The Romance of Words Part 13

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Archaic Eng. _bannal_ already existed in the technical sense.

[53] This is the usual explanation. But Fr. _herse_ also acquired the meaning "portcullis," the pointed bars of which were naturally likened to the blades of a harrow; and it seems possible that it is to this later sense that we owe the older English meaning of _hea.r.s.e_ (see p.

154).

[54] "Numquid _resina_ non est in Galaad?" (_Vulgate._)

[55] A Spanish word, Lat. _stipator_, "one that stoppeth c.h.i.n.kes"

(Cooper). It came to England in connection with the wool trade.

[56] In "livery and bait" there is pleonasm. _Bait_, connected with _bite_, is the same word as in bear-_baiting_ and fishermen's _bait_. We have it also, _via_ Old French, in _abet_, whence the aphetic _bet_, originally to egg on.

[57] Hence the use of _stout_ for a "strong" beer. _Porter_ was once the favourite tap of _porters_, and a mixture of stout and ale, now known as _cooper_, was especially relished by the brewery _cooper_.

[58] Folk-etymology for _frontispice_, Lat. _frontispicium_, front view.

[59] Related to, but not identical with, _queen_.

[60] The older meaning of _boor_ survives in the compound _neighbour_, i.e., _nigh boor_, the farmer near at hand. Du. _boer_ is of course the same word.

[61] English regularly inserts _n_ in words thus formed; cf.

_harbinger_, _messenger_, _pa.s.senger_, _pottinger_, _etc._

[62] Other forms of the same name are _Bowser_ and _Bewsher_. The form _Belcher_ is Picard--

"On a.s.somma la pauvre bete.

Un manant lui coupa le pied droit et la tete.

Le seigneur du village a sa porte les mit; Et ce dicton picard a l'entour fut ecrit: '_Biaux chires_ leups, n'ecoutez mie Mere tenchent (grondant) chen fieux (son fils) qui crie.'"

(LA FONTAINE, _Fables_, iv. 16.)

CHAPTER VII

SEMANTICS

The convenient name semantics has been applied of late to the science of meanings, as distinguished from phonetics, the science of sound. The comparative study of languages enables us to observe and codify the general laws which govern sense development, and to understand why meanings become extended or restricted. One phenomenon which seems to occur normally in language results from what we may call the simplicity of the olden times. Thus the whole vocabulary which is etymologically related to _writing_ and _books_ has developed from an old Germanic verb that means to _scratch_ and the Germanic name for the _beech_. Our earliest books were wooden tablets on which inscriptions were scratched.

The word _book_ itself comes from Anglo-Sax. _boc_, beech; _cf._ Ger.

_Buchstabe_, letter, lit. beech-stave. Lat. _liber_, book, whence a large family of words in the Romance languages, means the inner bark of a tree, and _bible_ is ultimately from Greek ????, the inner rind of the _papyrus_, the Egyptian rush from which _paper_ was made.[63]

The earliest measurements were calculated from the human body. All European languages use the _foot_, and we still measure horses by _hands_, while _span_ survives in table-books. _Cubit_ is Latin for _elbow_, the first part of which is the same as _ell_, cognate with Lat.

_ulna_, also used in both senses. Fr. _bra.s.se_, fathom, is Lat.

_brachia_, the two arms, and _pouce_, thumb, means inch. A further set of measures are represented by simple devices: a _yard_[64] is a small "stick," and the _rod_, _pole_, or _perch_ (cf. _perch_ for birds, Fr.

_perche_, pole) which gives charm to our arithmetic is a larger one. A _furlong_ is a _furrow-long_. For weights common objects were used, _e.g._, a _grain_, or a _scruple_, Lat. _scrupulus_, "a little sharpe stone falling sometime into a man's shooe" (Cooper), for very small things, a _stone_ for heavier goods. Gk. d?a??, whence our _dram_, means a handful. Our decimal system is due to our possession of ten _digits_, or fingers, and _calculation_ comes from Lat. _calculus_, a pebble.

[Page Heading: FINANCIAL TERMS]

A modern Chancellor of the Exchequer, considering his budget, is not so near the reality of things as his medieval predecessor, who literally sat in his counting-house, counting up his money. For the _exchequer_, named from the Old Fr. _eschequier_ (_echiquier_), chess-board, was once the board marked out in squares on which the treasurer reckoned up with counters the king's taxes. This Old Fr. _eschequier_, which has also given _chequer_, is a derivative of Old Fr. _eschec_ (_echec_), check.

Thus "_check_ trousers" and a "_chequered_ career" are both directly related to an eastern potentate (see _chess_, p. 120.). The _chancellor_ himself was originally a kind of door-keeper in charge of a _chancel_, a latticed barrier which we now know in church architecture only. _Chancel_ is derived, through Fr. _chancel_ or _cancel_, from Lat.

_cancellus_, a cross-bar, occurring more usually in the plural in the sense of lattice, grating. We still _cancel_ a doc.u.ment by drawing such a pattern on it. In German _cancellus_ has given _Kanzel_, pulpit. The _budget_, now a doc.u.ment in which millions are mere items, was the chancellor's little bag or purse--

"If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin _budget_, Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it."

(_Winter's Tale_, iv. 2.)

Fr. _bougette_, from which it is borrowed, is a diminutive of _bouge_, a leathern bag, which comes from Lat. _bulga_, "a male or _bouget_ of leather; a purse; a bagge" (Cooper). Modern French has borrowed back our _budget_, together with several other words dealing with business and finance.

Among the most important servants of the exchequer were the _controllers_. We now call them officially _comptroller_, through a mistaken a.s.sociation with Fr. _compte_, account. The controller had charge of the _counter-rolls_ (cf. _counterfoil_), from Old Fr.

_contre-rolle_, "the copy of a role (of accounts, etc.), a paralell of the same quality and content, with the originall" (Cotgrave). In French _controle_ has preserved the sense of supervision or verification which it has lost in ordinary English.

A very ancient functionary of the exchequer, the tally-cutter, was abolished in the reign of George III. _Tallies_ (Fr. _tailler_, to cut) were sticks "scored" across in such a way that the notches could be compared for purposes of verification. Jack Cade preferred those good old ways--

"Our fore-fathers had no other books but the _score_ and the _tally_; thou hast caused books to be used."

(2 _Henry VI._, iv. 7.)

This rudimentary method of calculation was still in use in the Kentish hop-gardens within fairly recent times; and some of us can remember very old gentlemen asking us, after a cricket match, how many "notches" we had "scored"--

"The _scorers_ were prepared to _notch_ the runs."

(_Pickwick_, Ch. 7.)

This use of _score_, for a reckoning in general, or for twenty, occurs in Anglo-Saxon, but the word is Scandinavian. The words _score_ and _tally_, originally of identical meaning, were soon differentiated, a common phenomenon in such cases. For the exchequer _tally_ was subst.i.tuted an "indented cheque receipt." An _indenture_, chiefly familiar to us in connection with apprenticeship, was a duplicate doc.u.ment of which the "indented" or toothed edges had to correspond like the notches of the score or tally. _Cheque_, earlier _check_, is identical with _check_, rebuff. The metaphor is from the game of chess (see p. 120), to _check_ a man's accounts involving a sort of control, or pulling up short, if necessary. A _cheque_ is a method of payment which makes "checking" easy. The modern spelling is due to popular a.s.sociation with _exchequer_, which is etymologically right, though the words have reached their modern functions by very different paths.

[Page Heading: OFFICIAL t.i.tLES]

The development of the meaning of _chancellor_ can be paralleled in the case of many other functionaries, once humble but now important. The t.i.tles of two great medieval officers, the _constable_ and the _marshal_, mean the same thing. _Constable_, Old Fr. _conestable_ (_connetable_), is Lat. _comes stabuli_, stable fellow. _Marshal_, the first element of which is cognate with _mare_, while the second corresponds to modern Ger. _Schalk_, rascal, expresses the same idea in German. Both _constable_ and _marshal_ are now used of very high positions, but Policeman X. and the _farrier-marshal_, or shoeing-smith, of a troop of cavalry, remind them of the base degrees by which they did ascend. The _Marshalsea_ where Little Dorrit lived is for _marshalsy_, marshals' office, etc. The _steward_, or _sty-ward_, looked after his master's pigs. He rose in importance until, by the marriage of Marjorie Bruce to Walter the _Stewart_ of Scotland, he founded the most picturesque of royal houses. The _chamberlain_, as his name suggests, attended to the royal comforts long before he became a judge of wholesome literature.

All these names now stand for a great number of functions of varying importance. Other t.i.tles which are equally vague are _sergeant_ (see p.

148) and _usher_, Old Fr. _uissier_[65] (_huissier_), lit. door-keeper, Lat. _ostiarius_, a porter. Another official was the _harbinger_, who survives only in poetry. He was a forerunner, or vauntcourier, who preceded the great man to secure him "harbourage" for the night, and his name comes from Old Fr. _herberger_ (_heberger_), to shelter (see p.

164). As late as the reign of Charles II. we read that--

"On the removal of the court to pa.s.s the summer at Winchester, Bishop Ken's house, which he held in the right of his prebend, was marked by the _harbinger_ for the use of Mrs Eleanor Gwyn; but he refused to grant her admittance, and she was forced to seek for lodgings in another place."

(HAWKINS, _Life of Bishop Ken_.)

[Page Heading: PARALLEL METAPHORS]

One of the most interesting branches of semantics, and the most useful to the etymologist, deals with the study of parallel metaphors in different languages. We have seen (p. 29) how, for instance, the names of flowers show that the same likeness has been observed by various races. The spice called _clove_ and the _clove_-pink both belong to Lat.

_clavus_, a nail. The German for pink is _Nelke_, a Low German diminutive, _nail-kin_, of _Nagel_, nail. The spice, or _Gewurznelke_, is called in South Germany _Nagele_, little nail. A _clove_ of garlic is quite a separate word; but, as it has some interesting cognates, it may be mentioned here. It is so called because the bulb _cleaves_ naturally into segments.[66] The German name is _k.n.o.blauch_, for Mid. High Ger.

_klobe-louch_, clove-leek, by dissimilation of one _l_. The Dutch doublet is _kloof_, a chasm, gully, familiar in South Africa.

Fr. _poison_, Lat. _potio_, _potion-_, a drink, and Ger. _Gift_, poison, lit. gift, seem to date from treacherous times. On the other hand, Ger.

_Geschenk_, a present, means something poured out (see _nuncheon_, p.

124), while a tip is in French _pourboire_ and in German _Trinkgeld_, even when accepted by a lifelong abstainer. In English we "ride a _hobby_," _i.e._, a hobby-horse, or wooden horse. German has the same metaphor, "ein _Steckenpferd_ reiten," and French says "enfourcher un _dada_," _i.e._, to bestride a gee-gee. _Hobby_, for Mid. Eng. _hobin_, a nag, was a proper name for a horse. Like _Dobbin_ and _Robin_, it belongs to the numerous progeny of Robert.

In some cases the reason for a metaphor is not quite clear to the modern mind. The bloodthirsty weasel is called in French _belette_,[67] little beauty, in Italian _donnola_, in Portuguese _doninha_, little lady, in Spanish _comadreja_, gossip (Fr. _commere_, Scot. _c.u.mmer_, p. 94), in Bavarian _Schontierlein_, beautiful little animal, in Danish _kjonne_, beautiful, and in older English _fairy_.[68] From Lat. _medius_ we get _mediastinus_, "a drugge (drudge) or lubber to doe all vile service in the house; a kitching slave" (Cooper). Why this drudge should have a name implying a middle position I cannot say; but to-day in the North of England a maid-of-all-work is called a _tweeny_ (between maid).

A stock semantic parallel occurs in the relation between age and respectability. All of us, as soon as we get to reasonable maturity, lay great stress on the importance of deference to "elders." It follows naturally that many t.i.tles of more or less dignity should be evolved from this idea of seniority. The Eng. _alderman_ is obvious. _Priest_, Old Fr. _prestre_[69] (_pretre_), from Gk. p?es?te???, comparative of p??s??, old, is not so obvious. In the Romance languages we have a whole group of words, _e.g._, Fr. _sire_, _sieur_, _seigneur_, Ital.