The Romance of Words Part 8

[41] As the _hansom_ has now become of archaeological interest only, it may be recorded here that it took its name from that of its inventor--"The _Hansom's_ patent (cab) is especially constructed for getting quickly over the ground" (Pulleyn's _Etymological Compendium_, 1853). _Sic transit!_

CHAPTER V

PHONETIC ACCIDENTS

The history of a word has to be studied from the double point of view of sound and sense, or, to use more technical terms, phonetics and semantics. In the logical order of things it seems natural to deal first with the less interesting aspect, phonetics, the physical processes by which sounds are gradually transformed. Speaking generally, it may be said that phonetic changes are governed by the law of least resistance, a sound which presents difficulty being gradually and unconsciously modified by a whole community or race. With the general principles of phonetics I do not propose to deal, but a few simple examples will serve to ill.u.s.trate the one great law on which this science is based.

The population of this country is educationally divided by the letter _h_ into three cla.s.ses, which we may describe as the confident, the anxious, and the indifferent. The same division existed in imperial Rome, where educated people sounded the aspirate, which completely disappeared from the every-day language of the lower cla.s.ses, the so-called Vulgar Latin, from which the Romance languages are descended, so far as their working vocabulary is concerned. The anxious cla.s.s was also represented. A Latin epigrammatist[42] remarks that since Arrius, prophetic name, has visited the Ionic islands, they will probably be henceforth known as the _Hionic_ islands. To the disappearance of the _h_ from Vulgar Latin is due the fact that the Romance languages have no aspirate. French still writes the initial _h_ in some words by etymological reaction, e.g., _homme_ for Old Fr. _ome_, and also at one time really had an aspirate in the case of words of Germanic origin, e.g., _la honte_, shame. But this _h_ is no longer sounded, although it still, by tradition, prevents elision and _liaison_, mistakes in which are regarded much in the same way as a misplaced aspirate in English.

The "educated" _h_ of modern English is largely an artificial restoration; _cf._ the modern _hotel_-keeper with the older word _ostler_ (see p. 164), or the family name _Armitage_ with the restored _hermitage_.

[Page Heading: PHONETIC LAZINESS]

We have dropped the _k_ sound in initial _kn_, as in _knave_, still sounded in Ger. _Knabe_, boy. French gets over the difficulty by inserting a vowel between the two consonants, e.g., _canif_ is a Germanic word cognate with Eng. _knife_. This is a common device in French when a word of Germanic origin begins with two consonants. _Cf._ Fr. _derive_, drift, Eng. _drive_; Fr. _varech_, sea-weed, Eng. _wrack_.

_Harangue_, formerly _harengue_, is Old High Ger. _hring_, Eng. _ring_, the allusion being to the circle formed by the audience. Fr. _chenapan_, rogue, is Ger. _Schnapphahn_, robber, lit. fowl-stealer. The _shallop_ that "flitteth silken-sail'd, skimming down to Camelot," is Fr.

_chaloupe_, probably identical with Du. _sloep_, sloop.

The general dislike that French has for a double consonant sound at the beginning of a word appears also in the transformation of all Latin words which began with _sc_, _sp_, _st_, e.g., _scola_ > _escole_ (_ecole_), _spongia_ > _esponge_ (_eponge_), _stabulum_ > _estable_ (_etable_). English words derived from French generally show the older form, but without the initial vowel, _school_, _sponge_, _stable_.

The above are very simple examples of sound change. There are certain less regular changes, which appear to work in a more arbitrary fashion and bring about more picturesque results. Three of the most important of these are a.s.similation, dissimilation, and metathesis.

a.s.similation is the tendency of a sound to imitate its neighbour. The tree called the _lime_ was formerly the _line_, and earlier still the _lind_. We see the older form in _linden_ and in such place-names as _Lyndhurst_, lime wood. _Line_ often occurred in such compounds as _line-bark_, _line-bast_, _line-wood_, where the second component began with a lip consonant. The _n_ became also a lip consonant because it was easier to p.r.o.nounce, and by the 17th century we generally find _lime_ instead of _line_. We have a similar change in _Lombard_ for Ger.

_lang-bart_, long-beard, or, according to some, long-axe. For _Liverpool_ we find also _Litherpool_ in early records. If the reader attempts to p.r.o.nounce both names rapidly, he will be able to form his own opinion as to whether it is more natural for _Liverpool_ to become _Litherpool_ or _vice-versa_, a vexed question with philologists. Fr.

_velin_, a derivative of Old Fr. _veel_ (_veau_), calf, and _venin_, Lat. _venenum_, have given Eng. _vellum_ and _venom_, the final consonant being in each case a.s.similated[43] to the initial l.a.b.i.al. So also _mushroom_, Fr. _mousseron_, from _mousse_, moss.

Vulgar Lat. _circare_ (from _circa_, around) gave Old Fr. _cerchier_, Eng. _search_. In modern Fr. _chercher_ the initial consonant has been influenced by the medial _ch_. The _m_ of the curious word _ampersand_, variously spelt, is due to the neighbouring _p_. It is applied to the sign &. I thought it obsolete till I came across it on successive days in two contemporary writers--

"One of my mother's chief cares was to teach me my letters, which I learnt from big A to _Ampersand_ in the old hornbook at Lantrig."

(QUILLER-COUCH, _Dead Man's Rock_, Ch. 2.)

"Tommy knew all about the work. Knew every letter in it from A to _Emperzan_."

(PETT RIDGE, _In the Wars_.)

Children used to repeat the alphabet thus--"A per se A, B per se B," and so on to "_and per se and_." The symbol & is an abbreviation of Lat.

_et_, written _&_.

[Page Heading: DISSIMILATION]

Dissimilation is the opposite process. The archaic word _pomander_--

"I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a riband, gla.s.s, _pomander_, brooch, ... to keep my pack from fasting."

(_Winter's Tale_, iv. 3.)

was formerly spelt _pomeamber_. It comes from Old Fr. _pome ambre_, apple of amber, a ball of perfume once carried by the delicate. In this case one of the two lip consonants has been dissimilated. A like change has occurred in Fr. _nappe_, cloth, from Lat. _mappa_, whence our _napkin_, _ap.r.o.n_ (p. 113), and the family name _Napier_.

The sounds most frequently affected by dissimilation are those represented by the letters _l_, _n_, and _r_. Fr. _gonfalon_ is for older _gonfanon_. Chaucer uses the older form, Milton the newer--

"Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanc'd, Standards and _gonfalons_, 'twixt van and rear, Stream in the air."

(_Paradise Lost_, v. 589.)

_Gonfanon_ is of Germanic origin. It means literally "battle-flag," and the second element is cognate with English _fane_ or _vane_ (Ger.

_Fahne_). Eng. _pilgrim_ and Fr. _pelerin_, from Lat. _peregrinus_, ill.u.s.trate the change from _r_ to _l_, while the word _frail_, an osier basket for figs, is due to a change from _l_ to _r_, which goes back to Roman times. A grammarian of imperial Rome named Probus compiled, about the 3rd or 4th century, A.D., a list of cautions as to misp.r.o.nunciation.

In this list we find "_flagellum_, non _fragellum_." In the sense of switch, twig, _fragellum_ gave Old Fr. _freel_, basket made of twigs, whence Eng. _frail_; while the correct _flagellum_ gave Old Fr. _fleel_ (_fleau_), whence Eng. _flail_. A Vulgar Lat. _*mora_, mulberry, from Lat. _morus_, mulberry tree, has given Fr. _mure_. The _r_ of _berry_ has brought about dissimilation in Eng. _mulberry_ and Ger. _Maulbeere_.

_Colonel_ has the spelling of Fr. _colonel_, but its p.r.o.nunciation points rather to the dissimilated Spanish form _coronel_ which is common in Elizabethan English. Cotgrave has _colonel_, "a _colonell_, or _coronell_; the commander of a regiment."

The female name _Annabel_ is a dissimilation of _Amabel_, whence _Mabel_. By confusion with the popular medieval name _Orable_, Lat.

_orabilis_, _Annabel_ has become _Arabel_ or _Arabella_. Our _level_ is Old Fr. _livel_, Vulgar Lat. _*libellum_, for _libella_, a plummet, diminutive of _libra_, scales. Old Fr. _livel_ became by dissimilation _nivel_, now _niveau_. Many conjectures have been made as to the etymology of _oriel_. It is from Old Fr. _oriol_, a recess, or sanctum, which first occurs in an Anglo-Norman poem of the 12th century on Becket. This is from a Late Latin diminutive _aulaeolum_, a small chapel or shrine, which was dissimilated into _auraeolum_.

Sometimes dissimilation leads to the disappearance of a consonant, _e.g._, Eng. _feeble_, Fr. _faible_, represents Lat. _flebilis_, lamentable, from _flere_, to weep. _Fugleman_ was once _flugelman_, from Ger. _Flugelmann_, wing man, _i.e._, a tall soldier on the wing who exaggerated the movements of musketry drill for the guidance of the rest.

[Page Heading: METATHESIS]

Metathesis is the transposition of two sounds. A simple case is our _trouble_, Fr. _troubler_, from Lat. _turbulare_. _Maggot_ is for Mid.

Eng. _maddok_, a diminutive of Anglo-Sax. _maa_; _cf._ Ger. _Made_, maggot. _Kittle_, in the phrase "kittle cattle," is identical with _tickle_; _cf._ Ger. _kitzeln_, to tickle. One theory for the origin of _tankard_ is that it stands for _*cantar_, from Lat. _cantharus_, with which it corresponds exactly in meaning; e.g., _cantharus_, "a pot, a jugge, a _tankerd_" (Cooper); _cantharo_, a "_tankard_ or jug that houldeth much" (Florio); _canthare_, "a great jugge, or _tankard_"

(Cotgrave). The metathesis may be due to a.s.sociation with the name Tankard (Tancred).

_Wattle_ and _wallet_ are used indifferently in Mid. English for a little bag. Shakespeare no doubt had in mind the _wattles_ of a c.o.c.k or turkey when he made Gonzalo speak of mountaineers--

"Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them _Wallets_ of flesh."

(_Tempest_, iii. 3.)

Fr. _moustique_ is for earlier _mousquite_, from Span. _mosquito_, a diminutive from Lat. _musca_, a fly. _Tinsel_ is Fr. _etincelle_, spark, earlier _estincele_, which supposes a Lat. _*stincilla_ for _scintilla_.

The old word _anlace_, dagger, common in Mid. English and revived by Byron and Scott--

"His harp in silken scarf was slung, And by his side an _anlace_ hung."

(_Rokeby_, v. 15.)

has provoked many guesses. Its oldest form, _anelas_, is a metathesis of the common Old Fr. _alenas_, dagger. This is formed from _alene_, of Germanic origin, cognate with _awl_; cf. _cutla.s.s_, Fr. _coutelas_ (p.

126). _Beverage_ is from Old Fr. _bevrage_, or _beuvrage_, now _breuvage_, Vulgar Lat. _*biberatic.u.m_, from _bibere_, to drink. Here, as in the case of _level_ (p. 58), and _search_ (p. 57), English preserves the older form. In _Martello_ tower, from a fort taken by the British (1794) in _Mortella_, _i.e._, Myrtle, Bay, Corsica, we have vowel metathesis.

It goes without saying that such linguistic phenomena are often observed in the case of children and uneducated people. Not long ago the writer was urged by a gardener to embellish his garden with a _ruskit_ arch.

When metathesis extends beyond one word we have what is known as a _Spoonerism_, the original type of which is said to be--

"_Kinquerings congs_ their t.i.tles take."

We have seen (p. 57) that the letters _l_, _n_, _r_ are particularly subject to dissimilation and metathesis. But we sometimes find them alternating without apparent reason. Thus _banister_ is a modern form for the correct _bal.u.s.ter_.[44] This was not at first applied to the rail, but to the bulging colonnettes on which it rests. Fr. _bal.u.s.tre_ comes, through Italian, from Greco-Lat. _balaustium_, a pomegranate flower, the shape of which resembles the supports of a bal.u.s.trade.

Cotgrave explains _bal.u.s.tres_ as "_ballisters_; little, round and short pillars, ranked on the outside of cloisters, terraces, galleries, etc."

_Glamour_ is a doublet of _grammar_ (see p. 145), and _flounce_ was formerly _frounce_, from Fr. _froncer_, now only used of "knitting" the brows--

"Till civil-suited morn appear, Not trickt and _frounc't_ as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt."

(_Penseroso_, l. 123.)

Fr. _flibustier_, whence our _filibuster_, was earlier _fribustier_, a corruption of Du. _vrijbuiter_, whence directly the Eng.

_freebooter_.[45]

[Page Heading: SHRINKAGE OF WORDS]