We have seen many words whose meanings have become less dignified than their original meaning; but sometimes the opposite happens. Every one now speaks with respect of a "pioneer," whether we mean by that people who are the first to venture into strange lands, or, in a more figurative sense, people who make some new discovery in science or introduce some new way of thinking or acting. Yet "pioneers" were originally merely the soldiers who did the hard work of clearing the way for an advancing army. They were looked upon as belonging to a lower class than the ordinary soldiers. But this new and at first figurative use of the word, applied first to geographical and then to scientific and moral explorers, has given the word a new dignity.

A group of words which had originally very humble meanings, and have been elevated in an even more accidental way, are the names of the officials of royal courts. The word steward originally meant, as it still means, a person who manages property for some one else. The steward on a ship is a servant; but the steward of the king's household was no mean person, and was dignified with the title of the "Lord High Steward of England." The royal house of Stuart took its name from the fact that the heads of the family were in earlier times hereditary stewards of the Scottish kings. So marshal, the name of another high official at court, means "horse boy;" seneschal, "old servant;" constable, "an attendant to horses' stalls," and so on. Some of these words have kept both a dignified and a commoner meaning. Constable, besides being the name of a court official, is also another term for "policeman."

The word silly meant in Old English "blessed" or "happy," but of course has wandered far from this meaning. On the other hand, several words which once meant "foolish" have now quite different meanings. Giddy and dizzy both had this sense in Old English, and so had the word nice. But later the French word fol, from which we get foolish, was introduced into English, and these words soon ceased to be used in this sense. Before this the two words dizzy and giddy had occasionally been used in the sense in which they are used now, to describe the condition of a person whose head "swims;" this now became their general meaning, though giddy has gone back again to something of its old meaning in its later use to describe a person's conduct. A giddy person is another description for one of frivolous character.

The word nice has had a rather more varied history. It had its original meaning of "foolish" from the literal meaning of the Latin word nescius, "ignorant," from which it was derived. Gradually it came to mean "foolishly particular about small things;" and we still have a similar use of the word, as when we say a person has a "nice taste in wines," or is a "nice observer," or speak of a "nice distinction," by which we mean a subtle distinction not very easily observed. But this is, of course, not the commonest sense in which we use the word. By nice we generally mean the opposite of nasty. A "nice" observer was a good observer, and from this kind of idea the word nice came to have the general sense of "good" in some way. Nice is not a particularly dignified word, and is little used by good writers, except in its more special and earlier sense. It is, perhaps, less used in America than in England, and it is interesting to notice that nasty, the word which in English always seems to be the opposite of nice, is not considered a respectable word in America, where it has kept its earlier meaning of "filthy," or absolutely disgusting in some way.

Again, the word disgust, by which we express complete loathing for anything, used merely to mean "dislike" or "distaste." In the same way, the word loathe, by which we mean "to hate" or feel the greatest disgust for, originally meant merely "to dislike." The stronger meaning came from the fact that the word was often used to describe the dislike a sick person feels for food. Every one knows how strong this feeling can be, and it is from this that loathe and loathsome took the strong meaning they now have. Curiously enough, the adjective loath or loth, from the same word, has kept the old mild meaning. When we say we are "loth" to do a thing, we do not mean that we hate doing it, but merely that we feel rather unwilling to do it. In Old English, too, the word filth and its derivative foul were not quite such strong words as dirt and dirty.

Again, the words stench and stink in Old English meant merely "smell" or "odour." One could then speak of the "sweet stench" of a flower; but in the later Middle Ages these words came to have their present meaning of "smelling most disagreeably."

We saw how the taking of the word fol from the French, meaning "foolish," caused the meaning of several English words which before had this meaning to be changed. The coming in of foreign words has been a very common cause for such changes of meaning. The word fiend in English has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning in English, when it simply meant "enemy," the opposite to "friend." When the word "enemy" itself was borrowed from the French, the word fiend came to be less and less often used in this sense. In time fiend came to be another word for devil, the chief enemy of mankind. But in modern times we do not use the word much in this sense. It is most often now applied to persons. It sounds rather milder than calling a person a "devil," but it means exactly the same thing.

The word stool came to have its present special meaning through the coming into English from the French of the word chair. Before the Norman Conquest any kind of seat for one person was a "stool," even sometimes a royal throne. The word deer also had in Old English the meaning of "beast" in general, but the coming in of the word beast from the French led to its falling into disuse, and by degrees it became the special name of the chief beast of chase.

Again, the Latin word spirit led to the less frequent use of the word ghost, which was previously the general word for spirit. When spirit came to be generally used, ghost came to have the special meaning which it has for us now—that of the apparition of a dead person.

A great many words have changed their meaning even since the time of Shakespeare through being transferred from the subject of the feeling they describe to the object, or from the object to the subject. Thus one example of this is the word grievous. We speak now of a "grievous wrong," or a "grievous sin," or a "grievous mistake," and all these phrases suggest a certain sorrow in ourselves for the fact described. But this was not the case in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when it was decreed that a "sturdy beggar," a man who could work but begged instead, should be "grievously whipped." In this case grievously merely meant "severely." On the other hand, the word pitiful, which used to mean "compassionate," is no longer applied to what we feel at seeing a sad thing, but to the sadness of the thing itself. We do not now say a person is pitiful when he feels sorry for some one, but we speak of a "pitiful sight" or a "pitiful plight."

The word pity itself is used still in both ways, subjectively and objectively. A person can feel "pity," and there is "pity" in the thing for which we feel sorry. This is the sense in which it is used in such expressions as "Oh, the pity of it!"

The word hateful once meant "full of hate," but came to be used for the thing inspiring hate instead of for the people feeling it. So, painful used to mean "painstaking," but of course has no longer this meaning.

One very common way in which words have changed their meanings is through the name of one thing being given to another which resembles it. The word pen comes from the Latin penna, "a feather;" and as in olden days the ordinary pens were "quills" of birds, the name was very good. We still keep it, of course, for the steel pens and gold pens of to-day, which we thus literally speak of as feathers. Pencil is a word with a somewhat similar history. It comes from the Latin penicillus, which itself came from peniculus, or "little tail," a kind of cleaning instrument which the Romans used as we use brushes. Pencil was originally the name of a very fine painter's brush, and from this it became the name of an instrument made of lead which was used for making marks. Then it was passed on to various kinds of pencils, including what we know as a lead-pencil, in which, as a writer on words has pointed out, there is really neither lead nor pencil.

The word handkerchief is also an interesting word. The word kerchief came from the French couvre-chef, "a covering for the head." Another similar word is one which the Normans brought into England, curfew, which means "cover fire." When the curfew bell rang the people were obliged to extinguish all lights and fires. The "kerchief" was originally a covering for the head. Then the fashion arose of carrying a square of similar material in the hand, and so we get handkerchief, and later pocket-handkerchief, which, if we analyse it, is rather a clumsy word, "pocket-hand-cover-head." The reason it is so is that the people who added pocket and hand knew nothing of the real meaning of kerchief.

There are several words which used to mean "at the present time" which have now come to mean "at a future time." This can only have come about through the people who used them not keeping their promises, but putting off doing things until later. The word soon in Old English meant "immediately," so that when a person said that he would do a thing soon he meant that he would do it "instantly." The trouble was that often he did not, and so often did this happen that the meaning of the word changed, and soon came to have its present meaning of "in a short time." The same thing happened with the words presently and directly, and the phrase by-and-by, all of which used to mean "instantly." Presently and directly seem to promise things in a shorter time than soon, but by-and-by is a very uncertain phrase indeed. It is perhaps because Scotch people are superior to the English in the matter of doing things to time that with them presently still really means "instantly."

In all the examples we have seen of changes in the meaning of words it is fairly easy to see how the changes have come about. But there are some words which have changed so much in meaning that their present sense seems to have no connection with their earlier meaning. The word treacle is a splendid example of this. It comes from a Greek word meaning "having to do with a wild beast," and this seems to have no connection whatever with our present use of the word treacle as another word for syrup of sugar. The steps by which this word came to change its meaning so enormously were these. From the general meaning of "having to do with a wild beast," it came to mean "remedy for the bite of a wild beast." As remedies for wounds and bites were, in the old days, generally thick syrups, the word came in time to mean merely "syrup," and lastly the sweet syrup which we now know as "treacle."

Another word which has changed immensely in its meaning is premises. By the word premises we generally mean a house or shop and the land just round it. But the real meaning of the word premises is the "things already mentioned." It came to have its present sense from the frequent use of the word in documents drawn up by lawyers. In these, which very frequently dealt with business relating to houses, the "things before mentioned" meant the "house, etc.," and in time people came to think that this was the actual meaning of premises, and so we get the present use of the word.

The word humour is one which has changed its meaning very much in the course of its history. It comes to us from the Latin word humor, which means a "fluid" or "liquid." By "humour" we now mean either "temper," as when we speak of being in a "good" or "bad" humour, or that quality in a person which makes him very quick to find "fun" in things. And from the first meaning of "temper" we have the verb "to humour," by which we mean to give in to or indulge a person's whims. But in the Middle Ages "humour" was a word used by writers on philosophy to describe the four liquids which they believed (like the Greek philosophers) that the human body contained. These four "humours" were blood, phlegm, yellow bile (or choler), and black bile (or melancholy). According to the balance of these humours a man's character showed itself. From this belief we get the adjectives—which we still use without any thought of their origin—sanguine ("hopeful"), phlegmatic ("indifferent and not easily excited"), choleric ("easily roused to anger"), and melancholy ("inclined to sadness"). A person had these various temperaments according as the amount of blood, phlegm, yellow or black bile was uppermost in his composition. From the idea that having too much of any of the "humours" would make a person diseased or odd in character, we got the use of the word humours to describe odd and queer things; and from this it came to have its modern meaning, which takes us very far from the original Latin.

It was from this same curious idea of the formation of the human body that we get two different uses of the word temper. Temper was originally the word used to describe the right mixture of the four "humours." From this we got the words good-tempered and bad-tempered. Perhaps because it is natural to notice more when people are bad-tempered rather than good, not more than a hundred years ago the word temper came to mean in one use "bad temper." For this is what we mean when we say we "give way to temper." But we have the original sense of "good temper" in the expression to "keep one's temper." So here we have the same word meaning two opposite things.

Several words which used to have a meaning connected with religion have now come to have a more general meaning which seems very different from the original. A word of this sort in English is order, which came through the French word ordre, from the Latin ordo. Though the Latin word had the meaning which we now give to the word order, in the English of the thirteenth century it had only the special meaning (which it still keeps as one of its meanings) of an "order" or "society" of monks. In the fourteenth century it began to have the meaning of "fixed arrangement," but the adjective orderly and the noun orderliness did not come into use until the sixteenth century. The word regular has a similar history. Coming from the Latin regula, "a rule," its modern general meaning in English of "according to rule" seems very natural; but the word which began to be used in English in the fourteenth century did not take the modern meaning until the end of the sixteenth century. Before this, it too was used as a word to describe monastic orders. The "regular" clergy were priests who were also monks, while the "secular" clergy were priests but not monks. The words regularity, regulation, and regulate did not come into use until the seventeenth century.

Another word which has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning is clerk. A "clerk" nowadays is a person who is employed in an office to keep accounts, write letters, etc. But a "clerk" in the Middle Ages was what we should now more generally call a "cleric," a man in Holy Orders. As the "clerks" in the Middle Ages were practically the only people who could read and write, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that the name should be now used to describe a class of people whose chief occupation is writing (whether with the hand or a typewriter). People in the Middle Ages would have wondered what could possibly be meant by a word which is common in Scotland for a "woman clerk"—clerkess.

The words which change their meanings in this way tell us the longest, and perhaps the best, stories of all.



CHAPTER XVII.

DIFFERENT WORDS WITH THE SAME MEANING, AND THE SAME WORDS WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

We have seen that there are great numbers of words in English which come from the Latin language. Sometimes they have come to us through Old French words borrowed from the Latin, and sometimes from the Latin words directly, or modern French words taken from the Latin. The fact that we have borrowed from the Latin in these two ways has led sometimes to our borrowing twice over from the same word. Different forms going back in this way to the same origin are known as "doublets." The English language is full of them, and they, too, can tell us some interesting stories.

Many of these pairs of words seem to have no relation at all with each other, so much has one or the other, or both, changed in meaning from that of the original word from which they come. A familiar pair of doublets is dainty and dignity, both of which come from the Latin word dignitas. Dignity, which came into the English language either directly from the Latin or through the modern French word dignite, has not wandered at all from the meaning of the Latin word, which had first the idea of "merit" or "value," and then that of honourable position or character which the word dignity has in English. Dainty has a quite different meaning; though it, too, came from dignitas, but through the less dignified way of the Old French word daintie.

The English words dish, dais, desk, and disc all come from the Latin word discus, by which the Romans meant first a round flat plate thrown in certain games (a "quoit"), and secondly a plate or dish. In Old English this word became dish. In Old French it became deis, and from this we have the English dais—the raised platform of a throne. In Italian it became desco, from which we got desk; and the scientific men of modern times, in their need of a word to describe exactly a round, flat object, have gone back as near as possible to the Latin and given us disc. It is to be noticed that the original idea of the Latin word—"having a flat surface"—is kept in these four descendants of a remote ancestor.

The words chieftain and captain are doublets coming from the Late Latin word capitaneus, "chief;" the former through the Old French word chevetaine, and the latter more directly from the Latin. Frail and fragile are another pair, coming from the Latin word fragilis, "easily broken;" the one through Old French, and the other through Modern French.

Both these pairs of words have kept fairly close to the original meaning; but caitiff and captive, another pair of doublets, have quite different meanings from each other. Both come from the Latin word captivus, "captive," the one indirectly and the other directly. Caitiff, which is not a word used now except occasionally in poetry, means a "base, cowardly person;" but captive has, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word.

Another pair of doublets, which are quite different in form and almost opposite to each other in meaning, are guest and hostile. These two words come from the same root word; but this goes further back than Latin, to the language known as the Aryan, from which nearly all the languages of Europe and the chief language of India come. Hostile comes from the Latin hostis, "an enemy;" but hostis itself comes from the same Aryan word as that from which guest comes, and so these two words are doublets in English. They express very different ideas: we are not generally "hostile" or "full of enmity" against a "guest," one who partakes of our hospitality.

Another pair of doublets not from the Latin are shirt and skirt, which are both old Germanic words. Skirt came later into the language, being from the Scandinavian, while shirt is an Old English word.

The word cross and the many words in English beginning with cruci—such as crucial, crucifix, and cruciform—the adverb across, as well as the less common word crux, all come from the Latin word crux, "a cross." The word cross first came into the English language with Christianity itself, for the death of our Lord on the cross was, of course, the first story which converts to Christianity were told. It came through the Irish from the Norwegian word cros, which came direct from the Latin. All the words beginning with cruci come straight from the Latin. Cruciform and crucifix refer to the form of a cross, and so sometimes does the word crucial. But, as a rule, crucial is used as the adjective of the word crux, which means the "test," or "difficult point," in deciding or doing something. The Romans did not use crux in this sense; but it is interesting to notice that they did use it in the figurative sense of "trouble" just as we do. This came from the fact that the common form of execution for all subjects of the Roman Empire except Roman citizens was crucifixion.

Two such different words as tavern and tabernacle, the one meaning an inn and the other the most sacred part of the sanctuary in a church, are doublets from the Latin word tabernaculum, "tent." The first comes from the French taverne, and the second directly from the Latin.

The words mint and money both come from the Latin word moneta, which was an adjective attached by the Romans to the name of the goddess Juno. The place where the Romans coined their money was attached to the temple of Juno Moneta, or Juno the Adviser. From this fact the Romans themselves came to use moneta as the name for coins, or what we call money. The word passed into French as monnaie, which is still the French word both for money and mint, the place where we coin our money. In German it became munze, which has the same meanings. In English it became mint. But the English language, as we have seen, has a fine gift for borrowing. In time it acquired the French word monnaie, which became money as the name for coins, while it kept the word mint to describe the place where coins are made.

The words bower, formerly the name of a sleeping-place for ladies and now generally meaning a summer-house, and byre, the place where cows sleep, both come from the Old English word bur, "a bower." The word flour (which so late as the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson did not include in his great dictionary) is the same word as flower. Flour is merely the flower of wheat. Again, poesy and posy are really the same word, posy being derived from poesy. Posy used to mean a copy of verses presented to some one with a bouquet. Now it stands either for verses, as when we speak of the "posy of a ring," or more commonly a bunch of flowers without any verses.

The words bench and bank both come from the same Teutonic word which became benc in Old English and banc in French. Bench comes from benc, but bank has a more complicated history. From the French banc we borrowed the word to use in the old expression a "bank of oars." From the Scandinavians, who also had the word, we got bank, used for the "bank of a river." Meanwhile the Italians had also borrowed the old Germanic word which became with them banca or banco, the bench or table of a money-changer. From this the French got banque, and this became in English bank as we use it in connection with money.

The Latin word ratio, "reckoning," has given three words to the English language. It passed into Old French as resoun, and from this we got the word reason. Later on the French made a new word direct from the Latin—ration; which, again, passed into English as a convenient name for the allowance of food to a soldier. It has now a more general sense, as when in the Great War people talk of the whole nation being put "on rations." Then again, as every child who is old enough to study mathematics knows, we use the Latin word itself, ratio, as a mathematical term.

Another Latin word which has given three different words to the English language is gentilis. From it we have gentile, gentle, and genteel. Yet the Latin word had not the same meaning as any of these words. Gentilis meant "belonging to the same gens or 'clan.'" It became later a distinguishing term from Jew. All who were not Jews were Gentiles, and this is still the meaning of the word gentile in English. It came directly from the Latin. But gentilis became gentil in French; and we have borrowed twice from this word, getting gentle, which expresses one idea contained in the French word, though the French word means more than our word gentle. It has the sense of "very amiable and attractive." The last word of the three, genteel, is rather a vulgar word. It means "like gentlemen and ladies have to do," and only rather ignorant people use the word seriously.

Doublets from Latin words for the most part resemble each other in meaning and form, though, as we have seen, this is not always the case. We could give a long list of examples where both sense and form are similar, but there is only space to mention a few. Poor and pauper (a miserably poor person) both come from the Latin pauper, "poor." Story and history both come from historia, a word which had both meanings in Latin. Human and humane are both from the Latin humanus, "belonging to mankind." Sure and secure are both from the Latin securus, "safe." Nourishment and nutriment are both from the Latin nutrimentum. Amiable and amicable are both from the Latin amicabilis, "friendly."

Examples of doublets which are similar in form but not in sense are chant and cant, which both come from the Latin cantare, "to sing." Chant has the original idea, being a form of singing, especially in church; but cant has wandered far from the original sense, meaning insincere words, especially such as are used by people pretending to be religious or pious. The word cant was first used in describing the chanting or whining of beggars, who were supposed often to be telling lies; and from this it got its present use, which has nothing to do with singing.

Blame and blaspheme, both coming from the Latin blasphemare, itself taken from a Hebrew word, are not, perhaps, quite so different in sense; but blame means merely to find fault with a person, while blaspheme means to speak against God.

Chance and cadence both come from the Latin cadere, "to fall," but have very little resemblance in meaning. Chance is what happens or befalls, and cadence is movement measured by the fall of the voice in speaking or singing.

But the most interesting doublets of all are those which have neither form nor sense in common. No one would guess that the words hyena and sow, the names of two such different animals, are doublets. Both come from the Greek word sus or hus, "sow." The Saxons, when they first settled in England, had the words su, "pig," and sugu, "sow;" and later the word hyena was taken from the Latin word hyaena, itself derived from the Greek huaina, "sow."

The words furnish and veneer, again, are doublets which do not resemble each other very closely either in sound or in sense. Both come from the Old French word furnir, which has become fournir in Modern French, and means "to furnish." The English word furnish was taken direct from the French, while the word veneer, which used to be spelt fineer, came into English from a German word also borrowed from the French furnir.

No one would easily guess that the name nutmeg had anything to do with musk; but the word comes from the name which Latin writers in the Middle Ages gave to this useful seed—nux muscata, "musky nut."

It seems strange, when we come to think of it, that great English sailors like Admiral Jellicoe and Admiral Beatty are called by a title which is really the same as the name of an Arabian chieftain—Emir. Admiral comes from the Arab phrase amir al bahr, "emir on the sea."

Just the opposite to doublets which do not resemble each other are many pairs of words which are pronounced alike and sometimes spelled alike. Very often these words come from two different languages, and there are many of them in English through the habit the language has always had of borrowing freely whenever the need of a new word has been felt.

The word weed, "a wild plant," comes from an Old English word, weod; while "widows' weeds" take their name from the Old English word woede, "garment." The word vice, meaning the opposite of virtue, comes through the French from the Latin vitium, "a fault;" while a "vice," the instrument for taking a perfectly tight hold on anything, comes from the Latin vitis, "a vine," through the French vis, "a screw." Yet another vice, as in viceroy, vice-president, etc., comes from the Latin vice, "in the place of." Angle, meaning the sport of fishermen, comes from an Old English word, angel, "fish-hook;" while angle, "a corner," comes from the Latin word angulus, which had the same meaning.

We might imagine that the word temple, as the name of a part of the head, was a metaphor describing the head as the temple of the mind, but it has no such romantic meaning. Temple, the name of a place of worship, comes from the Latin templum, "a temple;" but temple, the name of a part of the head, is from the Latin word tempus, which had the same meaning in Latin, and also the earlier meaning of "the fitting time." It has been suggested that in Latin tempus came to mean "the temple," because it is "the fitting place" for a fatal blow, the temple being the most delicate part of the head.

Tattoo, meaning a "drum beat," comes from the Dutch tap-toe, "tap-to," an order for drinking-houses to shut. But tattoo, describing the cutting away of the skin and dyeing of the flesh so common among sailors, is a word borrowed from the South Sea Islanders.

Sound meaning "a noise," and sound meaning "to find out the depth of," as in sounding-rod, are two quite different words. The one comes from the word son, found both in Old English and French, and the other from the Old English words sundgyrd, sund line, "a sounding line;" while sound meaning "healthy" or "uninjured," as in the expression "safe and sound," comes from the Old English word sund, and perhaps from the Latin sanus, "healthy."

The existence of so many pairs of words of this sort, which have the same sound and which yet come from such different origins—origins as far apart as the speech of the people of Holland and that of the South Sea Islanders, as we saw in the word tattoo—illustrates in a very interesting way the wonderful history of the English language.



CHAPTER XVIII.

NICE WORDS FOR NASTY THINGS.

In the days of Queen Elizabeth there were in England certain writers who were called "Euphuists." They got this name from the title of a book, "Euphues," written by one of them, John Lyly. The chief characteristic of the writings of these Euphuists was the grandiose way in which they wrote of the simplest things. Their writings were full of metaphors and figures of speech. The first Euphuists were looked upon as "refiners of speech," and Queen Elizabeth and the ladies at her court did their best to speak as much in the manner of Euphues as they could.

But all men at all times are unconscious Euphuists, in so far as they try to say ugly and unpleasant things in a way which will make them sound pleasant. This tendency in speech is called "euphemism," a word which is made from two Greek words meaning "to speak well." It is a true description of what the word means if by "well" we understand "as pleasantly as possible." The word euphemeite, "speak fair," was used as a warning to worshippers in Greek temples, in the belief that the speaking of an unfortunate word might bring disaster instead of blessing from the sacrifice.

Every day, and often in a day, we use euphemisms. How often do we hear people say, "if anything should happen to him," meaning "if he died;" and on tombstones the plain fact of a person's death is nearly always stated in phrases such as "he passed away," "fell asleep," or "departed this life." People often refer to a dead person as the "deceased" or the "departed," or as the "late so-and-so." The fact is that, death being to most people the unpleasantest thing in the world, there is a general tendency to mention it as little as possible, and, when the subject cannot be avoided, to use vague and less realistic phrases than the words death, dead, or die.

One reason for this avoidance of an unpleasant subject is the superstitious feeling that mentioning a thing will bring it to pass. Or, again, if a misfortune has happened, many people feel that it only makes it worse to talk about it. While everybody avoids speaking on the subject, we can half pretend to ourselves that it is not true.

We might imagine that this kind of "refinement of speech" (which when carried to excess really becomes vulgar) was the result of modern people being so "nervous." But this is not the case. Complete savages have the same custom. If civilized people have a superstitious feeling that to mention a misfortune may bring it to pass, savages firmly believe that this is the case. Not only will they not mention the subject of death in plain words, but some will not even mention the name of a dead person or give that name to a new-born child, so that in some tribes names die out in this way. Many civilized people have this same idea that it is unlucky for a new-born child to be called by the name of a brother or sister who has already died.

The subject of death has gathered more euphemisms around it than almost any other. Some of them are ugly and almost vulgar, while others, from the way in which they have been used, are almost poetical. To speak of the "casualties" in a battle, meaning the number of killed and wounded men, seems almost heartless; but to say a man "fell in battle," though it means the same thing, is almost poetical, because it suggests an idea of courage and sacrifice. The expression, "Roll of Honour," is a euphemism, but poetical. It suggests the one consoling thought which relieves the horror of the bald expression, "list of casualties."

Another cause of the use of euphemisms, besides the superstitious fear of bringing misfortune by mentioning it too plainly, is the fear of being vulgar or indecent. Through this feeling words which are quite proper at one time pass out of use among refined people. English people do not freely use the word "stomach" in conversation, and are often a little shocked when they hear French people describing their ailments in this region of the body. In the same way, names of articles of underclothing pass out of use. The old word for the garment which is now generally called a "chemise" was smock; but this in time became tinged with vulgarity, and the word shift was used. This in its turn fell out of use among refined people, who began to use the French word chemise. Even this, and the word drawers, which was also once a most refined expression, are falling into disuse, and people talk vaguely of "underlinen" in speaking of these garments. The shops which are always refined to the verge of vulgarity only allow themselves to use the French word lingerie.

Again, the faults of our friends and acquaintances, and even the graver offences of criminals, are matters with which we tend to deal lightly. Such offences have gathered a whole throng of euphemisms about them. When we do not like to say boldly that a person is a liar, we say the same thing by means of the euphemism a "stranger to the truth." Other lighter ways of saying that a person is lying is to say that he is "romancing," or "drawing the long bow," or "drawing on the imagination," or "telling a fairy tale." A thief will be described as a "defaulter," and we may say of a man who has stolen his employer's money as it passed through his hands that he is "short in his accounts."

Especially among the poorer or less respectable people, to whom the idea of crime becomes familiar, the use of slang euphemisms on this subject grows up. A person for whom the police are searching is "wanted." A man who is hanged "swings." These expressions may seem very dreadful to more refined people, but their use really comes from the same desire to be indulgent which leads more educated people to use euphemisms to cover up as far as possible the faults of their friends.

Again, misfortunes which come not from outside happenings but from some defect in a person's mind and body are often the subject of euphemisms. In Scotland a person who is quite an imbecile will be described as an "innocent"—a milder way of saying the same thing. Insane and crazy were originally euphemisms for mad, but now have come to be equally unpleasant descriptions. So for drunken the euphemism intemperate came to be used, but is now hardly a more polite description. We would not willingly speak of a person being "fat" in his presence. If it is necessary to touch on the subject, the word "stout" is more favoured. In the absence of the fat person the humorous euphemism may be used by which he or she is said to "have a good deal of embonpoint."

Many words are euphemisms in themselves, just as many words are complete metaphors in themselves. The word ill means literally "uncomfortable," but has come to have a much more serious meaning. Disease means literally "not being at ease," but the sense in which we use it describes something much more serious than the literal meaning. The word ruin is literally merely a "falling."

One result of words being used euphemistically is that they often cease to have their milder original meaning, and cease therefore to seem euphemistic at all. Vile, which now means everything that is bad, is in its literal and earlier use merely "cheap." Base, which has the meaning of unutterable meanness, is literally merely "low." Mercenary is not exactly a complimentary description now. It means that a person thinks far too much of money, but originally it merely meant "serving for pay," a thing which most men are obliged to do. Transgression is generally used now to describe some rather serious offence, but it literally means only a "stepping across." The "step" which it describes being, however, in the wrong direction, the word has come to have a more and more serious meaning. The study of euphemisms can teach us much about men's thoughts and manners in the past and the present.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE MORAL OF THESE STORIES.

Most stories have a moral. At least grown-up people have a habit of tacking a little lesson on to the end of the stories they tell to children. And as a rule the children will listen to the moral for the sake of the story. And so even the stories which words tell us have their lessons for us too, and, let us hope, the stories are sufficiently interesting to pay for the moral.

One thing that these stories must have shown us is that the English language is a very ancient and wonderful thing. We have only been able to get mere glimpses of its wonderful development since the days when the ancestors of the peoples of Europe and many of the peoples of India spoke the one Aryan tongue. All the history of Europe and of India—we might almost say of the world—is contained in the languages which have descended from that Aryan tongue.

Another point which these stories have impressed upon us is that language is a kind of mirror to thought. For every new idea people must find a word, and as ideas change words change with them. These stories have given us some idea of the wonderful growth of ideas in the minds of men in the past; they have shown us men daring all dangers for the sake of adventure and discovery and for pride of country; they have shown us the growth of new ideas of religion and kindness, new notions about science and learning: in fact, they have given us glimpses of the whole story of human progress.

The great lesson which these stories ought to teach us is respect for words. Seeing as we do what a beautiful and wonderful thing the English language has become, it ought to be the resolution of each one of us never to do anything to spoil that beauty. Every writer ought to choose his words carefully, neither inventing nor copying ugly forms of speech. We have seen also from these stories, especially in the chapter on "Slang," how people have misused certain words, until speakers and writers of good taste can no longer use them in their original sense, and therefore do not use them at all.

There are many other faults in speaking and in writing which take away from the beauty and dignity of the language. We shall see what some of these faults are; but one golden rule can be laid down which, if people keep it, will help them to avoid all these faults. No one should ever try to write in a fine style. The chief aim which all young writers should keep before them is to say exactly what they mean, and in as few and simple words as possible. If on reading what they have written they find that it is not perfectly clear, they should not immediately begin to rewrite, but instead set themselves to find out whether their thoughts are perfectly clear.

There is no idea which has no word to fit it. Of course some writers must use difficult language. The ordinary reader can sometimes not understand a sentence of a book of philosophy. This is not because the philosophers do not write clearly, but because the ideas with which they have to deal are very subtle, and hard for the ordinary person to understand.

But for ordinary people writing on ordinary things there is no excuse for writing so as not to be clearly understood, or for writing in such a long and round-about way that people are tired instead of refreshed by reading. Nor is there any excuse for the use of words and phrases which are vulgar or too colloquial for the subject; yet how often is this done in the modern newspaper. It may seem unnecessary to speak to boys and girls of the faults of newspaper writers. But the boys and girls of to-day are the newspaper writers and readers of the future, and the habits which young writers form cling to them afterwards. Of course many of the faults which the worse kind of journalists commit in writing would not occur to boys and girls; but one fault leads to another. The motive at the root of most poor and showy writing is the desire to "shine." The faults which seem so detestable to the critical reader seem very ingenious and brilliant to the writer of poor taste. To the journalist, as to the schoolboy and the schoolgirl, the golden rule is, "Be simple."

Let us see what some of the commonest faults of showy and poor writers of English are—always with the moral before us that they are to be avoided.

One great fault of newspaper writers and of young writers in general is to sprinkle their compositions thickly with quotations, until some beautiful and expressive lines from the greatest poetry and prose have almost lost their force through the ear having become tired by hearing them too often. Some such phrases are—

"Tell it not in Gath;"

"Heap coals of fire upon his head;"

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof:"

all fine and picturesque lines, the apt quotation of which must have been very impressive, until, through frequent repetition, they have become almost commonplace.

A similar hackneyed fault is the too frequent application of the name of some historical or Biblical personage to describe the character of some person of whom we are writing. It is much more expressive now to describe a person as a "doubter" than as a "doubting Thomas," though the latter phrase may serve to show that the writer knows something of his New Testament. The first man who called a sceptic a "doubting Thomas" was certainly a witty and cultivated person; but this cannot now be said of the use of this hackneyed phrase. Again, it is better to say a "traitor" than a "Judas," a "wise man" than a "Solomon," a "tyrant" than a "Nero," a "great general" than a "Napoleon;" for all these names used in this way have lost their force.

A similar fault is the describing of a person by some abstract noun such as a "joy," a "delight," an "inspiration"—a way of speaking which savours both of slang and affectation, and which is not likely to appeal to people of good taste. Of course it is quite different when the poet writes—

"She was a vision of delight;"

for poetry has its own rules, just as it has its own range of ideas and inspiration, and we are speaking now of the writing of mere prose.

Another bad fault of the same kind, but more colloquial, and more often met with in speaking than in writing, is the too frequent use of a word or phrase. Some people say "I mean," or "personally," or "I see," or "you see," or similar expressions, at nearly every second sentence, until people listening to them begin to count the number of times these expressions occur, instead of attending to the subject of conversation.

Another very common fault in writing made by newspaper writers, and even more so by young beginners in composition, is the use of long words derived from Latin instead of the simpler words which have come down from the Old English. This does not mean that these words are not so good or so beautiful as the Old English words. As we have seen, these words were borrowed by our language to express ideas for which no native word could be found. But a person who deliberately chooses long Latin words because they are longer, and, as he thinks, sound grander, is sure to write a poor style. A saying which is perhaps becoming almost as "hackneyed" as some of the quotations already mentioned in this chapter is, "The style is the man." This means that if a person thinks clearly and sincerely he will write clearly and sincerely. If a person's thoughts are lofty, he will naturally find dignified words to express them. No good writer will deliberately choose "high-sounding" words to express his ideas. All young writers should avoid what have been called "flowery flourishes."

Again, young writers should be very careful not to use really foreign words to express an idea for which we have already a good word in English. Sometimes the foreign word comes first to our pen, but this may be because of the bad habit which has grown up of using these words in place of the English words which are quite as correct and expressive. Sometimes, on the other hand, the foreign word expresses a shade of meaning which the English word misses, and then, of course, it is quite right to use it. For instance, amour propre is not in any way better than "self-love," betise than "stupid action," camaraderie than "comradeship," savoir faire than "knowledge of the world," chef d'oeuvre than "masterpiece," and so on.

One disadvantage of borrowing such words is that they often come to be used in a different sense from their use in their native language; and people with an imperfect knowledge of these languages will say rather vulgar or shocking things when using them in the English manner in those languages. Thus, to speak of a person of a certain "calibre" in French is exceedingly vulgar; and refined people do not use the word chic as freely as the English use of it would suggest. Examples of foreign words which we could hardly replace by English expressions are blase, tete-a-tete, brusque, bourgeois, deshabille. These have been borrowed, just as words have been borrowed all through its history, by the English language to fill gaps. They have really become English words. But there are many foreign expressions now scattered freely through newspapers the sense of which can only be plain to those who have had a classical education. Unfortunately it is only the minority of readers who have had this. The effect is to make whole passages unintelligible or only half intelligible to the majority of readers. This is not writing good English. Thus people will write le tout Paris instead of "all Paris," memoires pour servir instead of "documents," ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores for "more Irish than the Irish." Such phrases are quite unsuitable to the general reader, and as perfect equivalents can be found in English, there would be no point in using them, even if writing for a learned society.

Modern English, and especially colloquial English, has borrowed a great deal from the American way of speaking English. The people of the United States, though their language is that of the mother-country, have modified it so that it is, as it were, a mirror of the difference between American and English life. In America there is more hurry and bustle and less dignity. It is this difference which makes Americans and the American way of speaking appear interesting and piquant to English people. But this is no good reason for the adoption of American mannerisms into the English language. A typically American word is boom, meaning a sudden coming into popularity of something. Thus one may speak of a "boom" in motors, and the word has become quite common in English; but it is not beautiful, and we could easily have done without it. Words which sound quite natural when used by Americans often seem unnecessarily "slangy" when used by English people.

* * * * *

THE END