The great writers of the present time seem to be unwilling to make new words. The chief word-makers of to-day are the people who talk a new slang (and of these we shall see something in another chapter), and the scientific writers, who, as they are constantly making new discoveries, have to find words to describe them.
Some of the poets of the present day have used new words and phrases, but they are generally strange words, which no one thinks of using for himself. The poet John Masefield used the wordwapsand the phrasebee-loud, which is very expressive, but which we cannot imagine passing into ordinary speech. Two poets of the Romantic Movement, Southey and Coleridge, used many new andstrange words just in this way, but these, again, never passed into the ordinary speech of English people.
One maker of new words in the nineteenth century must not be forgotten. This was Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass." He made many new and rather queer words; but they expressed so well the meaning he gave to them that some of them have become quite common. This writer generally made these curious words out of two others. The wordgalumph(which is now put as an ordinary word in English dictionaries) he made out ofgallopandtriumph. It means "to go galloping in triumph." Another of Lewis Carroll's words,chortle, is even more used. It also has the idea of "triumphing," and is generally used to mean "chuckling (either inwardly or outwardly) in triumph." It was probably made out of the wordschuckleandsnort.
But great writers have not only added new words and phrases to the language by inventing them; sometimes the name of a book itself has taken on a general meaning. Sir Thomas More in the time of Henry VIII. wrote his famous book, "Utopia," to describe a country in which everything was done as it should be.Utopia(which means "Nowhere," More making the word out of two Greek words,ou, "not," andtopos, "place") was the name of the ideal state he described, and ever since suchimaginary states where all goes well have been described as "Utopias."
Then, again, a scene or place in a great book may be so splendidly described, and interest people so much, that it, too, comes to be used in a general way. People often use the nameVanity Fairto describe a frivolous way of life. But the originalVanity Fairwas, of course, one of the places of temptation through which Christian had to pass on his way to the Heavenly City in John Bunyan's famous book, the "Pilgrim's Progress." Another of these places was theSlough of Despond, which is now quite generally used to describe a condition of great discouragement and depression. The adjectiveLilliputian, meaning "very small," comes fromLilliput, the land of little people in which Gulliver found himself in Swift's famous book, "Gulliver's Travels."
Then many common expressions are taken from characters in well-known books. We often speak of some one'sMan Friday, meaning a right-hand man or general helper; but the original Man Friday was, of course, the savage whom Robinson Crusoe found on his desert island, and who acted afterwards as his servant.
In describing a person asquixoticwe do not necessarily think of the original Don Quixote in the novel of the great Spanish writer, Cervantes. Don Quixote was always doing generous but rather foolish things, and the adjectivequixoticnow describes this sortof action. A quite different character, the Jew in Shakespeare's play, "The Merchant of Venice," has given us the expression "a Shylock." From Dickens's famous character Mrs. Gamp in "Martin Chuzzlewit," who always carried a bulgy umbrella, we get the wordgamp, rather a vulgar name for "umbrella."
We speak of "a Sherlock Holmes" when we mean to describe some one who is very quick at finding out things. Sherlock Holmes is the hero of the famous detective stories of Conan Doyle.
It is a very great testimony to the power of a writer when the names of persons or places in his books become in this way part of the English language.
A great English historian, writing of the sixteenth century, once said, "The English people became the people of a book." The book he meant was, of course, the Bible. When England became Protestant the people found a new interest in the Bible. In Catholic times educated people, like priests, had read the Bible chiefly in Latin, though the New Testament had been translated into English. But most of the people could not even read. They knew the Bible stories only from the sermons and teaching of the priests, and from the great number of statues of Biblical kings and prophets which covered the beautiful churches of the Middle Ages.
But the new Protestant teachers were much more enthusiastic about the Bible. Many of them found the whole of their religion in its pages, and were constantly quoting texts of Scripture. New translations of the New Testament were made, and at last, in 1611, the wonderful translation of the whole Bible known as the "Authorised Version," becauseit was the translation ordered and approved by the Government, was published. About the same time a translation into English was made for Catholics, and this was hardly less beautiful. It is known as the "Douai Bible" because it was published at Douai by Catholics who had fled from England.
From that time the Bible has been the book which English people have read most, and it has had an immense influence on the English language.
Even in the Middle Ages the Bible had given many new words to the language. Names of Eastern animals, trees, and plants, etc., likelion,camel,cedar,palm,myrrh,hyssop,gem, are examples of new words learned from the Bible at this time.
But the translations of the Bible in the Reformation period had a much greater effect than this. Many words which were already dying out were used by the translators, and so kept their place in the English language. Examples of such words areapparelandraimentfor "clothes." These words are not used so often as the more ordinary wordclotheseven now, but it is quite probable that they would have passed out of use altogether if the translators of the Bible had not saved them.
There are many words of this sort which were saved in this way, but they are chiefly used in poetry and "fine" writing. We do not speak of the "firmament" in an ordinary way; but this word, taken from the first chapter of the Bible, is still used as a more poetical name forsky.
But the translators of the Bible must also be put among the makers of new English words. Sometimes the translator could not find what he considered a satisfactory word to express the meaning of the Greek word he wished to translate. He, therefore, made a new word, or put two old words together to express exactly what he thought the Greek word meant. The wordbeautifulmay not have been actually invented by the translator, William Tyndale, but it is not found in any book earlier than his translation of the New Testament. It seems a very natural and necessary word to us now. It was Tyndale who first used the wordspeacemakerandscapegoatand the compound wordlong-suffering; and another famous translator, Miles Coverdale, who invented the expressionsloving-kindnessandtender mercy.
But the great effect which the Bible has had on the English language is not in the preserving of old words and the making of new. Its chief effect has been in the way many of its expressions and phrases have passed into everyday use, so that people often use Biblical phrases without even knowing that they are doing so, just as we saw was the case with many phrases taken from Shakespeare's works.
Every one knows the expression tocast pearls before swine, and its meaning, "to give good things to people who are too ignorant to appreciate them." This expression, taken from the Gospel of St. Matthew, has now become an ordinary English expression. The same is the case with the expression,the eleventh hour, meaning "just in time." But perhaps not every one who uses it remembers that it comes from the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, though, of course, most people would.
Other common Biblical expressions are,a labour of love,to hope against hope,the shadow of death, and so on. When a child is described as theBenjaminof the family, we know that this means the youngest and best loved, because the story of Jacob's love for Benjamin is familiar to every one. Again, when a person is described as aPhariseeno one needs to have a description of his qualities, for every one knows the story of the Pharisee and the Publican.
The Bible is, of course, full of the most poetical ideas and the most vivid language, and the fact that this language has become the everyday speech of Englishmen has been most important in the development of the English language. Without the Bible, which is full of the richness and colour of Eastern things and early peoples, the English language might have been much duller and less expressive.
But the religious writers of the Reformation period gave us another kind of word besides those found in the translations of the Bible. Many of these writers thought it was their duty to abuse the people who did not agree with them on the subject of religion. Tyndale himself, who invented such beautiful words in his translations, was the first to use the worddunce. He called the Catholics by this name, which he made out of the name of a philosopher of the Middle Ages called Duns Scotus. The Protestants despised the Catholic or scholastic philosophy. But Duns Scotus was quite a clever man in his day, and it is curious that his name should have given us the worddunce, which became quite a common word as time went on.
Other new words which the Protestants used against the Catholics wereRomish,Romanist(which Luther had used, but which Coverdale was the first to use in English),popery,popishness,papistical,monkish, all of which are still used to-day, and still have an anti-Catholic meaning. It was then that Rome was first described asBabylon, the meaning of the Protestants being that the city was as wicked as ancient Babylon, the name of which is used as a type of all wickedness in the Apocalypse, and these writers often used the wordsBabylonianandBabylonishinstead ofRoman. The nameScarlet Woman, also taken from the Apocalypse, was also often used to describe the Catholic Church.
The expressionRoman Catholic, to which no one objects, was invented later, at the time that it was thought that Charles I. was going to marry a Spanish princess, and, of course, a Catholic. It was invented as being more polite than the terms by which the Protestants had so often abused the Catholics, and it has been used ever since.
Other new words came from the breaking up ofProtestantism into different sects.Puritanwas the name given to those who wished to "purify" the Protestant religion from all the old ceremonies of Catholicism. The Calvinists (or followers of the French reformer, John Calvin) believed that souls were "predestined" to go to heaven or to be lost. The people who were predestined to be lost they described asreprobate, and this word we still use, but with a different meaning. A reprobate nowadays is a person who is looked upon as hopelessly bad, and the word is also sometimes used jokingly.
The nameProtestantitself is interesting. It was first used to describe the Lutherans, who "protested" against, and would not agree with, the decisions made by the Emperor Charles V. on the subject of religion.
The names of the different forms of Protestantism are often very interesting, and were, of course, new words invented to describe the different forms of belief. The first great division was between theLutheransand theCalvinists. The meaning of these names is plain. They were merely the followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin.
But later on there were many divisions, such as theBaptists, who were so called because they thought that people should not be baptized until they were grown up. They also administered the sacrament in a different way from most other Churches, the person baptized being dipped in the water. At one time these people were calledAnabaptists,anabeingthe Greek word for "again." But this was supposed to be a term of abuse similar to those showered on the Roman Catholics, and in time it died out.
Then there were theIndependents, who were so called because they believed that each congregation should be independent of every other.
Perhaps the most peculiar name applied to one of the many sects in the England of the seventeenth century was that of theQuakers. This, too, was a name of abuse at first; but the "Society of Friends," to whom it was applied, came sometimes to use it themselves. They were a people who believed in great simplicity of life and manners and dress, and had no priests. At their religious meetings silence was kept until some one was moved to speak. The name was taken from the text, "quaking at the word of the Lord."
The names chosen by religious leaders, and those applied to the sects by their enemies, can teach us a great deal of history.
Many words have been taken from the names of people, saints and sinners, men who have helped on human progress and men who have tried to stand in its way, from queens and kings and nobles, and from quite humble people.
One large group of words has been made from the names of great inventors. All through history men have been inventing new things. We realize this if we think of what England is like to-day, and what it was like in the days of the early Britons. But even by the time of the early Britons many things had been invented which the earlier races of men had not known. Perhaps the greatest inventor the world has ever known was the man who first discovered how to make fire; but we shall never know who he was.
The people who discovered how to make metal weapons instead of the stone weapons which early men used were great inventors too; and those who discovered how to grow crops of corn and wheat, and so gave new food to the human race. But allthis happened in times long past, before men had any idea of writing down their records, and so these inventors have not left their names for us to admire.
But in historical times, and especially in the centuries since the Renaissance, there have been many inventors, and it will be interesting to see how the things they invented got their names. The wordinventoritself means a "finder," and comes to us from the Latin wordinvenio, "I find."
The greatest number of inventions have been made in the last hundred and fifty years. The printing-press was, of course, a great invention of the fifteenth century, but it was simply called theprinting-press, and did not take the name of its inventor. Yet this was a new name too, for the people of the Middle Ages would not have known what a printing-press was.
Several early printers have, however, had their names preserved in the description of the beautiful books they produced. All lovers of rare books are admirers of what they callAldinesandElzevirs—that is, books printed at the press of Aldo Manuzio and his family at Venice in the sixteenth century, and by the Elzevir family in Holland in the seventeenth century.
We speak of aBradshawand aBaedekerto describe the best-known of all railway guides and guide-books. The first takes its name from George Bradshaw, a map engraver, who was born in Manchester in 1801, and lived there till he died, in 1853.In 1839 he published on his own account "Bradshaw's Railway Time Table," of which he changed the name to "Railway Companion" in the next year. He corrected it a few days after the beginning of each month by the railway time sheets, but even then the railway companies sometimes made changes later in the month. In a short time, however, the companies agreed to fix their time tables monthly, and in December 1841 Bradshaw was able to publish the first number of "Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide." Six years afterwards he published the first number of "Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide."
The famous series of guides now calledBaedekerstake their name from Karl Baedeker, a German publisher, who in the first half of the nineteenth century began to publish this famous series.
Members of Parliament still speak of the volumes containing the printed record of what goes on in Parliament asHansard. This name comes from that of the first publisher of such records, Luke Hansard, who was printer to the House of Commons from 1798 until he died, in 1828. His family continued to print the reports as late as 1889, and though the work is now shared by other firms, the name is still kept.
Not only books but musical instruments are frequently called after their makers. The two most famous and valuable kinds of old violins take their names from the Italian family of the Amati, whomade violins in the sixteenth century, and Antonio Stradivari, who was their pupil. AnAmatiand aStradivarius, often called a "Strad" for short, are the names now given by musicians to the splendid old violins made by these people.
The names of many flowers have been taken from the names of persons, and this still goes on to-day when new varieties of roses or sweet peas are called after the person who first grew them, or some friend of this person. These modern names are not, as a rule, very romantic, but some of the older ones are interesting. Thedahlia, for instance, was called after Dahl, a Swedish botanist, who was a pupil of the great botanist Linnæus, after whom the chief botanical society in England, theLinnæan Society, is called. Thelobeliawas so called after Matthias de Lobel, a Flemish botanist and physician to King James I. Thefuchsiatook its name from Leonard Fuchs, a sixteenth-century botanist, the first German who really studied botany.
There are many more new things and names to-day than in earlier times, names which our grand-parents and even our parents did not know when they were children. We talk familiarly now aboutaeroplanesand the different kinds of aeroplanes, such as themonoplane,biplane, etc. But these are new names invented in the last twenty years. Some of the names of airships and aeroplanes are very interesting. TheTaube, for instance, is so called from the German word meaning "dove," becauseit looks very like a bird when it is up in the sky. The great German airships calledZeppelinstook their name from the German Count Zeppelin, who invented them; and the splendid French airships calledFokkersalso take their name from their inventor, and so does theGotha—name of ill-fame.
The man who first discovered gunpowder is forgotten, but many of the powerful guns which are used in modern warfare are called after their inventors. TheGatling gunis not much talked of to-day, but it was a famous gun in its time, and took its name from the American inventor, Richard Jordan Gatling, who lived in the early nineteenth century, and devoted his life to inventions. Some were peaceable inventions, like machines for sowing cotton and rice; but he is best remembered by the great gun to which he gave his name.
Another famous gun of which we have heard a great deal in the Great War is theMaxim gun, which again took its name from its inventor, Sir Hiram Maxim. Theshrapnel, of which also so much was heard in the Great War, the terrible shells which burst a certain time after leaving the gun without striking against anything, took its name from its inventor. The chief peculiarity of shrapnel is that the bullets fall from above in a shower from the shell as it bursts in the air.
But there are many other names which we should not easily guess to come from the names of inventors. People talk of a macadamized road without knowing that these roads are so called because they are made in the way invented by John M'Adam, who lived from 1756 to 1836. The namemacadamis often used now to denote the material used in making roads. Sometimes this material is of a sort which John M'Adam would not have approved of at all, for he did not believe in pouring a fluid material over the stones, or in the heavy rollers which are now often used in making new roads.
Another useful article, the homelymackintosh, takes its name from that of another Scotsman, Charles Macintosh, who lived at the same time as M'Adam. It was he who first, in 1823, finished the invention of a waterproof cloth.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many great discoveries were made in science, and many names of discoverers and inventors have been preserved in scientific words.Galvanism, one branch of electricity, took its name from Luigi Galvani, an Italian professor, who made great discoveries about electricity in the bodies of animals. Every one has heard of a galvanic battery, but not everybody knows how it got its name.
Mesmerism, or the science by which the human mind is influenced by suggestions from itself or another mind, took its name from Friedrich Anton Mesmer, who first made great discoveries about animal magnetism.
Another famous discoverer of the powers of electricity, and one who is still a young man, is Guglielmo Marconi, a native of Bologna. It was he who invented the great system of wireless telegraphy which is now used in nearly all big ships. In 1899 he first succeeded in sending a message in this way from England to France, and in the next year he sent one right across the Atlantic. Now ships frequently send aMarconigramhome when they are right in the middle of the ocean; and many lives have been saved through ships in distress having been able to send out wireless messages which have brought other vessels steaming up to their aid. In fact, this invention of Marconi's is, perhaps, the greatest of all modern inventions, and it is but right that it should preserve his name.
A different kind of invention has preserved the name of the fourth Earl of Sandwich, an eighteenth-century nobleman, who was so fond of card games that he could not bear to leave the card table even to eat his meals, and so invented what has ever since been called by his name—thesandwich.
Not unlike the origin of the name sandwich is that ofAbernethybiscuits, so called after the doctor who invented the recipe for making them.
It was another doctor, the French physician, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, who gave his name to theguillotine, the terrible knife with which people were beheaded in thousands during the French Revolution. Guillotin did not really invent it, nor was he himself guillotined, as has often been said. The guillotine is supposed to have been invented longago in Persia, and was used in the Middle Ages both in Italy and Germany. The Frenchman whose name it bears was a kindly person, who merely advised this method of execution at the time of the French Revolution, because he thought, and rightly, that if people were to be beheaded at all, it should be done swiftly and not clumsily.
But many things are called by the names of persons who were not inventors at all. Sometimes a new kind of clothing is called after some great person just to make it seem distinguished. AChesterfieldovercoat is so called because the tailor who first gave this kind of coat that name wished to suggest that it had all the elegance displayed in the clothing of the famous eighteenth-century dandy, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield. So the well-knownRaglancoats and sleeves took their name first from an English general, Baron Raglan, who fought in the Crimean War. Both Wellington and Blücher, the two generals who fought together and defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, gave their names to different kinds of boots.Bluchersare strong leather half boots or high shoes, andWellingtonsare high riding boots reaching to the bend of the knee at the back of the leg, and covering the knee in front. Wellington is supposed to have worn such boots in his campaigns.
Another article of clothing which was very popular with ladies at one time was theGaribaldiblouse, which was so called after the red shirts which wereworn by the followers of the famous soldier who won liberty for Italy, Garibaldi.
The rather vulgar name for ladies' divided skirts—bloomers—came from the name of an American woman, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who used to wear a skirt which reached to her knee, and then was divided into Turkish trousers tied round her ankles.
A great many different kinds of carriages and vehicles have been called by the names of people. Thebrougham, which is still a favourite form of closed carriage, got its name from Lord Brougham. The old four-wheeled carriage with a curved glass front got its name from the Duke of Clarence, who afterwards became King William IV.; and the carriage known as theVictoriawas so called as a compliment to Queen Victoria. We do not hear much of this kind of carriage now; but the two-wheeled cab known as thehansomis still to be seen in the streets of London, in spite of the coming of the taxicab. This form of conveyance took its name from an architect who invented it in 1834. An earlier kind of two-wheeled carriage invented a few years before this, but which was displaced by the hansom, was thestanhope, also called after its inventor. The general name for a two-wheeled carriage of this sort used to be thephaeton, and this was not taken from any person, but from the sun-chariot in which, according to the old Greek story, the son of Helios rode to destruction when he had roused the anger of the great Greek god, Zeus.
The names of old Greeks and Romans have given us many words. We speak of a very rich man as aCrœsus, a word which was the name of a fabulously rich tyrant in Ancient Greece. A person who is supposed to be a great judge of food, and devoted to the pleasures of the table, is called anepicure, from the old Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that the chief aim of life was to feel pleasure. The wordcynic, too, comes from the name given to certain Greek philosophers who despised pleasure. The name was originally a nickname for these philosophers, and was taken from the Greek wordkunos, "dog."
We describe a person who chooses to live a very hard life as aSpartan, because the people of the old Greek state of Sparta planned their lives so that every one should be disciplined and drilled to make good soldiers, and were never allowed to indulge in too much comfort or too many amusements, lest they should become lazy in mind and weak in body. ADraconiansystem of law is one which has no mercy, and preserves the name of Draco, a statesman who was appointed to draw up laws for the Athenians six hundred and twenty-one years before the birth of Our Lord, and who drew up a very strict code of laws.
The wordmausoleum, which is now used to describe any large or distinguished tomb, comes from the tomb built for Mausolus, king of Caria (in Greek Asia Minor), by his widow, Artemisia, in 353B.C.Thetomb itself, which rises to a height of over one hundred and twelve feet, is now to be seen in the British Museum.
The verbto hector, meaning "to bully," is taken from the name of the Trojan hero Hector, in the famous old Greek poem, the Iliad. Hector was not, as a matter of fact, a bully, but a very brave man, and it is curious that his name should have come to be used in this unpleasant sense. The other great Greek poem, the Odyssey, has given us the name of one of its characters for a fairly common English word. Amentoris a person who gives us wise advice, but the original Mentor was a character in this great poem, the wise counsellor of Telemachus.
From the names of great Romans, too, we have many words. If we describe a person as aNero, every one knows that this means a cruel tyrant. Nero was the worst of all the Roman emperors, and the story tells that he was so heartless that he played on his violin while watching the burning of Rome. Some people even said that he himself set the city on fire. Again, the name of Julius Cæsar, who was the first imperial governor of Rome, though he was never called emperor, has given us a common name.Cæsarcame to mean "an emperor;" and the modern GermanKaiserand the RussianTsarcome from this name of the "noblest Roman of them all."
An earlier Roman was Fabius Cunctator (or "Fabius the Procrastinator"), a general who, instead of fighting actual battles with the Carthaginian Hannibal, the great enemy of Rome, preferred to tire him out by keeping him waiting and never giving battle. His name has given us the wordFabian, to describe this kind of tactics.
The name by which people often describe an unscrupulous politician now isMachiavellian, an adjective made from the name of a great writer on the government of states. At the time of the Renaissance in Italy, Machiavelli, in his famous book called "The Prince," took it for granted that every ruler would do anything, good or bad, to arrive at the results he desired.
Another common word taken at first from politics, but now used in a general sense, isboycott. To boycott a person means to be determined to ignore or take no notice of him. A child may be "boycotted" by disagreeable companions at school. Another expression for the same disagreeable method is to "send to Coventry."
But the political boycotting from which the word passed into general use took place in Ireland, when any one with whose politics the Irish did not agree was treated in this way. The first victim of this kind of treatment was Captain Boycott of County Mayo in 1880. So useful has this word been found that both the French and Germans have borrowed it. The French have now the wordboycotter, and the Germansboycottieren.
Another Irish name which has given us a commonword is Burke. Sometimes in a discussion one person will tell another that heburkesthe question. This means that he is avoiding the real subject of debate. Or a rumour may beburked, or "hushed up." In this way the subject is, as it were, smothered. And it was from this meaning that the name came to be used as a general word. William Burke was an Irish labourer who was executed in 1829, when he was found guilty of having murdered several people. His habit had been to smother them, so that their bodies did not show how they had died, and sell their bodies to a doctor for dissection. From this dreadful origin we have the new use of this fine old Irish name.
People who love books are often very indignant when the editors of a new edition of an old book think it proper to leave out certain passages which they think are indecent or unsuitable for people to read. This is called "expurgating" the book; but people who disapprove often call it tobowdlerize. This word comes from the name of Dr. Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an edition of Shakespeare's works in which, as he said, "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family."
Sometimes a badly-dressed or peculiar-looking person is described as aguy. This word comes from the name of Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plotter, through the effigies, or "guys," which are often burned in bonfires on November 5th.
Certain Christian names have, for reasons which it is not easy to see, given us words which mean "fool" or "stupid person." The wordninnycomes from Innocent.Noddyprobably comes from Nicodemus or Nicholas. Both these names are used to mean "foolish person" in France, and so isbenêt, which comes from Benedict.
Some saints' names have given us words which do not seem at first sight to have any connection with them. The wordmaudlin, by which we mean "foolishly sentimental," comes from the name of St. Mary Magdalen, a saint whose name immediately suggests to us sorrow and weeping. The wordmaudlinsuggests the idea of being ready to weep unnecessarily. In this way a word describing a disagreeable quality is taken from the name of one of the most honoured saints.
The wordtawdry, by which we mean cheap and showy things with no real beauty, comes from St. Audrey, another name for St. Etheldreda, who founded Ely Cathedral. In the Middle Ages St. Audrey's Fair used to be held at Ely, and as fairs are always full of cheap and showy things, it was from this that the wordtawdrycame.
St. Anthony's fireis a well-known name for erysipelas, andSt. Vitus's dancefor another distressing disease. These names came from the fact that these saints used to be chosen out as the special patrons of people suffering from such diseases. In the same way the disease which used to be calledtheKing's Evilwas so named because people formerly believed that persons suffering from it would be cured if touched by the hands of the king or the queen. On certain occasions, even down to the time of Queen Anne, English kings and queens "touched" crowds of sufferers from this disease.
So in these words taken from the names of people we may read many a story of love and sorrow and wonder, of disgust and every human passion.
It is easy to see how names of persons have sometimes changed into general words. But we have also a great number of general words which are taken from animals' names. Most often these words are used to describe people's characters. Sometimes people are merely compared with the animals whose qualities they are supposed to have, and sometimes they are actually called by the names of these animals. Thus we may say that a person is "as sly as a fox," or we may call him an "old fox," and every one understands the same thing by both expressions.
The cause of this continual comparison of human beings with animals is that long ago, when these expressions first began to be used, animals, and especially wild animals, played a great part in the lives of the people. In the Middle Ages great parts of England, now dotted over with big towns, were covered with forest land. Wolves roamed in the woods, and the fighting of some wild animals and the taming of others formed a most important part ofpeople's lives. The same thing was, of course, the case in other countries. So familiar were people in those days with animals that they thought of them almost as human beings and believed that they had their own languages. It was people who believed these things who made up many of the old fairy tales about animals—stories like "Red Riding Hood" and the "Three Bears."
We often say that we are "as hungry as a wolf;" but we who have never seen wolves except behind the bars of their cages at the Zoological Gardens do not know how hungry a wild wolf can be. Those, however, who first used this expression thought of the lean and hungry wolves who prowled round the farms and cottages in the hard winter weather, driven by starvation to men's very doors. We also have the expression, "a wolf in sheep's clothing." By this we mean a person who is really dangerous and harmful, but who puts on a harmless and gentle manner to deceive his victim.
Another use of the wordwolfis as a verb, meaning to eat in a very quick and greedy manner, as we might imagine a hungry wolf would do, and as our forefathers knew by experience that they did do. Most of the people who use the names of the wolf and the fox in these ways do not know anything of the habits of these animals, but the expressions have become part of the common language.
The same thing is, of course, true about the lion, with which even our far-off English ancestors hadnever to fight. But the lion is such a fierce and magnificent animal that it naturally appeals to our imagination, and we find numerous comparisons with it, chiefly in poetical language. We say a soldier is as "brave as a lion," or describe him as a "lion in the fight."
A less complimentary comparison is an expression we often hear, "as stubborn as a mule." Only a few of the people who use this expression can have had any experience of the stubbornness of mules. Sometimes a stubborn person is described quite simply as a "mule." Another compliment of the same sort is to call a person who seems to us to be acting stupidly a "donkey."
We may say a person is as "greedy as a pig," or describe him with disgust as a "pig," which may mean either that they are very greedy or that they are behaving in a very ungracious or unmannerly way. A more common description of a person of this sort is "a hog." Every one has heard of the "road hogs," who drive their motors regardless of other people's convenience or safety; and of the "food hogs," who tried to store up food, or refused to ration themselves, and so shortened other people's supplies of food in the Great War.
Other common expressions comparing people with animals are—"sulky as a bear," "gay as a lark," "busy as a bee." We might also call a cross person a "bear," but should not without some explanation call a person a "lark" or a "bee."
We may say a person "chatters like a magpie," or we may call him or her a "magpie." A person who talks without thinking, merely repeating what other people have said, is often called a "parrot."
Sometimes names of common animals or birds used to describe people are complimentary, but more often they are not. It seems as though the people who made these metaphors were more eloquent in anger than in love. A very nice child will be described by its friends as a "little duck." A mischievous child may also be described good-temperedly as a "monkey;" but there are far more words of abuse taken from the names of animals than more or less amiable words like these.
A bad-tempered woman is described as a "vixen," or female fox; a lazy person as a "drone," or the bee which does no work. A stupid person may be called a "sheep" or a "goose" (which is not quite so insulting).Dog,hound,cur, andpuppyare all used as words of abuse; and contempt for some one who is regarded as very mean-spirited is sometimes shown by describing such a person as a "worm," or worse, if possible, a "reptile." A "bookworm," on the other hand, the name of a little insect which lives in books and eats away at paper and bindings, is applied to people who love books in another way—great readers—and is, of course, not at all an uncomplimentary word.
A foolish person who has been easily deceived in some matter is often described as a "gull," or issaid to have been "gulled."Gullis now the name of a sea-bird, but in Early English it was used to describe any young bird, and from the idea that it is easy to deceive such youngsters came the use of the word to describe foolish people.
Another name of a bird used with almost the opposite meaning isrook. This name is given to people who are constantly cheating others, especially at card games. It was earlier used, likegull, to describe the person cheated. It then came to be used as a verb meaning "to cheat," and from this was used to describe the person cheating instead of the person cheated.
Other names of birds not quite so common used to describe stupid people aredotterelanddodo. The dotterel is a bird which is very easily caught, and it was from this fact that it got its name, which comes fromdote, to be "silly" or "feeble-minded." When the name of the bird is used to describe a silly person, the word is really, as an interesting writer on the history of words says, turning "a complete somersault." The same is the case withdodo, which is also used, but not so often, to describe a stupid person. This bird also got its name from a word which meant "foolish." It comes from the Portuguese worddoudo, which means "simpleton."
We have a few verbs also taken from the names of animals and birds. We say a person "apes" another when he tries to imitate him. This word comes, of course, from the fact that the ape isalways imitating any action performed by other people.
A person who follows another persistently is said to "dog" his steps. This expression comes, of course, from the fact of dogs following their masters. Another expression is to "hound" a person to do something, by which we mean persecute him. This comes from the idea of a hound tracking its victim down. Another of these words which has the idea of persecution isbadger. When some one constantly talks about a subject which is unpleasant to another, or continually tries to persuade him to do something against his will, he is said to be "badgering" him. The badger is an animal which burrows into the ground in winter, and dogs are set to worry it out of its hiding-place. The badger is the victim and not the persecutor, as we might think from the use of the verb.
The verbhenpeck, to describe the teasing of her husband by a disagreeable wife, comes, of course, from the idea of the continual pecking of a hen.
Many common articles are named after animals which they resemble in some way. A "ram" is an instrument, generally of wood, used to drive things into place by pressure. In olden days war-ships used to have a "battering-ram," or projecting beak, at their prow, with which to "ram" other vessels. The Romans called such a beak anaries, which is the Latin for "ram," a male sheep. This was probably from the habit of rams butting anenemy with their horns. The Romans often had the ends of their battering-rams carved into the shape of the head of a ram. A "ramrod" gets its name from the same idea. It is an instrument for pressing in the ammunition when loading the muzzle of a gun.
The word "ram" has now several more general uses. We speak of a person "ramming" things into a drawer or bag when we mean pushing them hastily and untidily into too small a place. Or a man may "ram" his hat down on his head. Again, we may have a lesson or unpleasant fact "rammed" into us by some one who is determined to make the subject clear whether we want to hear about it or not. And all this comes from the simple idea of the ram butting people whom it considers unpleasant.
More commonplace instruments having animals' names are the "clothes'-horse" and "fire-dogs."
We have other words, which we should not guess to be from animals' names, but which really are so. We say that a person who is always changing his mind, and wanting first one thing and then another, is "capricious." Or we speak of a curious or unreasonable desire as a "caprice." These words really come from the Latin name for a goat—caper. The mind of the capricious person skips about just like a goat. At least that is what the wordcapriciousliterally says about him. The wordcaper, meaning to "jump about playing tricks," comes from the Latin wordcapra, a "she-goat."
The wordcowardcomes from the name of an animal, butnotthe cow. In a famous French story of the Middle Ages, in which all the characters are animals, the "Roman de Renard," the hare is calledcouard, and it is from this that the wordcoward("one who runs away from danger") comes.
All these words from the names of animals take us back, then, to the days when every man was a kind of naturalist. In those early days, when town life hardly existed, everybody knew all about animals and their habits. Their conversation was full of this sort of thing. And so it is that in hundreds of our words which we use to-day, without thinking of the literal meaning at all, we have a picture of the lives of our ancestors preserved.
We have, too, words taken from the names of some animals which never existed at all. The writers of the Middle Ages told many tales or fables of animals and monsters which were purely imaginary, but in which the people of those days firmly believed. We sometimes hear people use the expression a "basilisk glare," which other people would describe as a "look that kills," meaning a look of great severity or displeasure. There is a little American lizard which zoologists call the "basilisk," but this is not the basilisk from which this expression comes. The basilisk which the people of the Middle Ages imagined, but which never existed, was a monstrous reptile hatched by a serpent froma cock's egg. By its breath or even its look it could destroy all who approached it.
Another invention of the Middle Ages was the bird called the "phœnix." We now use the wordphœnixto describe some one who is unique in some good quality. A commoner way of expressing the same idea would be that "there is no one like him." It was believed in the Middle Ages that only one of these wonderful birds could exist in the world at one time. The story was that the phœnix, after living through five or six hundred years in the Arabian desert, prepared a funeral pile for itself, and was burned to death, but rose again, youthful and strong as ever, from the ashes.
In these words we are reminded once again of another side of the life of our ancestors.
We have already seen something of the stories which the names of places, old and new, can tell us. But the names of places themselves often give us new words, and from these, too, we can learn many interesting facts.
Many manufactured things, and especially woven cloths, silks, etc., are called by the name of the place from which they come, or from which they first came.Cashmere, a favourite smooth woollen material, is called after Cashmir, in India.Damask, the material of which table linen is generally made, takes its name from Damascus; as doesholland, the light brownish cotton stuff used so much for children's frocks and overalls, from Holland, and the rough woollen material known asfriezefrom Friesland.Cambric, the fine white material often used for handkerchiefs, takes its name from Cambrai in France, the place where it was first made. The wordcambric, however, came into English fromKamerijk, the Dutch name for Cambrai. So the other fine material known aslawngot its namefrom Laon, another French town. Another fine material of this kind,muslin, takes its name from Mussolo, a town in Mesopotamia, from which this kind of material first came.
Another commoner kind of stuff isfustian, made of cotton, but thick, with a short nap, and generally dyed a dark colour. The wordfustianhas also come to be used figuratively to describe a showy manner of speaking or writing, or anything which tries to appear better than it is. The word comes from Fustat, a suburb of Cairo.
A more substantial material,tweed, which is largely made in Scotland, really takes its name from people pronouncingtwillbadly; but the formtweedspread more quickly because people associated the material with the country beyond the river Tweed.
Another kind of stuff which we generally associate with Scotland istartan, because this woollen stuff, with its crossed stripes of different colours, is chiefly used for Scottish plaids and kilts, especially of the Highland regiments. But the wordtartandoes not seem to be a Scottish word, and probably comes fromTartar, which was formerly used to describe almost any Eastern people. Perhaps the fact that Eastern peoples love bright colours caused this name to be given to these bright materials, though there is nothing at all Eastern in the designs of the Scottish tartans. Another material with an Eastern name issarcenet, orsarsenet, a soft, silky stuff now chiefly used for linings.
Often in tales of olden times we read of people hiding behind the "arras." This was a wall covering of tapestry, often hung sufficiently far from the wall to leave room for a person to pass. The wordarrascomes from Arras, a town in France, which was famous for its beautiful tapestries.
We know the wordtabbychiefly as the name of a kind of striped cat, but this use of the word came from the Old French wordtabis, and described a material with marks which the markings on a "tabby" cat resemble. The French word came from the Arab wordutabi, which perhaps came from the name of a suburb of the famous city of Baghdad.
Worsted, the name of a certain kind of knitting-wool, comes from the name of the town of Worstead, in Norfolk. The close-fitting woollen garments worn by sailors and often by children are known asjerseys—a word which is taken from the name of one of the Channel Islands, Jersey. Sometimes, but not so commonly, they are calledguernseys, from the name of the chief of the other Channel Islands, Guernsey. Another piece of wearing apparel, the Turkish cap known as afez, gets its name, perhaps, from Fez, a town in Morocco.
Besides woven stuffs, many other things are called by the names of the places from which they come.China, the general name for very fine earthenware, is the same name as that of the great Eastern country which is famous for its beautiful pottery. Anotherkind of ornamented earthenware is the Italianmajolica, and this probably gets its name from the island of Majorca; whiledelfis the name of the glazed earthenware made at Delft (which in earlier times was called "Delf"), in Holland.
The beautiful leather much used for the bindings of books,morocco, takes its name from Morocco, where it was first made by tanning goatskins. It is now made in several countries of Europe, but it keeps its old name. Another old kind of leather, but whose name is no longer used, wascordwain, a Spanish leather for the making of shoes, which took its name from Cordova in Spain.Cordwainerwas the old name for "shoemaker," and is still kept in the names of shoemakers' guilds and societies.
Many wines are simply called by the names (sometimes altered a little through people mispronouncing them) of the places from which they come.Champagneis the wine of Champagne,Burgundyof Burgundy,Sauterneof Sauterne,Chablisof Chablis—all French wines.Porttakes its name from Oporto, in Portugal; andsherry, which used to be called "sherris," comes from the name of Xeres, a Spanish town.
Many less well-known wines have merely the name of the place where they are produced printed on the label, and they tend to be called by these names—such asCapri bianco Vesuvio, etc.Malmsey, the old wine in which the Duke of Clarence was supposed to have been drowned when his murder was ordered by his brother, and which is also calledmalvoisie, got its name from Monemvasia, a town in the peninsula of Morea.
Not only wine but other liquids are sometimes called after the places from which they come. The oil known asmacassarcomes from Maugkasara, the name of a district in the island of Celebes. This oil was at one time very much used as a dressing for the hair, and from this we get the nameantimacassarfor the coverings which used to be (and are sometimes still) thrown over the backs of easy-chairs and couches to prevent their being soiled by such aids to beauty.Antimacassarmeans literally a "protection against macassar oil,"antibeing the Latin word for "against."
The tobacco known asLatakiatakes its name from the town called by the Turks Latakia, the old town of Laodicea. (Laodicea also gives us another common expression. We describe an indifferent person who has no enthusiasm for anything as "a Laodicean," from the reproach to the Church of the Laodiceans, in the Book of Revelation in the Bible, that they were "neither cold nor hot" in their religion.)
Both the wordsbronzeandcoppercome from the names of places.Bronzeis fromBrundusium, the ancient name of the South Italian town which we now call Brindisi. The Latin name for this metal wasaes Brundusinum, or "brass of Brindisi."Copperwas in Latinaes Cyprium, or "brass of Cyprus."
Some coins take their names from the names of places. Theflorin, or two-shilling piece, takes its name from Florence.Dollaris the same word as the Germanthaler, the name of a silver coin which was formerly called aJoachimstaler, from the silver-mine of Joachimstal, or "Joachim's Dale," in Bohemia. Theducat, a gold coin which was used in nearly all the countries of Europe in the Middle Ages, and which was worth about nine shillings, got its name from the duchy (in Italian,ducato) of Apulia, where it was first coined in the twelfth century.
It was an Italian town, Milan, which gave us our wordmilliner. This came from the fact that many fancy materials and ornaments used in millinery were imported from Milan.
Many old dances take their names from places. We hear a great deal nowadays of the "morris dances" which used to be danced in England in olden times. Butmorriscomes frommorys, an old word for "Moorish." In the Middle Ages this word was used, like "Turk" or "Tartar," to describe almost any Eastern people, and the name came, perhaps, from the fact that in these dances people dressed up, and so looked strange and foreign. The name of a very well-known dance, thepolka, really means "Polish woman."Mazurka, the name of another dance, means "woman of Masovia." Theold-fashioned slow dance known as thepolonaisetook its name from Poland, and was really a Polish dance. The well-known Italian dance called thetarantellatook its name from the South Italian town Tarento.
The wordcanter, which describes another kind of movement, comes from Canterbury.Canteris only the short for "Canterbury gallop," an expression which was used to describe the slow jogging pace at which many pilgrims in the Middle Ages rode along the Canterbury road to pray at the famous shrine of St. Thomas Becket in that city.
Several fruits take their names from places. Thedamson, which used in the Middle Ages to be called the "damascene," was called in Latinprunum damascenum, or "plum of Damascus." The namepeachcomes to us from the Late Latin wordpessica, which was a bad way of saying "Persica."Currantsused to be known as "raisins of Corauntz," or Corinth raisins.
Parchmentgets its name from Pergamum, a city in Asia Minor.Pistolcame into English from the Old French wordpistole, and this came from an Italian word,pistolese, which meant "made at Pistoja." We do not think ofspanielsas foreign dogs; but the name means "Spanish," having come into English from the Old French wordespagneul, with that meaning.
A derivation which it would be even harder to guess is that of the wordspruce. We now use thisword to describe a kind of leather, a kind of ginger beer, and a variety of the fir tree, and also in the same sense as "spick and span." The word used to bepruce, and meant "Prussia."
The name of the famous London fish-market,Billingsgate, has long been used to mean very violent and abusive language supposed to resemble the scoldings of the fishwomen in the market.
Another word describing a certain kind of speaking, and which also comes from the name of a place, isbunkum. When a person tells a story which we feel sure is not true, or tells a long tale to excuse himself from doing something, we often say it is all "bunkum." This word comes from the name of the American town of Buncombe, in North Carolina, and came into use through the member for Buncombe in the House of Representatives insisting on making a speech just when every one else wanted to proceed with the voting on a bill. He knew that he had nothing of importance to say, but explained that he must make a speech "for Buncombe"—that is, so that the people of Buncombe, who had elected him, might know that he was doing his duty by them. And so the expressionbunkumcame into use.
Another word which may go with these, because it also begins with the letterb, isbedlam. We describe a scene of great noise and confusion, as when a number of children insist on talking all together, as a "perfect bedlam." The wordbedlamcomes from Bethlehem. In the Middle Ages there was a hospital in London kept by monks of the Order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. In time this house came to be known as "Bedlam," and as after a while the hospital came to be an asylum for mad people, this name came to be used for any lunatic asylum. From that it came to have its modern use of any great noise or confusion.
The sport of shooting pheasants is very English, and few people think that the pheasant is a foreign bird, introduced into England, just as in fact the turkey, which seems to belong especially to the English Christmas, came to us from America. Thepheasantgets its name from the river Phasis, in the Eastern country of Pontus. It may seem peculiar that a bird coming from America should be called aturkey; but we saw in an earlier chapter how vague the people of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were about America. When Columbus reached the shore of that continent, people thought he had sailed round by another way to the "Indies." In nearly all European countries the turkey got names which show that most people thought it came from India, or at least from some part of the "Indies." Even in England it was called for a time "cok off Inde." In Italy it wasgallina d'India(or "Indian hen"). The modern French words for male and female turkeys come from this mistake. In French the bird was at first known aspouille d'Inde(or "Indian fowl"). The name came to be shortened into theone worddinde, and then, as people thought this must mean the female turkey, they made a new word for the male,dindon.
But though so many words come from the names of places, and some of these would not seem to do so at first sight, there are other words which seem to come from place-names which do not do so at all.Brazilwood is found in large quantities in Brazil, but the wood is not called after the country. On the contrary, the country is called after the wood. This kind of wood was already used in Europe in the twelfth century, and its name is found in several European languages. When the Portuguese adventurers found such large quantities in this part of South America they gave it the name ofBrazilfrom the wood. The island ofMadeiragot its name in the same way, this being the word for "timber," from the Latin wordmateria.
Again, guinea-pigs do not come from Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, though guinea-fowls do so. Guinea-pigs really come from Brazil. The nameguinea-pigwas given to these little animals because, when the sailors brought them home, people thought they had come from Africa. But in the seventeenth century a common voyage for ships was to sail from English or other European ports to the west coast of Africa, where bands of poor negroes were seized or bought, and carried over the Atlantic to be sold as slaves in the American "plantations." The ships naturally did not comehome empty, but often people were not very clear as to whether the articles they brought back came from Africa or America.
Again,India inkcomes, not from India, but from China.Indian corncomes from America.Sedan chairshad nothing to do with Sedan in France, but probably take their name from the Latin verbsedere, "to sit."
In these words, as in many others, we can see that it is never safe toguessthe derivation of words. Many of the old philologists used to do this, and then write down their guesses as facts. This caused a great deal of extra work for modern scholars, who will not, of course, accept any "derivation" for a word until they have clear proof that it is true.