Chapter XI: Retrospect (3)

3. To write a word down helps you to remember it. That is why the normal way to transfer a word from class four into class two is to put it temporarily into the intermediary class, three; you first _see_ or _hear_ the word, next _write_ it, afterwards _speak_ it. The mere writing down of your lists has probably done much to bring the words written into the circuit of your memory, where you can more readily lay hold of them. Also it has fortified your confidence in using them; for to write a word out, letter by letter, makes you surer that you have its right form. With many of your words you will likely have no more trouble; they will be at hand, anxious for employment, and you may use them according to your need. But some of your words will still stubbornly withhold themselves from memory. Weed these out from your lists, make a special list of them, copy it frequently, construct short sentences into which the troublesome words fit. By dint of writing the words so often you will soon make them more tractable.

4. Make a fifth list of words--those you hear or see printed, do not understand the meaning of, but yet feel you should know. Obtain and confirm a grasp of them by the successive processes used with words in the preceding lists.

<The Definition of Words>

Another means of buttressing your command of your present vocabulary is to define words you use or are familiar with.

Do not bewilder yourself with words (like _and, the_) which call for ingenuity in handling somewhat technical terms, or with words (like _thing, affair, condition_) which loosely cover a multitude of meanings. (You may, however, concentrate your efforts upon some one meaning of words in the latter group.) Select words with a fairly definite signification, and express this as precisely as you can. You may afterwards consult a dictionary for means of checking up on what you have done. But in consulting it think only of idea, not of form. You are not training yourself in dictionary definitions, but in the sharpness and clarity of your understanding of meanings.

About the only rule to be laid down regarding the definition of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs is that you must not define a word in terms of itself. Thus if you define _grudgingly_ as "in a grudging manner," you do not dissipate your hearer's uncertainty as to what the word means. If you define it as "unwillingly" or "in a manner that shows reluctance to yield possession," you give your hearer a clear-cut idea in no wise dependent upon his ability to understand the word that puzzled him in the first place.

Normally, in defining a noun you should assign the thing named to a general class, and to its special limits within that class; in other words, you should designate its genus and species. You must take care to differentiate the species from all others comprised within the genus. You will, in most instances, first indicate the genus and then the species, but at your convenience you may indicate the species first. Thus if you affirm, "A cigar is smoking-tobacco in the form of a roll of tobacco-leaves," you name the genus first and later the characteristics of the species. You have given a satisfactory definition. If on the other hand you affirm, "A cigar is a roll of tobacco-leaves meant for smoking," you first designate the species and then merely imply the genus. Again you have given a satisfactory definition; for you have permitted no doubt that the genus is smoking-tobacco, and have prescribed such limits for the species as exclude tobacco intended for a pipe or a cigarette.

In defining nouns by the genus-and-species method, restrict the genus to the narrowest possible bounds. You will thus save the need for exclusions later. Had you in your first definition of a cigar begun by saying that it is tobacco, rather than smoking-tobacco, you would have violated this principle; and you would have had to amplify the rest of your definition in order to exclude chewing-tobacco, snuff, and the like.

EXERCISE - Definition

1. Define words of your own choosing in accordance with the principles laid down in the preceding section of the text.

2. Define the following adjectives, adverbs, and verbs:

Miserable Rebuke Wise Angrily Rapidly Boundless Swim Paint Whiten Haughtily Surly Causelessly

3. So define the following nouns as to prevent any possible confusion with the nouns following them in parentheses:

Wages (salary) Ride (drive) Planet (star) Truck (automobile) Watch (clock) Reins (lines) Jail (penitentiary) Iron (steel) Vegetable (fruit) Timber (lumber) Flower (weed) Rope (string) Hail (sleet, snow) Stock (bond) Newspaper (magazine) Street car (railway coach) Cloud (fog) Revolver (rifle, pistol, etc.) Mountain (hill) Creek (river) Letter (postal card)

4. While remembering that the following words are of broad signification and mean different things to different people, define them according to their meaning to you:

Gentleman Courage Honesty Beauty Honor Good manners Generosity A good while Charity A little distance Modesty Long ago

<How to Look Up a Word in the Dictionary>

So much for the words which are already yours, or which you can make yours through your own unaided efforts. For convenience we have grouped with them some words of a nature more baffling--words of which you know perhaps but a single aspect rather than the totality, or upon which you can obtain but a feeble and precarious grip. These slightly known words belong more to the class now to be considered than to that just disposed of. For we have now to deal with words over which you can establish no genuine rulership unless you have outside help.

You must own a dictionary, have it by you, consult it carefully and often. Do not select one for purchasing upon the basis of either mere bigness or cheapness. If you do, you may make yourself the owner of an out-of-date reprint from stereotyped plates. What to choose depends partly upon personal preference, partly upon whether your need is for comprehensiveness or compression.

If you are a scholar, _Murray's_ many-volumed _New English Dictionary_ may be the publication for you; but if you are an ordinary person, you will probably content yourself with something less expensive and exhaustive. You will find the _Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia_, in twelve volumes, or _Webster's New International Dictionary_ an admirable compilation. The _New Standard Dictionary_ will also prove useful. All in all, if you can afford it, you should provide yourself with one or the other of these three large and authoritative, but not too inclusive, works. Of the smaller lexicons _Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Webster's Secondary School Dictionary_, the _Practical Standard Dictionary_, and the _Desk Standard Dictionary_ answer most purposes well.

A dictionary is not for show. You must learn to use it. What ordinarily passes for use is in fact abuse. Wherein? Let us say that you turn to your lexicon for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions given, you disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should stand for. Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do. At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise. You have not truly _learned_ the word, brought it into a vassal's relationship with you, so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up like a familiar tool.

This procedure is blundering, farcical, futile, incorrect. To suppose you have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the time of day. To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word--or a man-- involves effort, application. You must go about the work seriously, intelligently.

One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the primary, the original meaning of the word. You must go to the source. If the word is of recent formation, and is native rather than naturalized English, you have only to look through the definitions given. Such a word will not cause you much trouble. But if the word is derived from primitive English or from a foreign language, you must seek its origin, not in one of the numbered subheads of the definition, but in an etymological record you will perceive within brackets or parentheses. Here you will find the Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, or other word from which sprang the word you are studying, and along with this authentic original you may find cognate words in other languages. These you may examine if you care to observe their resemblance to your word, but the examination is not necessary. It could teach you only the earlier or other _forms_ of your word, whereas what you are after is the original _meaning_. This too is set down within the brackets; if your search is in earnest, you cannot possible miss it. And having discovered this original meaning, you must get it in mind; it is one of the really significant things about the word. Your next step is to find the present import of the word. Look, therefore, through the modern definitions. Of these there may be too many, with too delicate shadings in thought between them, for you to keep all clearly in mind. In fact you need not try. Consider them of course, but out of them seek mainly the drift, the central meaning. After a little practice you will be able to disengage it from the others.

You now know the original sense of the word and its central signification today. The two may be identical; they may be widely different; but through reflection or study of the entire definition you will establish some sort of connection between them. When you have done this, you have mastered the word. From the two meanings you can surmise the others, wherever and whenever encountered; for the others are but outgrowths and applications of them.

One warning will not be amiss. You must not suppose that the terms used in defining a word are its absolute synonyms, or may be substituted for it indiscriminately. You must develop a feeling for _the limits_ of the word, so that you may perceive where its likeness to the other terms leaves off and its unlikeness begins. Thus if one of the terms employed in defining _command_ is _control_, you must not assume that the two words are interchangeable; you must not say, for instance, that the captain controlled his men to present arms.

Such, abstractly stated, is the way to look up a word in the dictionary. Let us now take a concrete illustration. Starting with the word _tension_, let us ascertain what we can about it in the _Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia_. Our first quest is the original meaning. For this we consult the bracketed matter. There we meet the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen of the word, and learn that they are traceable to a common ancestor, the Latin _tensio(n)_, which comes from the Latin verb _tendere_. The meaning of _tensio(n)_ is given as "stretching," that of _tendere_ as "stretch," "extend." Thus we know of the original word that in form it closely resembles the modern word, and that in meaning it involves the idea of stretching.

What is the central meaning of the word today? To acquaint ourselves with this we must run through the definitions listed. Here (in condensed form) they are. (1) The act of stretching. (2) In _mechanics_, stress or the force by which something is pulled. (3) In _physics_, a constrained condition of the particles of bodies. (4) In _statical electricity_, surface-density. (5) Mental strain, stress, or application. (6) A strained state of any kind, as political or social. (7) An attachment to a sewing-machine for regulating the strain of the thread. Now of these definitions (2), (3), (4), and (7) are too highly specialized to conduct us, of themselves, into the highway of the word's meaning. They bear out, however, the evidence of (1), (5), and (6), which have as their core the idea of stretching, or of the strain which stretching produces.

We must now lay the original meaning alongside the central meaning today, in order to draw our conclusions. We perceive that the two meanings correspond. Yet by prying into them we make out one marked difference between them. The original meaning is literal, the modern largely figurative. To be sure, the figure has been so long used that it is now scarcely felt as a figure; its force and definiteness have departed. Consequently we may speak of being on a tension without having in mind at all a comparison of our nervous system with a stretched garment, or with an outreaching arm, or with a tightly strung musical instrument, or with a taut rope.

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

EXERCISE - Dictionary

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

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

<Prying Into a Word's Past>

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

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

In line 2 of this passage appears the word _merely_. In Shakespeare's time it frequently meant "altogether" or "that and nothing else." As here used, it may be taken to mean this, or to have its modern meaning, or to stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both; there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the word _pard_ means leopard. In line 18 _saws_ means "sayings" (compare the phrase "an old saw"); _modern_ means "moderate," "commonplace"; _instances_ means what we mean by it today, "examples," "illustrations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and to trot out his trite illustrations on the slightest provocation.) The word _pantaloon_ in line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral). _Pantaloon_ came therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is preserved, substantially, in our term _pantaloons_. The first sense led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for "buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In line 22 _hose_ means the covering for a man's body from his waist to his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet and the _lower_ part of the legs.) In line 27 _mere_ means "absolute." In line 28 _sans_ means "without."

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

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

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

Further, you will perceive the poetry of words. Thus to _wheedle is_ to wag the tail and to _patter_ is to hurry through one's prayers (paternoster). What a picture of the frailty of men even in their holiness flashes on us from that word _patter! Breakfast is_ the breaking of the fast of the night. _Routine_ (the most humdrum of words) is travel along a way already broken. _Goodby_ is an abridged form of "God be with you." _Dilapidated_ is fallen stone from stone. _Daisy_ is "the day's eye," _nasturtium_ (from its spicy smell) "the nose-twister," _dandelion_ "the tooth of the lion." _A lord_ is a bread-guard.

You will perceive, moreover, that many a dignified word once involved the same idea as some unassuming or even semi-disreputable word or expression involves now. Thus there is little or no difference in figure between understanding a thing and getting on to it; between averting something (turning it aside) and sidetracking it; between excluding (shutting out) and closing the door to; between degrading (putting down a step) and taking down a notch; between accumulating (heaping up) and making one's pile; between taking umbrage (the shadow) and being thrown in the shade; between ejaculating and throwing out a remark; between being on a tension and being highstrung; between being vapid and having lost steam; between insinuating (winding in) and worming in; between investigating and tracking; between instigating (goading on or into) and prodding up; between being incensed (compare _incendiary_) and burning with indignation; between recanting (unsinging) and singing another tune; between ruminating (chewing) and smoking in one's pipe. Nor is there much difference in figure between sarcasm (a tearing of the flesh) and taking the hide off; between sinister (left-handed) and backhanded; between preposterous (rear end foremost) and cart before the horse; between salary (salt-money, an allowance for soldiers) and pin-money; between pedigree (crane's foot, from the appearance of genealogical diagrams) and crowsfeet (about the eyes); between either precocious (early cooked), apricot (early cooked), crude (raw), or recrudescence (raw again) and half-baked. To ponder is literally to weigh; to apprehend an idea is to take hold of it; to deviate is to go out of one's way; to congregate is to flock together; to assail or insult a man is to jump on him; to be precipitate is to go head foremost; to be recalcitrant is to kick.

Again, you will perceive that many words once had more literal or more definitely concrete meanings than they have now. To corrode is to gnaw along with others, to differ is to carry apart, to refuse is to pour back. Polite is polished, absurd is very deaf, egregious is taken from the common herd, capricious is leaping about like a goat, cross (disagreeable) is shaped like a cross, wrong is wrung (or twisted). Crisscross is Christ's cross, attention is stretching toward, expression is pressed out, dexterity is right-handedness, circumstances are things standing around, an innuendo is nodding, a parlor is a room to talk in, a nostril is that which pierces the nose (thrill means pierce), vinegar is sharp wine, a stirrup is a rope to mount by, a pastor is a shepherd, a marshal is a caretaker of horses, a constable is a stable attendant, a companion is a sharer of one's bread.

On the other hand, you will find that many words were once more general in import than they have since become. _Fond_ originally meant foolish, then foolishly devoted, then (becoming more general again) devoted. _Nostrum_ meant our own, then a medicine not known by other physicians, then a quack remedy. _Shamefast_ meant confirmed in modesty (shame); then through a confusion of _fast_ with _faced_, a betrayal through the countenance of self-consciousness or guilt. _Counterfeit_ meant a copy or a picture, then an unlawful duplication, especially of a coin. _Lust_ meant pleasure of any sort, then inordinate sexual pleasure or desire. _Virtue_ (to trace only a few of its varied activities) meant manliness, then the quality or attribute peculiar to true manhood (with the Romans this was valor), then any admirable quality, then female chastity. _Pen_ meant a feather, then a quill to write with, then an instrument for writing used in the same way as a quill. A _groom_ meant a man, then a stableman (in _bridegroom_, however, it preserves the old signification). _Heathen_ (heath-dweller), _pagan_ (peasant), and _demon_ (a divinity) had in themselves no iniquitous savor until early Christians formed their opinion of the people inaccessible to them and the spirits incompatible with the unity of the Godhead. Words betokening future happenings or involving judgment tend to take a special cast from the fears and anxieties men feel when their fortune is affected or their destiny controlled by external forces. Thus _omen_ (a prophetic utterance or sign) and _portent_ (a stretching forward, a foreseeing, a foretelling) might originally be either benign or baleful; but nowadays, especially in the adjectival forms _ominous_ and _portentous_, they wear a menacing hue. Similarly _criticism_, _censure_, and _doom_, all of them signifying at first mere judgment, have come--the first in popular, the other two in universal, usage--to stand for adverse judgment. The old sense of _doom_ is perpetuated, however, in _Doomsday_, which means the day on which we are all to be, not necessarily sent to hell, but judged.

You will furthermore perceive that the exaggerated affirmations people are always indulging in have led to the weakening of many a word. _Fret_ meant eat; formerly to say that a man was fretting was to use a vigorous comparison--to have the man devoured with care. _Mortify_ meant to kill, then killed with embarrassment, then embarrassed. _Qualm_ meant death, but our qualms of conscience have degenerated into mere twinges. Oaths are shorn of their might by overuse; _confound_, once a tremendous malinvocation, may now fall from the lips of respectable young ladies, and _fie_, in its time not a whit less dire, would be scarcely out of place in even a cloister. Words designating immediacy come to have no more strength than soup-meat seven times boiled. _Presently_ meant in the present, _soon_ and _by and by_ meant forthwith. How they have lost their fundamental meaning will be intelligible to you if you have in ordering something been told that it would be delivered "right away," or in calling for a girl have been told that she would be down "in a minute."

You will detect in words of another class a deterioration, not in force, but in character; they have fallen into contemptuous or sinister usage. Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. _Cunning_ meant knowing, _artful_ meant well acquainted with one's art, _crafty_ meant proficient in one's craft or calling, _wizard_ meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have assumed that mental superiority must be yoked with moral dereliction or diabolical aid. Words indicating the generality--indicating ordinary rank or popular affiliations--have in many instances suffered the same decline. _Trivial_ meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was accordingly slight. _Lewd_ meant belonging to the laity; it came to mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. _Common_ may be used to signify ill-bred; _vulgar_ may be and frequently is used to signify indecent. _Sabotage_, from a French term meaning wooden shoe, has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's work in order to injure one's employer. _Idiot_ (common soldier) crystallizes the exasperated ill opinion of officers for privates. (_Infantry_--an organization of military infants--has on the contrary sloughed its reproach and now enshrines the dignity of lowliness.) Somewhat akin to words of this type is _knave_, which first meant boy, then servant, then rogue. Terms for agricultural classes seldom remain flattering. Besides such epithets as _hayseed_ and _clodhopper_, contemptuous in their very origin, _villain_ (farm servant), _churl_ (farm laborer), and _boor_ (peasant) have all gathered unto themselves opprobrium; _villain_ now involves a scoundrelly spirit, _churl_ a contumelious manner, _boor_ a bumptious ill-breeding; not one of these words is any longer confined in its application to a particular social rank. Terms for womankind are soon tainted. _Wench_ meant at first nothing worse than girl or daughter, _quean_ than woman, _hussy_ than housewife; even _woman_ is generally felt to be half-slighting. Terms affirming unacquaintance with sin, or abstention from it, tend to be quickly reft of what praise they are fraught with; none of us likes to be saluted as _innocent_, _guileless_, or _unsophisticated_, and to be dubbed _silly_ no longer makes us feel blessed. Besides these and similar classes of words, there are innumerable individual terms that have sadly lost caste. An _imp_ was erstwhile a scion; it then became a boy, and then a mischievous spirit. A _noise_ might once be music; it has ceased to enjoy such possibilities. To live near a piano that is constantly banged is to know how _noise_ as a synonym for music was outlawed.

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

EXERCISE - Past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our eyes _wait_ upon the Lord our God. (_Psalms_ 123:2)

The times of this ignorance God _winked_ at. (_Acts_ 17:30)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The _modesty_ of nature. (Shakespeare: _Hamlet_)

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

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

Most _admired_ disorder. (Shakespeare: _Macbeth_)

Upon this _hint_ I spake. (From the account of the wooing of Desdemona. Shakespeare: _Othello_)

This Lodovico is a _proper_ man. A very handsome man. (Shakespeare: _Othello_)

Mice and rats and such small _deer_. (Shakespeare: _King Lear_)

This is no sound That the earth _owes_. (Shakespeare: _The Tempest_)

Every shepherd _tells_ his _tale_. (Milton: _L'Allegro_) Bring the _rathe_ primrose that forsaken dies. (_Rathe_ survives only in the comparative form _rather_. Milton: _Lycidas_)

Can honor's voice _provoke_ the silent dust? (Gray: _Elegy_)

The _silly_ buckets on the deck. (Coleridge: _The Ancient Mariner_)

4. In technical usage or particular phrases a former sense of a word may be embedded like a fossil. The italicized words in the following list retain special senses of this kind. What do these words as thus used mean? Can you add to the list? To _wit_ Might and _main_ Time and _tide_ Christmas_tide_ _Sad_ bread A bank _teller_ To _tell_ one's _beads_ Aid and _abet_ _Meat_ and drink Shop_lifter_ Fishing-_tackle_ Getting off _scot_-free An _earnest_ of future favors A _brave_ old hearthstone _Confusion_ to the enemy! Giving aid and _comfort_ to the enemy Without _let_ or hindrance A _let_ in tennis _Quick_lime Cut to _the quick_ _Neat_-foot oil To _sound in_ tort (Legal phrase) To bid one God_speed_ I had as _lief_ as not The child _favors_ its parents On _pain_ of death Widow's _weeds_ I am _bound_ for the Promised Land To _carry_ a girl to a party (Used only in the South) To give a person so much _to boot_

5. Each of the subjoined phrases contradicts itself or repeats its idea clumsily. The key to the difficulty lies in the italicized words. What is their true meaning?

A weekly _journal_ _Ultimate_ end Final _ultimatum_ _Final_ completion Previous _preconceptions_ _Nauseating_ seasickness _Join_ together _Descend_ down _Prefer_ better _Argent_ silver Completely _annihilate_ _Unanimously_ by all Most _unique_ of all The other _alternative_ _Endorse_ on the back _Incredible_ to believe A _criterion_ to go by An _appetite_ to eat _A panacea_ for all ills _Popular_ with the people _Biography_ of his life _Autobiography_ of his own life _Vitally_ alive A new, _novel_, and ingenious explanation _Mutual_ dislike for each other _Omniscient_ knowledge of all subjects A _material_ growth in mental power _Peculiar_ faults of his own Fly into an _ebullient_ passion To _saturate_ oneself with gold and silver Elected by _acclamation on_ a secret ballot.

V.

INDIVIDUAL WORDS: AS MEMBERS OF VERBAL FAMILIES

Our investigation into the nature, qualities, and fortunes of single words must now merge into a study of their family connections. We do not go far into this new phase of our researches before we perceive that the career of a word may be very complicated. Most people, if you asked them, would tell you that an individual word is a causeless entity--a thing that was never begotten and lacks power to propagate. They would deny the possibility that its course through the world could be other than colorless, humdrum. Now words thus immaculately conceived and fatefully impotent, words that shamble thus listlessly through life, there are. But many words are born in an entirely normal way; have a grubby boyhood, a vigorous youth, and a sober maturity; marry, beget sons and daughters, become old, enfeebled, even senile; and suffer neglect, if not death. In their advanced age they are exempted by the discerning from enterprises that call for a lusty agility, but are drafted into service by those to whom all levies are alike. Indeed in their very prime of manhood their vicissitudes are such as to make them seem human. Some rise in the world some sink; some start along the road of grandeur or obliquity, and then backslide or reform. Some are social climbers, and mingle in company where verbal dress coats are worn; some are social degenerates, and consort with the ragamuffins and guttersnipes of language. Some marry at their own social level, some above them, some beneath; some go down in childless bachelorhood or leave an unkempt and illegitimate progeny. And if you trace their own lineage, you will find for some that it is but decent and middle-class, for some that it is mongrelized and miscegenetic, for some that it is proud, ancient, yea perhaps patriarchal.

It is contrary to nature for a word, as for a man, to live the life of a hermit. Through external compulsion or internal characteristics a word has contacts with its fellows. And its most intimate, most spontaneous associations are normally with its own kindred.

In our work hitherto we have had nothing to say of verbal consanguinity. But we have not wholly ignored its existence, for the very good reason that we could not. For example, in the latter portions of Chapter IV we proceeded on the hypothesis that at least some words have ancestors. Also in the analysis of the dictionary definition of _tension_ we learned that the word has, not only a Latin forebear, but French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen as well. One thing omitted from that analysis would have revealed something further--namely, that the word has its English kinfolks too. For the bracketed part of the dictionary definition mentions two other English words, _tend_ and _tense_, which from their origin involve the same idea as that of _tension_-- the idea of stretching.

Now words may be akin in either of two ways. They may be related in blood. Or they may be related by marriage. Let us consider these two kinds of connection more fully.

<Words Related in Blood>

As an illustration of blood kinships enjoyed by a native English word take the adjective _good_. We can easily call to mind other members of its family: goodly, goodish, goody-goody, good-hearted, good-natured, good- humored, good-tempered, goods, goodness, goodliness, gospel (good story), goodby, goodwill, goodman, goodwife, good-for-nothing, good den (good evening), the Good Book. The connection between these words is obvious.

Next consider a group of words that have been naturalized: scribe, prescribe, ascribe, proscribe, transcribe, circumscribe, subscriber, indescribable, scribble, script, scripture, postscript, conscript, rescript, manuscript, nondescript, inscription, superscription, description. It is clear that these words are each other's kith and kin in blood, and that the strain or stock common to all is _scribe_ or (as sometimes modified) _script_. What does this strain signify? The idea of writing. The _scribes_ are a writing clan. Some of them, to be sure, have strayed somewhat from the ancestral calling, for words are as wilful--or as independent--as men. _Ascribe_, for example, does not act like a member of the household of writers, whatever it may look like. We should have to scrutinize it carefully or consult the record for it in that verbal Who's Who, the dictionary, before we could understand how it came by its scribal affiliations honestly. But once we begin to reflect or to probe, we find we have not mistaken its identity. _Ascribe_ is the offspring of _ad_ (to) and _scribo_ (write), both Latin terms. It originally meant writing to a person's name or after it (that is, imputing to the person by means of written words) some quality or happening of which he was regarded as the embodiment, source, or cause. Nowadays we may saddle the matter on him through oral rather than written speech. That is, _ascribe_ has largely lost the writing traits. But all the same it is manifestly of the writing blood.

The _scribes_ are of undivided racial stock, Latin. Consider now the _manu_, or _man_, words which sprang from the Latin _manus_, meaning "hand." Here are some of them: manual, manoeuver, mandate, manacle, manicure, manciple, emancipate, manage, manner, manipulate, manufacture, manumission, manuscript, amanuensis. These too are children of the same father; they are brothers and sisters to each other. But what shall we say of legerdemain (light, or sleight, of hand), maintain, coup de main, and the like? They bear a resemblance to the _man's_ and _manu's_, yet one that casual observers would not notice. Is there kinship between the two sets of words? There is. But not the full fraternal or sororal relation. The _mains_ are children of _manus_ by a French marriage he contracted. With this French blood in their veins, they are only half-brothers, half-sisters of the _manu's_ and the _man's_.

Your examination of the family trees of words will be practical, rather than highly scholastic, in nature. You need not track every word in the dictionary to the den of its remote parentage. Nor need you bother your head with the name of the distant ancestor. But in the case of the large number of words that have a numerous kindred you should learn to detect the inherited strain. You will then know that the word is the brother or cousin of certain other words of your acquaintance, and this knowledge will apprise you of qualities in it with which you should reckon. To this extent only must you make yourself a student of verbal genealogy.

EXERCISE - Blood

(Simple exercises in tracing blood relationships among words are given at the end of the chapter. Therefore the exercises assigned here are of a special character.)

1. Each of the following groups is made up of related words, but the relationship is somewhat disguised. Consult the dictionary for each word, and learn all you can as to (a) its source, (b) the influence (as passing through an intermediate language) that gave it its present form, (c) the course of its development into its present meaning.

Captain Cathedral Governor Capital Chaise Gubernatorial Decapitate Chair Chef Shay Guardian Chieftain Ward Camp Cavalry Campaign Guarantee Chivalry Champion Warrant

Camera Inept Incipient Chamber Apt Receive

Serrated Inimical Poor Sierra Enemy Pauper

Influence Espionage Work Influenza Spy Wrought Playwright Isolate Insular

2. The variety of sources for modern English is indicated by the following list. Do not seek for blood kinsmen of these particular words, but think of all the additional words you can that have come into English from Indian, Spanish, French, any other language spoken today.

Alphabet (Greek) Piano (Italian) Folio (Latin) Car (Norman) Boudoir (French) Rush (German) Binnacle (Portuguese) Sky (Icelandic) Anger (Old Norse) Yacht (Dutch) Isinglass (Low German) Hussar (Hungarian) Slogan (Celtic) Samovar (Russian) Polka (Polish) Chess (Persian) Shekel (Hebrew) Tea (Chinese) Algebra (Arabic) Kimono (Japanese) Puttee (Hindoo) Tattoo (Tahitian) Boomerang (Australian) Voodoo (African) Potato (Haytian) Skunk (American Indian) Guano (Peruvian) Buncombe (American) Renegade (Spanish)

<Words Related by Marriage>

That words marry and are given in marriage, is too generally overlooked. Any student of a foreign language, German for instance, can recall the thrill of discovery and the lift of reawakened hope that came to him when first he suspected, aye perceived, the existence of verbal matrimony. For weeks he had struggled with words that apparently were made up of fortuitous collocations of letters. Then in some beatific moment these huddles of letters took meaning; in instance after instance they represented, not a word, but words--a linguistic household. Let them be what they might--a harem, the domestic establishment of a Mormon, the dwelling-place of verbal polygamists,--he could at last see order in their relationships. To their morals he was indifferent, absorbed as he was in his joy of understanding.

In English likewise are thousands of these verbal marriages. We may not be aware of them; from our very familiarity with words we may overlook the fact that in instances uncounted their oneness has been welded by a linguistic minister or justice of the peace. But to read a single page or harken for thirty seconds to oral discourse with our minds intent on such states of wedlock is to convince ourselves that they abound. Consider this list of everyday words: somebody, already, disease, vineyard, unskilled, outlet, nevertheless, holiday, insane, resell, schoolboy, helpmate, uphold, withstand, rainfall, deadlock, typewrite, football, motorman, thoroughfare, snowflake, buttercup, landlord, overturn. Every term except one yokes a verbal husband with his wife, and the one exception (_nevertheless_) joins a uxorious man with two wives.

These marriages are of a simple kind. But the nuptial interlinkings between families of words may be many and complicated. Thus there is a family of _graph_ (or write) words: graphic, lithograph, cerograph, cinematograph, stylograph, telegraph, multigraph, seismograph, dictograph, monograph, holograph, logograph, digraph, autograph, paragraph, stenographer, photographer, biographer, lexicographer, bibliography, typography, pyrography, orthography, chirography, calligraphy, cosmography, geography. There is also a family of _phone_ (or sound) words: telephone, dictaphone, megaphone, audiphone, phonology, symphony, antiphony, euphonious, cacophonous, phonetic spelling. It chances that both families are of Greek extraction. Related to the _graphs_--their cousins in fact--are the _grams_: telegram, radiogram, cryptogram, anagram, monogram, diagram, logogram, program, epigram, kilogram, ungrammatical. Now a representative of the _graphs_ married into the _phone_ family, and we have graphophone. A representative of the _phones_ married into the _graph_ family, and we have phonograph. A representative of the _grams_ married into the _phone_ family, and we have gramophone. A representative of the _phones_ married into the _gram_ family, and we have phonogram. Of such unions children may be born. For example, from the marriage of Mr. Phone with Miss Graph were born phonography, phonographer, phonographist (a rather frail child), phonographic, phonographical, and phonographically.

Intermarriage between the _phones_ and the _graphs_ or _grams_ is a wedding of equals. Some families of words, however, are of inferior social standing to other families, and may seek but not hope to be sought in marriage. Compare the _ex's_ with the _ports_. An _ex_, as a preposition, belongs to a prolific family but not one of established and unimpeachable dignity. Hence the _ex's_, though they marry right and left, lead the other words to the altar and are never led thither themselves. Witness exclude, excommunicate, excrescence, excursion, exhale, exit, expel, expunge, expense, extirpate, extract; in no instance does _ex_ fellow its connubial mate--it invariably precedes. The _ports_, on the other hand, are the peers of anybody. Some of them choose to remain single: port, porch, portal, portly, porter, portage. Here and there one marries into another family: portfolio, portmanteau, portable, port arms. More often, however, they are wooed than themselves do the pleading: comport, purport, report, disport, transport, passport, deportment, importance, opportunity, importunate, inopportune, insupportable. From our knowledge of the two families, therefore, we should surmise that if any marriage is to take place between them; an _ex_ must be the suitor. The surmise would be sound. There is such a term as _export_, but not as _portex_.

Now it is oftentimes possible to do business with a man without knowing whether he is a man or a bridal couple. And so with a word. But the knowledge of his domestic state and circumstances will not come amiss, and it may prove invaluable. You may find that you can handle him to best advantage through a sagacious use of the influence of his wife.

EXERCISE - Marriage

1. For each word in the lists of EXERCISE - Dictionary and Activity 1 for EXERCISE - Past, determine (a) whether it is single or married; (b) if it is married, whether the wedding is one between equals.

2. Make a list of the married words in the first three paragraphs of the selection from Burke (Appendix 2). For each of these words determine the exact nature and extent of the dowry brought by each of the contracting parties to the wedding.

<Prying Into a Word's Relationships>

Hitherto in our study of verbal relationships we have usually started with the family. Having strayed (as by good luck) into an assembly of kinsmen, we have observed the common strain and the general characteristics, and have then "placed" the individual with reference to these. But we do not normally meet words, any more than we meet men, in the domestic circle. We meet them and greet them hastily as they hurry through the tasks of the day, with no other associates about them than such as chance or momentary need may dictate. If we are to see anything of their family life, it must be through effort we ourselves put forth. We must be inquisitive about their conjugal and blood relationships.

How, then, starting with the individual word, can you come into a knowledge of it, not in its public capacity, but in what is even more important, its personal connections? You must form the habit of asking two questions about it: (1) Is it married? (2) Of what family or families was it born? If you can get an understanding answer to these two questions, an answer that will tell you what its relations stand for as well as what their name is, your inquiries will be anything but bootless.

Let us illustrate your procedure concretely. Suppose you read or hear the word _conchology_. It is a somewhat unusual word, but see what you can do with it yourself before calling on the dictionary to help you. Observe the word closely, and you will obtain the answer to your first question. _Conchology_ is no bachelor, no verbal old maid; it is a married pair.

Your second and more difficult task awaits you; you must ascertain the meaning of the family connections. With Mr. Conch you are on speaking terms; you know him as one of the shells. But the utmost you can recall about his wife is that she is one of a whole flock of _ologies_. What significance does this relationship possess? You are uncertain. But do not thumb the dictionary yet. Pass in mental review all the _ologies_ you can assemble. Wait also for the others that through the unconscious operations of memory will tardily straggle in. Be on the lookout for _ologies_ as you read, as you listen. In time you will muster a sizable company of them. And you will draw a conclusion as to the meaning of the blood that flows through their veins. _Ology_ implies speech or study. _Conchology_, then, must be the study of conches.

Your investigations thus far have done more than teach you the meaning of the word you began with. They have brought you some of the by-products of the study of verbal kinships. For you no longer pass the _ologies_ by with face averted or bow timidly ventured. You have become so well acquainted with them that even a new one, wherever encountered, would flash upon you the face of a friend. But now your desires are whetted. You wish to find out how much you _can_ learn. You at last consult the dictionary.

Here a huge obstacle confronts you. The _ologies_, like the _ports_ (above), are a haughty clan; they are the wooed, rather than the wooing, members of most marital households that contain them. Now the marriage licenses recorded in the dictionary are entered under the name of the suitor, not of the person sought. Hence you labor under a severe handicap as you take the census of the _ologies_. Let us imagine the handicap the most severe possible. Let us suppose that no _ology_ had ever been the suitor. Even so, you would not be entirely baffled. For you could look up in the dictionary the _ologies_ you your self had been able to recall. To what profit? First, you could verify or correct your surmise as to what the _ological_ blood betokens. Secondly, you could perhaps obtain cross-references to yet other _ologies_ than those you remembered.

But you are not reduced to these extremities. The _ologies_, arrogant as they are, sometimes are the applicants for matrimony, and the marriage registry of the dictionary so indicates. To be sure, they do not, when thus appearing at the beginning of words, take the form _ology_. They take the form _log_. But you must be resourceful enough to keep after your quarry in spite of the omission of a vowel or two. Also from some lexicons you may obtain still further help. You may find _ology, logy, logo_, or _log_ listed as a combining form, its meaning given, and examples of its use in compounds cited.