Chapter I: Front Matter

{TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

All square brackets [] are from the original text. Braces {} (“curly brackets”) are supplied by the transcriber. This e-text uses a number of special characters, including:

vowels with macrons: ā ē ō
vowels with breves: ă ĕ ŏ
accented Greek: ἀ ἔ ἦ ϊ ῦ ῳ
phonetic symbols: ɛ ɨ ɵ ŋ

If these do not display correctly, make sure that your browser’s file encoding is set to UTF-8. You may also need to change your default font.

A short passage on page 222 uses some unusual phonetic symbols; different Unicode characters have been substituted where the original symbols were not available. The html version contains images of the original book’s symbols.

In the original book, the odd-numbered pages have unique headers, marked here as sidenotes.

Obvious printing errors involving punctuation (such as missing single quotes), as well as alphabetization errors in the index, have been corrected without notes. Other corrections of printing errors, as well as notes regarding spelling variations, are listed at the end of this file.}

* * * * *

ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT

BY

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.

_Edited with Emendations_

BY

A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D.

_Author of ‘The Folk and their Word-lore,’ ‘Folk-Etymology,’ ‘Babylonian Influence on the Bible,’ etc._

{Illustration: Printer’s Mark}

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED

NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1905

EDITOR’S PREFACE

In editing the present volume I have thought it well to follow the same rule which I laid down for myself in editing _The Study of Words_, and have made no alteration in the text of Dr. Trench’s work (the fifth edition). Any corrections or additions that seemed to be demanded owing to the progress of lexicographical knowledge have been reserved for the foot-notes, and these can always be distinguished from those in the original by the square brackets [thus] within which they are placed.

On the whole more corrections have been required in _English Past and Present_ than in _The Study of Words_ owing to the sweeping statements which involve universal negatives--statements, e.g. that certain words either first came into use, or ceased to be employed, at a specific date. Nothing short of the combined researches of an army of co-operative workers, such as the _New English Dictionary_ commanded, could warrant the correctness of assertions of this kind, which imply an exhaustive acquaintance with a subject so immense as the entire range of English literature.

Even the mistakes of a learned man are instructive to those who essay to follow in his steps, and it is not without use to point them out instead of ignoring or expunging them. Thus, when the Archbishop falls into the error (venial when he wrote) of assuming an etymological connexion between certain words which have a specious air of kinship--such as ‘care’ and ‘cura,’ ‘bloom’ and ‘blossom,’ ‘ghastly’ and ‘ghostly,’ ‘brat’ and ‘brood,’ ‘slow’ and ‘slough’--he makes just the mistakes which we would be tempted to make ourselves had not Professor Skeat and Dr. Murray and the great German School of philologists taught us to know better. Our plan, therefore, has been to leave such errors in the text and point out the better way in the notes. In other words, we have treated the Archbishop’s work as a classic, and the occasional emendations in the notes serve to mark the progress of half a century of etymological investigation. It is hardly necessary to point out that the chronological landmarks occurring here and there need an obvious equation of time to make them correct for the present year of grace, e.g. ‘lately,’ when it occurs, must be understood to mean at least fifty years ago, and a similar addition must be made to other time-points when they present themselves.

A. SMYTHE PALMER.