English Past and Present Part 7

{99} See Col. Mure, _Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_, vol. i, p. 350.

{100} See Genin, _Des Variations du Langage Francais_, p. 12.

{101} [Dr. Murray in the N.E.D. calls these by the convenient term 'nonce-words'.]

{102} _Persa_, iv. 6, 20-23. At the same time these words may be earnest enough; such was the ??a??st?te??? 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".

{103} It is curious that a correspondent of Skinner (_Etymologicon_, 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 pa.s.sage in _The Alchemist_ (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.]

{104} [These are quite distinct words, though perhaps distantly related.]

{105} If there were any doubt about this matter, which indeed there is not, a reference to Latimer's famous _Sermon on Cards_ would abundantly remove it, where 'triumph' and 'trump' are interchangeably used.

{106} [Dr. Murray does not regard these words as ultimately identical.]

{107} ['Rant' (old Dutch _ranten_) has no connection with 'rend'

(Anglo-Saxon _hrendan_) (Skeat).]

{108} On these words see a learned discussion in _English Retraced_, Cambridge, 1862.

{109} [These are quite unconnected (Skeat).]

{110} [Neither are these words to be confused with one another.]

{111} The appropriating of 'Franc_e_s' to women and 'Franc_i_s' to men is quite of modern introduction; it was formerly nearly as often Sir Franc_e_s Drake as Sir Franc_i_s, while Fuller (_Holy State_, b. iv, c. 14) speaks of Franc_i_s Brandon, eldest _daughter_ of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and see Ben Jonson's _New Inn_, Act. ii, Sc. 1.

{112} [Not connected.]

{113} ['Sad' akin to 'sated' bears no relations.h.i.+p to 'set'; neither does 'medley' to 'motley'.]

{114} [On the connection of these words see my _Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 110.]

{115} [Not connected, see Skeat.]

{116} 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 pa.s.s, 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 _beneficium_, and 'benefit' from Latin _bene-factum_, are here confused.]

{117} ['h.o.a.rd' (Anglo-Saxon _hord_) cannot be equated with 'horde' (from Persian _ordu_).]

{118} [These words have been differentiated in comparatively modern times. 'Ingenuity' was once used for 'ingenuousness'.]

{119} [The words are really unconnected, 'to gamble' being 'to gamle' or 'game', and 'to gambol' being akin to French _gambiller_, to fling up the legs (_gambes_ or _jambes_) like a frisking lamb.]

{120} The same happens in other languages. Thus in Greek '????ea' and '?????a' both signify that which is devoted, though in very different senses, to the G.o.ds; '???s??', boldness, and '???s??', temerity, were no more at first than different spellings of the same word; not otherwise is it with ???p?? and ???f??, ???? and ????, ???? and ????, while ?e??? and ?????, s???? and s????, 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 'ctus'; 'aegrimonia' and 'aerumna'; 'Lucina' and 'luna'; 'navita' and 'nauta'; in German with 'rechtlich' and 'redlich'; 'schlecht' and 'schlicht'; 'ahnden' and 'ahnen'; 'biegsam' and 'beugsam'; 'fursehung' 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 'Zephire'

and 'zephir', and with many more.

{121} Coleridge, _Church and State_, p. 200.

{122} [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.]

{123} [This prediction was correct. 'Dissimilation' is first found in philological works published in the decade 1874-85. See N.E.D.]

{124} [Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine (from _Confluentes_), reminds us that the word was so used.]

{125} A pa.s.sage from Hacket's _Life of Archbishop Williams_, 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 _selfish_ (it is a word of their own new mint), etc". In Whitlock's _Zootomia_ (1654) there is another indication of it as a novelty, p. 364: "If constancy may be tainted with this _selfishness_ (to use our _new wordings_ of old and general actings)"--It is he who in his striking essay, _The Grand Schismatic, or Suist Anatomized_, 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 pa.s.sage in Phillips' _New World of Words_, 1671, 3rd ed.: "Nor less to be exploded is the word '_suicide_', which may as well seem to partic.i.p.ate of _sus_ a sow, as of the p.r.o.noun _sui_". In the _Index_ to Jackson's Works, published two years later, it is still '_suicidium_'--"the horrid _suicidium_ of the Jews at York". 'Suicide' is apparently of much later introduction into French. Genin (_Recreations Philol._ vol.

i, p. 194) places it about the year 1728, and makes the Abbe 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 fas.h.i.+on of suicide was borrowed from England. It would seem at all events probable that the word was so borrowed.

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 _Dictionary_: 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 _Epigrams_ 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 authors.h.i.+p of the word; that from Evelyn under 'miss'; and from Milton under 'demagogue'. There are also notices of the same kind in _Todd's Johnson_. 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 ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sages 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 _The Tatler_, No. 230. On 'plunder' there are two instructive pa.s.sages in Fuller's _Church History_, b. xi, -- 4, 33; and b. ix, -- 4; and one in Heylin's _Animadversions_ thereupon, p. 196. On 'admiralty'

see a note in Harington's _Ariosto_, book 19; on 'maturity' Sir Thomas Elyot's _Governor_, b. i, c. 22; and on 'industry' the same, b. i, c. 23; on 'neophyte' a notice in Fulke's _Defence of the English Bible_, Parker Society's edition, p. 586; and on 'panorama', and marking its recent introduction (it is not in Johnson), a pa.s.sage in Pegge's _Anecdotes of the English Language_, 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 _2 Henry IV._ Act 3, Sc. 2; on 'shrub', Junius' _Etymologicon_, s. v.

'syrup'; on 'sentiment' and 'cajole' Skinner, s. vv., in his _Etymologicon_ ('vox nuper civitate donata'); and on 'opera'

Evelyn's _Memoirs and Diary_, 1827, vol. i, pp. 189, 190. In such a collection should be included those pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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 _unrelative_: if I may use such a word for want of a better in English. In French I would say _isoles_" (_Notes and Queries_, 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 _isole_". So, too, it is pretty certain that 'amphibious' was not yet English, when one writes (in 1618): "We are like those creatures called ?f??a, who live in water or on land". ???????a, the t.i.tle of a book published in 1649, makes it clear that 'zoology' was not yet in our vocabulary, as ???f?t?? (Jackson) proves the same for 'zoophyte', and p????e?s?? (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 pa.s.sages 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 (_The Governor_, 2, 14), are to be met in Chaucer. When Skinner affirmed of 'sentiment' that it had only recently obtained the rights of English citizens.h.i.+p 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 _Notes and Queries_, 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.

{126} There is an admirable Essay by Leibnitz with this view (_Opera_, vol. vi, part 2, pp. 6-51) in French and German, with this t.i.tle, _Considerations sur la Culture et la Perfection de la Langue Allemande_.

{127} _Zur Geschichte und Beurtheilung der Fremdworter im Deutschen_, von. Aug. Fuchs, Dessau, 1842, pp. 85-91.

III

DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

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{128} and flow, to be gaining and losing; the words which const.i.tute 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.

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, 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 pa.s.s 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 Provencal and Wallachian; not a few in our own. Still in their own proper being languages perish and pa.s.s 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.

{Sidenote: _Languages Gain and Lose_}

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 a.s.sume 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 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 const.i.tute 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 c.u.mbrous 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 pa.s.sing into another stage of its development; only different, as the fruit is different from the flower, and the flower from the bud; having 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.

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 _two_ kinds, while its gains are only of _one_. Its gains are only in _words_; it never puts forth in the course of its evolution a new _power_; 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 _powers_--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 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 _words_, and then in _powers_.

{Sidenote: _Words become Extinct_}

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 _tentative_, 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 _waned_ that now there is an entire _want_ of it, was in use down to the reign of Elizabeth; it occurs so late as in the poems of Gascoigne{129}. 'Skinker' for cupbearer, (an ungraceful word, no doubt) is used by Shakespeare and lasted till Dryden's time and beyond.

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'{130} for vulture ("vultures or _geirs_"), 'specht' for woodp.e.c.k.e.r, 'reise' for journey, 'frimm' for l.u.s.ty 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, _mother's_ brother (the German 'oheim'), good Saxon-English once, still live on in some of our provincial dialects; so does '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 Hamps.h.i.+re{131}.