English Past and Present Part 17

{245} [For another account of this word, approved by Dr. Murray, see _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 156.]

{246} ['Bliss' representing the old English _bliths_ or _blidhs_, blitheness, is really a quite distinct word from 'bless', standing for _blets_, old English _bletsian_ (=_bloedsian_, to consecrate with blood, _blod_), although the latter was by a folk-etymology very frequently spelt 'bliss'.]

{247} [But 'afraied' is the earliest form of the word (1350), the verb itself being at first spelt 'afray' (1325). N.E.D.]

{248} How close this relationship was once, not merely in respect of etymology, but also of significance, a pa.s.sage like this will prove: "Perchance, as vultures are said to smell the earthiness of a dying corpse; so this bird of prey [the evil spirit which personated Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii. 41] _resented_ a worse than earthly savor in the soul of Saul, as evidence of his death at hand". (Fuller, _The Profane State_, b. 5, c. 4.)

{249} [There is an unfortunate confusion here between 'heal' to make 'hale' or '[w]hole' (Anglo-Saxon _haelan_) and the old (and Provincial) English _hill_, to cover, _hilling_, covering, _h.e.l.lier_, a slater, akin to 'h.e.l.l', the covered place, 'helm'; Icelandic _hylja_, to cover.]

{250} [By a curious slip Dr. Trench here confounds 'recover', to recuperate or regain health (derived through old French _recovrer_ from Latin _recuperare_), with a totally distinct word _re-cover_, to cover or clothe over again, which comes from old French _covrir_, Latin _co-operire_. It is just the difference between 'recovering' a lost umbrella through the police and 'recovering' a torn one at a shop. I pointed this out to the author in 1869, and I think he altered the pa.s.sage in his later editions.]

{251} ['Island', though cognate with Anglo-Saxon _ea-land_ "water-land"

(German _ei-land_), is really identical with Anglo-Saxon _ig-land_, i.e. "isle-land", from _ig_, an island, the diminutive of which survives in _eyot_ or _ait_.]

{252} [The editor essayed to make a complete collection of this cla.s.s of words in his _Folk-etymology, a Dictionary of Words corrupted by False Derivation or Mistaken a.n.a.logy_, 1882, and more recently in a condensed form in _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, 1904.]

{253} Diez looks with much favour on this process, and calls it, ein sinnreiches mittel fremdlinge ganz heimisch zu machen.

{254} Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, xxii, 15, 28.

{255} [The Greek _pyramis_ probably represents the Egyptian _piri-m-uisi_ (Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, 358), or _pir-am-us_ (Brugsch, _Egypt under the Pharaohs_, i, 73), rather than _pi-ram_, 'the height' (Birch, _Bunsen's Egypt_, v, 763).]

{256} Tacitus, _Hist._ v. 2.

{257} Let me ill.u.s.trate this by further instances in a note. Thus ??t????, from which, through the Latin, our 'b.u.t.ter' has descended to us, is borrowed (Pliny, _H.N._ xxviii. 9) from a Scythian word, now to us unknown: yet it is sufficiently plain that the Greeks so shaped and spelt it as to contain apparent allusion to _cow_ and _cheese_; there is in ??t???? an evident feeling after ??? and t????. Bozra, meaning citadel in Hebrew and Phnician, and the name, no doubt, which the citadel of Carthage bore, becomes ???sa on Greek lips; and then the well known legend of the ox-hide was invented upon the name; not having suggested it, but being itself suggested by it. Herodian (v. 6) reproduces the name of the Syrian G.o.ddess Astarte in a shape that is significant also for Greek ears--?st??????, The Star-ruler, or Star-queen. When the apostate and h.e.l.lenizing Jews a.s.sumed Greek names, 'Eliakim' or "Whom G.o.d has set", became 'Alcimus' (??????) or The Strong (1 Macc. vii. 5). Latin examples in like kind are 'com_i_ssatio', spelt continually 'com_e_ssatio', and 'com_e_ssation' by those who sought to naturalize it in England, as though it were connected with 'comedo', to eat, being indeed the substantive from the verb 'comissari' (--????e??), to revel, as Plutarch, whose Latin is in general not very accurate, long ago correctly observed; and 'orichalc.u.m', spelt often '_au_richalc.u.m', as though it were a composite metal of mingled _gold_ and bra.s.s; being indeed the _mountain_ bra.s.s (??e??a????). The miracle play, which is 'mystere', in French, whence our English 'mystery' was originally written 'mistere', being properly derived from 'ministere', and having its name because the clergy, the _ministri_ Ecclesiae, conducted it. This was forgotten, and it then took its present form of 'mystery', as though so called because the mysteries of the faith were in it set out.

{258} We have here, in this bringing of the words by their supposed etymology together, the explanation of the fact that Spenser (_Fairy Queen_, i, 7, 44), Middleton (_Works_, vol. 5, pp. 524, 528, 538), and others employ 'Tartary' as equivalent to 'Tartarus'

or h.e.l.l.

{259} For a full discussion of this matter and fixing of the period at which 'sinfluot' became 'sundflut', see the _Theol. Stud. u.

Krit._ vol. ii, p. 613; and Delitzsch, _Genesis_, 2nd ed. vol. ii, p. 210.

{260} [The name of the small grape, originally _raisins de Corauntz_, was transferred to the _ribes_ in the sixteenth century.]

{261} Ben Jonson, _The New Inn_, Act i, Sc. i.

{262} [On the contrary, it is the modern "Welsh _rarebit_" which has been mistakenly evolved out of the older "Welsh _rabbit_" as I have shown in _Folk-Etymology_, p. 431. Grose has both forms in his _Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, 1785.]

{263} 'Leghorn' is sometimes quoted as an example of this; but erroneously; for, as Admiral Smyth has shown (_The Mediterranean_, p. 409) 'Livorno' is itself rather the modern corruption, and 'Ligorno' the name found on the earlier charts.

{264} Exactly the same happens in other languages; thus 'armbrust', a crossbow, _looks_ German enough, and yet has nothing to do with 'arm' or 'brust', being a contraction of 'arcubalista', but a contraction under these influences. As little has 'abenteuer'

anything to do with 'abend' or 'theuer', however it may seem to be connected with them, being indeed the Provencal 'adventura'. And 'weissagen' in its earlier forms had nothing in common with 'sagen'.

{265} [So Diez. But Prof. Skeat and Scheler see no reason why it should not be direct from French _refuser_ and Low Latin _refusare_, from _refusus_, rejected.]

{266} It is upon this word that De Quincey (_Life and Manners_, p. 70, American Ed.) says excellently well: "It is in fact by such corruptions, by off-sets upon an old stock, arising through ignorance or misp.r.o.nunciation originally, that every language is frequently enriched; and new modifications of thought, unfolding themselves in the progress of society, generate for themselves concurrently appropriate expressions.... It must not be allowed to weigh against a word once fairly naturalized by all, that originally it crept in upon an abuse or a corruption. Prescription is as strong a ground of legitimation in a case of this nature, as it is in law. And the old axiom is applicable--Fieri non debuit, factum valet. Were it otherwise, languages would be robbed of much of their wealth". [_Works_, vol. xiv., p. 201.]

{267} [The direct opposite is the fact. The French _contredanse_ was borrowed from the English 'country-dance'. See _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 153.]

{268} [These words are not identical. They were in use as distinct words in the fifteenth century. See N.E.D.]

{269} [Dr. Murray has shown that 'causeway' is not a corruption of 'causey' but a compound of that word with 'way'.]

{270} [Prof. Skeat has demonstrated that the supposed Greek 'rachitis', inflammation of the back, is an aetiological invention to serve as etymon of 'rickets', the condition of being rickety, a purely native word. See also _Folk-Etymology_, 312.]

{271} [See _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, p. 124.]

{272} _Phars._ vi. 720-830.

{273} Thus in a _Vocabulary_, 1475: Nigromansia dicitur divinatio facta _per nigros_.

{274} [Dyce believed that it was really thus derived and distinct from _pleurisy_, but it was evidently modelled upon that word (_Remarks on Editions of Shakespeare_, p. 218).]

{275} As 'orthography' itself means properly "_right_ spelling", it might be a curious question whether it is permissible to speak of an _incorrect_ _ortho_graphy, that is of a _wrong_ _right_-spelling.

The question which would be thus started is one of not unfrequent recurrence, and it is very worthy of observation how often, so soon as we take note of etymologies, this _contradictio in adjecto_ is found to occur. I will here adduce a few examples from the Greek, the Latin, the German, and from our own tongue.

Thus the Greeks having no convenient word to express a rider, apart from a rider _on a horse_, did not scruple to speak of the _horse_man (?ppe??) upon an _elephant_. They often allowed themselves in a like inaccuracy, where certainly there was no necessity; as in using ??d???? of the statue of a _woman_; where it would have been quite as easy to have used e???? or ??a?a. So too their 'table' (t??pe?a = tet??pe?a) involved probably the _four_ feet which commonly support one; yet they did not shrink from speaking of a _three_-footed table (t??p??? t??pe?a), in other words, a "_three_-footed _four_-footed"; much as though we should speak of a "_three_-footed _quadru_ped". Homer writes of a 'hecatomb' not of a _hundred_, but of twelve, oxen; and elsewhere of Hebe he says, in words not reproducible in English, ???ta?

??????e?. 'Tetrarchs' were often rulers of quite other than _fourth_ parts of a land. ???at?? had so come to stand for wine, without any thought more of its signifying originally the _unmingled_, that St. John speaks of ???at?? ?e?e?as???? (Rev.

xiv. 10), or the unmingled mingled. Boxes in which precious ointments were contained were so commonly of alabaster, that the name came to be applied to them whether they were so or not; and Theocritus celebrates "_golden_ alabasters". Cicero having to mention a water-clock is obliged to call it a _water_ _sun_dial (solarium ex aqua). Columella speaks of a "_vintage_ of honey"

(vindemia mellis), and Horace invites his friend to im_pede_, not his _foot_, but his head, with myrtle (_caput_ im_ped_ire myrto).

Thus too a German writer who desired to tell of the golden shoes with which the folly of Caligula adorned his horse could scarcely avoid speaking of _golden_ hoof-_irons_. The same inner contradiction is involved in such language as our own, a "_false_ _ver_dict", a "_steel_ _cuira.s.s_" ('coriacea' from corium, leather), "antics new" (Harrington's _Ariosto_), an "_erroneous_ _etymo_logy", a "_corn_ _chandler_"; that is, a "_corn_ _candle_-maker", "_rather_ _late_", 'rather' being the comparative of 'rathe', early, and thus "rather late" being indeed "more early late"; and in others.

{276} ['Siren' is now generally understood to have meant originally a songstress, from the root _svar_, to sing or sound, seen in _syrinx_, a flute, _su(r)-sur-us_, etc. See J. E. Harrison, _Myths of the Odyssey_, p. 175.]

{277} ['Chymist' seems to be the oldest form of the word in English; see N.E.D.]

{278} ???a, the name of Egypt; see Plutarch, _De Is. et Os._ c. 33.

{279} We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this error was, how long this confusion endured, of the way in which it was shared by the learned as well as the unlearned, in Milton's _Apology for Smectymnuus_, sect. 7, which everywhere presumes the ident.i.ty of the 'satyr' and the 'satirist'. It was Isaac Casaubon who first effectually dissipated it even for the learned world. The results of his investigations were made popular for the unlearned reader by Dryden, in the very instructive _Discourse on Satirical Poetry_, prefixed to his translations of Juvenal; but the confusion still survives, and 'satyrs' and 'satires', the Greek 'satyric' drama, the Latin 'satirical' poetry, are still a.s.sumed by most to have something to do with one another.

{280} ['Dirige' was the first word of the antiphon at matins in the Office for the Dead, taken from Psalm v, 9 (Vulg.), in which occur the words "_dirige_ in conspectu tuo vitam meam". See Skeat, _Piers Plowman_, ii, 52. Hence also Scotch _dregy_, a dirge.]

{281} [Incorrect: the 'mid-wife' is etymologically she that is _with_ (old English _mid_) a woman to help her in her hour of need, like German _bei-frau_, Spanish _co-madre_, Icelandic _naer-kona_, "near-woman", Latin _ob-stetrix_, "by-stander", all words for the lying-in nurse. Compare German _mit-bruder_, a comrade.]

{282} "I have seen him Caper upright, like a wild _Morisco_, Shaking the b.l.o.o.d.y darts, as he his bells".

Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI_ Act iii, Sc. 1.

{283} In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult to determine how far the old shape in which words present themselves should be retained, how far they should be conformed to present usage. It is comparatively easy to lay down as a rule that in books intended for popular use, wherever the form of the word is not affected by the modernizing of the spelling, as where this modernizing consists merely in the dropping of superfluous letters, there it shall take place; as who would wish our Bibles to be now printed letter for letter after the edition of 1611, or Shakespeare with the orthography of the first folio; but wherever more than the spelling, the actual shape, outline, and character of the word has been affected by the changes which it has undergone, that in all such cases the earlier form shall be held fast. The rule is a judicious one; but when it is attempted to carry it out, it is not always easy to draw the line, and to determine what affects the form and essence of a word, and what does not. About some words there can be no doubt; and therefore when a modern editor of Fuller's _Church History_ complacently announces that he has allowed himself in such changes as 'dirige'

into 'dirge', 'barreter' into 'barrister', 'synonymas' into 'synonymous', 'extempory' into 'extemporary', 'scited' into 'situated', 'vancurrier' into 'avant-courier'; he at the same time informs us that for all purposes of the study of the English language (and few writers are for this more important than Fuller), he has made his edition utterly worthless. Or again, when modern editors of Shakespeare print, and that without giving any intimation of the fact,

"Like quills upon the fretful _porcupine_",

he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the words standing,

"Like quills upon the fretful _porpentine_",

this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare's time the more common form of the word [e.g. "the _purpentines_ nature" (Puttenham, _Eng. Poesie_, 1589, p. 118, ed. Arber)], they must be considered as taking a very unwarrantable liberty with his text; and no less, when they subst.i.tute 'Kenilworth' for 'Killingworth', which he wrote, and which was his, Marlowe's, and generally the earlier form of the name.