Stories That Words Tell Us Part 8

Many manufactured things, and especially woven cloths, silks, etc., are called by the name of the place from which they come, or from which they first came. _Cashmere_, a favourite smooth woollen material, is called after Cashmir, in India. _Damask_, the material of which table linen is generally made, takes its name from Damascus; as does _holland_, the light brownish cotton stuff used so much for children's frocks and overalls, from Holland, and the rough woollen material known as _frieze_ from Friesland. _Cambric_, the fine white material often used for handkerchiefs, takes its name from Cambrai in France, the place where it was first made. The word _cambric_, however, came into English from _Kamerijk_, the Dutch name for Cambrai. So the other fine material known as _lawn_ got its name from Laon, another French town. Another fine material of this kind, _muslin_, takes its name from Mussolo, a town in Mesopotamia, from which this kind of material first came.

Another commoner kind of stuff is _fustian_, made of cotton, but thick, with a short nap, and generally dyed a dark colour. The word _fustian_ has also come to be used figuratively to describe a showy manner of speaking or writing, or anything which tries to appear better than it is. The word comes from Fustat, a suburb of Cairo.

A more substantial material, _tweed_, which is largely made in Scotland, really takes its name from people p.r.o.nouncing _twill_ badly; but the form _tweed_ spread more quickly because people a.s.sociated the material with the country beyond the river Tweed.

Another kind of stuff which we generally a.s.sociate with Scotland is _tartan_, because this woollen stuff, with its crossed stripes of different colours, is chiefly used for Scottish plaids and kilts, especially of the Highland regiments. But the word _tartan_ does not seem to be a Scottish word, and probably comes from _Tartar_, which was formerly used to describe almost any Eastern people. Perhaps the fact that Eastern peoples love bright colours caused this name to be given to these bright materials, though there is nothing at all Eastern in the designs of the Scottish tartans. Another material with an Eastern name is _sarcenet_, or _sa.r.s.enet_, a soft, silky stuff now chiefly used for linings.

Often in tales of olden times we read of people hiding behind the "arras." This was a wall covering of tapestry, often hung sufficiently far from the wall to leave room for a person to pa.s.s. The word _arras_ comes from Arras, a town in France, which was famous for its beautiful tapestries.

We know the word _tabby_ chiefly as the name of a kind of striped cat, but this use of the word came from the Old French word _tabis_, and described a material with marks which the markings on a "tabby" cat resemble. The French word came from the Arab word _utabi_, which perhaps came from the name of a suburb of the famous city of Baghdad.

_Worsted_, the name of a certain kind of knitting-wool, comes from the name of the town of Worstead, in Norfolk. The close-fitting woollen garments worn by sailors and often by children are known as _jerseys_--a word which is taken from the name of one of the Channel Islands, Jersey. Sometimes, but not so commonly, they are called _guernseys_, from the name of the chief of the other Channel Islands, Guernsey. Another piece of wearing apparel, the Turkish cap known as a _fez_, gets its name, perhaps, from Fez, a town in Morocco.

Besides woven stuffs, many other things are called by the names of the places from which they come. _China_, the general name for very fine earthenware, is the same name as that of the great Eastern country which is famous for its beautiful pottery. Another kind of ornamented earthenware is the Italian _majolica_, and this probably gets its name from the island of Majorca; while _delf_ is the name of the glazed earthenware made at Delft (which in earlier times was called "Delf"), in Holland.

The beautiful leather much used for the bindings of books, _morocco_, takes its name from Morocco, where it was first made by tanning goatskins. It is now made in several countries of Europe, but it keeps its old name. Another old kind of leather, but whose name is no longer used, was _cordwain_, a Spanish leather for the making of shoes, which took its name from Cordova in Spain. _Cordwainer_ was the old name for "shoemaker," and is still kept in the names of shoemakers' guilds and societies.

Many wines are simply called by the names (sometimes altered a little through people misp.r.o.nouncing them) of the places from which they come. _Champagne_ is the wine of Champagne, _Burgundy_ of Burgundy, _Sauterne_ of Sauterne, _Chablis_ of Chablis--all French wines. _Port_ takes its name from Oporto, in Portugal; and _sherry_, which used to be called "sherris," comes from the name of Xeres, a Spanish town.

Many less well-known wines have merely the name of the place where they are produced printed on the label, and they tend to be called by these names--such as _Capri bianco Vesuvio_, etc. _Malmsey_, the old wine in which the Duke of Clarence was supposed to have been drowned when his murder was ordered by his brother, and which is also called _malvoisie_, got its name from Monemvasia, a town in the peninsula of Morea.

Not only wine but other liquids are sometimes called after the places from which they come. The oil known as _maca.s.sar_ comes from Maugkasara, the name of a district in the island of Celebes. This oil was at one time very much used as a dressing for the hair, and from this we get the name _antimaca.s.sar_ for the coverings which used to be (and are sometimes still) thrown over the backs of easy-chairs and couches to prevent their being soiled by such aids to beauty.

_Antimaca.s.sar_ means literally a "protection against maca.s.sar oil,"

_anti_ being the Latin word for "against."

The tobacco known as _Latakia_ takes its name from the town called by the Turks Latakia, the old town of Laodicea. (Laodicea also gives us another common expression. We describe an indifferent person who has no enthusiasm for anything as "a Laodicean," from the reproach to the Church of the Laodiceans, in the Book of Revelation in the Bible, that they were "neither cold nor hot" in their religion.)

Both the words _bronze_ and _copper_ come from the names of places.

_Bronze_ is from _Brundusium_, the ancient name of the South Italian town which we now call Brindisi. The Latin name for this metal was _aes Brundusinum_, or "bra.s.s of Brindisi." _Copper_ was in Latin _aes Cyprium_, or "bra.s.s of Cyprus."

Some coins take their names from the names of places. The _florin_, or two-shilling piece, takes its name from Florence. _Dollar_ is the same word as the German _thaler_, the name of a silver coin which was formerly called a _Joachimstaler_, from the silver-mine of Joachimstal, or "Joachim's Dale," in Bohemia. The _ducat_, a gold coin which was used in nearly all the countries of Europe in the Middle Ages, and which was worth about nine shillings, got its name from the duchy (in Italian, _ducato_) of Apulia, where it was first coined in the twelfth century.

It was an Italian town, Milan, which gave us our word _milliner_. This came from the fact that many fancy materials and ornaments used in millinery were imported from Milan.

Many old dances take their names from places. We hear a great deal nowadays of the "morris dances" which used to be danced in England in olden times. But _morris_ comes from _morys_, an old word for "Moorish." In the Middle Ages this word was used, like "Turk" or "Tartar," to describe almost any Eastern people, and the name came, perhaps, from the fact that in these dances people dressed up, and so looked strange and foreign. The name of a very well-known dance, the _polka_, really means "Polish woman." _Mazurka_, the name of another dance, means "woman of Masovia." The old-fashioned slow dance known as the _polonaise_ took its name from Poland, and was really a Polish dance. The well-known Italian dance called the _tarantella_ took its name from the South Italian town Tarento.

The word _canter_, which describes another kind of movement, comes from Canterbury. _Canter_ is only the short for "Canterbury gallop,"

an expression which was used to describe the slow jogging pace at which many pilgrims in the Middle Ages rode along the Canterbury road to pray at the famous shrine of St. Thomas Becket in that city.

Several fruits take their names from places. The _damson_, which used in the Middle Ages to be called the "damascene," was called in Latin _prunum damascenum_, or "plum of Damascus." The name _peach_ comes to us from the Late Latin word _pessica_, which was a bad way of saying "Persica." _Currants_ used to be known as "raisins of Corauntz," or Corinth raisins.

_Parchment_ gets its name from Pergamum, a city in Asia Minor.

_Pistol_ came into English from the Old French word _pistole_, and this came from an Italian word, _pistolese_, which meant "made at Pistoja." We do not think of _spaniels_ as foreign dogs; but the name means "Spanish," having come into English from the Old French word _espagneul_, with that meaning.

A derivation which it would be even harder to guess is that of the word _spruce_. We now use this word to describe a kind of leather, a kind of ginger beer, and a variety of the fir tree, and also in the same sense as "spick and span." The word used to be _pruce_, and meant "Prussia."

The name of the famous London fish-market, _Billingsgate_, has long been used to mean very violent and abusive language supposed to resemble the scoldings of the fishwomen in the market.

Another word describing a certain kind of speaking, and which also comes from the name of a place, is _bunk.u.m_. When a person tells a story which we feel sure is not true, or tells a long tale to excuse himself from doing something, we often say it is all "bunk.u.m." This word comes from the name of the American town of Buncombe, in North Carolina, and came into use through the member for Buncombe in the House of Representatives insisting on making a speech just when every one else wanted to proceed with the voting on a bill. He knew that he had nothing of importance to say, but explained that he must make a speech "for Buncombe"--that is, so that the people of Buncombe, who had elected him, might know that he was doing his duty by them. And so the expression _bunk.u.m_ came into use.

Another word which may go with these, because it also begins with the letter _b_, is _bedlam_. We describe a scene of great noise and confusion, as when a number of children insist on talking all together, as a "perfect bedlam." The word _bedlam_ comes from Bethlehem. In the Middle Ages there was a hospital in London kept by monks of the Order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. In time this house came to be known as "Bedlam," and as after a while the hospital came to be an asylum for mad people, this name came to be used for any lunatic asylum. From that it came to have its modern use of any great noise or confusion.

The sport of shooting pheasants is very English, and few people think that the pheasant is a foreign bird, introduced into England, just as in fact the turkey, which seems to belong especially to the English Christmas, came to us from America. The _pheasant_ gets its name from the river Phasis, in the Eastern country of Pontus. It may seem peculiar that a bird coming from America should be called a _turkey_; but we saw in an earlier chapter how vague the people of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were about America. When Columbus reached the sh.o.r.e of that continent, people thought he had sailed round by another way to the "Indies." In nearly all European countries the turkey got names which show that most people thought it came from India, or at least from some part of the "Indies." Even in England it was called for a time "c.o.k off Inde." In Italy it was _gallina d'India_ (or "Indian hen"). The modern French words for male and female turkeys come from this mistake. In French the bird was at first known as _pouille d'Inde_ (or "Indian fowl"). The name came to be shortened into the one word _dinde_, and then, as people thought this must mean the female turkey, they made a new word for the male, _dindon_.

But though so many words come from the names of places, and some of these would not seem to do so at first sight, there are other words which seem to come from place-names which do not do so at all.

_Brazil_ wood is found in large quant.i.ties in Brazil, but the wood is not called after the country. On the contrary, the country is called after the wood. This kind of wood was already used in Europe in the twelfth century, and its name is found in several European languages.

When the Portuguese adventurers found such large quant.i.ties in this part of South America they gave it the name of _Brazil_ from the wood.

The island of _Madeira_ got its name in the same way, this being the word for "timber," from the Latin word _materia_.

Again, guinea-pigs do not come from Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, though guinea-fowls do so. Guinea-pigs really come from Brazil. The name _guinea-pig_ was given to these little animals because, when the sailors brought them home, people thought they had come from Africa. But in the seventeenth century a common voyage for ships was to sail from English or other European ports to the west coast of Africa, where bands of poor negroes were seized or bought, and carried over the Atlantic to be sold as slaves in the American "plantations." The ships naturally did not come home empty, but often people were not very clear as to whether the articles they brought back came from Africa or America.

Again, _India ink_ comes, not from India, but from China. _Indian corn_ comes from America. _Sedan chairs_ had nothing to do with Sedan in France, but probably take their name from the Latin verb _sedere_, "to sit."

In these words, as in many others, we can see that it is never safe to _guess_ the derivation of words. Many of the old philologists used to do this, and then write down their guesses as facts. This caused a great deal of extra work for modern scholars, who will not, of course, accept any "derivation" for a word until they have clear proof that it is true.

CHAPTER XI.

PICTURES IN WORDS.

Everybody who has thought at all about our ways of speech must have noticed that we are all constantly saying things in a way which is not literally true. We say a child is a "sunbeam in the house;" but, of course, we only mean that she is gay and happy, and cheers every one up by her merriment. Or we describe some one as a "pearl among women,"

meaning that by her splendid qualities she is superior to most women as a pearl is to common stones.

Or, again, we may read in the newspaper that a statesman "spoke with sudden fire;" by which, of course, we understand that in the course of a calm speech he suddenly broke out pa.s.sionately into words which showed how keenly he felt on the subject of which he was speaking.

Our language is full of this kind of speaking and writing, which is called "metaphorical." The word metaphor comes from two Greek words meaning "to carry over." In "metaphorical" speech a name or description of one thing is transferred to another thing to which it could not apply in ordinary commonplace language.

By means of metaphors we express more vividly and strikingly our feelings on any subject. We draw our metaphors from many different sources. Many of them naturally come from Nature, for the facts of Nature are all around us. We speak of a "sea of trouble" when we feel that the spirit is overwhelmed by sadness so great that it suggests the vastness of the sea swallowing up all that it meets. Or we speak of a "storm of anger," because what takes place in a person's soul in such a state is similar in some way to the confusion and force of a storm in Nature. Again, an expression like a "torrent of words" is made possible by our familiarity with the quick pouring forth of water in a torrent. By this expression, of course, we wish to suggest a similar quick rushing of words. Other expressions of this kind are "a wave of anguish," the "sun of good fortune," and there are hundreds of which every one can think.

Another source from which many metaphors have come is war, which has given men some of the most vivid action possible to humankind. Thus we speak of "a war of words," of a person "plunging into the fray," when we mean that he or she joins in a keen argument or quarrel. Or we speak more generally of the "battle of life," picturing the troubles and difficulties of life as the obstacles against which soldiers have to fight in battle. Shakespeare has the expression, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

We have a great many metaphorical expressions taken from painting, sculpture, and other arts. Thus we speak of "moulding" one's own life, picturing ourselves as sculptors, with our lives as the clay to be shaped as we will. Shakespeare has a similar metaphor,--

"There's a divinity which shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."

We may, he says, roughly arrange our way of life, but the final result belongs to a greater artist--G.o.d.

Again, we speak of "building our hopes" on a thing, of "moulding" a person's character, of the "canvas of history," imagining history as a picture of things past. We speak of a person describing something very enthusiastically as "painting it in glowing colours," and so on. We also describe the making of new words as "coining them."

But not only are the sentences we make full of metaphors, but most of our words--all, in fact, except the names of the simplest things--are really metaphors themselves. The first makers of such words were speaking "in metaphor," as we should say now; but when the words pa.s.sed into general use this fact was not noticed.

A great many of the metaphors found in words are the same in many languages. Many of them are taken from agriculture, which is, of course, after hunting, the earliest occupation of all peoples. We can easily think of many words now used in a general sense which originally applied to some simple country practice. We speak of being "goaded" to do a thing when some one persuades or threatens or irritates us into doing it. But a _goad_ was originally a spiked stick used to drive cattle forward. The word _goad_, then, as we use it now, is a real metaphor.

Again, we speak of our feelings being "harrowed." The word _harrow_ first meant, and still means, the drawing of a frame with iron teeth (itself called a _harrow_) over ploughed land to break up the clods.

From this meaning it has come to have the figurative meaning of wounding or ruffling the feelings.