination of Englishmen to make it significant in English, into '_life_-guard', or guard defending the _life_ 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 _lifegard_ to king David"{74}.

Of late our German importations have been somewhat more numerous. With several German compound words we have been in recent times so 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 t.i.tle of "Latin _word-building_", 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{75}. The most successful of these compounded words, borrowed recently from the German, is 'folk-lore', and the subst.i.tution of this for popular superst.i.tions, must be esteemed, I think, an unquestionable gain{76}.

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.

{Sidenote: _Compound Words_}

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"{77}. Sir 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 in miniature. Not unworthy to be set beside these are Sylvester's "_opal-coloured_ morn", Drayton's "_silver-sanded_ sh.o.r.e", and perhaps Marlowe's "_golden-fingered_ Ind"{78}.

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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 Sh.e.l.ley has done more than any other to a.s.sert 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{79}.

{Sidenote: _Adjectives ending in al_}

Another way in which languages increase their stock of vocables is by the forming of new words according to the a.n.a.logy of formations, which in seemingly parallel cases have been already allowed. 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 a.s.sembly of Divines, or during the time of the Commonwealth{80}.

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 "_Educational_ 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{81}.

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{82}, '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 certainly counsel you to abstain from all but the perfectly well recognized 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.

'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, "_Starvation_ Dundas", which in consequence he obtained{83}.

{Sidenote: _Revival of Words_}

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 _is_ 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 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"{84}. 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.

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 antic.i.p.ates a _palingenesy_ for many among them{85}; 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 _Shepherd's Calendar_, 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 _Chaucer_ (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 _Etymologicon_ (1671), there is another list of obsolete, words{86}, 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{87}. 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{88}. Johnson says of 'jeopardy' that it is a "word not now in use"; which certainly is not any longer true{89}.

{Sidenote: _Dryden and Chaucer's English_}

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 _Preface_ to his _Tales from Chaucer_, 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 _we_ 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 circ.u.mstances might explain this; but I am convinced that they found a greater difficulty and strangeness in the language of Spenser and Shakespeare than we find now; that it sounded in many ways more uncouth, more old-fas.h.i.+oned, more abounding in obsolete terms than it does in our ears at the present. Only in this way can I explain 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"{90}. 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 coa.r.s.e; and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure"{91}.

{Sidenote: _Nugget_, _Ingot_}

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 '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{92}. There can be little doubt of the ident.i.ty of 'niggot' and 'nugget'; all the consonants, the _stamina_ 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{93}.

{Sidenote: _Words from Proper Names_}

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 _persons_ which have afterwards become names of _things_, from 'nomina _appellativa_' have become 'nomina _realia_'{94}.

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 Chimaera has given us 'chimerical', Hermes 'hermetic', Tantalus 'to tantalize', Hercules 'herculean', Proteus 'protean', Vulcan 'volcano' and 'volcanic', and Daedalus 'dedal', if this word may on Spenser's and Sh.e.l.ley'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. Veronica 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 idol{95}, 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 an 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{96}; 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 constructed; and Lord Spencer first wore, or at least first brought into fas.h.i.+on, 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 '_tram_-road', the second syllable of the name of Ou_tram_, the inventor, survives{97}. 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{98}.

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 n.o.bleness there is a certain amount of big talking about him, he has given us 'to hector'{99}; 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 bl.u.s.tering 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 Moliere 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, _Reineke Fuchs_; 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 c.o.c.k, and 'Bruin' of the bear in the same poem{100}. These have not made fortune to the same extent of actually putting out in any language the names which before existed, but still have become quite familiar to us all.

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 pa.s.s away{101}. The inventors of them had themselves no intention of fastening them permanently on the language. Thus among the Greeks Aristophanes coined e?????????, 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 ?f?pt??e?p?d?s?st?at?? of Eupolis; the spe?a???a???e?????a?a??p???? 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 combinations thrown off for the occasion{102}. 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.

{Sidenote: '_To Chouse_'}

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 Ma.s.singer), being attached to the Turkish emba.s.sy 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{103}.

{Sidenote: _Different Spelling of Words_}

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 p.r.o.nunciation, 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 a.s.signed to it; dividing the inheritance between them, which 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.

{Sidenote: _Doublets_}

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, that the separation may be regarded as complete. Examples of this are the following: 'divers', and 'diverse'; 'conjure' and 'conjure'; 'antic' and 'antique'; 'human' and 'humane'; 'urban' and 'urbane'; 'gentle' and 'genteel'; 'custom' and 'costume'; 'essay' and 'a.s.say'; 'property' and 'propriety'. Or again, a word is p.r.o.nounced with a full sound of its syllables, or somewhat more shortly: thus 'spirit'

and 'sprite'; 'blossom' and 'bloom'{104}; 'personality' and 'personalty'; 'fantasy' and 'fancy'; 'triumph' and 'trump' (the _winning_ card{105}); 'happily' and 'haply'; 'waggon' and 'wain'; 'ordinance' and 'ordnance'; 'shallop' and 'sloop'; 'brabble' and 'brawl'{106}; 'syrup' and 'shrub'; 'balsam' and 'balm'; 'eremite' and 'hermit'; 'nighest' and 'next'; 'poesy' and 'posy'; 'fragile' and 'frail'; 'achievement' and 'hatchment'; 'manuvre' 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 '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 _rends_ a pa.s.sion to tatters){107}; 'creak' and 'croak'; 'float' and 'fleet'; 'sleek' and 'slick'; 'sheen' and 's.h.i.+ne'; 'shriek' and 'shrike'; 'pick'

and 'peck'; 'peak', 'pique', and 'pike'; 'weald' and 'wold'; 'drip' and 'drop'; 'wreathe' and 'writhe'; 'spear' and 'spire' ("the least _spire_ of gra.s.s", 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'{108}; 'grits' and 'grouts'; 'spirt' and 'sprout'; 'cure' and 'care'{109}; 'prune' and 'preen'; 'mister' and 'master'; 'allay' and 'alloy'; 'ghostly' and 'ghastly'{110}; '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 's.h.a.green'; 'can' and 'ken'; 'Francis' and 'Frances'{111}; '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'{110}; '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'; 't.i.ttle' and 't.i.tle'; 'price' and 'prize'; 'consort' and 'concert';--or there is a change in both, as between 'pipe' and 'fife'.

Or a word is spelt now with a final _k_ and now with a final _ch_; 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'; 'd.y.k.e' and 'ditch'; 'stink' and 'stench'; 'p.r.i.c.k' and 'pritch' (now obsolete); 'break' and 'breach'; to which may be added 'broach'; 'lace'

and 'latch'; 'stick' and 'st.i.tch'; 'lurk' and 'lurch'; 'bank' and 'bench'; 'stark' and 'starch'; 'wake' and 'watch'. So too _t_ and _d_ are easily exchanged; as in 'clod' and 'clot'; 'vend' and 'vent'; 'brood' and 'brat'{112}; 'halt' and 'hold'; 'sad' and 'set'{113}; 'card'

and 'chart'; 'medley' and 'motley'. Or there has grown up, besides the rigorous and accurate p.r.o.nunciation 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'{114} (now obsolete); 'Egyptian' and 'gypsy'; 'Bethlehem'

and 'Bedlam'; 'exemplar' and 'sampler'; 'dolphin' and 'dauphin'; 'iota'

and 'jot'.

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'{115}; 'bow' and 'bough'; 'hew' and 'hough'{115}; 'dies' and 'dice' (both plurals of 'die'); 'plunge' and 'flounce'{115}; 'staff' and 'stave'; 'scull' and 'shoal'; 'benefit' and 'benefice'{116}. Or, it may be, the difference which const.i.tutes 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'; 'h.o.a.rd' and 'horde'{117}; 'knoll'

and 'noll'; 'chord' and 'cord'; 'drachm' and 'dram'; 'sergeant' and 'serjeant'; 'mask' and 'masque'; 'villain' and 'villein'.

{Sidenote: _Words in Two Forms_}

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.