Chapter XV: Curiosities of Language (2)

“Salary” is from the Latin, _sal_, salt, which in the reign of the Emperor Augustus comprised the provisions, as well as the pay, of the Roman military officers. From “salary” came, probably, the expression, “He is not worth his ‘salt,’” that is, his pay or wages. “Kidnap” is from the German _kind_, or Provincial English, _kid_, meaning “child,” and _nap_ or _nab_, “to steal,”--to steal children. “Hawk,” in Anglo-Saxon, _hafoc_, points to the havoc which that bird makes among the smaller ones; as “raven” expresses the greedy or “ravenous” disposition of the bird so named. “Owl” is said to be the past participle of “to yell” (as in Latin _ulula_, the screech-owl, is from _ululare_), and differs from “howl” only in its spelling. “Solecism” is from _Soli_, a town of Cilicia, the people of which corrupted the pure Greek. “Squirrel” is from two Greek words, σκία, a shade, and οὐρά, a tail. “Sycophant” is primarily a “fig-shower”; one who informed the public officers of Attica that the law against the exportation of figs had been violated. Hence the word came to mean a common informer, a mean parasite. “Parasite,” from the Greek παρά, beside, and σῖτος, food, means literally one who eats at the table of another,--a privilege which is apt to be paid for by obsequiousness and flattery.

“Sarcasm,” from the Greek, σάρξ, flesh, and κάζω, I tear, is literally a tearing of the flesh. “Tribulation” is from the Latin _tribulum_, a kind of sledge or heavy roller, which did the work of the English flail, by hard grinding and wearing, instead of by repeated light strokes. Troubles, afflictions and sorrows being the divinely appointed means for separating the chaff from the wheat of men’s natures,--the light and trivial from the solid and valuable,--the early Christians, by a rustic but familiar metaphor, called these sorrows and trials “tribulations,” threshings of the inner spiritual man, by which only could he be fitted for the heavenly garner. As Wither beautifully sings:

“Till the mill the grains in pieces tear,
The richness of the flour will scarce appear;
So till men’s persons great afflictions touch,
If worth be found, their worth is not much;
Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet
That value, which in threshing they may get.”

“Tabby,” a familiar name of cats, is the French _tabis_, which comes from the Persian _retabi_, a rich watered silk, and denotes the wavy bars upon their coats. “Schooner” has a curious derivation. In 1713 Captain Andrew Robinson launched the first vessel of this kind, with gaffs instead of the lateen yards until then in use, and the luff of the sail bent to hoops on the mast. As she slipped down the ways a bystander exclaimed, “Oh, how she ‘scoons’!”--whereupon the builder, catching at the word, replied, “A ‘scooner’ let her be!” Originally the word was spelled without the _h_. “Supercilious,” from _supercilium_, the eyebrow, is literally knitting the eyebrows in pride. “Slave” chronicles the contest between the Teutonic and Sclavonic or Slavonic races. When a German captured a Russian or Bohemian, he would call him a “sclave” or “slave,” whereby the word became associated with the idea of servitude. In Oriental France, in the eighth century, princes and bishops were rich in these captives.

“Servant” is from _servus_, which the Justinian code derives from _serrare_, to preserve,--because the victor preserved his captives alive, instead of killing them.

“Scrupulous” is from the Latin, _scrupulus_, a small, sharp stone, such as might get into a Roman traveller’s open shoe, and distress him, whence the further meaning of doubts, or a source of doubt and hesitation. Afterward the word came to express a measure of weight, the twenty-fourth part of an ounce; and hence to be scrupulous is to pay minute, nice, and exact attention to matters often in themselves of small weight. “Plagiarism” is literally “man-stealing.” As books are one’s mental offspring, the word came naturally to mean, first, the stealing of a book or manuscript which the thief published as his own; secondly, quoting from another man’s writings without acknowledgment. “Parlor,” from _parler_, to speak, is, therefore, the “talking room,” as “boudoir,” from _bouder_, to pout, is literally the “pouting-room.” “Egregious” is from the Latin _ex_, from, and _grege_, flock or herd. An “egregious” lie is one distinguished from the common herd of lies, such as one meets with in every patent-medicine advertisement and political newspaper. “Negotiate” is from _negotior_, compounded of _ne ego otior_, I am not idle.

The origin of the word “caucus” has long been a vexed question with etymologists. Till recently it was supposed by many to be a corruption of “caulkers,” being derived from an association of these men in Boston, who met to organize resistance to England just before the revolutionary war. Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, Connecticut, has suggested a new and ingenious derivation of the term, which is more satisfactory, and probably correct. Strachey, in his “Historie of Travaile into Virginia,” 1610-12 (printed by the Hakluyt Society, 1849), says that the Chechahamanias, a free people, acknowledging the supremacy of Powhatan, were governed, not by a _weroance_, commander, sent by Powhatan, but by their priests, with the assistance of their elders; and this board was called _cawcawwas_. Captain John Smith writes _cockerouse_ for _cawcawwas_, in the sense of “captain”; but the English generally understood it in the sense of “counsellor,” and adopted it from the Indians, as Beverley states that it designates “one that has the honor to be of the king’s or queen’s council,” a provincial councillor, just as northern politicians now use the word _sachem_, and formerly used _mugwomp_. The verb from which _cawcawwas_, or _cockerouse_ comes, means primarily “to talk to,”--hence to “harangue,” “advise,” “encourage,” and is found in all Algonquin dialects, as Abnaki _kakesoo_, to incite, and Chippeway _gaganso_ (_n_ nasal), to exhort, urge, counsel. _Cawcawwas_, representing the adjective form of this verb, is “one who advises, promotes,”--a caucuser. “Manumit” is from _manus_, hand, and _mittere_, to dismiss,--to dismiss a slave with a slap of the hand, on setting him free. “Hypocrite” comes from a Greek word signifying one who feigns or plays a part on the stage. “Kennel,” a dog house, is from the Italian, _canile_, and this from the Latin, _canis_, a dog. “Kennel,” in the sense of gutter, with its kindred words, “can,” “cane,” and “channel,” is derived from _canna_, a cane, which is like a tube.

“Apple-pie order” is a popular phrase of which few persons know the meaning. Does it signify in order, or in disorder? A writer in the “North British Review” favors the latter interpretation. He thinks it has nothing to do with “apple” or “pie,” in the common sense of those words. He believes that it is a typographical term, and that it was originally “Chapel pie.” A printing house was, and is to this day, called a chapel,--perhaps from the Chapel at Westminster Abbey, in which Caxton’s earliest works are said to have been printed; and “pie” is type after it is “distributed” or broken up, and before it has been re-sorted. “‘Pie’ in this sense came from the confused and _perplexing rules of the ‘Pie,’ that is, the order for finding the lessons, in Catholic times_, which those who have read, or care to read, the Preface to the ‘Book of Common Prayer,’ will find there expressed and denounced. Here is the passage: ‘Moreover the number and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold changings of the service, was the cause that to turn the book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read than to read it when it was found out.’ To leave your type in ‘pie’ is to leave it unsorted and in confusion, and ‘apple-pie order,’ which we take to be ‘chapel-pie order,’ is to leave anything in a thorough mess. Those who like to take the other side, and assert that ‘apple-pie order’ means in perfect order, may still find their derivation in ‘chapel-pie’; for the ordering and sorting of the ‘pie’ or type is enforced in every ‘chapel’ or printing-house by severe fines, and so ‘chapel-pie order’ would be such order of the type as the best friends of the chapel would wish to see.” “The bitter end,” a phrase often heard during the late civil war, has a remarkable etymology. A ship’s cable has always two ends. One end is fastened to the anchor and the other to the “bits,” or “bitts,” a frame of two strong pieces of timber fixed perpendicularly in the fore part of the ship, for the express purpose of holding the cables. Hence the “bitter,” or “bitter end,” is the end fastened to the bitts; and when the cable is out to the “bitter end,” it is all out; the extremity has come.

Few persons who utter the word “stranger,” suspect that it has its root in the single vowel _e_, the Latin preposition for “from,” which it no more resembles than a bird resembles an egg. The links in the chain are,--_e_, _ex_, _extra_, _extraneus_, _étranger_, _stranger_. When a boy answers a lady, “Yes’m,” he does not dream that his “m” is a fragment of the five syllables, _mea domina_ (“madonna,” “madame,” “madam,” “ma’am” “’m”). The French word _même_ is a striking illustration of what philologists call “phonetic change,” which sometimes “eats away the whole body of a word, and leaves nothing behind but decayed fragments.” Who would believe that _même_ contains the Latin _semetipsissimus_? The words “thrall” and “thraldom” have an interesting history. They come to us from a period when it was customary to “thrill” (or drill) the ear of a slave in token of servitude; and hence the significance of Sir Thomas Browne’s remark, “Bow not to the omnipotency of gold, nor ‘bore’ thy ear to its servitude.” The expression “‘signing’ one’s name” takes us back to an age when most persons made their mark or “sign.” We must not suppose that this practice was then, as now, a proof of the ignorance of the signer. Among the Saxons, not only illiterate persons made this sign, but, as an attestation of the good faith of the person signing, the mark of the cross was required to be attached to the name of those who could write. From its holy association, it was the symbol of an oath; and hence the expression “God save the mark!” which so long puzzled the commentators of Shakespeare, is now understood to be a form of ejaculation resembling an oath. It is said that Charlemagne, being unable to write, was compelled to dip the forefinger of his glove in ink, and smear it over the parchment when it was necessary that the imperial sign-manual should be fixed to an edict. “Window” is a corruption of “wind-door,”--door to let in the wind.

The word “handkerchief” is curiously fashioned. “Kerchief,” the first form of the word, is from the French _couvre-chef_, “a head-covering.” If to “kerchief”, we prefix “hand,” we have a “hand-head-covering,” or a covering for the head held in the hand, which is palpably absurd; but when we qualify this word by “neck” or “pocket,” we reach the climax beyond which confusion can no farther go. How a covering for the “head” is to be held in the “hand,” and yet carried in the “pocket,” it requires a more than ordinarily vivid imagination to conceive. “Constable” is derived from _comes stabuli_, or “Count of the stable,” who formerly had charge of the king’s horses. “Bib” is from _bibere_, to drink, the tucker being used to save the child’s clothes from whatever may be spilt when it is bibbing.

“Dollar” is the German _thaler_, which is an abbreviation of _Joachemsthaler_, the valley where it was coined.

“Host,” an army, or a multitude, is from _hostis_; “host,” an entertainer, is from _hospes_; “host,” a sacrifice, is from _hostia_. The word “rostrum” is from the Latin _rostra_, the beak of a ship. After the submission of the Latins, 334 B.C., the vessels of Antium having been burnt, their beaks were made to adorn the tribune in the Forum. From that time the _rostra_ became the indispensable decoration of the Forum, and hence the name “rostrum” to denote a platform for orators. “Verdict” is from _veredictum_, truly said. “Palliate” is from _pallium_, a cloak. “Carat” is from the Arabic _kaura_, a bean, the standard weight for diamonds. “Salmon” is from _saliendo_, which points to the “leaps” it makes. A “cur,” from the Latin _curtus_, is a curtailed dog, whose tail has been cut off for straying in the woods; a “terrier” is from _terrarius_, an earth-dog; a “spaniel” is a Spanish dog; a “mongrel” is a dog of mingled breed; and the mastiff guards the _maison_, or house. A horse is called a “pony” when puny; a “hack” from “hackney;” and the lady’s horse was called a “palfrey,” because it was led _par le frein_, or by the rein.

A “palace” is so called from _Collis Palatinus_, one of the seven hills of Rome, which was itself called Palatinus, from _Pales_, a pastoral deity. On this hill stood the “Golden House” of Nero, which was called the _Palatium_, and became the type of the palaces of all the kings and emperors of Europe. The word “court” had its origin in the same locality and in the same distant age. It was on the hills of Latium that _cohors_ or _cors_ was first used in the sense of a “hurdle,” an “enclosure,” a “cattle yard.” The _cohortes_, or divisions of the Roman army, were thus named, so many soldiers forming a pen or a court. _Cors_, _cortis_, became in mediæval Latin _curtis_, and was used to denote a farm, or a castle built by a Roman settler in the provinces, and finally a royal residence, or palace. That a word originally meaning “cow-pen,” or “cattle-yard,” should assume the meaning of “palace,” and give rise to such derivatives as “courteous,” “courtesy,” and “to court,” that is, to pay attentions, or to propose marriage, is a striking example of the strange transformations which words undergo in the course of ages. The “Court of the Star Chamber,” so odious in English history, derived its name from the ceiling of the room where it sat, which was dotted with stars. “Pontiff” has an almost equally humble origin. It is from the _Pons Sublicius_, which Ancus Marcus placed on wooden joists, and which was rebuilt by the censor Æmilius Lepidus in the reign of the second of the Cæsars,--the bridge which Horatius Cocles defended, and whose construction, preservation, and maintenance were confided to the college of priests,--that the word “pontiff” is derived. The word “exchequer” comes, according to Blackstone, from the “checked” cloth that covered the table behind which the money-changers sat. “Suffrage” is from _suffragium_, a broken piece or potsherd, used by the ancients in voting in their assemblies. “Easter” is from the Anglo-Saxon, _Eastre_ (German, _Ostara_), a heathen goddess whose feast was celebrated in the spring. Remains of the old pagan worship have survived in Easter eggs, yule logs, and, on the Continent of Europe, Whitsun fires.

“Mystery,” something secret or unknown, comes from _mu_, the imitation of closing the lips; but “mystery,” in the Mystery Plays, such as continue to be performed at Ammergan, in Bavaria, is a corruption of _ministerium_; it meant a religious ministry, or service, had nothing to do with mystery, and should be spelled with an _i_, and not with a _y_. “Puny” is from the French _puis-né_, “since born,” hence, by metaphor, sickly, inferior, diminutive. From the same source is derived “puisne” (that is, younger, or inferior) judge. The phrase “True Blue,” applied to the Presbyterians, is said by Dean Stanley to be owing to the distinct dress of the Scotch Presbyterian clergy, which at one time was a blue gown and a broad blue bonnet. The Episcopal clergy either wore no distinctive dress in public services, or wore a black gown. The Rev. Dr. Murray, however, in an address before the Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, gave a different explanation of the phrase: “A Scotchman once told me that when we were persecuted as a denomination, the minister was wont to go to the mountains, and when there was to be a communion a blue flag was held up as a signal or notice, and also as an invitation to attend, and some regard this as the origin of the term; but on a visit to Pompeii, a few years ago, I spent some time in inspecting the splendid frescoes of variegated hues. I found all colors had faded except the blue, and that was as bright as when first put on, though nearly two thousand years previously. The ‘true blue’ never gives out,--never changes. So, when we say of a man ‘he is true blue,’ it is equivalent to saying he is firm in and true to his principles.” “France” owes its name to the Franks, who conquered her native Celts. The word _Franc_ comes, according to a German philologist, either from the Teutonic _franhô_, “bold,” “frank,” or from _franca_, a sharp, double-edged battle-axe, which the Franks hurled with great dexterity in attacking their enemies. From _Franc_ are derived our words “franchise” and “enfranchisement.”

One of the most interesting classes of common words with curious derivations is that of the names of things or acts which were once names of persons. Language teems in this way with honors to the great and good men who have been benefactors of their race; and it also avenges the wrongs of humanity by impaling the very names of the wrong-doers in a perpetual crucifixion. Many words of this class betray their origin at once. It is easy to recognize Tantalus in “to tantalize,” Epicurus in “epicure,” Mesmer in “mesmerism,” Gordius in the “gordian” knot which Alexander cut, Galvani in “galvanism,” Volta in the “voltaic” pile, Daguerre in “daguerreotype,” and McAdam and Burke in “to macadamize” and “to burke.” But when we read or hear of a work on “algebra,” or of a person who has uttered “gibberish,” we get no hint, at first, of Giber or Geber, the famous Arabian sage, who sought for the philosopher’s stone, and used, perhaps, senseless incantations. “Artesian,” applied to a well, does not inform us that such a well was first cut through the chalk basin of the province of Artois. We speak of a “dun” without suspecting that the word came from the name of a stern bailiff in the time of Henry VII, one Dun, who was eminently successful in collecting debts. We hear of a “maudlin” speech without thinking of Mary Magdalen; of a “lazaretto,” without being reminded of Lazarus; of “simony” without a suggestion of Simon Magus; and of “silhouettes,” without a suspicion that it was the unpopular French minister of finance, M. de Silhouette, whose persistent economy doomed his name to be affixed to the slight and cheap outline portraits thus named. “Martinet” does not recall the rigid disciplinarian in the army of Louis XIV, nor does a “tram-road” point very plainly to Outram, the inventor. In “saunterer” we do not readily detect _La Sainte Terre_, “the Holy Land,” the pilgrims to which took their own time to get there; nor would a “pander” ever remind us of the Trojan general Pandarus, or “tawdry” of the fair of St. Etheldreda, or St. Awdry, where gaudy finery was sold. “Music,” “museum,” and “mosaic,” do not inevitably suggest the Muses, nor does a “pasquinade” tell us about the statue of an ancient gladiator which was exhumed at Rome, in the peculiar physiognomy of which the wits of that city detected a resemblance to Pasquino, a snappish cobbler, who lived near by, and on the pedestal of which it became a practice to post lampoons. Few men think of Jaque, of Beauvais, as they put on “jackets”; of Blacket, who first manufactured the article, when they lie under “blankets”; or of Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian priest, when they “hermetically” seal a bottle or fruit can. Excepting the readers of Pascal, it is probable that not many Frenchmen detect in the word _escobarder_, “to equivocate,” the name of the great casuist of the Jesuits, Escobar, whose subtle devices for the evasion of the moral law have been immortalized in the “Provincial Letters.”

Vulcan is still at his forge in “volcanoes,” and has even descended so low as to “vulcanize” rubber; and though “Great Pan is dead,” he comes to life again in every “panic.” A “sandwich” calls to mind Lord Sandwich, the inveterate gamester, who begrudged the time necessary for a meal; and the “spencer” recalls Lord Spencer, who in hunting lost one skirt of his coat, and tore off the other,--which led some inventive genius to make half-coats, and call them “spencers.” Of the two noble lords it has been said that

“The one invented half a coat,
The other half a dinner.”

Epic and dramatic poetry, and fiction generally, have added much to the force and suggestiveness of speech. What apt and expressive terms are “utopian”[45] (from the name given by Sir Thomas More to his imaginary island), and “quixotic”! With what other words could we supply the place of Dean Swift’s “liliputian” and “brobdingnagian,” Kenny’s “Jeremy Diddler,” or Dickens’s “pickwickian” and “Circumlocution Office”? What convenient terms are “thrasonical,” from Thraso, the braggart of the Roman comedy, and “rodomontade,” from Rodamonte, a hero of Boiardo, who, strange to say, does not brag and bluster, as the word based on his name seems to imply! It is said that Boiardo, when he had hit upon the name of his hero, had the village bells rung for joy. To Homer we are indebted for “stentorian,” that is, loud-voiced, from Stentor, the Greek herald, whose voice surpassed the united shout of fifty men; and for the word “to hector,” founded on the big talk of the Trojan hero.

The language of savages teems with expressions of deep interest both to the philologist and the student of human nature. Speech with them is a perpetual creation of utterances to image forth the total picture in their minds. The Indian “does not analyze his thoughts or separate his utterances; his thoughts rush forth in a troop. His speech is as a kindling cloud, not as radiant points of light.” The Lenni Lenape Indians express by one polysyllable what with us requires seven monosyllables and three disyllables, viz.: “Come with the canoe and take us across the river.” This polysyllable is _nadholineen_, and it is formed by taking parts of several words and cementing them into one. In the Iroquois language one word of twenty-one letters expresses this sentence of eighteen words: “I give some money to those who have arrived, in order to buy them more clothes with it.” The apparent wealth of synonyms and of grammatical forms in savage languages is due, not to the mental superiority of the races that speak them, but to their inferiority,--their deficiency in the power of abstraction. “The more barbarous a language,” says Herder, “the greater is the number of its conjugations.” We must not suppose that simplicity in language precedes complexity: simplicity is the triumph of science, not the spontaneous result of intelligence. The natives of the Society Isles have one word for the tail of a dog, another for the tail of a bird, and a third for the tail of a sheep, while for “tail” itself, “tail” in the abstract, they have no word whatever. The Mohicans have words for wood-cutting, cutting the head, etc., yet no verb meaning simply to cut. Even the Anglo-Saxon language, which had a sufficiency of words for all shades of green, red, blue, yellow, had to borrow from the Latin the abstract word “color,” and, while possessing abundant names for every sort of crime, derived from the same source the abstract words “crime” and “transgression.”

Some Indian tribes call a squirrel by a name signifying that he “can stick fast in a tree”; a mole, by a word signifying “carrying the right hand on the left shoulder”; and they have a name for a horse which means “having only one toe.” Among the savages of the Pacific, “to think” is “to speak in the stomach.”

WORDS OF ILLUSIVE ETYMOLOGY.

In the lapse of ages words undergo great changes of form, so that it becomes at last difficult or impossible to ascertain their origin. Terms, of which the composition was originally clear, are worn and rubbed by use like the pebbles which are fretted and rounded into shape and smoothness by the sea waves or by a rapid stream. Like the image and superscription of a coin, their meaning is often so worn away that one cannot make even a probable guess at their origin. One of the commonest causes of the corruptions of words, by which their sources and original meanings are disguised, is the instinctive dislike we feel to the use of a word that is wholly new to us, and the consequent tendency to fasten upon it a meaning which shall remove its seemingly arbitrary character. Foreign words, therefore, when adopted into a language, are especially liable to these changes, being corrupted both in pronunciation and orthography. By thus anglicizing them, we not only avoid the uncouth, barbarous sounds which are so offensive to the ear, but we help the memory by associating the words with others already known.

The mistakes which have been made in attempting to trace the origin of words thus disguised, have done not a little, at times, to bring philology into contempt. The philologist, unless he has much native good sense, and rules his inclinations with an iron rod, is apt to become a verbomaniac. There is a strange fascination in word-hunting, and his hobby-horse, it has been aptly said, is a strong goer that trifles never balk. “To him the British Channel is a surface drain, the Alps and Apennines mere posts and rails, the Mediterranean a simple brook, and the Himalayas only an outlying cover.” Cowper justly ridicules those word-hunters who, in their eagerness to make some startling discovery, never pause to consider whether there is any historic connection between two languages, one of which is supposed to have borrowed a word from another,--

“Learned philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul,--to Greece,--and into Noah’s ark.”

A fundamental rule, to be kept constantly in sight by those who would not etymologize at random, is, that no amount of resemblance between words in different languages is sufficient to prove their relationship, nor is any amount of seeming unlikeness in sound or form sufficient to disprove their consanguinity. Many etymologies are true which appear improbable, and many appear probable which are not true. As Max Müller says: “Sound etymology has nothing to do with sound. We know words to be of the same origin which have not a single letter in common, and which differ in meaning as much as black and white.” On the other hand, two words which have identically the same letters may have no etymological connection. An instance of the last case is the French _souris_, a smile, and _souris_, a mouse, from the Latin _subridere_ and _sorex_ respectively. Fuller amusingly says that “we are not to infer the Hebrew and the English to be cognate languages because one of the giants, son of Anak, was called _A-hi-man_;” yet some of his own etymologies, though witty and ingenious, are hardly more correct than this punning derivation. Thus “compliments,” he says, is derived from _à completè mentiri_, because compliments are in general completely mendacious; and he quotes approvingly Sir John Harrington’s derivation of the old English “elf” and “goblin,” from the names of two political factions of the Empire, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

Archbishop Trench speaks of an eminent philologist who deduced “girl” from _garrula_, girls being commonly talkative. “Frontispiece” is usually regarded as a piece or picture in front of a book; whereas it means literally “a front view,” being from the Low Latin, _frontispicium_, the forefront of a house. The true origin of many words is hidden by errors in the spelling. “Bran-new” is brand-new, _i.e._, “burnt new.” “Grocer” should be “grosser,” one who sells in the gross; “pigmy” is properly “pygmy,” as Worcester spells it, and means a thing the size of one’s fist (πυγμή). “Policy,” state-craft, is rightly spelled; but “policies of insurance” ought to have the _ll_, the word being derived from _polliceor_, to promise or assure. “Island” looks as if it were compounded of “isle” and “land”; but it is the same word as the Anglo-Saxon _ealand_, water-land, compounded of _ea_, water, and “land.” So Jers_ey_ is literally “Cæsar’s island.” “Lieutenant” has been pronounced “leftenant,” from a notion that this officer holds the “left” of the line while the captain holds the right. The word comes from the French, _lieu-tenant_, one holding the place of another.

“Wiseacre” has no connection with “acre.” The word is a corruption, both in spelling and pronunciation, of the German _weissarger_, a “wise-sayer,” or sayer of wise maxims. “Gooseberry,” Dr. Johnson explains as “a fruit eaten as a sauce for goose.” It is, however, a corruption of the German, _krausbeere_,--from _kraus_ or _gorse_, crisp; and the fruit gets its name from the upright hairs with which it is covered. “Shame-faced” does not mean having a face denoting shame. It is from the Anglo-Saxon, _sceamfaest_, protected by shame. “Surname” is from the French, _surnom_, meaning additional name, and should not, therefore, be spelled “sirname,” as if it meant the name of one’s sire. “Freemason” is not half Saxon, but is from the French, _frèremaçon_, brother mason. “Foolscap” is a corruption of the Italian, _foglio capo_, a full-sized sheet of paper. “Country-dance” is a corruption of the French _contre-danse_, in which the partners stand in opposite lines.

“Bishop,” which looks like an Anglo-Saxon word, is from the Greek. It means primarily an overseer, in Latin _episcopus_, which the Saxons broke down into “biscop,” and then softened into “bishop.” There was formerly an adjective “bishoply”; but as, after the Norman Conquest, the bishops, and those who discussed their rights and duties, used French and Latin rather than English, “episcopal” has taken its place. Among the foreign words most frequently corrupted are the names of plants, which gardeners, not understanding, change into words that sound like the true ones, and with which they are familiar. In their new costume they often lose all their original significance and beauty. To this source of corruption we owe such words as “dandelion,” from the French, _dent de lion_, lion’s tooth; “rosemary,” from _ros marinus_; “quarter-sessions rose,” the meaningless name of the beautiful _rose des quatre saisons_; “Jerusalem artichoke,” into which, with a ludicrous disregard for geography, we have metamorphosed the sunflower artichoke, _articiocco girasole_, which came to us from Pery, through Italy; and “sparrow-grass,” which we have substituted for “asparagus.”

Animals have fared no better than plants; the same dislike of outlandish words, which are meaningless to them, leads sailors to corrupt Bellerophon into “Billy Ruffian,” and hostlers to convert Othello and Desdemona into “Odd Fellow and Thursday morning,” and Lamprocles into “Lamb and Pickles.” The _souris dormeuse_, or sleeping mouse, has been transformed into a “dormouse”; the hog-fish, or _porcpisce_, as Spenser terms him, is disguised as a “porpoise”; and the French _écrevisse_ turns up a “crayfish” or “crawfish.” The transformations of the latter word, which has passed through three languages before attaining its present form, are among the most surprising feats of verbal legerdemain. Starting on its career as the old High German _krebiz_, it next appears in English as “crab,” and in German as _krebs_, or “crab,” from the grabbing or clutching action of the animal. Next it crosses the Rhine, and becomes the French _écrevisse_; then crosses the Channel, and takes the form of _krevys_; and, last of all, with a double effort at anglicizing, it appears in modern English as “crawfish” or “crayfish.” The last two words noticed illustrate the tendency which is so strong, in the corruption of words, to invent new forms which shall be appropriate as well as significant, other examples of which we have in “wormwood” from _wermuth_, “lanthorn” from _laterna_, “beefeater” from _buffetier_, “rakehell” from _racaille_, “catchrogue” from the Norman-French _cachreau_, a bum-bailiff, and “shoot” for _chute_, a fall or rapid. So the French, _beffroi_, a stronghold or tower,--a movable tower of several stories used in besieging,--has been corrupted into “belfry,” though there is no such French word as “bell.”

Often the corrupted form gives birth to a wholly false explanation. Thus in the proverbial _dormir comme une taupe_, which has been twisted into the phrase “to sleep like a top,” there is no trace of the mole; and the corruption of _acheter_, to buy, into “achat,”--which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was in London the word for trading, and was first pronounced and then written “acat,”--led to the story that Whittington, the famous Lord Mayor, obtained his wealth by selling and re-selling “a cat.” There is no hint in “somerset” of its derivation from the Italian, _soprasalto_, an overleap, through the French, _sobresault_, and the early English, to “somersault”; nor would the shrewdest guesser ever discover in _faire un faux pas_, to commit a blunder, the provincial saying, “to make a fox’s paw.” The word “ceiling,” from the old French _seel_, “a seal,” was formerly written “seeling,” and meant a wainscoating, a covering with boards for the purpose of sealing up chinks and cracks. The spelling was changed from an opinion that the word is derived from _ciel_, which means “heaven” and “a canopy.”

Among the most frequent corruptions are the names of places and persons. Thus Penne, Coombe, and Ick, the former name of Falmouth, has been transformed into “Penny-come-quick”; and the corruption of _Chateau Vert_ into “Shotover” has led to the legend that Little John “shot over” the hill of that name near Oxford, England. _Leighton-beau-desert_ has been converted into “Leighton-Buzzard”; Bridge-Walter, in Somersetshire, into “Bridgewater.” The _Chartreuse_ has become the “Charter-House.” Sheremoniers Lane, so called because the artisans dwelt there whose business it was to sheer or cut bullion into shape for the die, became first “Sheremongers Lane,” and then, from its nearness to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and an analogy with Amen Corner and Paternoster Row, passed into “Sermon Lane.” The origin of the well known legend of Bishop Hatto, who forestalled the corn from the poor, and was devoured in his fortress on the Rhine by rats, is owing, it is said, to a corruption of the name of the _maut-thurm_, or custom-house, into the _mäuse-thurm_, or “Mouse-tower.” The Cologne myth of the eleven thousand virgins is supposed by an English philologist to have sprung from the name of St. Undecemilla, a virgin martyr. “The insertion of a single letter in the calendar has changed this name into the form ‘_Undecem millia Virg. Mart._’ The bones of the eleven thousand, which are reverently shown to the pious pilgrim, have been pronounced by Professor Owen to comprise the remains of almost all the quadrupeds indigenous to the district.” The name “Gypsies” is a misnomer springing out of an error in ethnology. When they first appeared in Europe, nearly five centuries ago, their dark complexion and their unknown language led men to suppose that they were Egyptians, which word was corrupted into “Gypsies.” Boulogne Mouth was corrupted by the British sailors into “Bull and Mouth”; and Surajah Dowlah, the name of the Bengal prince who figured in the famous Black Hole atrocity, the British soldiers persisted in anglicizing into “Sir Roger Dowlas”! “Bedlam” is a corruption of Bethlehem, and gets its meaning from a London priory, St. Mary’s of Bethlehem, which was converted into a lunatic asylum.

“To curry favor” is said to be a corrupt translation of the French proverbial phrase _étriller Fauveau_, “to curry the chestnut horse.” It was usual to make a proper name of the color of a horse, as Bayard, Dun, Ball, Favel, etc. Hence the proverbs, “To have Ball in the stable,” “Dun in the mire,” “To curry Favel,” in which last some unknown Bentley substituted “favor” for Favel when the meaning of the latter had ceased to be understood. Another striking illustration of the freaks of popular usage by which the etymology of words is obscured, is the word “causeway.” Mr. W. W. Skeat, in a late number of “Notes and Queries,” states that the old spelling of the word was “calcies.” The Latin was _calceata via_, a road made with lime; hence the Spanish, _calzada_, a paved way, and the modern French, _chaussée_. “The English Word,” Mr. Skeats says, “used to be more often spelled ‘causey,’ as, for instance, by Cotgrave; and popular etymology, always on the alert to infuse some sort of meaning into a strange word, turned ‘causey’ into ‘causeway,’ with the trifling drawback that, while we all know what ‘way’ means, no one can extract any sense out of ‘cause.’”

Words from the dead languages have naturally undergone the most signal corruptions, many of them completely disguising the derivation. Sometimes the word is condensed, as in “alms,” from the Greek ἐλεημοσύνη in early English, “almesse,” now cut down to four letters; “summons,” a legal term, abbreviated (like the _fi. fa._ of the lawyers) from _submoneas_; “palsy,” an abridgment of “paralysis,” literally a relaxation; “quinsy,” in French _esquinancie_, which, strange to say, is the same word as “synagogue,” coming, like this last, from σύν together, and ἄγω, to draw. “Megrim” is a corruption of “hemicrany,” a pain affecting half of the head. “Treacle,” now applied only to molasses or sirup, was originally viper’s flesh made into a medicine for the viper’s bite. It is called in French _thériaque_, from a corresponding Greek word; in early English, “triacle.” “Zero” is a contraction of the Italian _zephiro_, a zephyr, a breath of air, a nothing. Another name for it is “cipher,” from the Arabic, _cifr_, empty.

CONTRADICTORY MEANINGS.

Among the curious phenomena of language one of the most singular is the use of the same word in two distinct senses, directly opposed to each other. Ideas are associated in the mind not only by resemblance but by contrast; and thus the same root, slightly modified, may express the most opposite meanings. A striking example of this, is the word “fast,” which is full of contradictory meanings. A clock is called “fast,” when it goes too quickly; but a man is told to stand “fast,” when he is desired to stand still. Men “fast” when they have nothing to eat; and they eat “fast” after a long abstinence. “Fast” men, as we have already seen, are apt to be very “loose” in their habits. When “fast” is used in the sense of “abstinence,” the idea may be, as in the Latin, _abstineo_, holding back from food; or the word may come from the Gothic, _fastan_, “to keep” or “observe,”--that is, the ordinance of the church. The verb “to overlook” is used in two contradictory senses; as, he overlooked the men at work, he overlooked the error.

The word “nervous” may mean either possessing or wanting nerve. A “nervous” writer is one who has force and energy; a “nervous” man is one who is weak, sensitive to trifles, easily excited. The word “post,” from the Latin _positum_, placed, is used in the most various senses. We speak of a “post”-office, of “post”-haste, of “post”-horses, and of “post”-ing a ledger. The contradiction in these meanings is more apparent than real. The idea of “placing” is common to them all. Before the invention of railways, letters were transmitted from place to place (or post to post) by relays of horses stationed at intervals so that no delay might occur. The “post”-office used this means of communication, and the horses were said to travel “post”-haste. To “post” a ledger is to place or register its several items.

The word “to let” generally means to permit; but in the Bible, in Shakespeare, and in legal phraseology, it often has the very opposite meaning. Thus Hamlet says, “I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me,” that is, interferes with or obstructs me; and in law books “without let or hindrance” is a phrase of frequent occurrence. It should be remarked, however, that “to let,” in the first sense, is from the Saxon, _laetan_; in the second, from _letjan_. The word “to cleave” may mean either to adhere to closely, as when Cowper says, “Sophistry cleaves close and protects sin’s rotten trunk”; or it may mean to split or to rend asunder, as in the sentence, “He cleaved the stick at one blow.” According to Mätzner, the word in the first sense is from the Anglo-Saxon, _cleofan_, _clufan_; in the last sense, it is from _clifan_, _clifian_. The word “dear” has the two meanings of “prized” because you have it, and “expensive” because you want it. The word “lee” has very different acceptations in “lee”-side and “lee”-shore.

The word “mistaken” has quite opposite meanings. “You are mistaken” may mean “You mistake,” or “You are misunderstood,” or “taken for somebody else.” In the line

“_Mistaken_ souls that dream of heaven,”

in a popular hymn, the word is used, of course, in the former sense. The adjective “mortal” means both “deadly” and “liable to death.” Of the large number of adjectives ending in “able” or “ible,” some have a subjective and others an objective sense. A “terrible” sight is one that is able to inspire terror; but a “readable” book is one which you can read. It is said that the word “wit” is used in Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” with at least seven different meanings.

The prefixes “un” and “in” are equivocal. Commonly they have a negative force, as in “unnecessary,” “incomplete.” But sometimes, both in verbs and adjectives, they have a positive or intensive meaning, as in the words “intense,” “infatuated,” “invaluable.” To “invigorate” one’s physical system by exercise, is not to lessen, but to increase one’s energy. The verb “unloose” should, by analogy, signify “to tie,” just as “untie” means “to loose.” “Inhabitable” should signify “not habitable,” according to the most frequent use of “in.” To “unravel” means the same as “to ravel”; to “unrip” the same as “to rip.” Johnson sanctions the use of the negative prefix in these two words, but Richardson and Webster condemn it as superfluous. Walton, in his “Angler,” tells an amusing anecdote touching the two words. “We heard,” he says, “a high contention amongst the beggars, whether it was easiest to ‘rip’ a cloak or ‘unrip’ a cloak. One beggar affirmed it was all one; but that was denied, by asking her, if doing and undoing were all one. Then another said, ’twas easiest to unrip a cloak, for that was to let it alone; but she was answered by asking how she could _unrip_ it, if she let it alone.”

This opposition in the meanings of a word is a phenomenon not altogether peculiar to the English language. In Greek, θοάζειν has the seemingly contradictory meanings of “to move hastily,” and “to sit”; χρεία means both “use” and “need”; and λάω means both “to wish” and “to take.” In Latin, _sacer_ means “set apart” or “tabooed,” and _unicus_ implies singularity,--_unitas_, association. Many other examples might be cited to show that “as rays of light may be reflected and refracted in all possible ways from the primary direction, so the meaning of a word may be deflected from its original bearing in a variety of manners; and consequently we cannot well reach the primitive force of the term unless we know the precise gradations through which it has gone.”

Several writers on our language have noticed a singular tendency to limit or narrow the signification of certain words, whose etymology would suggest a far wider application. Why should we not “retaliate” (that is, pay back in kind, _res, talis_) kindnesses as well as injuries? Why should we “resent” (feel again) insults, and not affectionate words and deeds? Why should our hate, animosity, hostility, and other bad passions, be “inveterate” (that is, gain strength by age), but our better feelings, love, kindness, charity, never? Byron showed a true appreciation of the better uses to which the word might be put, when he subscribed a letter to a friend, “Yours inveterately, BYRON.”

In some of our nouns there is a nice distinction of meaning between the singular and the plural. A “minute” is a fraction of time; “minutes” are notes of a speech, conversation, etc. The “manner” in which a man enters a drawing-room may be unexceptionable, while his “manners” are very bad. When the “Confederates” threatened to pull down the American “colors” at New Orleans, they did it under “color” of right. A person was once asked whether a certain lawyer had got rich by his practice. “No,” was the sarcastic reply, “but by his practices.”

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Mill’s “Logic.”

[44] Coleridge.

[45] From οὔ and τόπος, “no-place.”