FOOTNOTES

Dissimilation of Words

The sense that a word covers too large a space of meaning, is the frequent occasion of the introduction of another, which shall relieve it of a portion of this. Thus, there was a time when ‘witch’ was applied equally to male and female dealers in unlawful magical arts. Simon Magus, for example, and Elymas are both ‘witches’, in Wiclif’sNew Testament(Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8), and Posthumus inCymbeline: but when the medieval Latin ‘sortiarius’ (not ‘sortitor’ as in Richardson), supplied another word, the French ‘sorcier’, and thus our English ‘sorcerer’ (originally the “caster of lots”), then ‘witch’ gradually was confined to the hag, or female practiser of these arts, while ‘sorcerer’ was applied to the male.

New necessities, new evolutions of society into more complex conditions, evoke new words; which come forth, because they are required now; but did not formerly exist, because they were not required in the period preceding. For example, in Greece so long as the poet sang his own verses ‘singer’ (ἀοιδὸς) sufficiently expressed the double function; such a ‘singer’ was Homer, and such Homer describes Demodocus, the bard of the Phæacians; that double function, in fact, not being in his time contemplated as double, but each part of it so naturally completing the other, that no second word was required. When, however, in the division of labour one made the verses which another chaunted, then ‘poet’ or ‘maker’, a word unknown in the Homeric age, arose. In like manner, when ‘physicians’ were the only natural philosophers, the word covered this meaning as well as that other which it still retains; but when the investigation of nature and natural causes detached itself from the art of healing,became an independent study of itself, the name ‘physician’ remained to that which was as the stock and stem of the art, while the new offshoot sought out a new name for itself.

Another motive to the invention of new words, is the desire thereby to cut short lengthy[122]explanations, tedious circuits of language. Science is often an immense gainer by words, which say singly what it would have taken whole sentences otherwise to have said. Thus ‘isothermal’ is quite of modern invention; but what a long story it would be to tell the meaning of ‘isothermallines’, all which is summed up in and saved by the word. We have long had the word ‘assimilation’ in our dictionaries; ‘dissimilation’ has not yet found its way into them, but it speedily will. It will appear first, if it has not already appeared, in our books on language[123]. I express myself with this confidence, because the advance of philological enquiry has rendered it almost a matter of necessity that we should possess a word to designate a certain process, and no other word would designate it at all so well. There is a process of ‘assimilation’ going on very extensively in language; it occurs where the organs of speech find themselves helped by changing a letter for another which has just occurred, or will just occur in a word; thuswe say not ‘adfiance’ but ‘affiance’, not ‘renowm’, as our ancestors did when the word ‘renommée’ was first naturalized, but ‘renown’. At the same time there is another opposite process, where some letter would recur too often for euphony or comfort in speaking, if the strict form of the word were too closely held fast, and where consequently this letter is exchanged for some other, generally for some nearly allied; thus it is at least a reasonable suggestion, that ‘cœruleum’ was once ‘cœluleum’, from cœlum: so too the Italians prefer ‘veleno’ to ‘veneno’; and we ‘cinnamon’ to ‘cinnamom’ (the earlier form); in ‘turtle’ and ‘purple’ we have shrunk from the double ‘r’ of ‘turtur’ and ‘purpura’; and this process ofmaking unlike, requiring a term to express it, will create, or indeed has created, the word ‘dissimilation’, which probably will in due time establish itself among us in far wider than its primary use.

‘Watershed’ has only recently begun to appear in books of geography; and yet how convenient it must be admitted to be; how much more so than ‘line of water parting’, which it has succeeded; meaning, as I need hardly tell you it does, not merely that whichshedsthe waters, but that whichdividesthem (‘wasserscheide’); and being applied to that exact ridge and highest line in a mountain region, where the waters of that region separate off and divide, some to one side, and some to the other; as in the Rocky Mountains of North America there are streams rising within very few miles of one another, which flow severally east and west, and, if not in unbroken course, yet as affluents to larger rivers, fall at least severally into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It must be allowed, I think, that not merely geographical terminology, but geography itself, had a benefactor in him who first endowed it with so expressive and comprehensive a word, bringing before us a fact which we should scarcely have been aware of without it.

There is another word which I have just employed, ‘affluent’, in the sense of a stream which does not flow into the sea, but joins a larger stream, as for instance, the Isis is an ‘affluent’ of the Thames, the Moselle of the Rhine. It is itself an example in the same kind of that whereof I have been speaking, having been only recently constituted a substantive, and employed in this sense, while yet its utility is obvious. ‘Confluents’ would perhaps be a fitter name, where the rivers, like the Missouri and theMississippi, were of equal or nearly equal importance up to the time of their meeting[124].

‘Selfishness’, ‘Suicide’

Again, new words are coined out of the necessity which men feel of filling up gaps in the language. Thoughtful men, comparing their own language with that of other nations, become conscious of deficiencies, of important matters unexpressed in their own, and with more or less success proceed to supply the deficiency. For example, that sin of sins, the undue love of self, with the postponing of the interests of all others to our own, had for a long time no word to express it in English. Help was sought from the Greek, and from the Latin.‘Philauty’ (φιλαυτία) had been more than once attempted by our scholars; but found no popular acceptance. This failing, men turned to the Latin; one writer trying to supply the want by calling the man a ‘suist’, as one seekinghis ownthings (‘sua’), and the sin itself, ‘suicism’. The gap, however, was not really filled up, till some of the Puritan writers, drawing on our Saxon, devised ‘selfish’ and ‘selfishness’, words which to us seem obvious enough, but which yet are little more than two hundred [and fifty] years old[125].

Notices of New Words

Before quitting this part of the subject, let me say a few words in conclusion on this deliberate introduction of words to supply felt omissionsin a language, and the limits within which this or any other conscious interference with the development of a language is desirable or possible.By the time that a people begin to meditate upon their language, to be aware by a conscious reflective act either of its merits or deficiencies, by far the greater and more important part of its work is done; it is fixed in respect of its structure in immutable forms; the region in which any alteration or modification, addition to it, orsubstractionfrom it, deliberately devised and carried out, may be possible, is very limited indeed. Its great laws are too firmly established to admit of this; so that almost nothing can be taken from it, which it has got; almost nothing added to it, which it hasnotgot. It will travel indeed in certain courses of change; but it would be as easy almost to alter the career of a planet as for man to alter these. This is sometimes a subject of regret with those who see what they believe manifest defects or blemishes in their language, and such as appear to them capable of remedy. And yet in fact this is well; since for once that these redressers of real or fancied wrongs, these suppliers of things lacking, would havemended,we may be tolerably confident that ten times, yea, a hundred times, they would have marred; letting go that which would have been well retained; retaining that which by a necessary law the language now dismisses and lets go; and in manifold ways interfering with those processes of a natural logic, which are here evermore at work. The genius of a language, unconsciously presiding over all its transformations, and conducting them to a definite issue, will have been a far truer, far safer guide, than the artificial wit, however subtle, of any single man, or of any association of men. For the genius of a language is the sense and inner conviction of all who speak it, as to what it ought to be, and the means by which it will best attain its objects; and granting that a pair of eyes, or two or three pairs of eyes may see much, yet millions of eyes will certainly see more.

German Purists

It is only with the words, and not with the forms and laws of a language, that any interference such as I have just supposed is possible. Something, indeed much, may here be done by wise masters, in the way of rejecting that which would deform, allowing and adopting that which will strengthen and enrich. Those who would purify or enrich a language, so long as they have kept within this their proper sphere, have often effected much, more than at first could have seemed possible. The history of the German language affords so much better illustration of this than our own would do, that I shall make no scruple in seeking my examples there. When the patriotic Germans began to wake up to a consciousness of the enormous encroachments which foreign languages, the Latin and French above all, had made on their native tongue, the lodgements which they had therein effected, and the danger which threatened it, namely, that it should cease to be German at all, but only a mingle-mangle, a variegated patchwork of many languages, without any unity or inner coherence at all, various societies were instituted among them, at the beginning and during the course of the seventeenth century, for the recovering of what was lost of their own, for the expelling of that which had intruded from abroad; and these with excellent effect.

But more effectual than these societies were the efforts of single men, who in this merited well of their country[126]. In respect of words which are now entirely received by the whole nation, it is often possible to designate the writers who first substituted them for some affected Gallicism or unnecessary Latinism. Thus to Lessing his fellow-countrymen owe the substitution of ‘zartgefühl’ for ‘delicatesse’, of ‘empfindsamkeit’ for ‘sentimentalität’, of ‘wesenheit’ for ‘essence’. It was Voss (1786) who first employed ‘alterthümlich’ for ‘antik’. Wieland too was the author or reviver of a multitude of excellent words, for which often he had to do earnest battle at the first; such were ‘seligkeit’, ‘anmuth’, ‘entzückung’, ‘festlich’, ‘entwirren’, with many more. For ‘maskerade’, Campe would havefain substituted ‘larventanz’. It was a novelty when Büsching called his great work on geography ‘erdbeschreibung’ instead of ‘geographie’; while ‘schnellpost’ instead of ‘diligence’, ‘zerrbild’ for ‘carricatur’ are also of recent introduction. In regard of ‘wörterbuch’ itself, J. Grimm tells us he can find no example of its use dating earlier than 1719.

Yet at the same time it must be acknowledged that some of these reformers proceeded with more zeal than knowledge, while others did whatever in them lay to make the whole movement absurd—even as there ever hang on the skirts of a noble movement, be it in literature or politics or higher things yet, those who contribute their little all to bring ridicule and contempt upon it. Thus in the reaction against foreign interlopers which ensued, and in the zeal to purify the language from them, some went to such extravagant excesses as to desire to get rid of ‘testament’, ‘apostel’, which last Campe would have replaced by ‘lehrbote’, with other words like these, consecrated by longest use, and to find native substitutes in their room; or they understood so little what words deserved to be called foreign, or how to draw the line between them and native, that they would fain have gotten rid of ‘vater’, ‘mutter’, ‘wein’, ‘fenster’, ‘meister’, ‘kelch’[127]; the first three of which belong to the German language by just as good a right as they do to the Latin and the Greek; while the other three have been naturalized so long that to propose to expelthem now was as if, having passed an alien act for the banishment of all foreigners, we should proceed to include under that name, and as such drive forth from the kingdom, the descendants of the French Protestants who found refuge here at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or even of the Flemings who settled among us in the time of our Edwards. One notable enthusiast in this line proposed to create an entirely new nomenclature for all the mythological personages of the Greek and the Roman pantheon, who, one would think, might have been allowed, if any, to retain their Greek and Latin names. So far however from this, they were to exchange these for equivalent German titles; Cupid was to be ‘Lustkind’, Flora ‘Bluminne’, Aurora ‘Röthin’; instead of Apollo schoolboys were to speak of ‘Singhold’; instead of Pan of ‘Schaflieb’; instead of Jupiter of ‘Helfevater’, with much else of the same kind. Let us beware (and the warning extends much further than to the matter in hand) of making a good cause ridiculous by our manner of supporting it, of assuming that exaggerations on one side can only be redressed by exaggerations as great upon the other.

[38]Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul’s School, in his book,Logonomia Anglica, 1621,Preface: Huc usque peregrinæ voces in linguâ Anglicâ inauditæ. Tandem circa annum 1400 Galfridus Chaucerus, infausto omine, vocabulis Gallicis et Latinis poësin suam famosam reddidit. The whole passage, which is too long to quote, as indeed the whole book, is curious. Gil was an earnest advocate of phonetic spelling, and has adopted it in all his English quotations in this book.

[38]Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul’s School, in his book,Logonomia Anglica, 1621,Preface: Huc usque peregrinæ voces in linguâ Anglicâ inauditæ. Tandem circa annum 1400 Galfridus Chaucerus, infausto omine, vocabulis Gallicis et Latinis poësin suam famosam reddidit. The whole passage, which is too long to quote, as indeed the whole book, is curious. Gil was an earnest advocate of phonetic spelling, and has adopted it in all his English quotations in this book.

[39]We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a multitude of Greek words are used by him, which the Latin language did not want, and therefore refused to take up; thus ‘clepta’, ‘zamia’ (ζημία), ‘danista’, ‘harpagare’, ‘apolactizare’, ‘nauclerus’, ‘strategus’, ‘morologus’, ‘phylaca’, ‘malacus’, ‘sycophantia’, ‘euscheme’ (εὐσχήμως), ‘dulice’ (δουλικῶς), [so ‘scymnus’ by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are employed except by him; ‘mastigias’ and ‘techna’ appear also in Terence. Yet only experience could show that they were superfluous; and at the epoch of Latin literature in which Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on trial.

[39]We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a multitude of Greek words are used by him, which the Latin language did not want, and therefore refused to take up; thus ‘clepta’, ‘zamia’ (ζημία), ‘danista’, ‘harpagare’, ‘apolactizare’, ‘nauclerus’, ‘strategus’, ‘morologus’, ‘phylaca’, ‘malacus’, ‘sycophantia’, ‘euscheme’ (εὐσχήμως), ‘dulice’ (δουλικῶς), [so ‘scymnus’ by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are employed except by him; ‘mastigias’ and ‘techna’ appear also in Terence. Yet only experience could show that they were superfluous; and at the epoch of Latin literature in which Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on trial.

[40][Modern poets have given ‘amort’ a new life; it is used by Keats, by Bailey (Festus, xxx), and by Browning (Sordello, vi).]

[40][Modern poets have given ‘amort’ a new life; it is used by Keats, by Bailey (Festus, xxx), and by Browning (Sordello, vi).]

[41][‘Bruit’ has been revived by Carlyle and Chas. Merivale. Its verbal form is used by Cowper, Byron and Dickens.]

[41][‘Bruit’ has been revived by Carlyle and Chas. Merivale. Its verbal form is used by Cowper, Byron and Dickens.]

[42]Let me here observe once for all that in adding the name of an author, which I shall often do, to a word, I do not mean to affirm the word in any way peculiar to him; although in some cases it may be so; but only to give one authority for its use. [Coleridge uses ‘eloign’.]

[42]Let me here observe once for all that in adding the name of an author, which I shall often do, to a word, I do not mean to affirm the word in any way peculiar to him; although in some cases it may be so; but only to give one authority for its use. [Coleridge uses ‘eloign’.]

[43]Essay on English Poetry, p. 93.

[43]Essay on English Poetry, p. 93.

[44]Dedication of the Translation of the Æneid.

[44]Dedication of the Translation of the Æneid.

[45][i.e. the promoters of Classical learning.]

[45][i.e. the promoters of Classical learning.]

[46]We have notable evidence in some lines of Waller of the sense which in his time scholars had of the rapidity with which the language was changing under their hands. Looking back at what the last hundred years had wrought of alteration in it, and very naturally assuming that the next hundred would effect as much, he checked with misgivings such as these his own hope of immortality:“Who can hope his lines should longLast in a daily changing tongue?While they are new, envy prevails,And as that dies, our language fails.* * * * *“Poets that lasting marble seek,Must carve in Latin or in Greek:Wewrite in sand; our language grows,And like the tide our work o’erflows”.Such were his misgivings as to the future, assuming that the rate of change would continue what it had been. How little they have been fulfilled, every one knows. In actual fact two centuries, which have elapsed since he wrote, have hardly antiquated a word or a phrase in his poems. If we care very little for them now, that is to be explained by quite other causes—by the absence of all moral earnestness from them.

[46]We have notable evidence in some lines of Waller of the sense which in his time scholars had of the rapidity with which the language was changing under their hands. Looking back at what the last hundred years had wrought of alteration in it, and very naturally assuming that the next hundred would effect as much, he checked with misgivings such as these his own hope of immortality:

“Who can hope his lines should longLast in a daily changing tongue?While they are new, envy prevails,And as that dies, our language fails.* * * * *“Poets that lasting marble seek,Must carve in Latin or in Greek:Wewrite in sand; our language grows,And like the tide our work o’erflows”.

“Who can hope his lines should longLast in a daily changing tongue?While they are new, envy prevails,And as that dies, our language fails.

“Poets that lasting marble seek,Must carve in Latin or in Greek:Wewrite in sand; our language grows,And like the tide our work o’erflows”.

Such were his misgivings as to the future, assuming that the rate of change would continue what it had been. How little they have been fulfilled, every one knows. In actual fact two centuries, which have elapsed since he wrote, have hardly antiquated a word or a phrase in his poems. If we care very little for them now, that is to be explained by quite other causes—by the absence of all moral earnestness from them.

[47]In hisArt of English Poesy, London, 1589, republished in Haslewood’sAncient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy, London, 1811, vol. i. pp. 122, 123; [and in Arber’sEnglish Reprints, 1869].

[47]In hisArt of English Poesy, London, 1589, republished in Haslewood’sAncient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy, London, 1811, vol. i. pp. 122, 123; [and in Arber’sEnglish Reprints, 1869].

[48]London, 1601. Besides this work Holland translated the whole of Plutarch’sMoralia, theCyropœdiaof Xenophon, Livy, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Camden’sBritannia. His works make a part of the “library of dullness” in Pope’sDunciad:“De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,And here the groaning shelvesPhilemonbends”—very unjustly; the authors whom he has translated are all more or less important, and his versions of them a mine of genuine idiomatic English, neglected by most of our lexicographers, wrought to a considerable extent, and with eminent advantage by Richardson; yet capable, as it seems to me, of yielding much more than they hitherto have yielded.

[48]London, 1601. Besides this work Holland translated the whole of Plutarch’sMoralia, theCyropœdiaof Xenophon, Livy, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Camden’sBritannia. His works make a part of the “library of dullness” in Pope’sDunciad:

“De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,And here the groaning shelvesPhilemonbends”—

“De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,And here the groaning shelvesPhilemonbends”—

very unjustly; the authors whom he has translated are all more or less important, and his versions of them a mine of genuine idiomatic English, neglected by most of our lexicographers, wrought to a considerable extent, and with eminent advantage by Richardson; yet capable, as it seems to me, of yielding much more than they hitherto have yielded.

[49]And so too in French it is surprising to find of how late introduction are many words, which it seems as if the language could never have done without. ‘Désintéressement’, ‘exactitude’, ‘sagacité’, ‘bravoure’, were not introduced till late in the seventeenth century. ‘Renaissance’, ‘emportement’, ‘sçavoir-faire’, ‘indélébile’, ‘désagrément’, were all recent in 1675 (Bouhours); ‘indévot’, ‘intolérance’, ‘impardonnable’, ‘irréligieux’, were struggling into allowance at the end of the seventeenth century, and were not established till the beginning of the eighteenth. ‘Insidieux’ was invented by Malherbe; ‘frivolité’ does not appear in the earlier editions of theDictionary of the Academy; the Abbé de St. Pierre was the first to employ ‘bienfaisance’, the elder Balzac ‘féliciter’, Sarrasin ‘burlesque’. Mad. de Sevigné exclaims against her daughter for employing ‘effervescence’ in a letter (comment dites-vous cela, ma fille? Voilà un mot dont je n’avais jamais ouï parler). ‘Demagogue’ was first hazarded by Bossuet, and was counted so bold a novelty that it was long before any ventured to follow him in its use. Somewhat earlier Montaigne had introduced ‘diversion’ and ‘enfantillage’, though not without being rebuked by cotemporaries on the score of the last. Desfontaines was the first who employed ‘suicide’; Caron gave to the language ‘avant-propos’, Ronsard ‘avidité’, Joachim Dubellay ‘patrie’, Denis Sauvage ‘jurisconsulte’, Menage ‘gracieux’ (at least so Voltaire affirms) and ‘prosateur’, Desportes ‘pudeur’, Chapelain ‘urbanité’, and Etienne first brought in, apologizing at the same time for the boldness of it, ‘analogie’ (si les oreilles françoises peuvent porter ce mot). ‘Préliber’ (prælibare) is a word of our own day; and it was Charles Nodier who, if he did not coin, yet revived the obsolete ‘simplesse’.—See Génin,Variations du Langage Français, pp. 308-19.

[49]And so too in French it is surprising to find of how late introduction are many words, which it seems as if the language could never have done without. ‘Désintéressement’, ‘exactitude’, ‘sagacité’, ‘bravoure’, were not introduced till late in the seventeenth century. ‘Renaissance’, ‘emportement’, ‘sçavoir-faire’, ‘indélébile’, ‘désagrément’, were all recent in 1675 (Bouhours); ‘indévot’, ‘intolérance’, ‘impardonnable’, ‘irréligieux’, were struggling into allowance at the end of the seventeenth century, and were not established till the beginning of the eighteenth. ‘Insidieux’ was invented by Malherbe; ‘frivolité’ does not appear in the earlier editions of theDictionary of the Academy; the Abbé de St. Pierre was the first to employ ‘bienfaisance’, the elder Balzac ‘féliciter’, Sarrasin ‘burlesque’. Mad. de Sevigné exclaims against her daughter for employing ‘effervescence’ in a letter (comment dites-vous cela, ma fille? Voilà un mot dont je n’avais jamais ouï parler). ‘Demagogue’ was first hazarded by Bossuet, and was counted so bold a novelty that it was long before any ventured to follow him in its use. Somewhat earlier Montaigne had introduced ‘diversion’ and ‘enfantillage’, though not without being rebuked by cotemporaries on the score of the last. Desfontaines was the first who employed ‘suicide’; Caron gave to the language ‘avant-propos’, Ronsard ‘avidité’, Joachim Dubellay ‘patrie’, Denis Sauvage ‘jurisconsulte’, Menage ‘gracieux’ (at least so Voltaire affirms) and ‘prosateur’, Desportes ‘pudeur’, Chapelain ‘urbanité’, and Etienne first brought in, apologizing at the same time for the boldness of it, ‘analogie’ (si les oreilles françoises peuvent porter ce mot). ‘Préliber’ (prælibare) is a word of our own day; and it was Charles Nodier who, if he did not coin, yet revived the obsolete ‘simplesse’.—See Génin,Variations du Langage Français, pp. 308-19.

[50][Resuscitated in vain by Charles Lamb.]

[50][Resuscitated in vain by Charles Lamb.]

[51]J. Grimm (Wörterbuch, p. xxvi.): Fällt von ungefähr ein fremdes wort in den brunnen einer sprache, so wird es so lange darin umgetrieben, bis es ihre farbe annimmt, und seiner fremden art zum trotze wie ein heimisches aussieht.

[51]J. Grimm (Wörterbuch, p. xxvi.): Fällt von ungefähr ein fremdes wort in den brunnen einer sprache, so wird es so lange darin umgetrieben, bis es ihre farbe annimmt, und seiner fremden art zum trotze wie ein heimisches aussieht.

[52]Have we here an explanation of the ‘battalia’ of Jeremy Taylor and others? Did they, without reflecting on the matter, regard ‘battalion’ as a word with a Greek neuter termination? It is difficult to think they should have done so; yet more difficult to suggest any other explanation. [‘Battalia’ was sometimes mistaken as a plural, which indeed it was originally, the word being derived through the Italianbattaglia, from low Latinbattalia, which (likebiblia,gaudia, etc.) was afterwards regarded as a feminine singular (Skeat,Principles, ii, 230). But Shakespeare used it as a singular, “Ourbattaliatrebles that account” (Rich. III, v. 3, 11); and so Sir T. Browne, “The Romanbattaliawas ordered after this manner” (Garden of Cyrus, 1658, p. 113).]

[52]Have we here an explanation of the ‘battalia’ of Jeremy Taylor and others? Did they, without reflecting on the matter, regard ‘battalion’ as a word with a Greek neuter termination? It is difficult to think they should have done so; yet more difficult to suggest any other explanation. [‘Battalia’ was sometimes mistaken as a plural, which indeed it was originally, the word being derived through the Italianbattaglia, from low Latinbattalia, which (likebiblia,gaudia, etc.) was afterwards regarded as a feminine singular (Skeat,Principles, ii, 230). But Shakespeare used it as a singular, “Ourbattaliatrebles that account” (Rich. III, v. 3, 11); and so Sir T. Browne, “The Romanbattaliawas ordered after this manner” (Garden of Cyrus, 1658, p. 113).]

[53]“And old heroës, which their world did daunt”.Sonnet on Scanderbeg.

[53]

“And old heroës, which their world did daunt”.

“And old heroës, which their world did daunt”.

Sonnet on Scanderbeg.

[54][By J. H(ealey), 1610, who has “centones ... of diuerse colours”, p. 605.]

[54][By J. H(ealey), 1610, who has “centones ... of diuerse colours”, p. 605.]

[55][The identity of these two words, notwithstanding the analogy ofcoronaandcrown, is denied by Skeat, Kluge and Lutz.]

[55][The identity of these two words, notwithstanding the analogy ofcoronaandcrown, is denied by Skeat, Kluge and Lutz.]

[56]Skinner (Etymologicon, 1671) protests against the word altogether, as purely French, and having no right to be considered English at all.

[56]Skinner (Etymologicon, 1671) protests against the word altogether, as purely French, and having no right to be considered English at all.

[57]It is curious how effectually the nationality of a word may by these slight alterations in spelling be disguised. I have met an excellent French and English scholar, to whom it was quite a surprise to learn that ‘redingote’ was ‘riding-coat’.

[57]It is curious how effectually the nationality of a word may by these slight alterations in spelling be disguised. I have met an excellent French and English scholar, to whom it was quite a surprise to learn that ‘redingote’ was ‘riding-coat’.

[58][Compare Frenchmarsouin(= Germanmeer-schwein), “sea-pig”, the dolphin; Bretonmor-houc’h; Irishmucc mara, “pig of the sea”, the dolphin (W. Stokes,Irish Glossaries, p. 118); Frenchtruye de mer(Cotgrave); old Englishbrun-swyne(Prompt. Parv.), “brown-pig”, the dolphin or seal.]

[58][Compare Frenchmarsouin(= Germanmeer-schwein), “sea-pig”, the dolphin; Bretonmor-houc’h; Irishmucc mara, “pig of the sea”, the dolphin (W. Stokes,Irish Glossaries, p. 118); Frenchtruye de mer(Cotgrave); old Englishbrun-swyne(Prompt. Parv.), “brown-pig”, the dolphin or seal.]

[59]He is not indeed perfectly accurate in this statement, for the Greeks spoke ofἐν κύκλῳ παιδείαandἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, but had no such composite word asἐγκυκλοπαδεία. We gather however from these expressions, as from Lord Bacon’s using the term ‘circle-learning’ (=‘orbis doctrinæ’, Quintilian), that ‘encyclopædia’ did not exist in their time. [But ‘encyclopedia’ occurs in Elyot,Governour, 1531, vol. i, p. 118 (ed. Croft); ‘encyclopædie’ in J. Sylvester,Workes, 1621, p. 660.]

[59]He is not indeed perfectly accurate in this statement, for the Greeks spoke ofἐν κύκλῳ παιδείαandἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, but had no such composite word asἐγκυκλοπαδεία. We gather however from these expressions, as from Lord Bacon’s using the term ‘circle-learning’ (=‘orbis doctrinæ’, Quintilian), that ‘encyclopædia’ did not exist in their time. [But ‘encyclopedia’ occurs in Elyot,Governour, 1531, vol. i, p. 118 (ed. Croft); ‘encyclopædie’ in J. Sylvester,Workes, 1621, p. 660.]

[60]See the passages quoted in my paper,On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, p. 38.

[60]See the passages quoted in my paper,On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, p. 38.

[61][This prediction has been verified. ‘Ethos’ is used by Sir F. Palgrave, 1851, and in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’, 1875. N.E.D.]

[61][This prediction has been verified. ‘Ethos’ is used by Sir F. Palgrave, 1851, and in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’, 1875. N.E.D.]

[62]We may see the same progress in Greek words which were being incorporated in the Latin. Thus Cicero writesἀντίποδες(Acad.ii, 39, 123), but Seneca (Ep.122), ‘antipodes’; that is, the word for Cicero was still Greek, while in the period that elapsed between him and Seneca, it had become Latin: so too Cicero wroteεἴδωλον, the Younger Pliny ‘idolon’, and Tertullian ‘idolum’.

[62]We may see the same progress in Greek words which were being incorporated in the Latin. Thus Cicero writesἀντίποδες(Acad.ii, 39, 123), but Seneca (Ep.122), ‘antipodes’; that is, the word for Cicero was still Greek, while in the period that elapsed between him and Seneca, it had become Latin: so too Cicero wroteεἴδωλον, the Younger Pliny ‘idolon’, and Tertullian ‘idolum’.

[63][This rash prophecy has not been fulfilled. English speakers are still no more inclined to say ‘préstige’ than ‘pólice’.]

[63][This rash prophecy has not been fulfilled. English speakers are still no more inclined to say ‘préstige’ than ‘pólice’.]

[64]See in Coleridge’sTable Talk, p. 3, the amusing story of John Kemble’s stately correction of the Prince of Wales for adhering to the earlier pronunciation, ‘obleege,’—“It will become your royal mouth better to say oblige.”

[64]See in Coleridge’sTable Talk, p. 3, the amusing story of John Kemble’s stately correction of the Prince of Wales for adhering to the earlier pronunciation, ‘obleege,’—“It will become your royal mouth better to say oblige.”

[65]“In this greatacadémyof mankind”.Butler,To the Memory of Du Val.

[65]

“In this greatacadémyof mankind”.

“In this greatacadémyof mankind”.

Butler,To the Memory of Du Val.

[66]“‘Twixt that and reason what a nicebarrier”.

[66]

“‘Twixt that and reason what a nicebarrier”.

“‘Twixt that and reason what a nicebarrier”.

[67][A fairly complete collection of these and similar semi-naturalized foreign words will be found inThe Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words, edited by Dr. C. A. M. Fennell, 1892.]

[67][A fairly complete collection of these and similar semi-naturalized foreign words will be found inThe Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words, edited by Dr. C. A. M. Fennell, 1892.]

[68][This is quite wrong. Mr. Fitzedward Hall shows that ‘inimical’ was used by Gaule in 1652, as well as by Richardson in 1758 (Modern English, p. 287). The N.E.D. quotes an instance of it from Udall in 1643.]

[68][This is quite wrong. Mr. Fitzedward Hall shows that ‘inimical’ was used by Gaule in 1652, as well as by Richardson in 1758 (Modern English, p. 287). The N.E.D. quotes an instance of it from Udall in 1643.]

[69][The word had been already naturalized by H. More, 1647, Cudworth, 1678, Tucker 1765, and Carlyle, 1831.—N.E.D.]

[69][The word had been already naturalized by H. More, 1647, Cudworth, 1678, Tucker 1765, and Carlyle, 1831.—N.E.D.]

[70][The earliest citation for ‘abnormal’ in the N.E.D. is dated 1835. The older word was ‘abnormous’. Curious to say it is unrelated to ‘normal’ to which it has been assimilated, being merely an alteration of ‘anomal-ous’.]

[70][The earliest citation for ‘abnormal’ in the N.E.D. is dated 1835. The older word was ‘abnormous’. Curious to say it is unrelated to ‘normal’ to which it has been assimilated, being merely an alteration of ‘anomal-ous’.]

[71][Fuller says of ‘plunder’, “we first heard thereof in the Swedish wars”, and that it came into England about 1642 (Church History, bk. xi, sec. 4, par. 33). It certainly occurs under that date inMemoirs of the Verney Family, “It is in danger ofplonderin” (vol. i, p. 71, also p. 151). It also occurs in a document dated 1643, “We mustplundernone but Roundheads” (Camden Soc. Miscellany, iii, 31). Drummond (died 1649) has “Go fight andplunder” (Poems, ed. Turnbull, p. 330). It appears in a quotation fromThe Bellman of London(no reference) given in Timbs,London and Westminster, vol. i, p. 254.]

[71][Fuller says of ‘plunder’, “we first heard thereof in the Swedish wars”, and that it came into England about 1642 (Church History, bk. xi, sec. 4, par. 33). It certainly occurs under that date inMemoirs of the Verney Family, “It is in danger ofplonderin” (vol. i, p. 71, also p. 151). It also occurs in a document dated 1643, “We mustplundernone but Roundheads” (Camden Soc. Miscellany, iii, 31). Drummond (died 1649) has “Go fight andplunder” (Poems, ed. Turnbull, p. 330). It appears in a quotation fromThe Bellman of London(no reference) given in Timbs,London and Westminster, vol. i, p. 254.]

[72][It is rather from the old Dutchtrecker, a ‘puller’. Very few English words come to us from German.]

[72][It is rather from the old Dutchtrecker, a ‘puller’. Very few English words come to us from German.]

[73][So Skeat,Etym. Dict.But the Germans themselves take theirschwindler(in the sense of cheat) to have been adopted from the English ‘swindler’. Dr. Dunger asserts that it was introduced into their language by Lichtenberg in his explanation of Hogarth’s engravings, 1794-99 (Englanderei in der Deutschen Sprache, 1899, p. 7).]

[73][So Skeat,Etym. Dict.But the Germans themselves take theirschwindler(in the sense of cheat) to have been adopted from the English ‘swindler’. Dr. Dunger asserts that it was introduced into their language by Lichtenberg in his explanation of Hogarth’s engravings, 1794-99 (Englanderei in der Deutschen Sprache, 1899, p. 7).]

[74]Pisgah Sight of Palestine, 1650, p. 217.

[74]Pisgah Sight of Palestine, 1650, p. 217.

[75][This word introduced as a ‘pure neologism’ by D’Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, 1839, 11th ed. p. 384) as a companion to ‘mother-tongue’, had been already used by Sir W. Temple in 1672 (Hall,Mod. English, p. 44). Nay, even by Tyndale, see T. L. K. Oliphant,The New English, i, 439.]

[75][This word introduced as a ‘pure neologism’ by D’Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, 1839, 11th ed. p. 384) as a companion to ‘mother-tongue’, had been already used by Sir W. Temple in 1672 (Hall,Mod. English, p. 44). Nay, even by Tyndale, see T. L. K. Oliphant,The New English, i, 439.]

[76][‘Folk-lore’ was introduced by Mr. W. J. Thoms, editor ofNotes and Queries, in 1846. Still later came ‘Folk-etymology’, the earliest use of which in N.E.D. is given as 1883, but the editor’s work bearing that title appeared in 1882.]

[76][‘Folk-lore’ was introduced by Mr. W. J. Thoms, editor ofNotes and Queries, in 1846. Still later came ‘Folk-etymology’, the earliest use of which in N.E.D. is given as 1883, but the editor’s work bearing that title appeared in 1882.]

[77]Holy State, b. 2, c. 6. There was a time when the Latin promised to display, if not an equal, yet not a very inferior, freedom in this forming of new words by the happy marriage of old. But in this, as in so many respects, it seemed possessed at the period of its highest culture with a timidity, which caused it voluntarily to abdicate many of its own powers. Where do we find in the Augustan period of the language so grand a pair of epithets as these, occurring as they do in a single line of Catullus: Ubi cervasilvicultrix, ubi apernemorivagus? or again, as his ‘fluentisonus’? Virgil’s vitisator (Æn.7, 179) is not his own, but derived from one of the earlier poets. Nay, the language did not even retain those compound epithets which it once had formed, but was content to let numbers of them drop: ‘parcipromus’; ‘turpilucricupidus’, and many more, do not extend beyond Plautus. On this matter Quintilian observes (i. 5, 70): Res tota magis Græcos decet, nobis minus succedit; nec id fieri naturâ puto, sed alienis favemus; ideoque cumκυρταύχεναmirati sumus,incurvicervicumvix a risu defendimus. Elsewhere he complains, though not with reference to compound epithets, of the littlegenerativepower which existed in the Latin language, that its continual losses were compensated by no equivalent gains (viii. 6, 32): Deinde,tanquum consummatasint omnia, nihil generare audemus ipsi, quum multa quotidie ab antiquis ficta moriantur. Notwithstanding this complaint, it must be owned that the silver age of the language, which sought to recover, and did recover to some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier times, reasserted among other powers that of combining words with a certain measure of success.

[77]Holy State, b. 2, c. 6. There was a time when the Latin promised to display, if not an equal, yet not a very inferior, freedom in this forming of new words by the happy marriage of old. But in this, as in so many respects, it seemed possessed at the period of its highest culture with a timidity, which caused it voluntarily to abdicate many of its own powers. Where do we find in the Augustan period of the language so grand a pair of epithets as these, occurring as they do in a single line of Catullus: Ubi cervasilvicultrix, ubi apernemorivagus? or again, as his ‘fluentisonus’? Virgil’s vitisator (Æn.7, 179) is not his own, but derived from one of the earlier poets. Nay, the language did not even retain those compound epithets which it once had formed, but was content to let numbers of them drop: ‘parcipromus’; ‘turpilucricupidus’, and many more, do not extend beyond Plautus. On this matter Quintilian observes (i. 5, 70): Res tota magis Græcos decet, nobis minus succedit; nec id fieri naturâ puto, sed alienis favemus; ideoque cumκυρταύχεναmirati sumus,incurvicervicumvix a risu defendimus. Elsewhere he complains, though not with reference to compound epithets, of the littlegenerativepower which existed in the Latin language, that its continual losses were compensated by no equivalent gains (viii. 6, 32): Deinde,tanquum consummatasint omnia, nihil generare audemus ipsi, quum multa quotidie ab antiquis ficta moriantur. Notwithstanding this complaint, it must be owned that the silver age of the language, which sought to recover, and did recover to some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier times, reasserted among other powers that of combining words with a certain measure of success.

[78][For Shakespearian compounds see Abbott’sShakespearian Grammar, pp. 317-20.]

[78][For Shakespearian compounds see Abbott’sShakespearian Grammar, pp. 317-20.]

[79][Writing in the year 1780 Bentham says: “The worditmust be acknowledged is a new one”.]

[79][Writing in the year 1780 Bentham says: “The worditmust be acknowledged is a new one”.]

[80]Collection of Scarce Tracts, edited by Sir W. Scott, vol. vii, p. 91.

[80]Collection of Scarce Tracts, edited by Sir W. Scott, vol. vii, p. 91.

[81][Hardly a novelty, as the word occurs in J. Gaule,Πῦς-μαντια, 1652, p. 30. See F. Hall,Mod. English, p. 131.]

[81][Hardly a novelty, as the word occurs in J. Gaule,Πῦς-μαντια, 1652, p. 30. See F. Hall,Mod. English, p. 131.]

[82][First used apparently by Grote, 1847, and Mrs. Gaskell, 1857, N.E.D.]

[82][First used apparently by Grote, 1847, and Mrs. Gaskell, 1857, N.E.D.]

[83]SeeLetters of Horace Walpole and Mann, vol. ii. p. 396, quoted inNotes and Queries, No. 225; and another proof of the novelty of the word in Pegge’sAnecdotes of the English Language, 1814, p. 38.

[83]SeeLetters of Horace Walpole and Mann, vol. ii. p. 396, quoted inNotes and Queries, No. 225; and another proof of the novelty of the word in Pegge’sAnecdotes of the English Language, 1814, p. 38.

[84]Postscript to hisTranslation of the Æneid.

[84]Postscript to hisTranslation of the Æneid.

[85]Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere.De A. P.46-72; cf.Ep.2, 2, 115.

[85]

Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere.

Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere.

De A. P.46-72; cf.Ep.2, 2, 115.

[86]Etymologicon vocum omnium antiquarum quæ usque a Wilhelmo Victore invaluerunt, et jam ante parentum ætatem in usu esse desierunt.

[86]Etymologicon vocum omnium antiquarum quæ usque a Wilhelmo Victore invaluerunt, et jam ante parentum ætatem in usu esse desierunt.

[87][As a matter of fact the N.E.D. fails to give any quotation for this word in the period named.]

[87][As a matter of fact the N.E.D. fails to give any quotation for this word in the period named.]

[88][The verb ‘to advocate’ had long before been employed by Nash, 1598, Sanderson, 1624, and Heylin, 1657 (F. Hall,Mod. English, p. 285).]

[88][The verb ‘to advocate’ had long before been employed by Nash, 1598, Sanderson, 1624, and Heylin, 1657 (F. Hall,Mod. English, p. 285).]

[89]In like manner La Bruyère, in hisCaractères, c. 14, laments the extinction of a large number of French words which he names. At least half of these have now free course in the language, as ‘valeureux’, ‘haineux’, ‘peineux’, ‘fructueux’, ‘mensonger’, ‘coutumier’, ‘vantard’, ‘courtois’, ‘jovial’, ‘fétoyer’, ‘larmoyer’, ‘verdoyer’. Two or three of these may be rarely used, but every one would be found in a dictionary of the living language.

[89]In like manner La Bruyère, in hisCaractères, c. 14, laments the extinction of a large number of French words which he names. At least half of these have now free course in the language, as ‘valeureux’, ‘haineux’, ‘peineux’, ‘fructueux’, ‘mensonger’, ‘coutumier’, ‘vantard’, ‘courtois’, ‘jovial’, ‘fétoyer’, ‘larmoyer’, ‘verdoyer’. Two or three of these may be rarely used, but every one would be found in a dictionary of the living language.

[90]Preface to Juvenal.

[90]Preface to Juvenal.

[91]Preface to Troilus and Cressida.In justice to Dryden, and lest it should be said that he had spoken poetic blasphemy, it ought not to be forgotten that ‘pestered’ had not in his time at all so offensive a sense as it would have now. It meant no more than inconveniently crowded; thus Milton: “Confined andpesteredin this pinfold here”.

[91]Preface to Troilus and Cressida.In justice to Dryden, and lest it should be said that he had spoken poetic blasphemy, it ought not to be forgotten that ‘pestered’ had not in his time at all so offensive a sense as it would have now. It meant no more than inconveniently crowded; thus Milton: “Confined andpesteredin this pinfold here”.

[92]Thus in North’sPlutarch, p. 499: “After the fire was quenched, they found inniggotsof gold and silver mingled together, about a thousand talents”; and again, p. 323: “There was brought a marvellous great mass of treasure inniggotsof gold”. The word has not found its way into our dictionaries or glossaries.

[92]Thus in North’sPlutarch, p. 499: “After the fire was quenched, they found inniggotsof gold and silver mingled together, about a thousand talents”; and again, p. 323: “There was brought a marvellous great mass of treasure inniggotsof gold”. The word has not found its way into our dictionaries or glossaries.

[93][‘Niggot’ rather stands for ‘ningot’, due to a coalescence of the article in ‘an ingot’ (as if ‘a ningot’); just as, according to some, in Frenchl’ingotbecamelingot.]

[93][‘Niggot’ rather stands for ‘ningot’, due to a coalescence of the article in ‘an ingot’ (as if ‘a ningot’); just as, according to some, in Frenchl’ingotbecamelingot.]

[94][Such collections were essayed in J. C. Hare’sTwo Essays in English Philology, 1873, “Words derived from Names of Persons”, and in R. S. Charnock’sVerba Nominalia, pp. 326.]

[94][Such collections were essayed in J. C. Hare’sTwo Essays in English Philology, 1873, “Words derived from Names of Persons”, and in R. S. Charnock’sVerba Nominalia, pp. 326.]

[95][In a strangely similar way the stone-worshipper in the Malay Peninsula gives to his sacred boulder the title of Mohammed (Tylor,Primitive Culture, 3rd ed. ii. 254).]

[95][In a strangely similar way the stone-worshipper in the Malay Peninsula gives to his sacred boulder the title of Mohammed (Tylor,Primitive Culture, 3rd ed. ii. 254).]

[96][But Wolsey’s jester was most probably so called from his wearing a varicoloured or patchwork coat; compare the Shakespearian use of ‘motley’. Similarly themaquereauxof the old French comedy were clothed in a mottled dress like our harlequin, just as the Latinmaccusor mime wore acentunculusor patchwork coat, his name being perhaps connected withmacus(inmacula), a spot (Gozzi,Memoirs, i, 38). In stage slang the harlequin was calledpatchy, as his Latin counterpart wascentunculus.]

[96][But Wolsey’s jester was most probably so called from his wearing a varicoloured or patchwork coat; compare the Shakespearian use of ‘motley’. Similarly themaquereauxof the old French comedy were clothed in a mottled dress like our harlequin, just as the Latinmaccusor mime wore acentunculusor patchwork coat, his name being perhaps connected withmacus(inmacula), a spot (Gozzi,Memoirs, i, 38). In stage slang the harlequin was calledpatchy, as his Latin counterpart wascentunculus.]


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