The Century Vocabulary Builder Part 9

Let us now take a concrete ill.u.s.tration. Starting with the word _tension_, let us ascertain what we can about it in the _Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia_. Our first quest is the original meaning.

For this we consult the bracketed matter. There we meet the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen of the word, and learn that they are traceable to a common ancestor, the Latin _tensio(n)_, which comes from the Latin verb _tendere_. The meaning of _tensio(n)_ is given as "stretching," that of _tendere_ as "stretch," "extend."

Thus we know of the original word that in form it closely resembles the modern word, and that in meaning it involves the idea of stretching.

What is the central meaning of the word today? To acquaint ourselves with this we must run through the definitions listed. Here (in condensed form) they are. (1) The act of stretching. (2) In _mechanics_, stress or the force by which something is pulled. (3) In _physics_, a constrained condition of the particles of bodies. (4) In _statical electricity_, surface-density. (5) Mental strain, stress, or application. (6) A strained state of any kind, as political or social. (7) An attachment to a sewing-machine for regulating the strain of the thread.

Now of these definitions (2), (3), (4), and (7) are too highly specialized to conduct us, of themselves, into the highway of the word's meaning. They bear out, however, the evidence of (1), (5), and (6), which have as their core the idea of stretching, or of the strain which stretching produces.

We must now lay the original meaning alongside the central meaning today, in order to draw our conclusions. We perceive that the two meanings correspond. Yet by prying into them we make out one marked difference between them. The original meaning is literal, the modern largely figurative. To be sure, the figure has been so long used that it is now scarcely felt as a figure; its force and definiteness have departed.

Consequently we may speak of being on a tension without having in mind at all a comparison of our nervous system with a stretched garment, or with an outreaching arm, or with a tightly strung musical instrument, or with a taut rope.

What, then, is the net result of our investigation? Simply this, that _tension_ means stretching, and that the stretching may be conceived either literally or figuratively. With these two facts in mind, we need not (unless we are experts in mechanics, physics, statical electricity, or the sewing-machine) go to the trouble of committing the special senses of _tension_; for should occasion bid, we can--from our position at the heart of the word--easily grasp their rough purport. And from other persons than specialists no more would be required.

EXERCISE - Dictionary

For each of the following words find (a) the original meaning, (b) the central meaning today. (Other words are given in the exercises at the end of this chapter.)

Bias Supersede Sly Aversion Capital Meerschaum Extravagant Travel Alley Concur Travail Fee Attention Apprehend Superb Magnanimity Lewd Adroit Altruism Instigation Quite Benevolence Complexion Urchin Charity Bishop Thoroughfare Unction Starve Naughty Speed Cunning Moral Success Decent Antic Crafty Handsome Savage Usury Solemn Uncouth Costume Parlor Window Presumption Bombastic Colleague Petty Vixen Alderman Queen Doctor Engage

To thread with minute fidelity the mazes of a word's former history is the task of the linguistic scholar; our province is the practical and the present-day. But words, like men, are largely what they are because of what they have been; and to turn a gossip's eye upon their past is to procure for ourselves, often, not only enlightenment but also entertainment. This fact, though brought out in some part already, deserves separate and fuller discussion.

In the first place, curiosity as to words' past experience enables us to read with keener understanding the literature of preceding ages. Of course we should not, even so, go farther back than about three centuries. To read anything earlier than Shakespeare would require us to delve too deeply into linguistic bygones. And to read Shakespeare himself requires effort--but rewards it. Let us see how an insight into words will help us to interpret the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4).

In line 2 of this pa.s.sage appears the word _merely_. In Shakespeare's time it frequently meant "altogether" or "that and nothing else." As here used, it may be taken to mean this, or to have its modern meaning, or to stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both; there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the word _pard_ means leopard. In line 18 _saws_ means "sayings" (compare the phrase "an old saw"); _modern_ means "moderate," "commonplace"; _instances_ means what we mean by it today, "examples,"

"ill.u.s.trations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and to trot out his trite ill.u.s.trations on the slightest provocation.) The word _pantaloon_ in line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral). _Pantaloon_ came therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is preserved, substantially, in our term _pantaloons_. The first sense led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for "buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In line 22 _hose_ means the covering for a man's body from his waist to his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet and the _lower_ part of the legs.) In line 27 _mere_ means "absolute." In line 28 _sans_ means "without."

Of the words we have examined, only _sans_ is obsolete, though _pard_, _saws_, and _pantaloon_ are perhaps not entirely familiar. That is, only one word in the pa.s.sage, so far as its outward form goes, is completely alien to our knowledge. But how different the matter stands when we consider meanings! The words are words of today, but the meanings are the meanings of Shakespeare. We should be baffled and misled as to the dramatist's thought if we had made no inquiries into the vehicle therefor.

In the second place, to look beyond the present into the more remote signification of words will put us on our guard against the reappearance of submerged or half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the word _tension_ may be used without conscious connection with the idea of stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We a.s.sociate _ardor_ with strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this conception of the word suffices. But _ardor_ is one of the children of fire; its primary sense is "burning" (compare _arson_). Therefore to p.r.o.nounce the three vocables "overflowing with ardor" is to mix figures of speech absurdly. We should fall into a similar mistake if we said "brilliant fluency," and into a mistake of another kind (that of tautology or repet.i.tion of an idea) if we said "heart-felt cordiality," for _cordiality_ means "feelings of the heart." _Appreciate_ means "set a (due) value on." We may perhaps say "really appreciate," but scrupulous writers and speakers do not say "appreciate very much." A _humor_ (compare humid) was once a "moisture"; then one of the four moistures or liquids that entered into the human const.i.tution and by the proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried meanings lie in the same grave for the very dead to rest peacefully together.

Even apart from reading old literature and from having, when you use words, no ghosts of their pristine selves rise up to d.a.m.n you, you may profit from a knowledge of how the meaning of a term has evolved. For example, you will meet many tokens and reminders of the customs and beliefs of our ancestors. Thus _c.o.xcomb_ carries you back to the days when every court was amused by a "fool" whose head was decked with a c.o.c.k's comb; _crestfallen_ takes you back to c.o.c.kfighting; and _lunatic_ ("moonstruck"), _disaster_ ("evil star"), and "thank your lucky stars" plant you in the era of superst.i.tion when human fate was governed by heavenly bodies.

Further, you will perceive the poetry of words. Thus to _wheedle is_ to wag the tail and to _patter_ is to hurry through one's prayers (paternoster). What a picture of the frailty of men even in their holiness flashes on us from that word _patter! Breakfast is_ the breaking of the fast of the night. _Routine_ (the most humdrum of words) is travel along a way already broken. _Goodby _is an abridged form of "G.o.d be with you." _Dilapidated_ is fallen stone from stone.

_Daisy_ is "the day's eye," _nasturtium_ (from its spicy smell) "the nose-twister," _dandelion_ "the tooth of the lion." _A lord_ is a bread-guard.

You will perceive, moreover, that many a dignified word once involved the same idea as some una.s.suming or even semi-disreputable word or expression involves now. Thus there is little or no difference in figure between understanding a thing and getting on to it; between averting something (turning it aside) and sidetracking it; between excluding (shutting out) and closing the door to; between degrading (putting down a step) and taking down a notch; between acc.u.mulating (heaping up) and making one's pile; between taking umbrage (the shadow) and being thrown in the shade; between e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. and throwing out a remark; between being on a tension and being highstrung; between being vapid and having lost steam; between insinuating (winding in) and worming in; between investigating and tracking; between instigating (goading on or into) and prodding up; between being incensed (compare _incendiary_) and burning with indignation; between recanting (unsinging) and singing another tune; between ruminating (chewing) and smoking in one's pipe. Nor is there much difference in figure between sarcasm (a tearing of the flesh) and taking the hide off; between sinister (left-handed) and backhanded; between preposterous (rear end foremost) and cart before the horse; between salary (salt-money, an allowance for soldiers) and pin-money; between pedigree (crane's foot, from the appearance of genealogical diagrams) and crowsfeet (about the eyes); between either precocious (early cooked), apricot (early cooked), crude (raw), or recrudescence (raw again) and half-baked. To ponder is literally to weigh; to apprehend an idea is to take hold of it; to deviate is to go out of one's way; to congregate is to flock together; to a.s.sail or insult a man is to jump on him; to be precipitate is to go head foremost; to be recalcitrant is to kick.

Again, you will perceive that many words once had more literal or more definitely concrete meanings than they have now. To corrode is to gnaw along with others, to differ is to carry apart, to refuse is to pour back.

Polite is polished, absurd is very deaf, egregious is taken from the common herd, capricious is leaping about like a goat, cross (disagreeable) is shaped like a cross, wrong is wrung (or twisted). Crisscross is Christ's cross, attention is stretching toward, expression is pressed out, dexterity is right-handedness, circ.u.mstances are things standing around, an innuendo is nodding, a parlor is a room to talk in, a nostril is that which pierces the nose (thrill means pierce), vinegar is sharp wine, a stirrup is a rope to mount by, a pastor is a shepherd, a marshal is a caretaker of horses, a constable is a stable attendant, a companion is a sharer of one's bread.

On the other hand, you will find that many words were once more general in import than they have since become. _Fond_ originally meant foolish, then foolishly devoted, then (becoming more general again) devoted.

_Nostrum_ meant our own, then a medicine not known by other physicians, then a quack remedy. _Shamefast_ meant confirmed in modesty (shame); then through a confusion of _fast_ with _faced_, a betrayal through the countenance of self-consciousness or guilt. _Counterfeit_ meant a copy or a picture, then an unlawful duplication, especially of a coin. _l.u.s.t_ meant pleasure of any sort, then inordinate s.e.xual pleasure or desire. _Virtue_ (to trace only a few of its varied activities) meant manliness, then the quality or attribute peculiar to true manhood (with the Romans this was valor), then any admirable quality, then female chast.i.ty. _Pen_ meant a feather, then a quill to write with, then an instrument for writing used in the same way as a quill. A _groom_ meant a man, then a stableman (in _bridegroom_, however, it preserves the old signification).

_Heathen_ (heath-dweller), _pagan_ (peasant), and _demon_ (a divinity) had in themselves no iniquitous savor until early Christians formed their opinion of the people inaccessible to them and the spirits incompatible with the unity of the G.o.dhead. Words betokening future happenings or involving judgment tend to take a special cast from the fears and anxieties men feel when their fortune is affected or their destiny controlled by external forces. Thus _omen_ (a prophetic utterance or sign) and _portent_ (a stretching forward, a foreseeing, a foretelling) might originally be either benign or baleful; but nowadays, especially in the adjectival forms _ominous_ and _portentous_, they wear a menacing hue. Similarly _criticism_, _censure_, and _doom_, all of them signifying at first mere judgment, have come--the first in popular, the other two in universal, usage--to stand for adverse judgment. The old sense of _doom_ is perpetuated, however, in _Doomsday_, which means the day on which we are all to be, not necessarily sent to h.e.l.l, but judged.

You will furthermore perceive that the exaggerated affirmations people are always indulging in have led to the weakening of many a word. _Fret_ meant eat; formerly to say that a man was fretting was to use a vigorous comparison--to have the man devoured with care. _Mortify_ meant to kill, then killed with embarra.s.sment, then embarra.s.sed. _Qualm_ meant death, but our qualms of conscience have degenerated into mere twinges.

Oaths are shorn of their might by overuse; _confound_, once a tremendous malinvocation, may now fall from the lips of respectable young ladies, and _fie_, in its time not a whit less dire, would be scarcely out of place in even a cloister. Words designating immediacy come to have no more strength than soup-meat seven times boiled.

_Presently_ meant in the present, _soon_ and _by and by_ meant forthwith. How they have lost their fundamental meaning will be intelligible to you if you have in ordering something been told that it would be delivered "right away," or in calling for a girl have been told that she would be down "in a minute."

You will detect in words of another cla.s.s a deterioration, not in force, but in character; they have fallen into contemptuous or sinister usage.

Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. _Cunning_ meant knowing, _artful_ meant well acquainted with one's art, _crafty_ meant proficient in one's craft or calling, _wizard_ meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have a.s.sumed that mental superiority must be yoked with moral dereliction or diabolical aid. Words indicating the generality--indicating ordinary rank or popular affiliations--have in many instances suffered the same decline.

_Trivial_ meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was accordingly slight. _Lewd_ meant belonging to the laity; it came to mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. _Common_ may be used to signify ill-bred; _vulgar_ may be and frequently is used to signify indecent. _Sabotage_, from a French term meaning wooden shoe, has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's work in order to injure one's employer. _Idiot_ (common soldier) crystallizes the exasperated ill opinion of officers for privates.

(_Infantry_--an organization of military infants--has on the contrary sloughed its reproach and now enshrines the dignity of lowliness.) Somewhat akin to words of this type is _knave_, which first meant boy, then servant, then rogue. Terms for agricultural cla.s.ses seldom remain flattering. Besides such epithets as _hayseed_ and _clodhopper_, contemptuous in their very origin, _villain_ (farm servant), _churl_ (farm laborer), and _boor_ (peasant) have all gathered unto themselves opprobrium; _villain_ now involves a scoundrelly spirit, _churl_ a contumelious manner, _boor_ a b.u.mptious ill-breeding; not one of these words is any longer confined in its application to a particular social rank. Terms for womankind are soon tainted. _Wench_ meant at first nothing worse than girl or daughter, _quean_ than woman, _hussy_ than housewife; even _woman is_ generally felt to be half-slighting. Terms affirming unacquaintance with sin, or abstention from it, tend to be quickly reft of what praise they are fraught with; none of us likes to be saluted as _innocent, guileless_, or _unsophisticated_, and to be dubbed _silly_ no longer makes us feel blessed. Besides these and similar cla.s.ses of words, there are innumerable individual terms that have sadly lost caste. An _imp_ was erstwhile a scion; it then became a boy, and then a mischievous spirit. A _noise_ might once be music; it has ceased to enjoy such possibilities. To live near a piano that is constantly banged is to know how _noise_ as a synonym for music was outlawed.

A backward glance over the history of words repays you in showing you the words for what they are, and in having them live out their lives before you. Do you know what an _umpire_ is? He is a non (or num) peer, a not equal man, an odd man--one therefore who can decide disputes. Do you know what a _nickname_ is? It is an eke (also) name, a t.i.tle bestowed upon one in addition to his proper designation. Do you know what a _fellow_, etymologically speaking, is? He is a fee-layer, a partner, a man who lays his fee (property) alongside yours. Do you know that _matinee_, though awarded to the afternoon, meant primarily a morning entertainment and has traveled so far from its original sense that we call an actual before-noon performance a morning matinee? Do you know the past of such words as _bedlam_, _rival_, _parson_, _sandwich_, _pocket handkerchief?_ _Bedlam_, a corruption of _Bethlehem_, was a hospital for the insane in London; it came to be a general term for great confusion or discord. _Rivals_ were formerly dwellers--that is, neighboring dwellers--on the bank of a stream; disputes over water-rights gave the word its present meaning. A _person_ or _parson_, for the two were the same, was a mask (literally, that through which the sound came); then an actor representing a character in a play; then a representative of any sort; then the representative of the church in a parish. A _sandwich_ was a stratification of bread and meat by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so loath to leave the gaming table that he saved time by having food brought him in this form. A _kerchief_ was originally a cover for the head, and indeed sundry amiable, old-fas.h.i.+oned grandmothers still use it for this purpose. Afterward people carried it in their hands and called it a _handkerchief_; and when they transferred it to the pocket, they called it a _pocket handkerchief_ or pocket hand head-cover. A scrutiny of such words should convince you that the reading of the dictionary, instead of being the dull occupation it is almost proverbially reputed to be, may become an occupation truly fascinating. For cl.u.s.tered about the words recorded in the dictionary are inexhaustible riches of knowledge and of interest for those who have eyes to see.

EXERCISE - Past

1. For each of the following words look up (a) the present meaning if you do not know it, (b) the original meaning, (c) any other past meanings you can find.

Exposition Corn Cattle Influence Sanguine Turmoil Sinecure Waist Shrew Potential Spaniel Crazy Character Candidate Indomitable Infringe Rascal Amorphous Expend Thermometer Charm Rather Tall Stepchild Wedlock Ghostly Haggard Bridal Pioneer Pluck Noon Neighbor Jimson weed Courteous Wanton Rosemary Cynical Street Plausible Grocer Husband Allow Wors.h.i.+p Gipsy Insane Encourage Clerk Disease Astonish Clergyman Boulevard Realize Hectoring Canary Bombast Primrose Diamond Benedict Walnut Abominate Piazza Holiday Barbarous Disgust Heavy Kind Virtu Nightmare Devil Gospel Comfort Whist Mermaid Pearl Onion Enthusiasm Domino Book Fanatic Grotesque Cheat Auction Economy Illegible Quell Cheap Illegitimate Sheriff Excelsior Emasculate Danger Dunce Champion s.h.i.+bboleth Calico Adieu Essay Pontiff Macadamize Wages Copy Stentorian Quarantine Puny Saturnine Buxom Caper Derrick Indifferent Boycott Mercurial Gaudy Countenance Poniard Majority Camera Chattel.

2. The following words are often used loosely today, some because their original meaning is lost sight of, some because they are confused with other words. Find for each word (a) what the meaning has been and (b) what the correct meaning is now.

Nice Awful Atrocious Grand Horrible Pitiful Beastly Transpire Claim Weird Aggravate Uncanny Demean Gorgeous Elegant Fine Noisome Mutual (in "a mutual friend") Lovely Cute Stunning Liable Immense.

3. The following sentences from standard English literature ill.u.s.trate the use of words still extant and even familiar, in senses now largely or wholly forgotten. The quotations from the Bible and Shakespeare (all the Biblical quotations are from the King James Version) date back a little more than three hundred years, those from Milton a little less than three hundred years, and those from Gray and Coleridge, respectively, about a hundred and seventy-five and a hundred and twenty-five years. Go carefully enough into the past meanings of the italicized words to make sure you grasp the author's thought.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is _charity_.(1 _Corinthians_ 13:13)

I _prevented_ the dawning of the morning. (_Psalms_ 119:147)

Our eyes _wait_ upon the Lord our G.o.d. (_Psalms_ 123:2)

The times of this ignorance G.o.d _winked_ at. (_Acts_ 17:30)

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me; for I perceive that _virtue_ is gone out of me. (_Luke_ 8:46)

To judge the _quick_ and the dead. (1 _Peter_ 4:5)

Be not wise in your own _conceits_. (_Romans_ 12:16)

In maiden meditation, _fancy_-free. (Shakespeare: _A Midsummer Night's Dream_)

Is it so _nominated_ in the bond? (Shakespeare: _The Merchant of Venice_)

Would I had met my _dearest_ foe in heaven. (Shakespeare: _Hamlet_)

The _extravagant_ and _erring_ spirit. (Said of a spirit wandering from the bounds of purgatory. Shakespeare: _Hamlet_)

The _modesty_ of nature. (Shakespeare: _Hamlet_)

It is a nipping and an _eager_ air. (Shakespeare: _Hamlet_)

_Security_ Is mortals' chiefest enemy. (Shakespeare: _Macbeth_)

Most _admired_ disorder. (Shakespeare: _Macbeth_)