Chapter X: Preface: To the First Edition (9)

{264} Exactly the same happens in other languages; thus ‘armbrust’, a
crossbow, _looks_ German enough, and yet has nothing to do with
‘arm’ or ‘brust’, being a contraction of ‘arcubalista’, but a
contraction under these influences. As little has ‘abenteuer’
anything to do with ‘abend’ or ‘theuer’, however it may seem to be
connected with them, being indeed the Provençal ‘adventura’. And
‘weissagen’ in its earlier forms had nothing in common with
‘sagen’.

{265} [So Diez. But Prof. Skeat and Scheler see no reason why it should
not be direct from French _refuser_ and Low Latin _refusare_, from
_refusus_, rejected.]

{266} It is upon this word that De Quincey (_Life and Manners_, p. 70,
American Ed.) says excellently well: “It is in fact by such
corruptions, by off-sets upon an old stock, arising through
ignorance or mispronunciation originally, that every language is
frequently enriched; and new modifications of thought, unfolding
themselves in the progress of society, generate for themselves
concurrently appropriate expressions.... It must not be allowed to
weigh against a word once fairly naturalized by all, that
originally it crept in upon an abuse or a corruption. Prescription
is as strong a ground of legitimation in a case of this nature, as
it is in law. And the old axiom is applicable--Fieri non debuit,
factum valet. Were it otherwise, languages would be robbed of much
of their wealth”. [_Works_, vol. xiv., p. 201.]

{267} [The direct opposite is the fact. The French _contredanse_ was
borrowed from the English ‘country-dance’. See _The Folk and their
Word-Lore_, p. 153.]

{268} [These words are not identical. They were in use as distinct words
in the fifteenth century. See N.E.D.]

{269} [Dr. Murray has shown that ‘causeway’ is not a corruption of
‘causey’ but a compound of that word with ‘way’.]

{270} [Prof. Skeat has demonstrated that the supposed Greek ‘rachitis’,
inflammation of the back, is an ætiological invention to serve as
etymon of ‘rickets’, the condition of being rickety, a purely
native word. See also _Folk-Etymology_, 312.]

{271} [See _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 124.]

{272} _Phars._ vi. 720-830.

{273} Thus in a _Vocabulary_, 1475: Nigromansia dicitur divinatio facta
_per nigros_.

{274} [Dyce believed that it was really thus derived and distinct from
_pleurisy_, but it was evidently modelled upon that word (_Remarks
on Editions of Shakespeare_, p. 218).]

{275} As ‘orthography’ itself means properly “_right_ spelling”, it might
be a curious question whether it is permissible to speak of an
_incorrect_ _ortho_graphy, that is of a _wrong_ _right_-spelling.
The question which would be thus started is one of not unfrequent
recurrence, and it is very worthy of observation how often, so
soon as we take note of etymologies, this _contradictio in
adjecto_ is found to occur. I will here adduce a few examples
from the Greek, the Latin, the German, and from our own tongue.
Thus the Greeks having no convenient word to express a rider,
apart from a rider _on a horse_, did not scruple to speak of the
_horse_man (ἱππεύς) upon an _elephant_. They often allowed
themselves in a like inaccuracy, where certainly there was no
necessity; as in using ἀνδριάς of the statue of a _woman_; where
it would have been quite as easy to have used εἱκών or ἄγαλμα. So
too their ‘table’ (τράπεζα = τετράπεζα) involved probably the
_four_ feet which commonly support one; yet they did not shrink
from speaking of a _three_-footed table (τρίπους τράπεζα), in
other words, a “_three_-footed _four_-footed”; much as though we
should speak of a “_three_-footed _quadru_ped”. Homer writes of a
‘hecatomb’ not of a _hundred_, but of twelve, oxen; and elsewhere
of Hebe he says, in words not reproducible in English, νέκταρ
ἐωνοχόει. ‘Tetrarchs’ were often rulers of quite other than
_fourth_ parts of a land. Ἀκρατος had so come to stand for wine,
without any thought more of its signifying originally the
_unmingled_, that St. John speaks of ἄκρατος κεκερασμένος (Rev.
xiv. 10), or the unmingled mingled. Boxes in which precious
ointments were contained were so commonly of alabaster, that the
name came to be applied to them whether they were so or not; and
Theocritus celebrates “_golden_ alabasters”. Cicero having to
mention a water-clock is obliged to call it a _water_ _sun_dial
(solarium ex aquâ). Columella speaks of a “_vintage_ of honey”
(vindemia mellis), and Horace invites his friend to im_pede_, not
his _foot_, but his head, with myrtle (_caput_ im_ped_ire myrto).
Thus too a German writer who desired to tell of the golden shoes
with which the folly of Caligula adorned his horse could scarcely
avoid speaking of _golden_ hoof-_irons_. The same inner
contradiction is involved in such language as our own, a “_false_
_ver_dict”, a “_steel_ _cuirass_” (‘coriacea’ from corium,
leather), “antics new” (Harrington’s _Ariosto_), an “_erroneous_
_etymo_logy”, a “_corn_ _chandler_”; that is, a “_corn_
_candle_-maker”, “_rather_ _late_”, ‘rather’ being the
comparative of ‘rathe’, early, and thus “rather late” being
indeed “more early late”; and in others.

{276} [‘Siren’ is now generally understood to have meant originally a
songstress, from the root _svar_, to sing or sound, seen in
_syrinx_, a flute, _su(r)-sur-us_, etc. See J. E. Harrison, _Myths
of the Odyssey_, p. 175.]

{277} [‘Chymist’ seems to be the oldest form of the word in English; see
N.E.D.]

{278} χημία, the name of Egypt; see Plutarch, _De Is. et Os._ c. 33.

{279} We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this error was, how
long this confusion endured, of the way in which it was shared by
the learned as well as the unlearned, in Milton’s _Apology for
Smectymnuus_, sect. 7, which everywhere presumes the identity of
the ‘satyr’ and the ‘satirist’. It was Isaac Casaubon who first
effectually dissipated it even for the learned world. The results
of his investigations were made popular for the unlearned reader
by Dryden, in the very instructive _Discourse on Satirical
Poetry_, prefixed to his translations of Juvenal; but the
confusion still survives, and ‘satyrs’ and ‘satires’, the Greek
‘satyric’ drama, the Latin ‘satirical’ poetry, are still assumed
by most to have something to do with one another.

{280} [‘Dirige’ was the first word of the antiphon at matins in the
Office for the Dead, taken from Psalm v, 9 (Vulg.), in which occur
the words “_dirige_ in conspectu tuo vitam meam”. See Skeat,
_Piers Plowman_, ii, 52. Hence also Scotch _dregy_, a dirge.]

{281} [Incorrect: the ‘mid-wife’ is etymologically she that is _with_
(old English _mid_) a woman to help her in her hour of need, like
German _bei-frau_, Spanish _co-madre_, Icelandic _naer-kona_,
“near-woman”, Latin _ob-stetrix_, “by-stander”, all words for the
lying-in nurse. Compare German _mit-bruder_, a comrade.]

{282} “I have seen him
Caper upright, like a wild _Môrisco_,
Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells”.

Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI_ Act iii, Sc. 1.

{283} In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult to
determine how far the old shape in which words present themselves
should be retained, how far they should be conformed to present
usage. It is comparatively easy to lay down as a rule that in
books intended for popular use, wherever the form of the word is
not affected by the modernizing of the spelling, as where this
modernizing consists merely in the dropping of superfluous
letters, there it shall take place; as who would wish our Bibles
to be now printed letter for letter after the edition of 1611, or
Shakespeare with the orthography of the first folio; but wherever
more than the spelling, the actual shape, outline, and character
of the word has been affected by the changes which it has
undergone, that in all such cases the earlier form shall be held
fast. The rule is a judicious one; but when it is attempted to
carry it out, it is not always easy to draw the line, and to
determine what affects the form and essence of a word, and what
does not. About some words there can be no doubt; and therefore
when a modern editor of Fuller’s _Church History_ complacently
announces that he has allowed himself in such changes as ‘dirige’
into ‘dirge’, ‘barreter’ into ‘barrister’, ‘synonymas’ into
‘synonymous’, ‘extempory’ into ‘extemporary’, ‘scited’ into
‘situated’, ‘vancurrier’ into ‘avant-courier’; he at the same time
informs us that for all purposes of the study of the English
language (and few writers are for this more important than
Fuller), he has made his edition utterly worthless. Or again, when
modern editors of Shakespeare print, and that without giving any
intimation of the fact,

“Like quills upon the fretful _porcupine_”,

he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the words
standing,

“Like quills upon the fretful _porpentine_”,

this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare’s time the more common
form of the word [e.g. “the _purpentines_ nature” (Puttenham,
_Eng. Poesie_, 1589, p. 118, ed. Arber)], they must be considered
as taking a very unwarrantable liberty with his text; and no less,
when they substitute ‘Kenilworth’ for ‘Killingworth’, which he
wrote, and which was his, Marlowe’s, and generally the earlier
form of the name.

{284} [Compare Latin _amita_, yielding old French _ante_, our ‘aunt’.]

{285} “The Carthaginians shall restore and deliver back all the
_renegates_ [perfugas] and fugitives that have fled to their side
from us”.--p. 751.

{286} [See further in _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 80.]

{287} Halbertsma quoted by Bosworth, _Origin of the English and Germanic
Languages_, p. 39.

INDEX OF WORDS

PAGE
Abenteuer 240
Abnormal 72
Abominable 245
Academy 70
Accommodate 107
Acre 193
Adamant 230
Admiralty 107
Advocate 82
Æon 72
Æsthetic 72
Afeard 126
Affluent 104
Afraid 127
Afterthink 120
Alcimus 237
Alcove 16
Amphibious 107
Analogie 56
Ant 253
Antecedents 210
Anthem 245
Antipodes 68
Apotheosis 67
-ard 141
Armbrust 240
Arride 58
Ascertain 186
Ask 126
Astarte 237
Attercop 123
Aurantium 241
Aurichalcum 237
Avunculize 91
Axe 126

Baffle 181
Baker, bakester 157
Banter 106
Barrier 70
Battalion 61
Bawn 123
Benefice, benefit 97
Bitesheep 144
Black art 243
Blackguard 189
Blasphemous 128
Bless 231
Bombast 199