Stories That Words Tell Us Part 10

The word _gipsy_ itself is used to describe a very dark person, or almost any kind of people travelling round the country in caravans.

But _gipsy_ really means "Egyptian." When the real gipsies first appeared in England, in the sixteenth century, people thought they came from Egypt, and so gave them this name.

Another name often given to very dark people is _blackamoor_, a name by which negroes are sometimes described. This really means "Black Moor," and shows us how confused the people who first used the word were about different races of people. The Moors were a quite different people from the negroes, being related to the Arabs. But to some people every one who is not white is a "n.i.g.g.e.r." _n.i.g.g.e.r_ comes, of course, from _negro_.

The Moors inhabited a part of North-west Africa. It was also a North African people, the Algerians, who gave us the word _Zouave_. Every one has seen since the Great War began pictures of the handsome and quaintly-dressed French soldiers called "Zouaves." Perhaps some children wondered why they wore such a strange Eastern dress. It is because the Zouave regiments, which are now chiefly composed of Frenchmen, were originally formed from an Algerian mountain tribe called the Zouaves--Algeria being a French possession. The name is almost forgotten as that of a foreign tribe, but has become instead the name of these light infantry French regiments.

The name of the most famous of Eastern nations now spread all over the world, the Jews, has become a term of reproach. For hundreds of years after the spread of Christianity over Europe the Jews were looked upon as a wicked and hateful people. In many countries they were not allowed to live at all; in others a portion of the towns was set apart for them, and they were allowed to live there because they were useful as money-lenders.

Naturally the Jews, persecuted and distrusted, made as much profit as they could out of the people who treated them in this way. Perhaps with the growth of their wealth they grew to love money for its own sake. In any case, before long the Jews were looked upon as people who were decidedly ungenerous in the matter of money. Everybody knows the story of the Jew Shylock in Shakespeare's great play "The Merchant of Venice." Nowadays a person who is not really a Jew is often described contemptuously as a "Jew" if he shows himself mean in money matters; and some people even use a slang expression, "to jew," meaning to cheat or be very mean over a money affair.

Another name of a nation which stands for dishonesty of another sort (and much more excusable) is _Gascon_. The Gascons are the natives of Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in English we sometimes use the word _Gascon_ to describe a great boaster, while _gasconade_ is now a common term for a boastful story.

Another word which we use to describe this sort of thing is _romance_.

We often hear the expression, "Oh, he is only romancing," by which we mean that a person is saying what is not true, inventing harmless details to improve his story. The word _romance_ has now many meanings, generally containing the idea of _imagination_. A person is called "romantic" when he or she is full of imaginings of great deeds and events. Or we say a person is a "romantic figure" when we mean that from his looks or speech, or from some other qualities, he seems fit for adventures.

But _romance_, from which we get romantic, was at first merely an adjective used to describe the languages which are descended from the Latin language, like French, Italian, and Spanish. In the Middle Ages scholars wrote in Latin, but poets and taletellers began to write in the language of the people--the _romance_ languages in France and Italy. The tales of adventure and things which we should now call "romantic" were written in the "romance" languages; and from being used to describe the language, the word came to be used to describe the kind of story contained in these poems and tales. Gradually the words _romantic_ and _romance_ got the meaning which they have to-day.

We have seen in another chapter that we have a number of words taken from the names of persons in ancient history. We have also a modern and special use of words formed from the names of some of the ancient nations. We saw that we use the word _Spartan_ to describe any very severe discipline, or a person who willingly uses such discipline for himself.

There are several other such names used in a more or less complimentary way. We speak of "Roman" firmness, and every one who has read Roman history will agree that this is a good use of the word. On the other hand, we have the expression "Punic faith" to describe treachery. The Romans had had many reasons for mistrusting their great enemy, the Carthaginians, and they used this expression, _Fides Punica_, which we have simply borrowed from the Latin.

We use the expression "Attic (or Athenian) salt" to describe a very refined wit or humour. The Romans used the word _sal_, or "salt," in this sense of _wit_, and their expression _sal Attic.u.m_ shows the high opinion they had of the Athenians, from whom, indeed, they learned much in art and in literature. It is this same expression which we use to-day, having borrowed and translated it also from the Latin.

We speak of a "Parthian shot" when some one finishes a conversation or an argument with a sharp or witty remark, leaving no chance for an answer. This expression comes from the story of the Parthians, a people who lived on the sh.o.r.es of the Caspian Sea, and were famous as good archers among the ancient nations.

The way in which the names of nations and peoples have taken on more general meanings gives us many glimpses into history.

CHAPTER XIII.

WORDS MADE BY WAR.

Since the earliest ages men have made war on one another, and we have a great crowd of words, new and old, connected with war. Some of these are very simple words, especially the names of early weapons; some are more elaborate and more interesting in their derivation.

The chief of all weapons, the sword, has its simple name from the Old English language itself, and so has the spear. But it was after the Norman conquest of England that war became more elaborate, with armoured knights and fortified towers, and nearly all the names connected with war of this sort come to us from the French of that time. The word _war_ itself comes from the Old French word _werre_.

_Battle_, too, comes from the French of this time; and so do _armour_, _arms_, _fortress_, _siege_, _conquer_, _pursue_, _tower_, _banner_, and many other words. All of these words came into French originally from Latin. _Knight_, however, is an Old English word. The French word for knight, _chevalier_, never pa.s.sed into English, but from it we got the word _chivalry_.

The great weapons of modern warfare are the gun and the bayonet. There are, of course, many kinds of guns, small and large. Formerly it was the fas.h.i.+on to call the big guns by the name of _cannon_, but in the great European war this word has hardly been used at all. They are all "guns," from the rifles carried by the foot soldiers to the Maxims and the great howitzers which each require a company of men to serve them.

The word _cannon_ comes from the French _canon_, and is sometimes spelt in this way in English too. It means "great tube."

The derivation of the word _gun_ is more interesting. Gunpowder was not really discovered until the fifteenth century, but long before this a kind of machine, or gun, for hurling great stones, or sometimes arrows, had been used. These instruments were called by the Latin word _ballista_ (for the Romans had also had machines of this sort), which comes from the Greek word _ballo_, meaning "throw." In the Middle Ages weapons of this sort were called by proper names, just as s.h.i.+ps are now. A common name for them was the woman's name _Gunhilda_, which would be turned into _Gunna_ for short. It is probably from this that we get the word _gun_. The most interesting of all the guns used in the Great War has only a number for its name. It is the famous French '75, and takes this name merely from a measurement.

The special weapon of the foot soldier, or infantryman, is the bayonet. This is a short blade which the foot soldier fixes on the muzzle of his rifle before he advances to an attack. In the trenches his weapon is the rifle; before the order is given to go "over the parapet"--that is, to climb out of the trenches, to run forward and attack the enemy at close quarters--he "fixes his bayonet." The word _bayonet_ probably comes from _Bayonne_, the name of a town in France.

The word _infantry_ itself, now used to describe regiments of foot soldiers armed with the ordinary weapons, comes to us, like most of our words connected with war, from the French. We have already seen that the words of this sort which we borrowed in the Middle Ages were Norman-French words descended from Latin. But after the use of gunpowder in war became general there were many new terms; and as at this time the Italians were the people who fought most, and wrote most about fighting, many words relating to the methods of war after the close of the Middle Ages were Italian words. It is true that we learned them from the French, for the great writers on military matters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were Frenchmen. But they borrowed many words from the Italian writers of the fifteenth century. One of these words is _infantry_, which means a number of junior soldiers or "infants"--the regiments of foot soldiers being made up of young men, while the older and more experienced soldiers made up the cavalry.

This, again, is a word which we borrowed from the French, and which the French had borrowed from the Italians. _Cavalry_ is, of course, the name for horse soldiers, and the Italian word _cavalleria_, from which it comes, was itself derived from the Latin word _caballus_, "a horse." The general weapon for a cavalryman is the "sabre," a sword with a curved blade. This, again, comes to us from the French, but was probably originally an Eastern word. It is quite common for officers, in reckoning the number of men in an army, to speak of so many "bayonets" and so many "sabres," instead of "infantry" and "cavalry."

Many of the words which people began to use familiarly during the great European war first came into English in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a time when it seemed to be the ordinary state of affairs for some, at least, of the European countries to be at war with one another. _Bivouac_ is a word which was used a good deal in descriptions of earlier wars. It is a German word, which came into English at the time of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in Germany.

It means an encampment for a short time only (often for the night), without tents. It plainly has not much connection with modern trench warfare.

Another word which came from the German at the same time may serve to remind us that the German soldier of to-day is not very much unlike his ancestors of three hundred years ago. The word _plunder_ was originally a German word meaning "bed-clothes" or other household furnis.h.i.+ng. From the fact that so much of this kind of thing was carried off in the fighting of this terrible war, the word came to have its present sense of anything taken violently from its rightful owner. It must be confessed that the word was also used a great deal in the English Civil War, which was, of course, fought at the same time as the end of the Thirty Years' War.

It was also in the English Civil War that we first find the word _capitulation_, which now generally means to surrender on certain conditions. Before this, _capitulation_ had more the meaning which it still keeps in _recapitulation_. It meant an arrangement under headings, and the word probably was transferred from describing the terms of surrender to describing the surrender itself.

One of the many words connected with war which came into the English language from the French in the seventeenth century was _parade_, which means the showing off of troops, and came into French from an Italian word which itself came from the Latin word _parare_, "to prepare." Another of these words which has been much used in descriptions of the battles of the Great War, and especially in the "Battle of the Rivers" in the autumn of 1914, is _pontoon_. Pontoons are flat-bottomed boats by means of which soldiers make a temporary bridge across rivers, generally when the permanent bridges have been destroyed by the enemy. The word is _ponton_ in French, and comes from the Latin _pons_, "a bridge." Most words of this sort in French ending in _on_ take the ending _oon_ in English. Thus _ballon_ in French becomes _balloon_ in English. _Barracks_ also comes from the French _baraque_, and the French had it from the Spanish or Italian _barraca_ or _baraca_; but no one knows whence these languages got the word.

The word _bombard_, also much used during the Great War, came into English at the end of the seventeenth century from the French word _bombarder_, which came from the Latin word _bombarda_, an engine for throwing stones, and which in its turn came from the Latin word _bombus_, meaning "hum." Even a stone hurled with great force through the air makes a humming noise, and the "singing" of the bombs and sh.e.l.ls hurled through the air became a very familiar sound to the soldiers who fought in the Great War. The word _bomb_, too, comes from the French _bombe_.

The words _brigade_ and _brigadier_ also came from the French at this time. So, too, did the word _fusilier_, a name which some British regiments still keep (for example, the Royal Fusiliers), though they are no longer armed with the old-fas.h.i.+oned musket known as the _fusil_, the name of which also came from the French, which had it from the Latin word _focus_, "a hearth" or "fire." It is curious how the names of modern British regiments, not even carrying the weapons from which they have their names, should take us back in this way to the days of early Rome.

The word _patrol_, which was used very much especially in the early days of the Great War, has an interesting origin. It may mean a small body of soldiers or police sent out to go round a garrison, or camp, or town, to keep watch; or, again, it may mean a small body of troops sent on before an advancing army to "reconnoitre"--that is, to spy out the land, the position of the enemy, etc. The word _patrol_ literally means to "paddle in mud," for the French word, _patrouille_, from which it came into English in the seventeenth century, came from an earlier word with this meaning.

The word _campaign_, by which we mean a number of battles fought within a certain time, and generally according to a plan arranged beforehand, also came from the French word _campagne_ at the beginning of the eighteenth century--a century of great wars and many campaigns.

The word was more used in those earlier wars than it is now, because in those days the armies used practically never to fight in the winter, and so each summer during a war had its "campaign." The earlier meaning of the French word _campagne_, and one which it still keeps besides this later meaning, is "open country," the kind of country over which battles were generally fought.

_Recruit_ is another word which came into English from the French at this time. It, again, is a word which has been used a great deal in the European war. It came from the French word _recrue_, which also means a newly-enlisted soldier. The French word _croitre_, from which _recrue_ came, was derived from the Latin word _crescere_, "to increase."

All these words, we should notice, have now a figurative use. We speak of "recruits" not only to the army, but to any society. Thus we may say a person is a valuable "recruit" to the cause of temperance, etc.

A "campaign" can be fought not only on the field of battle, but through newspapers, meetings, etc. It is in this sense that we speak of the "campaign" for women's suffrage, etc.

Many words relating to the dress and habits of our soldiers have curious origins. We say now quite naturally that a man is "in khaki"

when we mean that he is a soldier, because the peculiar yellow-brown colour which is known as "khaki" is now the regular colour of the uniform of the British soldier. In earlier days the British soldier was generally a "redcoat," but in modern trench warfare it is so important that the enemy should not be able to pick out easily the position of groups of men in order to "sh.e.l.l" them, that the armies of all nations use gray or brown or other dull shades. _Khaki_ is a word which came into English through the South African War, when the policy of clothing the soldiers in this way was first begun on a large scale.

It comes from a Hindu word, _khak_, which means "dust." The object of this kind of clothing for our soldiers is that they shall not be easily distinguished from the soil of the trenches and battle-fields.

When a soldier or officer or any other person who is generally in uniform wears ordinary clothes we say he is "in mufti." This, again, is an Arab word meaning "Mohammedan priest."

The soldiers in the Great War used many new words which became a regular part of their speech. They were chiefly "slang," but it is quite possible that some of them may pa.s.s into good English. We shall see something of them in a later chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROVERBS.

Every child knows what a proverb is, though every child may not, perhaps, be able to say in its own words just what makes a proverb. A proverb has been defined as "a wise saying in a few words." At any rate, if it is not always wise, the person who first said it and the people who repeat it think it is. Most proverbs are very old, and take us back, just as we saw that words formed from the names of animals do, to the early days before the growth of large towns.

In those days life was simple, and people thought chiefly of simple things. When they thought children or young persons were going to do something foolish they gave them good advice, and tried to teach them a little lesson from their own experience of what happened among the common things around them.

A boy or a girl who was very enthusiastic about some new thing was warned that "new brooms sweep clean." When several people were anxious to help in doing one thing, they were pushed aside (just as they are now) with the remark that "too many cooks spoil the broth." The people who use this proverb now generally know very little about broth and still less about cooking. They say it because it expresses a certain truth in a striking way; but the first person who said it knew all about cooks and kitchens, and spoke out of the fullness of her (it must have been a woman) experience.

Again, a person who is discontented with the way in which he lives and is anxious to change it is warned lest he jump "out of the frying-pan into the fire." Again the wisdom comes from the kitchen. And we may remark that these sayings are difficult to contradict.