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On the Study of Words

R >> Richard C Trench >> On the Study of Words




The rapidity with which this comes to pass is nowhere more striking
than in the names of political or religious parties, and above all in
names of slight or of contempt. Thus Baxter tells us that when he wrote
there already existed two explanations of 'Roundhead,' [Footnote:
_Narrative of my Life and Times_, p. 34; 'The original of which name is
not certainly known. Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly
wore short hair, and the King's party long hair; some say, it was
because the Queen at Stafford's trial asked who that _round-headed_ man
was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.'] a word not nearly
so old as himself. How much has been written about the origin of the
German 'ketzer' (= our 'heretic'), though there can scarcely be a doubt
that the Cathari make their presence felt in this word. [Footnote: See
on this word Kluge's _Etym. Dict_.] Hardly less has been disputed about
the French 'cagot.' [Footnote: The word meant in old times 'a leper';
see Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, also _Athenceum_, No. 2726.] Is 'Lollard,'
or 'Loller' as we read it in Chaucer, from 'lollen,' to chaunt? that is,
does it mean the chaunting or canting people? or had the Lollards their
title from a principal person among them of this name, who suffered at
the stake?--to say nothing of 'lolium,' found by some in the name,
these men being as _tares_ among the wholesome wheat. [Footnote: Hahn,
_Ketzer im Mittelalter_ vol. ii. p. 534.] The origin of 'Huguenot' as
applied to the French Protestants, was already a matter of doubt and
discussion in the lifetime of those who first bore it. A distinguished
German scholar has lately enumerated fifteen explanations which have
been offered of the word. [Footnote: Mahn, _Etymol. Untersuch_. p. 92.
Littré, who has found the word in use as a Christian name two centuries
before the Reformation, has no doubt that here is the explanation of it.
At any rate there is here what explodes a large number of the proposed
explanations, as for instance that Huguenot is another and popular
shape of 'Eidgenossen.'] [How did the lay sisters in the Low Countries,
the 'Beguines' get their name? Many derivations have been suggested,
but the most probable account is that given in Ducange, that the
appellative was derived from 'le Bègue' the Stammerer, the nickname of
Lambert, a priest of Liège in the twelfth century, the founder of the
order. (See the document quoted in Ducange, and the 'New English
Dictionary' (s. v.).)] Were the 'Waldenses' so called from one Waldus,
to whom these 'Poor Men of Lyons' as they were at first called, owed
their origin? [Footnote: [It is not doubted now that the Waldenses got
their name from Peter Waldez or Valdo, a native of Lyons in the twelfth
century. Waldez was a rich merchant who sold his goods and devoted his
wealth to furthering translations of the Bible, and to the support of a
set of poor preachers. For an interesting account of the Waldenses see
in the _Guardian_, Aug. 18, 1886, a learned review by W. A. B. C. of
_Histoire Littéraire des Vaudois_, par E. Montet.]] As little can any
one tell us with any certainty why the 'Paulicians' and the 'Paterines'
were severally named as they are; or, to go much further back, why the
'Essenes' were so called. [Footnote: Lightfoot, _On the Colossians_, p.
114 sqq.] From whence had Johannes Scotus, who anticipated so much of
the profoundest thinking of later times, his title of 'Erigena,' and
did that title mean Irish-born, or what? [Footnote: [There is no doubt
whatever that _Erigena_ in this case means 'Irish-born.']] 'Prester
John' was a name given in the Middle Ages to a priest-king, real or
imaginary, of wide dominion in Central Asia. But whether there was ever
actually such a person, and what was intended by his name, is all
involved in the deepest obscurity. How perplexing are many of the
Church's most familiar terms, and terms the oftenest in the mouth of
her children; thus her 'Ember' days; her 'Collects'; [Footnote: Freeman,
_Principles of Divine Service_, vol. i. p. 145.] her 'Breviary'; her
'Whitsunday'; [Footnote: See Skeat, s. v.] the derivation of 'Mass'
itself not being lifted above all question. [Footnote: Two at least of
the ecclesiastical terms above mentioned are no longer perplexing, and
are quite lifted above dispute: _ember_ in 'Ember Days' represents
Anglo-Saxon _ymb-ryne_, literally 'a running round, circuit, revolution,
anniversary'; see Skeat (s. v.); and _Whitsunday_ means simply 'White
Sunday,' Anglo-Saxon _hwita Sunnan-daeg_.] As little can any one inform
us why the Roman military standard on which Constantine inscribed the
symbols of the Christian faith should have been called 'Labarum.' And
yet the inquiry began early. A father of the Greek Church, almost a
contemporary of Constantine, can do no better than suggest that
'labarum' is equivalent to 'laborum,' and that it was so called because
in that victorious standard was the end of _labour_ and toil (finis
laborum)! [Footnote: Mahn, _Elym. Untersuch_. p. 65; cf. Kurtz,
_Kirchen-geschichte_, 3rd edit. p. 115.] The 'ciborium' of the early
Church is an equal perplexity; [Footnote: The word is first met in
Chrysostom, who calls the silver models of the temple at Ephesus (Acts
xix, 24) [Greek: mikra kiboria]. [A primary meaning of the Greek
[Greek: kiborion] was the cup-like seed-vessel of the Egyptian water-
lily, see _Dict. of Christian Antiquities_, p. 65.]] and 'chapel'
(capella) not less. All later investigations have failed effectually to
dissipate the mystery of the 'Sangraal.' So too, after all that has
been written upon it, the true etymology of 'mosaic' remains a question
still.

And not in Church matters only, but everywhere, we meet with the same
oblivion resting on the origin of words. The Romans, one might
beforehand have assumed, must have known very well why they called
themselves 'Quirites,' but it is manifest that this knowledge was not
theirs. Why they were addressed as Patres Conscripti is a matter
unsettled still. They could have given, one would think, an explanation
of their naming an outlying conquered region a 'province.'
Unfortunately they offer half a dozen explanations, among which we may
make our choice. 'German' and 'Germany' were names comparatively recent
when Tacitus wrote; but he owns that he has nothing trustworthy to say
of their history; [Footnote: _Germania_, 2.] later inquirers have not
mended the matter, [Footnote: Pott, _Etymol. Forsch._ vol. ii. pt. 2,
pp. 860-872.]

The derivation of words which are the very key to the understanding of
the Middle Ages, is often itself wrapt in obscurity. On 'fief' and
'feudal' how much has been disputed. [Footnote: Stubbs, _Constitutional
History of England_, vol. i. p. 251.] 'Morganatic' marriages are
recognized by the public law of Germany, but why called 'morganatic' is
unsettled still. [Footnote: [There is no mystery about this word; see a
good account of the term in Skeat's _Diet_. (s. v.).]] Gypsies in
German are 'zigeuner'; but when this is resolved into 'zichgauner,' or
roaming thieves, the explanation has about as much scientific value as
the not less ingenious explanation of 'Saturnus' as satur annis,
[Footnote: Cicero, _Nat. Deor._ ii. 25.] of 'severitas' as saeva
veritas (Augustine); of 'cadaver' as composed of the first syllables of
_ca_ro _da_ta, _ver_mibus. [Footnote: Dwight, _Modern Philology_, lst
series, p. 288.] Littré has evidently little confidence in the
explanation commonly offered of the 'Salic' law, namely, that it was
the law which prevailed on the banks of the Saal. [Footnote: For a full
and learned treatment of the various derivations of 'Mephistopheles'
which have been proposed, and for the first appearance of the name in
books, see Ward's _Marlowe's Doctor Faustus_, p. 117.]

And the modern world has unsolved riddles innumerable of like kind. Why
was 'Canada' so named? And whence is 'Yankee' a title little more than
a century old? having made its first appearance in a book printed at
Boston, U.S., 1765. Is 'Hottentot' an African word, or, more probably,
a Dutch or Low Frisian; and which, if any, of the current explanations
of it should be accepted? [Footnote: See _Transactions of the
Philological Society_, 1866, pp. 6-25.] Shall we allow Humboldt's
derivation of 'cannibal,' and find 'Carib' in it? [Footnote: See Skeat,
s. v.] Whence did the 'Chouans,' the insurgent royalists of Brittany,
obtain their title? When did California obtain its name, and why?
Questions such as these, to which we can give no answer or a very
doubtful one, might be multiplied without end. Littré somewhere in his
great Dictionary expresses the misgiving with which what he calls
'anecdotal etymology' fills him; while yet it is to this that we are
continually tempted here to have recourse.

But consider now one or two words which have _not_ lost the secret of
their origin, and note how easily they might have done this, and having
once lost, how unlikely it is that any searching would have recovered
it. The traveller Burton tells us that the coarse cloth which is the
medium of exchange, in fact the money of Eastern Africa, is called
'merkani.' The word is a native corruption of 'American,' the cloth
being manufactured in America and sold under this name. But suppose a
change should take place in the country from which this cloth was
brought, men little by little forgetting that it ever had been imported
from America, who then would divine the secret of the word? So too, if
the tradition of the derivation of 'paraffin' were once let go and lost,
it would, I imagine, scarcely be recovered. Mere ingenuity would
scarcely divine the fact that a certain oil was so named because 'parum
affinis,' having little affinity which chemistry could detect, with any
other substance.

So, too, it is not very probable that the derivation of 'licorice,'
once lost, would again be recovered. It would exist, at the best, but
as one guess among many. There can be no difficulty about it when we
find it spelt, as we do in Fuller, 'glycyrize or liquoris.'

Those which I cite are but a handful of examples of the way in which
words forget, or under predisposing conditions might forget, the
circumstances of their birth. Now if we could believe in any merely
_arbitrary_ words, standing in connexion with nothing but the mere
lawless caprice of some inventor, the impossibility of tracing their
derivation would be nothing strange. Indeed it would be lost labour to
seek for the parentage of all words, when many probably had none. But
there is no such thing; there is no word which is not, as the Spanish
gentleman loves to call himself, an 'hidalgo,' or son of something.
[Footnote: The Spanish _hijo dalgo_, a gentleman, means a son of wealth,
or an estate; see Stevens' _Dict_. (s. v.)] All are embodiments, more
or less successful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact; or if of more
fortuitous birth, still they attach themselves somewhere to the already
subsisting world of words and things, [Footnote: J. Grimm, in an
interesting review of a little volume dealing with what the Spaniards
call 'Germanía' with no reference to Germany, the French 'argot,' and
we 'Thieves' Language,' finds in this language the most decisive
evidence of this fact (_Kleine Schrift_. vol. iv. p. 165): Der
nothwendige Zusammenhang aller Sprache mit Ueberlieferung zeigt sich
auch hier; kaum ein Wort dieser Gaunermundart scheint leer erfunden,
und Menschen eines Gelichters, das sich sonst kein Gewissen aus Lügen
macht, beschämen manchen Sprachphilosophen, der von Erdichtung einer
allgemeinen Sprache geträumt hat. Van Helmont indeed, a sort of modern
Paracelsus, is said to have _invented_ the word 'gas'; but it is
difficult to think that there was not a feeling here after 'geest' or
'geist,' whether he was conscious of this or not.] and have their point
of contact with it and departure from it, not always discoverable, as
we see, but yet always existing. [Footnote: Some will remember here the
old dispute--Greek I was tempted to call it, but in one shape or
another it emerges everywhere--whether words were imposed on things
[Greek: thesei] or [Greek: physei], by arbitrary arrangement or by
nature. We may boldly say with Bacon, Vestigia certe rationis verba
sunt, and decide in favour of nature. If only they knew their own
history, they could always explain, and in most cases justify, their
existence. See some excellent remarks on this subject by Renan, _De
l'Origine du Langage_, pp. 146-149; and an admirable article on 'Slang'
in the _Times_, Oct. 18, 1864.] And thus, when a word entirely refuses
to tell us anything about itself, it must be regarded as a riddle which
no one has succeeded in solving, a lock of which no man has found the
key--but still a riddle which has a solution, a lock for which there is
a key, though now, it may be, irrecoverably lost. And this difficulty--
it is oftentimes an impossibility--of tracing the genealogy even of
words of a very recent formation, is, as I observed, a strong argument
for the birth of the most notable of these out of the heart and from
the lips of the people. Had they first appeared in books, something in
the context would most probably explain them. Had they issued from the
schools of the learned, these would not have failed to leave a
recognizable stamp and mark upon them.

There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity may rest on a new word,
or a word employed in a new sense. It may tell the story of its birth,
of the word or words which compose it, may so bear these on its front,
that there can be no question here, while yet its purpose and intention
may be hopelessly hidden from our eyes. The secret once lost, is not
again to be recovered. Thus no one has called, or could call, in
question the derivation of 'apocryphal' that it means 'hidden away.'
When, however, we begin to inquire why certain books which the Church
either set below the canonical Scriptures, or rejected altogether, were
called 'apocryphal' then a long and doubtful discussion commences. Was
it because their origin was _hidden_ to the early Fathers of the Church,
and thus reasonable suspicions of their authenticity entertained?
[Footnote: Augustine (_De Civ. Dei_, xv. 23): Apocrypha nuncupantur eo
quod eorum occulta origo non claruit Patribus. Cf. _Con. Faust_, xi.
2.] Or was it because they were mysteriously kept out of sight and
_hidden_ by the heretical sects which boasted themselves in their
exclusive possession? Or was it that they were books not laid up in the
Church chest, but _hidden away_ in obscure corners? Or were they books
_worthier to be hidden_ than to be brought forward and read to the
faithful? [Footnote: For still another reason for the epithet
'apocryphal' see Skeat's _Etym. Dict_.]--for all these explanations
have been offered, and none with such superiority of proof on its side
as to have deprived others of all right to be heard. In the same way
there is no question that 'tragedy' is the song of the goat; but why
this, whether because a goat was the prize for the best performers of
that song in which the germs of Greek tragedy lay, or because the first
actors were dressed like satyrs in goatskins, is a question which will
now remain unsettled to the end. [Footnote: See Bentley, _Works_, vol.
i. p. 337.] You know what 'leonine' verses are; or, if you do not, it
is very easy to explain. They are Latin hexameters into which an
internal rhyme has forced its way. The following, for example, are all
'leonine':

Qui pingit _florem_ non pingit floris _odorem_:
Si quis det _mannos_, ne quaere in dentibus _annos_.
Una avis in _dextra_ melior quam quattuor _extra_.

The word has plainly to do with 'leo' in some shape or other; but are
these verses leonine from one Leo or Leolinus, who first composed them?
or because, as the lion is king of beasts, so this, in monkish
estimation, was the king of metres? or from some other cause which none
have so much as guessed at? [Footnote: See my _Sacred Latin Poetry_,
3rd edit. p. 32.] It is a mystery which none has solved. That frightful
system of fagging which made in the seventeenth century the German
Universities a sort of hell upon earth, and which was known by the name
of 'pennalism,' we can scarcely disconnect from 'penna'; while yet this
does not help us to any effectual scattering of the mystery which rests
upon the term. [Footnote: See my _Gustavus Adolphus in Germany_, p. 131.
[_Pennal_ meant 'a freshman,' a term given by the elder students in
mockery, because the student in his first year was generally more
industrious, and might be often seen with his _pennal_ or pen-case
about him.]] The connexion of 'dictator' with 'dicere', 'dictare,' is
obvious; not so the reason why the 'dictator' obtained his name.
'Sycophant' and 'superstition' are words, one Greek and one Latin, of
the same character. No one doubts of what elements they are composed;
and yet their secret has been so lost, that, except as a more or less
plausible guess, it can never now be recovered. [Footnote: For a good
recapitulation of what best has been written on 'superstitio' see Pott,
_Etym. Forschungen_, vol. ii. p. 921.]

But I must conclude. I may seem in this present lecture a little to
have outrun your needs, and to have sometimes moved in a sphere too
remote from that in which your future work will lie. And yet it is in
truth very difficult to affirm of any words, that they do not touch us,
do not in some way bear upon our studies, on what we shall hereafter
have to teach, or shall desire to learn; that there are any conquests
which language makes that concern only a select few, and may be
regarded indifferently by all others. For it is here as with many
inventions in the arts and luxuries of life; which, being at the first
the exclusive privilege and possession of the wealthy and refined,
gradually descend into lower strata of society, until at length what
were once the elegancies and luxuries of a few, have become the
decencies, well-nigh the necessities, of all. Not otherwise there are
words, once only on the lips of philosophers or theologians, of the
deeper thinkers of their time, or of those directly interested in their
speculations, which step by step have come down, not debasing
themselves in this act of becoming popular, but training and elevating
an ever-increasing number of persons to enter into their meaning, till
at length they have become truly a part of the nation's common stock,
'household words,' used easily and intelligently by nearly all.

I cannot better conclude this lecture than by quoting a passage, one
among many, which expresses with a rare eloquence all I have been
labouring to utter; for this truth, which many have noticed, hardly any
has set forth with the same fulness of illustration, or the same sense
of its importance, as the author of _The Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences_. 'Language,' he observes, 'is often called an instrument of
thought, but it is also the nutriment of thought; or rather, it is the
atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium essential to the activity
of our speculative powers, although invisible and imperceptible in its
operation; and an element modifying, by its qualities and changes, the
growth and complexion of the faculties which it feeds. In this way the
influence of preceding discoveries upon subsequent ones, of the past
upon the present, is most penetrating and universal, although most
subtle and difficult to trace. The most familiar words and phrases are
connected by imperceptible ties with the reasonings and discoveries of
former men and distant times. Their knowledge is an inseparable part of
ours: the present generation inherits and uses the scientific wealth of
all the past. And this is the fortune, not only of the great and rich
in the intellectual world, of those who have the key to the ancient
storehouses, and who have accumulated treasures of their own, but the
humblest inquirer, while he puts his reasonings into words, benefits by
the labours of the greatest. When he counts his little wealth, he finds
he has in his hands coins which bear the image and superscription of
ancient and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in virtue of this
possession acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge within his
reach, which none could ever have attained to, if it were not that the
gold of truth once dug out of the mine circulates more and more widely
among mankind.'




LECTURE VI.

ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS.


Synonyms, and the study of synonyms, with the advantages to be derived
from a careful noting of the distinction between them, constitute the
subject with which in my present Lecture I shall deal. But what, you
may ask, is meant when, comparing certain words with one another, we
affirm of them that they are synonyms? We imply that, with great and
essential resemblances of meaning, they have at the same time small,
subordinate, and partial differences--these differences being such as
either originally, and on the strength of their etymology, were born
with them; or differences which they have by usage acquired; or such as,
though nearly or altogether latent now, they are capable of receiving
at the hands of wise and discreet masters of language. Synonyms are
thus words of like significance in the main; with a large extent of
ground which they occupy in common, but also with something of their
own, private and peculiar, which they do not share with one another.
[Footnote: The word 'synonym' only found its way into the English
language about the middle of the seventeenth century. Its recent
incoming is marked by the Greek or Latin termination which for a while
it bore; Jeremy Taylor writing 'synonymon,' Hacket 'synonymum,' and
Milton (in the plural) 'synonyma.' Butler has 'synonymas.' On the
subject of this chapter see Marsh, _Lectures on the English Language_,
New York, 1860, p. 571, sqq.]

So soon as the term 'synonym' is defined thus, it will be at once
perceived by any acquainted with its etymology, that, strictly speaking,
it is a misnomer, and is given, with a certain inaccuracy and
impropriety, to words which stand in such relations as I have just
traced to one another; since in strictness of speech the terms,
'synonyms' and 'synonymous' applied to words, affirm of them that they
cover not merely almost, but altogether, the same extent of meaning,
that they are in their signification perfectly identical and
coincident; circles, so to speak, with the same centre and the same
circumference. The term, however, is not ordinarily so used; it
evidently is not so by such as undertake to trace out the distinction
between synonyms; for, without venturing to deny that there may be such
perfect synonyms, words, that is, with this absolute coincidence of the
one with the other, yet these could not be the objects of any such
discrimination; since, where no real difference exists, it would be
lost labour and the exercise of a perverse ingenuity to attempt to draw
one out.

There are, indeed, those who assert that words in one language are
never exactly synonymous, or in all respects commensurate, with words
in another; that, when they are compared with one another, there is
always something more, or something less, or something different, in
one as compared with the other, which hinders this complete equivalence.
And, those words being excepted which designate objects in their nature
absolutely incapable of a more or less and of every qualitative
difference, I should be disposed to consider other exceptions to this
assertion exceedingly rare. 'In all languages whatever,' to quote
Bentley's words, 'a word of a moral or of a political significance,
containing several complex ideas arbitrarily joined together, has
seldom any correspondent word in any other language which extends to
all these ideas.' Nor is it hard to trace reasons sufficient why this
should be so. For what, after all, is a word, but the enclosure for
human use of a certain district, larger or smaller, from the vast
outfield of thought or feeling or fact, and in this way a bringing of
it under human cultivation, a rescuing of it for human uses? But how
extremely unlikely it is that nations, drawing quite independently of
one another these lines of enclosure, should draw them in all or most
cases exactly in the same direction, neither narrower nor wider; how
almost inevitable, on the contrary, that very often the lines should
not coincide--and this, even supposing no moral forces at work to
disturb the falling of the lines.

How immense and instructive a field of comparison between languages
does this fact lay open to us; while it is sufficient to drive a
translator with a high ideal of the task which he has undertaken well-
nigh to despair. For indeed in the transferring of any matter of high
worth from one language to another there are losses involved, which no
labour, no skill, no genius, no mastery of one language or of both can
prevent. The translator may have worthily done his part, may have
'turned' and not 'overturned' his original (St. Jerome complains that
in his time many _versiones_ deserved to be called _eversiones_
rather); he may have given the lie to the Italian proverb, 'Traduttori
Traditori,' or 'Translators Traitors,' men, that is, who do not
'render' but' surrender' their author's meaning, and yet for all this
the losses of which I speak will not have been avoided. Translations,
let them have been carried through with what skill they may, are, as
one has said, _belles infideles_ at the best.

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