Chapter II · THE FORMATION OF WORDS

The Blending of the Elements.

The haphazard and nondescript way in which all modern civilized languages grow produces some curious philological phenomena. We have spoken of many of the doublets, especially the French-Latin ones, the Old English-Scandinavian ones, and two Persian examples. Again, from the Persian word for turban, dulband, have come both turban and tulip, the flower named for its shape. Deck and thatch are the same Teutonic root coming through O. E. and Dutch respectively. The Persian shah, ruler, has come recently in this form, and in earlier days in the verb check. The Greek pandoura, through Italian and French, gives mandolin; through Italian, with Negro modifications, banjo.

Fighting against this tendency is a simplification, by which different foreign words assume the same form in English. Thus five distinct Latin words have entered English with the one form bay, and mean (1) the color of a horse (Lat. badius); (2) a kind of laurel (Lat. baca, a berry); (3) an inlet of the sea (Lat. baia); (4) a form of window (Lat. badere); (5) a bark of a dog (Lat. baubari). Gin, a drink, is from Lat. juniperus, whence also juniper; in cotton gin, it is from Lat. ingenium. The differing meanings of curry, yet, hue, lay, dam, main, swallow, and many others, come from different word-roots.

Words from classical sources are selected for various reasons. Some are to render scientific nomenclature more specific; some, to soften tabooed subjects (compare viscera, guts; perspire, sweat; abdomen, belly). Others survive through the surge and thunder of their word-music: the lines

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red

indicate the superiority in mere verbal tone of the classic over the native idiom. There is less excuse for the attempt to substitute classical vertigo for dizziness, coryza for cold, or urticaria for hives. This appears at its worst in the Bostonian reply, to “Have you eaten enough?” “Gastronomic satiety admonishes me that I have arrived at a state of deglutition consistent with dietetic satiety.” In American, this would be, “I have eaten enough.”

The place of native words in the language is a secure one. One-fourth of the whole task of expression in English is shouldered by nine native words:

and

be

have

it

of

the

to

will

you

These nine with thirty-four other native words form half of the words actually used in English speech:

about

all

as

at

but

can

come

day

dear

for

get

go

hear

her

if

in

me

much

not

on

one

say

she

so

that

these

they

this

though

time

we

with

write

your

Furthermore, in pairs of synonyms, one native, one classical in origin, the greater directness in the native words is striking. Compare fire, conflagration; bloody, sanguinary; stiff, rigid; fat, corpulent; sweat, perspire. On one occasion Samuel Johnson, the great Latinist, lapsed into native English: “It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.” After a moment’s reflection, he weakened this with the classical gloss, “It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.” There are imported words, however, which enter into the very warp and woof of the language: for instance, easy, large, sure, bet, boot, quiet, brace, peace, city, soldier, hour, move, turn, table, place, very, save, single, clear, plain. In some cases the foreign word has supplanted the native in general use; compare beautiful, fair; prosperity, speed; valley, dale; divide, cleave; forest, wold; fort, fastness; tremble, quake; joyous, blithe; mercury, quicksilver; mirror, looking-glass.

A class at Columbia was recently asked to select the 50 words of most basic importance in the expression of human life. From two lists prepared 78 words were finally selected; of these, 39 were French, and 35 Anglo-Saxon. A public-speaking club selected the 21 most beautiful words in English: of these 3 were Anglo-Saxon, 1 Scandinavian, 3 Latin, and 14 French.

Many modern words are blended of two or more languages. Classic prefixes are suffixes with native roots are found in co-worker, pro-German, re-birth, ante-room, superman, breakage, laughable, righteous, wreckage. Native prefixes and suffixes are blended with classic roots to form unruly, besiege, bashful, misplace, outcry, overcharge, outline, by-product, finest, forceful, napkin, beautiful, painting, statecraft, uncivil, overturn, understudy, relentless. Hybrids formed of native and classic roots are found in window-pane, table-cloth, faint-hearted, simple-minded, Saturday, birthplace, candlestick, staircase, grandstand, cocktail, fireplace, outrage.

One remarkable word has recently been unearthed, a hybrid made of elements from five different languages. The word is remacadamizing, which may be analyzed into re (Latin), mac (Celtic), adam (Hebrew), ize (Greek) and ing (native English.) It is a good vigorous word too, despite its mottled ancestry.

Word Creation.

One of the forms of words known to all languages staggers under the Greek term onomatopoetic, recently rechristened echoic—a word expressing a sound in Nature. The hiss of steam, the clang of a bell, the crash of falling timbers,—these words are echoic. Words like papa, mama, baby, probably of this type, are found in practically all languages. Bomb, murmur, cuckoo, go back through French to Latin, and to an antiquity hard to determine. Among echoic words originating independently in English are: buzz, fizz, purr, quack, hiss, boom, gibber, jabber, giggle, titter, whirr, ding-dong, hee-haw, hoot, chatter. The theory that this is responsible for all words has long been abandoned; yet there is a uniform overtone in a group of words like bosh, slosh, squash, plush, hush, mush, flush, blush; a related quality in crash, splash, smash, hash, trash, clash, dash, rash. Certain verbal sounds get associated with certain emotions; and out of the casual word creations, commencing as slang, come such words as the following list of recent additions to the first volume of the Oxford dictionary, all from the b’s: bamboozle, bang, bilk, blab, blabber, blare, blear, blight, blob, blizzard, blot, blotch, blubber, bluff, blunder, blunt, blur, blurt, bluster, bogus, boom, bore, bosh, bother, brash, brunt, bub, bump, bum, bunch, bungle, burr, bustle, buzz. Nonsense verse contributes here; but artificial word additions, such as Gelett Burgess’ fuddy for untidy, bimped for jilted, snosh for vain talk, cofle for “to try to find out a person’s name without asking,” may have a harder time horning into the language. The verb to horn in, a fine figurative phrase from the cattle country, is still ranked as slang; but it is beginning to receive academic approval.

Sometimes such word-formations are meant humorously, sometimes seriously. Thus from chimpanzee came humanzee, to describe one especial animal. Travelogue, from travel and dialogue, has more serious intention. Light recent creations are swellegant, yellocution, versiflage, alcoholiday, flumonia. The origin of these is obvious; but many accepted words in the language have roots as yet undiscovered, and may have come similarly. Dog came in before the Conquest, without known ancestry; the Teutonic name appears in hound, while the Latin canis furnishes canine. Girl, boy, lad, lass, big, bad, pig, cut, entered before Chaucer; bet, jump, dodge, before 1600; pun, in the 17th century; fun, bore, slang, fudge, in the 18th; rollicking, loaf (verb) in the 19th; the modern stunt and hooch are similar.

Another source of increase to the speech is the doublets, already mentioned. Other examples are of, off; through, thorough; porridge, pottage; shade, shed, shadow; strap, strop; courtesy, curtsey; fantasy, fancy; corpse, corps; posy, poesy.

The most prolific source has been the combination of two or more elements into one word. Almost back to the forgotten beginnings of our speech go such words as barn (O. E. bere-aern, barley-place); lord (hlaf-weard, bread-keeper); gossip (god-sibbe, good kinsman); hussy (house-wife); gospel (god-spell, good narrative); world (wer-eld, man age); sheriff (scir-gerefa, shire reeve); daisy (daeges-eage, day’s eye). The Elizabethan age was rich in compounds, such as freshman, huntsman, bookseller, keyhole, bookworm, potluck, and horseplay. Shakespeare offered honey-heave, pity-pleading, wind-changing, carry-tale, and others, which have not found permanent lodgings in the language. Others which have endured are rawboned, crestfallen, untutored, high-born, red-hot, blood-stained, mouth-filling, heart-ache, hairbreadth, break neck, even-handed, moss-grown. Among those which did not survive are hotspur, aleknight, maltworm, hangby, crackhemp, findfault (but compare fault-finder), makepiece, tearsheet, ticklebrain, tosspot, wantwit. A great stock of terms of contempt have survived, such as killjoy, scarecrow, pickpocket, daredevil, spitfire, hangdog, lickspittle, makeshift, skinflint, slipshod, turncoat, telltale. Modern equivalents are speak-easy, bootlegger, and juvenile tattletale and copycat. Smut-hound, dope-fiend, and other modern mixtures have not yet acquired lasting dignity.

The English settlers in America used this method in naming many natural objects: compare bullfrog, canvas-back, lightning-bug, mud-hen, cat-bird, razor-back, garter-snake, groundhog, live-oak, turkey-gobbler, pokeweed, copperhead, eelgrass, reedbird, eggplant, peanut, bluegrass, Junebug. Recent American blends include pussyfoot, skyscraper, bell-hop, hayseed, shin-plaster, bucket-shop, lounge-lizard, rum-hound, and many other -lizard and -hound blends.

Prefixes and suffixes are taken from all speeches. Native prefixes include mis-, un-, after-, be-, for-, man-; suffixes, -ness, -less, -ly, -ish, -er, -y, -head, -hood. With these may be used the Latin pro-, post-, inter-, ante-, pre-, co-, sub-, super-, -ation, -ative; French dis-, en-, -age, -al, -ment, -able, -ous, -ose, -ese, -gy, -ate, -ard, -esque, -ade, many of these borrowed by the French; Greek a- (without), hyper-, nec-, pseudo-, arche-, -ize, -ist, -ism, -ite, -itis; Scandinavian -ling, and others listed; Flemish -kin. Hundreds of compounds made from these have failed to survive; this is especially true of those made with native prefixes and suffixes. Wanton is the only word preserving the prefix wan-, once common in such combinations as wanthrift, extravagance; wanhap, misfortune; wanlust, languor; wanwit, folly; wantrust, lack of confidence; wantruth, falsehood; wanchance, ill-luck. Blameful, crimeful, dareful, deathful, ruthful, all from Shakespeare, are only a few of the -ful compounds that have died; aidless, bragless, heirless, effectless, also from Shakespeare, are four out of many more that have gone. Gainsay alone lives out of gainscope, gainstand, gainstrive, etc.; laughing-stock is the one relict of gazing-stock, jesting-stock, mocking-stock, etc. Five only of the -worthy adjectives (blameworthy, etc.) remain. Most of the -th nouns are gone: while keeping warmth, health, growth, wealth, and height (often pronounced heighth still) we have surrendered lowth, greenth, coolth, illth, spilth, etc. More of the classic prefixes and suffixes have taken root; there are five hundred words listed in the Oxford dictionary beginning with the Greek anti-. Only two tele- words were in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary; there are 130 in the present Oxford one. The Century Dictionary supplement contains 168 words beginning with auto-. The process is a living one: thus book-fiend, dope-fiend, chess-fiend, bomb-proof, fool-proof, near-beer, near-great, near-champion, are all recent inventions.

The shortening process gave, long ago, such words as van (from vanguard), van (caravan), patter (pater noster), canter (Canterbury gallop), wig (periwig), cheat (escheat), wag (waghalter), spend (dispend), rum (rumbullion), cab (cabriolet), still (distillery); the dandified speech of Queen Anne’s day gave mob (mobile vulgus), blues (blue devils), etc. From other sources came recently chum (chamber fellow), photo (photograph), cycle and bike (bicycle), gas (gasoline), pants (pantaloons), and countless others.

Folk-Etymology.

The World War saw folk etymology at work among us, in fascinating ways. Thus Mouquet Farm was promptly re-christened Moo Cow Farm. The conversion of the warship Bellerophon into Bully Ruffian has long afforded amusement; similar naval perversions are Ariadne into Harry Annie, Hecate into He Cat. Mistaken folk analogies are responsible for the conversion of the singular pease (compare peascod) into a pea, and for edit, rove, hawk (verb), beg, asset, vamp, burgle, launder (verb), jell, henpeck, and sunburn (both verbs).

Often it is an attempt to convert unfamiliar words into familiar, by altering the original spelling. Thus Milton’s sovran, by the influence of reign, became sovereign; cold-slaw came, not from cold, but from Dutch kool, cabbage. Blunderbuss, also of Dutch origin, came from donderbuss; isinglass, influenced by English glass, goes back to Dutch huysenblas, sturgeon-bladder. Country-dance was once contre-dance (from contre, opposite). Pick-ax came, not from ax, but from Fr. piquois. Barberry began as Lat. berberis, not kin to berry; gilly-flower from Fr. girofle, ultimately to Gr. karuophullon, nutleaf. Three words have been pulled toward the flower rose: primrose (Fr. primerole, Lat. primula de ver, first flower of spring); tuberose (Lat. tuberosa, tuberous); rosemary, (Lat. ros marinus, sea-dew). Similarly mushroom has nothing to do with room, but comes from O. Fr. mouscheron, from mousse, moss.

Animal names show the same trait. Mongoose is from native mangus, not kin to goose; muskrat is from Algonquin muskwessu. Titmouse has no more relation to mouse, but its second syllable derives from M. E. mose, O. E. mase, a name for several kinds of birds. Cray-fish and crawfish came into English as crevice from the same word in O. Fr.; the first syllable is kin to crab, the second has no original connection with fish. Often popular misreading adds an unnecessary second element to the word. The O. E. bran and Norse hreinn, reindeer, by analogy to the rein of a harness became reindeer, or literally deer-deer. The grey in greyhound is the name for a dog; by analogy to the color, we have the present form, which is literally dog-dog. Cot, from Hindustani knat, bedstead, is joined often into cot-bed, literally bed-bed. Cellar in saltcellar meant salt-receptacle (Lat. salarius, salt-receptacle; the modern word is literally salt-salt-receptacle). Turtle, in turtle-dove, meant dove; our compound is literally dove-dove. O. E. samblind, half-blind (from Lat. semi-, half) gave rise to sand-blind, and in Shakespeare to the facetious stoneblind and high-gravel-blind. Corporal gets its spelling from a popular error; properly from Lat. caporalis, from caput, head, it was connected with corps, from Lat. corpus, and so grew to its present form.

At times it has been the mistaken zeal of scholars that has led the word astray. Thus island (M. E. iland, water-land) was spelled island in the attempt to connect it with isle, from Lat. insula, island; rhyme (E. rime) was spelled to connect it with rhythm. The ending -gue, proper in French terms like vague, vogue, catalogue, was applied erroneously to tongue and rogue (M. E. tonge and 16th Cent. roge); although it has not survived in dogue and kingue. The initial wh- in who and whom is responsible for whole (O. E. hal) and whore (M. E. hore). Thus donkey is modelled from the color dun after monkey, parsnip after turnip, etc.

Some Figures of Syntax.

At times modern word usage comes from the effect of some highly imaginative process, poetic in its origin. Thus the meaning of a word is often shifted subtly. The Lat. horridus means rough, bristly, shaggy; hispidus was almost a synonym. The English horrid and hideous have shifted to mean that which has the psychological effect of making a person rough and bristly, causing what is called goose-flesh, or making the hair stand on end. Superb, from Lat. superbus, proud (compare Tarquinius Superbus) means that worthy of pride. The adjectives in sweet expression and grim determination have shifted from the active subject to the effect on the passive object. A deep thinker, a solid reasoner, a fluent speaker have brought the result of the activity back as a modifier of the activity; meaning literally one who thinks deep things, one who reasons solid things, one who speaks flowing speech.

Man thought first in concrete things: when it became necessary to coin words for vaguer abstractions, he used some familiar concrete term. Thus most words expressing divisions of time have roots expressing physical facts at the bottom: minute (Lat. minutus, small); second (Med. Lat. secunda minuta, second minute, or a smaller subdivision); week (underlying meaning probably change); month (moon); year (underlying meaning probably spring); season (Lat. satio, sowing); period (Gr. periodos, a circle). The same thing is true of psychical terms in general. Intellect is from Lat. inter-legere, to choose between; perceive and comprehend mean literally to seize, to grasp. The process is more obvious in using mental grasp and the slang to catch on. Ruminate refers to the cud-chewing of cows; brood, to meditate, goes back to sit on eggs; cogitate means originally to mix together; ponder, Lat. pondere, to weight; deliberate (Lat. libra, scales); reflect (Lat. reflectere, to bend back); calculate (Lat. calculus, pebble, from calx, lime); investigate (Lat. vestigium, foot-print) illustrate this further.

Moral conceptions illustrate the same process. Right and wrong meant in their origins straight and crooked (compare right angle, right away, and the verb wring, to twist). The colloquial straight and crooked hark back to the earlier idea, with new moral application. The fundamental meaning of good is suitable; that of evil, excessive. Moral and ethical both go back to words meaning custom, or manners. True, in its original meaning, is related to the oak tree. Integrity means untouched (Lat. in, not, and tangere, to touch). Holy comes from O. E. halig, from hal, whole. Wicked was M. E. wikke, feeble, connected with weak. Virtue, from Lat. vir, man, meant manly physical strength. Character is from the similar Greek word meaning a tool for stamping or marking.

As physical facts alter, words are put to queer uses. Thus a university course ends with a commencement; a steamer sails; an airplane lands on the sea; a ship is manned with women. We have weekly journals (literally, weekly dailies, from Lat. diurnalis, daily). Black-berries are red when they are green. A manuscript (literally, hand-written) may be typewritten. Words come to the place where they mean the same as their negatives: as passive and impassive, ravel and unravel, valuable and invaluable.

Language, Emerson said, is fossil poetry. Words, says Santayana, are the tombs of ideas. These mental pictures, traced back to their origins, may be of astonishing vividness. Seminary meant originally seed-plot; stimulate is literally to goad on—though even goad has now lost its physical vigor. Sop, used now of a drunkard, meant in O. E. bread, then used for dipping into liquids. Cloak meant originally bell (Late Lat. cloca, bell, and huntsman’s cloak through similarity of shape). Daisy meant literally eye of day; aster, a star (Gr. aster, star; whence astronomy). Tansy comes from Gr. athanasia, deathlessness, immortality, a thought once applied to the plant; pansy derives from Fr. pensee, thought or remembrance. Geranium meant originally crane’s bill, from the shape of the seed; tulip goes back to the Persian word seen more clearly in turban, shape again determining the application to the flower. Sentimental associations in English appear clearly in lady-slipper, bleeding-heart, maiden-hair, heartsease. Some of these derivations are humorous in intent; as an artist’s easel (Ger. Esel, a donkey, because the easel bears burdens); cab from cabriolet, a little she-goat.

Figures of Nearness.

Many words grow from other words connected, closely or loosely, with the idea they represent. Thus, by a process of de-personization, we speak of a hunter as a nimrod, a teacher as a mentor, a wise man as a Nestor, a legislator as a solon, after definite individuals. Tongue acquires the wider meaning of language, as in “the English tongue.” Language itself is from Lat. lingua, tongue. Copper and nickel stand for small coins of those metals; bloodshed for destruction of life; reds, anarchists; the bench, the judges; the pulpit, the clergy; cockcrow, dawn. We say the kettle boils when we mean the water boils; we use youth for young people, salt and deep for ocean, and an author’s name for his works, as “I read Shakespeare.”

At times the shift is more disguised. Thus front is a long way from Lat. frons, the forehead. Book comes from O. E. boc, the beech-tree, the name of the material out of which books were first made. Similarly code is from Lat. codex, earlier caudex, tree-trunk; Bible from Gr. biblion, diminutive of biblos, inner bark of the papyrus; library from Lat. liber, book, originally bark of the tree. In a different way volume comes from Lat. volumen, roll, the form in which Roman records were kept. In the case of deer, the class name O. E. deor, wild beast, has come to apply to a special kind of beasts. The same is true of hound, originally the word for all dogs. In the case of rabbit, bird, and pig the word originally meaning the young of a species stands today for the whole species. This is being repeated today in the word chicken. There is no limit to the eccentricity of word creation.